#foodfights

[dracula-smokes-weed]

Drawing For Nothing is out!

Forgot to announce this here but the first ten chapters for Drawing For Nothing have been released! For those who missed the last post, this is a free, digital art book for animated films that were either canceled or bombed due to complicated issues.

https://www.drawingfornothing.com/

More chapters are to come. A few highlights in the next installation will be My Peoples and Larrikins.

Also, if anyone wants to help research, feel free to send a DM! We're also working on a new cover that will feature custom artwork of various characters from these movies. If you think you got what it takes to draw in the style of another artist, we would appreciate the help!

[parentingroundabout]

On Second-Listen Saturday, we share moments from past episodes for your weekend listening pleasure. This discussion is from September 2019. ​​ ​We complain about how hard it is for people with different priorities, preferences, and metabolisms to share a kitchen.

[haveyouseenthismovie-poll]

[foodfightnovelization]

ROTTEN: Behind The Foodfight

Holy chips! It's an exciting time to be a Foodfight! fan, because ROTTEN: Behind The Foodfight is finally out! This really is THE definitive documentary on the insanity behind the movie, and it finally answers the question of just what was going on behind the scenes during production. Since I helped out with research (and I even get a short line of dialogue at 45:19) I've already seen everything that was shown off, but had to keep quiet until all the interviews were conducted and the documentary was finished. But now it's out and everything has been made public, the cat's out of the bag (the Fat Cat Burglar?) and I can talk about all the production material that's been shared.

Before I get into any of that though, I'd highly recommend you watch the documentary for yourself. It's insanely well researched and put together, and having worked together with Ziggy Cashmere (the documentary's creator) I know how hard he dedicated himself towards making this all possible. If it weren't for him, the most interesting Foodfight! discovery would've been finding the novelization, and we would have never gotten any real insight into how this movie came to be. It's also a documentary that really speaks for itself- I don't want to say too much about what it reveals since it's all expressed far better through its narrative and the interviews with people who actually worked on the project. My favorite is the interview with texture artist Mona Weiss- she tells such horrifying stories about how she was treated by Larry and other crewmembers, yet does it all with a sense of humor that makes it clear she's enjoying getting to talk about her crazy experiences. It's clear Foodfight! was an unmitigated disaster from start to finish, and there's nobody to blame for that but Larry Kasanoff himself. The movie was rotten from the top down and despite the countless talented animators and artists working on it, nothing could fix the fact that it was fundamentally mismanaged in the worst way possible. I think the quote from producer George Johnsen summarizes it best: "Foodfight! was a good idea that unfortunately lost its way during production. The technology, the art, and the direction were not in sync. Many very talented people gave their all to make the picture, but more understanding of process from the top was needed for it to succeed."

But if you saw the documentary, you already know all that, right? So instead, let's talk about the behind-the-scenes material that's finally been shared! You can find everything I'll talking about HERE on archive.org-

It's worth following the link and checking it out for yourself- there's so much it'd impossible to discuss everything. Artwork, storyboards, bloopers, models, a nude render of Lady X, an interview with Larry Kasanoff, the list goes on and it's still being updated! Despite the documentary already being out, people who worked on the movie are continuing to share new material! It's pretty incredible- for the past year I've ran this blog all I've really had to discuss are two tie-in books, and now there's so much Foodfight! material I can't even keep up with it.

I mean LOOK at all this, isn't it fantastic? The character art by Jim George showing off just how much better these designs originally were, the countless environments showing off just how stunning Marketropolis could've looked as well as the strength of the core idea "what if a supermarket came to life at night", and insanely detailed storyboards for a 7-minute pitch reel that was used to sell the movie to investors. Normally, I'd be ALL OVER this because it's all just incredible, but there's something far, FAR more fascinating than any of it.

There are even multiple drafts of the script (one from 2005 and one from 2007 respectively) and normally I'd be insanely fascinated by those too, making extremely detailed posts explaining the differences between the drafts and how they compare to the novelization, but there's something else that was found that blows ALL of this out of the water and is easily one of the most monumental lost media discoveries of ALL TIME.

That's right, a rough cut of the ENTIRE movie from 2005 has been found, containing nearly ALL the completed animation from earlier on in production. I mean, that's mindblowing right? We first got sent this around a month ago, a little while before the documentary came out, and I literally stopped everything I was doing at work to just sit and watch this. This is the closest we're ever going to get to the "original" version of Foodfight! after all- only 7 minutes of footage was ever actually made before they switched to mocap, made solely for the aforementioned pitch reel, and this workprint contains practically all of it! On top of that there are some great storyboards in here, as well as some truly hilarious ones cobbled together from 3D renders, and the plot is far better than what we ended up with, a lot of the more inappropriate jokes being absent. This rough cut is actually pretty similar to the novelization in that regard, and it also contains scenes that we'd previously only read about in there.

For example, in the novelization there's a snowmobile chase through the mountains, with Brand X soldiers on snowmobiles and a heavy avalanche close behind. This scene was completely left out of the movie itself, but in this workprint it's here! ALL the previously novelization-exclusive scenes are included, and this rough cut is seemingly based on an even earlier draft of the script than that- here Brand X are still defeated by a flood, whereas by the time of the novelization it'd been changed to a lightning storm. There are SO many exciting differences in this workprint, the snippets of original animation we get to see are SO good, and it's SO much better than the movie itself that I think it by far deserves the crown as the DEFINITIVE version of Foodfight! There's so much in it I want to discuss, that there's no way I can fit it all into this one post...so stay tuned, because in the next few days I'll be doing a FULL analysis of the 2005 workprint, pointing out all the extra brand mascots not in the finished film, and generally just gushing about how amazing it is.

I mean, this is it. Just take it all in for a second- the original footage was considered lost media for over a decade, and now it's practically been found in its entirety, embedded in an early cut of the whole movie...isn't that just phenomenal? All the mysteries have been unraveled, all the questions have been answered, and now we can relax, take a deep breath, and watch Foodfight!...the REAL Foodfight! Make sure to enjoy it, and join me next time for my analysis!

[factual-fantasy]

Would ya'll think less of me if I told you I unironically enjoyed watching Foodfight-

I mean- I watched Jontron and Microwave Society watch it and freak out over how bad it was. And since its on YouTube for free I figured why not give it a go? And yeah they were mostly right- the movie has a lot of issues besides just the terrible animation quality XD

But I wanna give credit where credit is due. Some of the stupid jokes made me laugh, some of the character dynamics were nice too. A few of em had fun personalities and they were fun to draw in my style. Sooo I give the movie a number out of 10, I'll probably watch it again XD

[birdemic]

thinking about media thats Bad in an impressive way and realized. theres a spectrum here

[glutko]

I genuinely love it when low-budget CG-animated media try to go for a "realistic" style and end up looking absolutely horrendous. I need more

[memedokies]

undefined

rock candy rockin out!! 🎸🍭🍬

[nyaskitten]

Just got to the Zane apron scene ToT why are they so mean to my silly guy...

[they-have-the-same-va]

Master Xehanort in Kingdom Hearts III Re:MIND and Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory shares a voice actor with Mr. Clipboard from Foodfight.

Voiced by Christopher Lloyd

[duplexide]

Something that never fails to confuse me is when I find posters for totally different movies with perfectly identical composition. What does it MEAN?

[dracula-smokes-weed]

The first update to Drawing For Nothing has been released!

With new branding and a new cover being worked on by our talented artists, the book is also being hosted as a flipbook, which is way prettier and easier.

The highlight however, is our two new chapters! Disney's My Peoples and Dreamworks' Larrikins. Over 150 new pages just from those chapters alone. Along with those two, additions have been made to Me and My Shadow, B.O.O., and Joe Jump. Older chapters have also been revised a little here and there and a few links have been fixed. Larrikins includes storyboards that have never been shared publicly before!

Thanks to everyone for supporting the project so far! It's been a lot of fun. I have no date for when more chapters will come out, it'll just happen when it happens.

Read it here!

https://www.drawingfornothing.com/

[franki-lew-yo]

-Fantastic Videos about Animation and Animation History-

The Animation that Changed Cinema by Cinema Cartography.

A wonderful intro into the world of Chinese Animated films by Accented Cinema.

Li Speaks breakdown of the Horseland TV show.

Jenny Nicholson's well-deserved take down of The Land Before Time series of films.

Laura Crone's painful look at the original and then all TWELVE of The Swan Princess movies.

Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs' crew party with Defunctland.

Phelous' entire playlist on the infamous Dingo Pictures films.

Yesterworld's very insightful history look at The Black Cauldron.

Rankin/Bass history with Quinton Reviews and Worthikids and Nutcracker Fantasy with BenettetheSage.

Ralph Bakshi's Lord of the Rings with Folding Ideas.

Phelous' look at Ralph Bakshi's borrowing between Rocket Robin Hood and Spiderman and also that time Filmation tried to make sequels to Disney films.

Just Lady Emily talking about The Gorillaz history.

BrowsHeldHigh's look at Czech Stopmotion animators Jan Svankmajer with Little Otik and Jiri Trinki with A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Jaccob Geller's heartbreaking deep dive into Don Hertzfeldt's animation (through a single Simpsons gag).

Wonderful introspective videos on Death Note, Neon Genesis Evangelion and Barefoot Gen -cw: violence, child death, crime and sa throughout) with BenettetheSage.

In the aftermath of all....that, I recommend a happier detour into La 'Ron Readus' look at A Goofy Movie.

HBomberGuy's good look back at RWBY and Rooster Teeth.

-cw: discussion of self harm, altrightness, and sa- A sad look into Emily Youcis's infamous 'Alfred Alfer' animations and subsequent fall from grace (into racism).

The Kimba the White Lion vs The Lion King controversy with YourMovieSucks.

CynicalReviews' look at Foodfight, just to prep you for Rotten: Behind the Foodfight by Ok so...

[morthern]

"What's the matter? Scared of BEANS, S P A C E B O I ?"

[foodfightnovelization]

More Foodfight! Material DISCOVERED

That's right, I'm back. Just like I prophesized in my last post, yet another treasure trove of Foodfight! goodness has been uncovered, and this might be one of the strangest to date...that's right, official Foodfight! Cinnamon Sleuth Cereal was sold at Albertsons back in 2007, over five years before the movie finally came out!

Okay, not really, but I had you going for a second, right? So, this IS a proposed packaging design for actual Cinnamon Sleuth cereal, but it never went into production, it never made it to stores and there was certainly never any actual cereal to be eaten. This, among several other designs and a collection of behind the scenes material, was sent in recently by a Foodfight! crewmember, who explained they were mockups created to show off possible tie-in products. I'm not sure why they chose Albertsons for these mockups but it's likely they were in talks with them at the time and wanted to show off designs including their branding. In any case, I just had the Cinnamon Sleuth box printed because I thought it'd look cool next to my collection of Foodfight! merchandise, and I wanted to see if anyone would be convinced this really existed.

I've included all the designs above in case you want to print your own- there are several more including another cereal, brownie packaging and milk cartons. Curiously, the milk cartons have Farmland Dairy logos on them, with Farmland Milk actually appearing in the finished film at several points. I'd say this confirms my theory these mockups were created to show to companies they were already actively working on deals with, but I can't say for certain that was the case.

Equally curious are these character sheets from 2002, seemingly showing off almost every model created during early production. There are so many fascinating layers to this- Sunshine is still a human instead of a catgirl, showcasing a very different model to the one seen in the initial trailer, and Maximilius Moose is still a dog named Panzer Pup, both aspects that were changed once the decision was made to change Dex to a dog. However, it may be that Dex's human design was edited out and replaced after the fact, given Dex's model here appears to be the one from the finished film (you can tell by the weird hands). In any case, it's fascinating to get a closer look at all these characters- while the majority of the models for the main cast were found recently (see my last post for more on this), there are a bunch of side characters here we've only seen brief glimpses of before, including the Pringles man and the scantily-clad Cherry Waifer. The most fascinating to me however are the Red and Yellow M&Ms- I've read through their scene in the movie's script, I've seen multiple versions of the storyboard, even rough layout animation in the workprint, and it's only now I'm FINALLY getting to see their actual character models and how they would've looked in the Foodfight! artstyle. Sure, they more or less look exactly as they did in M&M commercials that aired around the same time, but it's still amazing to actually see these characters modelled and rendered after analyzing so many different iterations of the scene as it went through development.

The crewmember in question also sent a folder containing over a hundred stills which while at first glance appear to be from the finished movie, are actually subtly different in multiple ways- usually lighting, facial expressions, or background textures like the sky or color of a hill. A lot of these are labelled "fix" which makes me speculate if after the movie was completed, the crew went back and tried to touch up the animation to make it look more appealing before release. Is there a slightly better looking version of Foodfight! somewhere out there in the world? Who knows, but really it would've been like trying to polish a turd. The movie was already ruined by then, and I don't think any number small changes would've done much to salvage it. However, that does bring me to my next interesting point...

There are also storyboards dated May 2011, depicting an alternate opening to the movie giving a much more cinematic introduction to the main characters. It's crazy to think they were still working on storyboards so late in production, but there IS actually a reason for this. I unfortunately can't upload the entire sequence due to this site's image limit, but what you might notice are a lot of characters being described as "flying over the audience", "flying into the camera" or knocking things "into the audience", with some of the boards having "(3D)" written in parenthesis next to them. It's my belief that very late into production, Kasanoff wanted the movie to be 3D, made popular by the then-recent Avatar, and this new opening sequence full of flashy 3D effects was drawn up to show off what they could do with the technology. It's not clear if any of this was ever actually animated, but imagine going to see a movie that advertises itself as 3D but only the first minute contains any 3D elements. Of course, Kasanoff requesting this is only speculation on my part, but given how the movie was ruined by the crew having to cater to his whim of directing the whole thing with motion capture (made popular by the then-recent Polar Express) it's no stretch to assume the 3D opening sequence was a similar situation.

There's a ton more that was sent to us as well, so much so that I could never hope to talk about all of it. However, it should be on archive.org at the time of writing this if it isn't already, and you can now access everything Foodfight! related through the official Foodfight! collection on there!

That's right, so much Foodfight! material has been uploaded over the past year that the Internet Archive gave it its own archive, allowing you to find everything in one convenient place (including my scans of the novelization and Deluxe Sound Storybook). It'll also be updated periodically whenever something new is found, so it'll always be the home to all things Foodfight!. Whether you're wanting to take a look at some concept art shown in ROTTEN: Behind The Foodfight, read through an early draft of the script, or check out something I've talked about on my blog, it's all here at your fingertips.

I don't think there's ever really going to be an end to the depth of the Foodfight! rabbithole. I thought I was done a year ago when I finished analyzing the novelization, and look at everything that's been found since then. Every time I think I'm out, this movie pulls me back in. So...in my next post I'll FINALLY show off my collection of Foodfight! merchandise and talk about what this movie means to me, but that doesn't mean it's the end for this blog. Whenever I say I'm done with Foodfight! I end up jinxing it, so if I try to conclude things now in a few months some CD will show up with a bunch of lost footage on it, I'll get mailed concept art of a bunch of characters we've never seen before, or it'll turn out Larry Kasanoff was actually D.B. Cooper the whole time. So as long as there's something new to discuss, as long as there's a Foodfight to be fought, I'll keep updating this blog from now until forever. You better duck when they launch the cream pies!

[dreamywolfdd]

trying to shake off the art block and using procreate again after only using krita for a while