I was looking around on YouTube the other day and look what just recently popped up... Twelve of the Icebox.com versions of Spümco's Weekend Pussy Hunt!

What's funny is that I've been meaning to write something up about W.P.H. 'cause way back in 1997, I helped John Kricfalusi's Spümco build the initial animations in Flash for Microsoft's MSN 2.0 portal.

Weekend Pussy Hunt... nope too racy... Weekend Fur Hunt... maybe too racy, but we'll run with it... was in active production for the "hip and edgy" Channel 5 on MSN 2.0 when Microsoft decided to rebrand MSN and kill the whole project. From what I recall, we had 3 or 4 webisodes in the can, and the first one was scheduled to go live when the icy hand of death snatched away what may have been the net's first interactive animation, placing it on a tidy shelf somewhere in the depths of Microsoft to gather dust. Dang you, icy hand of death.

The rebranding saw the dismantling of MSN 2.0, which truth-be-told, was way ahead of it's time and much to heavy for the world of dial-up. If only we'd had the broadband back then.

My role on the Weekend Fur Hunt project was to take Spümco's original scanned art, put it into flash, optimize it (*gasp* I KNOW... and believe me, this part killed me because I was and still am a huge comic/animation fan) for the web, color it, rough out the animations to the VO, and finally build in the interactivity. Then I'd send the FLA files back down to Hollywood for Spümco, including Annmarie McCarty, their Flash animator, to finalize the build.

Our versions differ from the Icebox versions on YouTube in a few ways. Each original episode had incredibly long intro titles that acted as a streaming buffer and an interactive sequence that allowed users to win a special gift. For the life of me I can't remember what the special gifts were going to be... Sweet, sweet wallpapers perhaps?

Here are a few title/interactive screenshots from Episode 2:

This went on for months and months. I guess we were 4-6 months into it when the plug got pulled. Of course, when you and everyone else work so hard on and something and it doesn't get to see the light of day, it's incredibly disheartening.

Fortunately though, a few years later John Kricfalusi got (bought?) it back from Microsoft, finished what was unfinished, and sold (leased? bartered?) it to Icebox.com, where it was available for an unknown (to me) amount of time. I never saw it myself on Icebox, so I'm not sure if they pulled out the interactivity or what. I'd love to see those Icebox swf files if they're out there somewhere!

If you can't tell by now, this project was an early high point in my career and I wouldn't trade the experience for anything. Besides being loads of fun, I learned a lot about animation and animators while working on Weekend Fur Hunt and I'll always feel privileged to have worked on an internet milestone with John K, a true living legend in animation.

Link to the 12 episodes posted by cigarettesdcat, many thanks to dcat!

Link to an MSN 2.0 preview video from 1996 that shipped on the install disk with Anna Faris as the host of Channel 5.

Link to John K's highly recommended blog.