Thursday, October 27, 2005

Mystery of the Cryptids Part 2

Cryptids, if you didn't already know, are mysterious creatures, monsters, or animals as yet undiscovered by science. Prime examples includeBigfoot (the image below is by the incredible SFX house Nimba Creations), Chupacabra (my cute version shown here), and the Loch Ness Monster. When I was a schoolboy, I won a public speaking contest with a convincing argument about the existence of the Sasquatch, and I've been fascinated with cryptozoology ever since. There's a cool crypto-blog here if you're interested, and the International Society Of Cryptozoology is the official site for serious enthusiasts (their logo features the formerly mysterious Okapi). So,this is where the inspiration for an animated cartoon came from. As I mentioned, various networks showed interest at one time or another. One wanted us ('us' being myself and the producer who optioned the rights, Fred Schaeffer) to make the concept "more like SpongeBob" and we briefly toyed with having the show set on a kind of wacky 'Cryptid Island' where all these beasts would be neighbors. One network asked us to add a human kid, another liked it without (all this tweaking and reworking done without any development money, of course), and eventually the concept as it stood mutated into something altogether different...