Producer's Commentary: Dicks Season 2
Before I'd even finished Season 1, I knew the series would soon be taking a new direction. The change was partially inspired by a friend and former Marine who politely pointed out an error in Carl's introduction, and I took notice. This then inspired me to head down a more dramatic road, and start building character arcs. That choice was responsible for my complete pivot from comedy to dramedy, as I began exploring the backstories of all of my creations. (I still think it's pretty strange that I would take cartoon characters I'd invented so seriously, but it's become a harmless hobby with some unexpected twists and turns, as well as unexpected rewards.)
The first time this change appears is "Something New," a light, tender, wordless tale of how Rita met Glerp. Then I decided to take a look at PTSD, which resulted in the purely dramatic "Incoming," an episode that episode consumed nearly a week of my life—with no regrets whatsoever. This then spawned yet more ideas for facets of these characters' lives to probe.
The
second series starts off with a leftover from the first series after
I arbitrarily decided on ten-episode runs; thus it's unfortunately weak and unfocused. I wrote it around
the closing line, "We're all dicks," and I should have just ditched it. But I was hungry
for content.
My dissatisfaction with it, however, forced me to reevaluate my motives. This then led to my decision to switch from episodic to serial, and to also dip my toe in some drama, which was an idea from the very beginning but decided against. I believe the changes I made to the core of the program was for the good, because once I started down that path, better stories started coming fast and furious.
Here
we have my first two-parter. I'd wanted to cram it all into one episode, but once
I began editing it, I realized it could never happen. Splitting it up also offered me the
opportunity to expand the dialog and hopefully make it more interesting by fleshing the
characters out a little better, particularly Carl.
The line from Alien, by the way, was an afterthought. I had a different closing line for Paul, but just before I released the second series online, I quickly went back in and changed it. Later I learned it was worth it. This then planted the seed for me to start using more cultural references.
Part
two of "Boot Camp" gave me a chance to have some dialog-free scenes for a change,
in particular playing revelry and Carl scanning the field for participants. In order to sell the
latter, I had to animate his eyes independent of his head, which was a first, and not trivial.
As before, the punchline was an afterthought. I've found that watching the initial cut a dozen times or so helps me root out its weak spots. And, as before, it was Paul's acerbic nature that provided the winning quip.
"Good
Intel" was my tepid setup for some drama. I'd had in the back of my mind what
subject to tackle, with Carl providing the inspiration. I needed something to lead into it, but
I'm sorry it was so flaccid. My only excuse is that I was venturing into uncharted territory, and
somewhat uncertain how to approach it. On the plus side, I believe letting Paul be up front about
his acerbic retorts gives us a picture-window into his soul.
"Exercise" came about as I was contemplating an honest look at how some men behave
about women. It's not meant to be derogatory, although I imagine some people might be somewhat
offended by it. I worked hard to avoid a "grab 'em by the pussy" vibe, but I was also
desperate to avoid any hint of "wokeness." Once again I relied on Paul for humor, and
his closing line is one of my very favorites.
Technically I had a heck of a time with Glen's eyes, but after a few hours of grief, I finally arrived at something akin to what I had in mind. His expression was challenging as well; I had to stop short of out-and-out lechery.
The title "Something New" has a double meaning: it's not only something new for Rita, but
also something new for me. I'd wanted for some time to try creating a completely dialog-free episode,
and in this case it became a vehicle for a budding friendship between Rita and Glerp. And once I'd
I made that a reality, my head exploded with ideas for the two. Indeed, long before the pivotal
third series would come into being, I'd charted huge story arcs for both
characters.
The episode proved to be a little polarizing: I received comments from "WTF" to "OMG, so sweet." Which I took as an indicator of success. If someone doesn't get it, they're not likely to enjoy the episodes to come, and I could not care less if it's not universally appealing; alternatively, it ought to be quite rewarding, if at times upsetting, if one invests oneself in this and the stories to come.
Meanwhile, I was working on Carl's backstory, and an enormously challenging episode was already in the making.
While I bided my time as I worked towards the final episode of this series, I began exploiting
the relationship between Rita and Glerp. "First Date" became an exploration for me into
mixing tender budding romance and humor. I'd actually thought about something along these lines
when I first designed Glerp, specifically what Rita calls his "belly button.". I wasn't
quite sure exactly how I'd use it back then, but here was the perfect opportunity.
I also wanted to reveal a key facet of Rita's personality, which is actually semi-autobiographical, although I just touch upon it lightly; a deeper look at it comes in a future episode.
Because of the slightly more serious tone of this episode, I did away with the normal music bed, which when present lends a bit of quirkiness to the proceedings. I wanted the dialog alone to create the tone of the story, without being colored by anything.
By the way, "First Date" introduces us to Incontinence Pond, which was mentioned briefly in the pilot episode. The pond will be the setting for many episodes to come.
I needed to keep the stories coming before the final episode, so I worked on some pure comedy.
This one feeds directly off of Dot's interview from "Meet the Grrl Dicks": her nail
decorating hobby. Paul became the perfect foil for the silliness. But it also paved the way for
the residents to see the first hints of Rita's big emotional change, and I've got to say I had
an absolute ball animating her laughter, and consequently "Activities" is among my
favorite episodes.
Technically the challenge was getting Paul's line "big lag bolt" to come across. It began as a jumble that at first sounded rather like "big black dolt," which was definitely not what I intended. I spent a couple of long hours re-recording the line and painstakingly tweaking it until it worked. And I'm still not sure it works. Plus, there's always the possibility that a viewer has no idea what a lag bolt is in the first place. Oh well, it is what it is.
I wanted the episode immediately preceding the last one of the series to be light and fun; not
necessarily straight up comedy, but nothing dramatic, and "Secrets" wound up delivering
heartstring-tugging sentimentality in spades. It numbers among the very few episodes I wrote in one
pass without making any revisions, and visually it played out almost exactly as I'd envisioned it.
I watched it with friends one night, and at the end the wife of the couple went "awwww."
Yes! I'd nailed it.
Now, never mind the fact that Glen was not present when Rita laughed at Paul's joke; I imagine it having happened more than once, and Glen witnessed it on an occasion that didn't appear in an episode. But in the end it doesn't matter; it still works.
This was it. This was what the second batch of episodes was leading up to: full-on drama.
No punches pulled. Carl provided the perfect opportunity to pick a serious topic and examine
it seriously. Yes, PTSD has been the subject of countless films, TV shows and documentaries.
But how many comedy cartoons have tackled it?
Technically it was by far the biggest challenge I'd faced, and remains so. I spent two days cutting the nightmare sequence alone, although the process was anything but a nightmare. In fact, I loved it; I got to flex a lot of visual effects, editing and sound design muscles. I even animated Carl taking a few steps, albeit only from the waist up. While it took over three times longer to produce than a typical episode, it was well worth the effort. And once again, I made almost no changes to the original script or to the visuals, which added to the pleasure of making it.