Of all the failures in my life, the biggest & the bitterest pill of all to swallow, would have to be the failure of my "could've, would've, should've" animation series:

"JOBBERS" FOCUSES ON THE CONTINUING CONFLICT BETWEEN TWO "HAS BEEN" WRESTLERS & THEIR RESPECTIVE OPPOSING FRAT HOUSES ON THE CAMPUS OF A PRESTIGIOUS UNIVERSITY SPECIALIZING IN EVERY ASPECT OF PRO WRESTLING. A TERRITORIAL BATTLE ON CAMPUS BETWEEN "THE PENALIZERS" (HEELS), LED BY A VERY BITTER SIR GRAPES-A-LOT & "THE MISSIONARY SIX" LED BY FORMER CHAMPION THE GOLDEN IDOL WHILST TRYING TO ACHEIVE THEIR DEGREES AND ENTER THE BIG LEAGUE & A CHANCE TO FOR THEIR LEADERS TO REGAIN FALLEN SUPERSTAR STATUS.

To give you a little bit of backgroud on myself, I, along with my cousin, Toby Aylward owned & operated a comic/graphic/rock swag shop in Wabush, Labrador called ADMIRAL BLISS COMICS. Apart from running the shop, Tobe & I taught art & basic animation to BAD kids. Poor little bastards were exposed to a lot of heavy shit, and thinking back, perhaps a screening of CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST to a bunch of 10-year olds might've been an exercise in poor judgement but, I dunno. World's a wonderful shithole, & with seeing an anally impaled woman on a wooden stake or a rusty machete castration outta the way, they were well on their way beyondthe safe, naive confines of their Grade 4 walls.
At night, Tobe & I drank excessively in the shop, listening to tunes, from SLAYER to ALDO NOVA, & began developing an animated series of our own. Not entirely sure of what we wanted to do, we toyed with a couple of ideas ranging from the lurid adventures of The Bearded Child (yes, I was smoking a lot of Hash) to a villainous rouge named SIR-GRAPES-A-LOT. Nothing was really gelling. I was sick as fuck of superheroes, but for some reason it was all I could think of. Maybe it was the fact that we were developing in a comic shop.  But then, in a stroke of genius, Tobe blurted, "what about wrestling?" Boom. Genius. It was in front of us the whole time! Tobe is one of the biggest wrestling fans of all time (he owns every VICTORY, WWWF-WWF-WWE mag ever!). I hadn't been a fan since Hogan lost to that over-rated fuck, the Ultimate Warrior in 1990, but it seemed like it could be a funny cartoon, with a lot of great characters. We agreed that it had to be raw & very adult humor driven, like a PG-13 to an R-rated Hulk Hogan's Rock n' Roll Wrestling. Here's what we came up with:

Long story short, we wrote a 40 page bible: character descriptions, rotation sheets, mouth charts, 24 episode synopsis & a hilarious pilot show that had the balls to begin as a "remember when" clip show, something that a series wouldn't dream of doing unless, of course, they were running out of ideas. We gained a lot of attention, and people were interested. Tobe & I closed down shop, moved to Toronto to take it to the next level & then...the air blew outta the sails. No one would touch it. We attended several conventions & a lot of false promises were made. Even a game was proposed. We were told that we needed to make the pilot first. We also needed a production company and we had ZERO fuckin money. We charged at it with blinders and sadly. we hit a brick wall...hard. I was pretty depressed & kinda felt utterly defeated. Sad part was, I know it'd work. Fuck man. THE WRESTLER won academy Award!

Not giving up, I know it’ll work someday. Animators contact me!

 

Click here for the sample Jobbers Press Kit.

 

 
 

Another show I’ve been developing, this one more for warped children. It’s about 2 wildly popular television star finger puppets, Fuffoon & Figgz from “The Inflatable Circus.” Life’s good until they get wrongfully accused of stealing from the Wizard’s Forbidden Jelly-bean Jar & are banished & made pariahs. The duo have to make it out in the savage streets, get average job & a donut shop & have to find a way to clear their names and get back on top. A who-don-it, basically.

I’ve been flirting with making this into a ½ live actor, ½ puppet show or play. We’ll see.

Characters created by Toby Aylward and Philip Bernard, Copyright 2002-2011. All Rights Reserved.
Website design by Christopher Greene.