Mr. King's Picnic was a cute little episode where Mr. King tries to keep one step ahead of some pesky ants who seem intent on stealing his lunch. We took care to give each of his friends lunches that were indicative of their characters. Chanelle has Broccoli sandwiches. Bert, Honey buns. Tex, Tomato treats (pronounced tomahh-toe). And Mr. King, what else...Turnip sandwiches.
I tried to keep the amount of ants to a minimum in order to help animation. In earlier drafts of the script I seem to remember there being a concern that the ants showed a bit too much emotion throughout. The problem with that was that it made Mr. King look like an ass, ignoring their pleas for food. So in the end we kept the ants somewhat emotionless until the end of Act 2. This helped portray Mr. King as unaware and really concerned with having a fun picnic with his friends. Only when the ants tiny little tummy rumbles does he realize what he should have done in the first place, share. I wonder if we'll get any notes from parents about their children feeding ants in the house.
Rainbow
Rainbow was very whimsical with Mr. King trying to help Rolo catch some of a beautiful rainbow in a jar. There was a bit of a challenge with showing a rainbow, gently fading, in each location. It need to be subtle but not so subtle that our audience wouldn't notice. In the end I asked Emanuel Rego, our technical director, to try a dappled light effect on it. It's a similar effect that you would use with shadows being cast by the leaves of trees. Only instead of dark shadows we used light/white shadows. This along with the gentle use of an acoustic rain-stick sound effect helped sell the rainbow fading in a unique way. Rainbow was also one of the premiere episodes to showcase Rolo and his prickly pout. I think Rolo should get an Emmy for his performance. Lastly, I ran into a problem where I was too smart for my own good. Jim gives Mr. King the idea for keeping the memory of the rainbow alive by taking a "Thought picture." I had originally wanted this to be a "Snap thought" which I thought was quite clever and something that might catch on with parents watching the show. Unfortunately, Snap thought was a good idea and was registered trademark which our legal department was not anxious about messing with. So Thought picture it was, and is. Not as catchy but it gets the point across.
Stars
Mr. Kings Stars ended up being a really funny episode thanks in large part to another great voice actor, Mark Edwards. Mark provided the voice for PJ, the bunny, and all his little sibling bunnies as well. When Mr. King turns the day into night so that PJ's little brothers and sisters can see the stars he inadvertently causes them to grow sleepy and go to bed. When Mr. King excitedly runs in he is shushed by a nervous PJ. I think we can all relate in one way or another to the fragile nature of getting a small child to sleep. The rest of the group running around in a whispered panic was quite funny me thinks.
In trying to figure out a way for Mr. King to make it night during the day I resorted to a strategy whereby I tried to imagine how a group of Preschoolers/ Grade Ones would solve the challenge. Children of that age rarely draw in perspective, which fits naturally into the art direction of our show. They usually draw the thing of greatest significance the largest. Also, most children that age haven't fully grasped the science of our sun. Generally speaking, the sun provides light and when it's not there, it's dark. And since most children have experienced what happens when their curtains are closed it seemed a logical choice for Mr. King to use curtains to block out the sun. And how else would one get up there to hang the curtains? Why a ladder of course. I could picture a child's drawing depicting this exact set up, with Mr. King standing on a ladder that's just tall enough for him to reach the sun. And that's what we went with, science be damned!
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