Alongside producing partner Michelle Murdocca, the prolific ‘Samurai Jack’ and ‘Hotel T’ franchise director took the stage, and with a detailed display of artwork, storyboards, layout and finished animation, regaled a packed Petite Salle crowd with how truly funny – and treasured – a dog’s balls really are.
Leave it to venerated animation director and creator Genndy Tartakovsky to share an insightful, detailed, and humble look at the creative process – that he clearly loves – on his newest animated feature film, Fixed. His Annecy 2023 presentation and project reveal this evening at the Petite Salle, sitting alongside his longtime producer, Michelle Murdocca, was both inspirational and informative, a deep dive into not just the 2D movie, produced with New Line Cinema and Sony Pictures Animation, but his storied career, and decisions he’s made with conviction, sometimes with regret, but never without thinking it was the right move to make.
So, it was especially rewarding to listen to the “master” who’s brought us Dexter’s Laboratory, Samurai Jack, Genndy Tartakovsky’s Primal, Sym-Bionic Titan, and the Hotel Transylvania franchise, walk through a series of concept sketches while explaining why he couldn’t bring himself to make a CG dog’s balls more shiny. Or rounder.
His first R-Rated adult comedy, Fixed is a true labor of love, born in 2009, killed off, reborn, reworked, rewritten and eventually produced – with animation handled by Renegade – because most everyone along the way could understand the inherent humor in the simple premise:
A dog finds out he’s going to be neutered in the morning.
Ruh-Roh!
In the film, that dog is Bull, an average, all-around good dog who discovers his unfortunate fate. As the gravity of this life-altering event sets in, Bull realizes he needs one last adventure with his pack of best friends as these are the last 24 hours with his balls! What could go wrong...?
The clips shared were thoughtfully raunchy, more nuanced (can that word be used regarding dogs eating cat poop) than you might think, which made them all the more funny. For many of us, we live in a world where farts are always funny. Dogs scrunching and crab walking down the footpath as they take a dump are always funny. A dog eating cat poop, however, was, is, and will always be unbelievably disgusting. And funny. There you have it. Lives lived never having progressed past the emotional age of 12.
The film’s wonderful voice cast includes Adam Devine as Bull, Idris Elba as Rocco, Kathryn Hahn as Honey, Bobby Moynihan as Lucky, Fred Armisen as Fetch, Beck Bennett as Sterling, River Gallo as Frankie, and Michelle Buteau as Molasses.
A release date was not announced, but it was hinted the film will be finished this fall.
Dan Sarto is Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Animation World Network.
