Some of you may know the name LilDeuceDeuce, AKA Todd Bryanton . While making his own songs like “Clickbait” and doing remixes like “Branches : Facegrind Polka” (a personal favourite), he is most well know for being the musician behind some of the songs made popular by UK video maker (and his frequent collaborator) Tom “Tomska” Ridgewell. But that not all he is known for. As would be apt, “let me educate you through the power of music!” Well, in words. You can make up the music for yourself.
“Dr. Monster : The Leperchaun” made its debut March 2013 and has since accumulated nearly 2 million views (just above 1.8 million at time of writing) and two sequels, “The Hampire” and “Christmas is Cancelled” released the same year. Now ‘Dr. Monster’ is making a return with a new series and album through the power of IndieGoGo.
I got to send him a few questions on the birth of “Dr. Monster” and its future through IndieGoGo.
Where did you get the idea for ‘Dr. Monster’ originally?
“I actually got the idea for the Leperchaun character first when I made a typo. I looked at the word and thought the idea of a leprechaun with leprosy could be fun. As I started thinking of more bad puns and weird character ideas, I figured I could tie them all together with a mad scientist character; Dr. Monster was born.”
How did you meet Eddie Bowley (the voice of Douglas) and Christ Scicluna (the series animator)? And how did they get involved in Dr Monster?
“Christ Scicluna sent me a message through YouTube because he was familiar with my channel and asked if I wanted to collaborate; I fell in love with the animations on his a3headedcat channel. I was a fan of Eddie Bowley, and he had worked as a writer and voice actor for people I also work with, like Weebl and TomSka. Eddie contacted me and asked if I could do music for a sketch on his channel, and I agreed in exchange for his voice acting talents.”
How long does it usually take to write and produce the ‘Dr Monster’ songs?
“I try to give myself enough time to revise each song and work on the wordplay, so it can take me about a month to write and record a song; after that Christ can spend anywhere from three to six months on the animation, working on and off. It’s tricky because in the past we have both often worked on other projects so the actual production time can fluctuate. I’m very happy to have the opportunity with IndieGoGo to prioritize Dr. Monster and create episodes more regularly and frequently now.”
How much input do you have into the animations?
“I’m not an animator and I can’t draw, so most of the credit goes to Christ for the animations. For the first step, I create a video with basic text descriptions for each shot set to music. So it might say “The Hampire knocks on the door,” “Inside, three Big Bad Wolves cower in fear”; Christ uses that text outline to create an animatic (basically an animated storyboard). Christ also brings his own ideas to the table and he comes up with lots of brilliant little visual jokes and references; he’s an amazingly talented and intuitive animator.”
What inspired you to make a new ‘Dr Monster’ series/album?
“I get a lot of questions from people saying “when will the next Dr. Monster come out”; it’s my favourite series out of everything I create for my own channel, so I really want to focus on making them more regularly and not just having them come out once a year.”
Why did you choose to fund the new series with IndieGoGo over other crowdfunding sites? And what has been your experience with IndieGoGo so far?
“I was already in the process of putting together a crowdfunding plan when someone from IndieGoGo reached out to me and asked if I had every considered using IndieGoGo. It was a happy coincidence, and I really appreciated having some help with formatting, and being able to get advice on the types of perks that have worked for other campaigns in the past. I’ve been really happy with IndieGoGo so far and I’d recommend them because they have excellent customer support.”
A more relaxed question to end on; How hard is it to come up with all the puns?
“Coming up with puns isn’t necessarily that hard; the hard part is finding puns that haven’t already been beaten to death. It’s frustrating to come up with a pun and google it and find out hundreds of other people have already made the same joke. At that point I usually just shrug and say “Oh well,” and use the bad pun anyway.”
You can check out his campaign here. It’s managed to get 25-ish% of is funding with 15-ish days remaining, (at time of writing). The final goal is $8,500US and it’s set to flexible funding so what ever the final outcome, its being funded. So why not help out and donate to a great musician and the writer of many funny puns? You can get the three previous songs and some sweet merch too. You can even get a specily made song just for you. Even one about you.
The three previous videos have been great so more like it is good. It’s also good to help out a guy who is good at what he does and does what he likes. It always comes though in his videos. You can alwasy see he’s having a blast. So why not help out Bryanton make some more entertainment for you eye-holes!