lol
That was funny!! I am gonna go eat cake mix now
Reviews for "Happy Three Years, Fred!"
JKR responds:
Glad you liked it! (And be sure to leave out the eggs if you're going to eat raw cake mix. Or so they tell me anyway...)
Thanks for the review!
good shit
the style was good. pretty funny.
JKR responds:
Thanks, glad you enjoyed it. And I appriciate you taking the time to leave a review, too.
Wow!
I loved it! Keep it up!
JKR responds:
Thanks, I'll certainly keep at it! Hopefully the next Fred cartoon will appear on Newgrounds before Halloween. Hmm, I better get animating!
I appriciate you taking the time to write a review!
Why do you feel you need to be a hack?
I thought the movie was nice, so I went to your website. It confused me.
I think your stuff shows considerable skill, but you ruin it all for me by ripping off all those ideas from homestarrunner. From the layout to the mailbag to the way the characters act. You do put in a lot of your own stuff, but the stolen stuff spoils it - trust me, anybody familiar with homestar can't miss it. It's like it's tattooed across your website's forehead. "HACK", that is.
It's utterly idiotic. You are clearly skilled. You don't need to rip people off. Please. You're ruining your own stuff doing it.
p.s.: If you think you've only lent a couple of ideas as guidelines from elsewhere, please consider the fact that those guidelines ( layout, structure, mail bag, the whole conceptual layout ) are the first thing that people notice when entering your site. My immediate reaction was "oh, is this all just a rip-off?". You don't want people to think that, do you?
JKR responds:
Well thanks for your honest opinion. It's good to hear feedback from people who both like and dislike the website, and it is always helpful when the people who didn't like it actually explain why (like you did) instead of just saying "You suck!" and nothing more.
I could probably write a very long response to your review, but I'll try and keep it short. Homestarrunner was indeed my inspiration for starting FredtheMonkey.com. Before hand, Fred was only in comic form, and began in that way almost 10 years ago. Flash allowed me to take the characters to the next level, with voices and animation. I even give credit to the talented Chapman Bros. in my "Credit is Due" book on the site.
I'm sorry you feel the things I borrowed three years ago to begin the site spoil the whole experience. Many, many people love the Mailbags, so I will continue to do them even though I completely agree with you that it is obvious where the idea stems from. I think since its start, the Mailbags at FredtheMonkey.com have grown into a new and different experience. Some examples are that each one now flows into the next, almost as if it were a continuous story arc. Plus Sceb looks at real world things, like his DS and references to Back to the Future, Best Buy, Microsoft, etc.
I will never forget the things that inspired me to make Fred and the crew my daily work (work - even though I don't get paid to animate). But I feel (and hope) that with time the things I used to call on for inspiration and the actual cartoons I produce will drift further apart until one day someone else may be, as you called it, "a hack" for taking some of my original ideas. I personally think that's okay. It's one thing to rip off direct scenes and characters, but quite another to be inspired by someone else's artwork and style. Without people borrowing from what others have built we would not have many of the things we do today. How many of today's humorists, like the creators of South Park, for example, have said publically of their inspirations from the Monty Python crew? Yes, SP obviously differs graphically from the MP skits and movies, but if you examine the show closely you will see many familiar themes. Examples of this sort of thing are everywhere.
I suppose I did a pretty bad job of keeping this reply short like I said I'd try to do, but I will end with this: If I can generate laughter and smiles from people all over the world by borrowing themes or ideas from other places, and not harm those original places in the process, I think being occationally called a "hack" is well worth it. Because after all is said and done, all I really want to do is bring some joy to the world. (Boy gosh jeepers that sure sounds corny... Oh well!)
Thanks again for taking the time to leave such a well thought out review. I hope you'll keep watching the Fred cartoons and let me know if you find them original and funny in the future.
How very amusing that particluary cartoon was
First Newgrounds cartoon to ever make me laugh out loud.
The graphics were good aswell. Make mor or I'll cry, and you don't want that
JKR responds:
Thanks! Don't worry, you won't have to cry, because I'll be making more cartoons soon! =)
Thank you for leaving a review!