Codename: Kids Next Door – More 2x4 Technology on Wheels

For all you junkyard junkies, here are a few of the less often seen rolling 2x4 vehicles employed by numbahs one through five...the colors have been adjusted to jive with the junkyard Leonardo design specs I originally had in mind...

Codename: Kids Next Door – More 2x4 Tech Weaponry!

The KND had a never-ending need for new and specialized weaponry; here are a few of the more popular and often-used mayhem-makers that Numbah 2 cooked up in his junkyard lab...

The Phlazer was one of the first 2x4 weapons I "invented," a homemade light amplifying blaster that I'm not sure, but it just might really work...

...the Gumgunner (those gumballs hurt!)

...the Razorgun, for getting into close shaves. Adults with facial hair, look out!

...and Numbah Three's favorite, the Teddyzooka...nothing like getting a teddy bear right smack in the kisser!

Codename: Kids Next Door - 2 x 4 Technology, Flying Vehicles!

The KND needed lots of different vehicles built out of whatever I (and #2) could find out in the cartoon junk yard. A lot of them rolled, a lot of them sailed, and a whole lot of 'em – like these four here,

flew like crazy...

This was called "The TrailerChopper"

Here's "The BaitPlane"

...and "The CazhShip," cuz it was just so casual...

And of course they needed a "KndAirliner," for those special travel arrangements...

...color on these has been adjusted to meet original specifications.

Codename: Kids Next Door, From the Extra Sooper Obscure Vault – Crazy Killin' Time

Codename: Kids Next Door was probably one of the last animated TV shows on the air that was designed on paper, old school style, with a bunch of us sitting around "The Design Pit," each with our cubby-holes and boards. The grind of creating a heavily designed show season after season can lead to some unusual ways to fill the few and far between breaks in the ever-steady stream of work. Oftentimes, just to keep the juices flowing, it leads to slightly irreverent sketching, mostly on Post-Its and on scraps of paper...which I just happened to run across some of, cleaning out a drawer in my flat-file (remember those? They were where you used to store files).

Here then are a few scenes, out-takes, and time-fillers from the Extra Sooper Obscure Vault – for real gluttons for KND punishment, and definitely not for the faint of heart...

I'll lead off with some legitimate work (well, sort of...), an evil baby-abductor, a thumbnail mega interplanetary sooper rocket, and a guaranteed nugget mining device, for scratching and clawing your way to treasures...

Our kindly boss, Mr.Tom Warbuton, tried his best to keep us happy by plying us with candy and sweets – there was a huge bin of it available 24-7; but sometimes, like here when one of our BG designers, Gideon Kendall came back after a couple days off, what he discovered upon his return wasn't all that pretty...

Working on comics often leads to coming up with a few of your own.

Here's a classic waste of time: Salmon Man, and his arch-nemesis The Grizzly (with his troublesome little sidekick, Racoon Kid).

This is just plain wrong, and someone should apologize for it! (Run out and find me someone...) It's probably some kind of heresy for an animation guy to boot...but it did happen long ago (before I got better). Allow me to apologize to Mr. Lucas...

Uh oh...

...I've saved the last (and practically the worst) for last and practically worst. It's this imagined depiction of what happened when our erstwhile Inker Extraordinaire, Sir Robert Smith, (aka, The Iguana) didn't make it in to work due to illness. Man, did we ever miss him. In fact, I still do!

As well as Tom Evans, John Allemand, Todd Myers, and Kevin Kobasic.

PS to all you moved to L.A., out there you've got coyotes, but here there's just crickets...........................................................XO RK

Codename: Kids Next Door - More Sooper Dangerous Weaponry

Here's another group of dooper dangerous 2x4 tech weapons – these from the sooper obscure file! the "Clawzooka"

the "LunchBloxerr"

the "T-ball-aster"

the "TrikeAttack"

...enjoy – and be careful!

Codename: Kids Next Door: More From the Sooper Obscure Files...Logos!

There were always "other" organizations, kind of like the KND, but made up of hamsters, evil cats, Amish, whatever,
and they all needed logos...

Most of these were done in about an hour, just because that's how show production goes, and they weren't even done in Illustrator...

...they were inked (remember that?) by Sir Robert Smith, and colored by interns

– God bless interns (color slightly adjusted here...)

...then there were the holidays, and of course the KND needed to add a little cheer to the standard logo!

Codename: Kids Next Door, From the Sooper Obscure Vault

The last of the real strange Rainbow Monkeys...
Here's a soda-pop/champagnish sort of cycle thang that runs on carbonation, I'm sure...I'll be rolling out some more obscure vehicles soon!

Codename: Kids Next Door, From the Sooper Obscure Files: Rainbow Monkeys!

Over the six seasons of Codename: Kids Next Door, I designed a lot of Rainbow Monkeys, almost enough to create a real toy line...but it would be a real strange toy line! Many of the variations called for old, odd, or esoteric RBMs. So, here's a collection of elderly RBMS for the true KND fans out there!

It's a Bearchucker!

I ran across this funny weapon from Codename: Kids Next Door, and thought I'd better put it up. It would make a great Xmas gift, I think...good for a holiday hug!

A Website Update

This is to announce that I've just completed an update of my website, with the help of Mike Perkins at Setstatic. Aside from a new palette, there's lots of new material to see in Animation Design & Art Direction - with a whole new Development Art & Design page (featuring three new projects); a bunch of new Word World, Season Three; and an all-new Online Design page. I hope you enjoy it! Thanks, Mike.

Codename: Kids Next Door - Sooper Dangerous Weaponry

Codename: Kids Next Door is airing again on Cartoon Network, so here's a chunk of preliminary "2x4 Technology" weapons in celebration of the return! The Pepper Pistol, Glue Sub, "Splanker", and "Special Delivery" half-gallon blaster.

Tales: Fear Has a Lot of Legs (but can become beautiful)

This "Mechapillar" from KND will have to do...

"Fear is a giant, ugly caterpillar that just wants to eat the grass you're hiding behind."

Koko, the Lion (not the gorilla...)

Why would anyone ever say such a thing, unless they were launching into hyperbolic metaphor?

It's out there, rooting around your wild perimeter, slowly tracking you down on a hundred disturbing little legs. Yep, it's fear again, though it may be dressed in some new form, like a giant multi-legged insect, an impossible deadline, or the potential discovery of one of your closely guarded secrets.

You hunker down in the grass, pressing dirt into your knees, and almost stop breathing. Perhaps it will move away, maybe pass right by you. But no, inevitably the huge waxy leaves part, and there it is! A screaming caterpillar the size of a brownstone (an apartment house east of The Rockies), waving it's creepy multitudinous arms, twitching it's bug jaws like a Cronenberg movie, and worst of all, it knows right where you're hiding!

Things look awful bad, as it raises up on it's haunches, haunches, haunches, etc., coiling itself like a cobra about to strike...and here it comes - right at you, it's pinchy jaws bearing down around you! THIS IS IT! IT'S, IT'S ...wait a minute...it stops just before it actually does any harm to you, and gently and fastidiously, begins munch munch munching all the grass around you, until you're just hunkered down, completely exposed, and completely safe. Then it happily whirrs away, leaving you standing up again, brushing the dirt off your kneecaps.

That grass will grow back you know. You'll want to hide in it again, like so many times before. But notice how good it feels to be out in the open. Honesty is a real, powerful action to take, that will deliver you to freedom you've never imagined possible before. You're fine. It wasn't real. It just had to reveal to you what you can be.

I always like to say that unless a bear is chasing you, fear isn't real. That works for tigers, and crocodiles too–God bless 'em.

And as for what you can be, the caterpillar thing works that way too. After it eats enough, it latches onto a suitable branch and forms a chrysalis around itself. Inside that bag, it turns into a chaotic mush, a complete chemical deconstruction that doesn't seem to know what it's going to be, until order begins to return, and inside it's new form finally takes shape. I know what that feels like. Everyone probably does. That confusion before it realizes what it can become...and then... 

Schmetterling, in German. Choucho, in Japanese. Mariposa, in Spanish.

A Butterfly for you.

No Star Wars here, just junkyard flyers from Kids Next Door - stepladders, exercise bikes, and a nice big jet engine...

Codename: Kids Next Door: Fan Extras

Here are a few inventions that I came up with for KND that either didn't make the cut, or appear onscreen for a very short time. I thought the real fans might enjoy...

I called this a "Bearchucker"
Some 'alternative' time pieces...
A sorta ironic sweet candy tank- for a real sugar blast

And this homemade cloud/bumper car...