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The Grover Guys

"The Grover Guys" is a fourth-wall-smashing satire on the "hero saves damsel in distress" cliché. The eponymous trio consists of Mikey, Beanie, and D.D. the duck, alumni of the fictitious Grover University who are expert pogo stick jumpers. The short's conflict occurs when the trio's good pal, Henrietta Horvitz, is "ladynapped" by a goofy wolf antagonist named Dick Avery, whose "worst" form of torture is poorly-animated '50s cartoons. This prompts the Grover Guys to do some "mindful" problem-solving in order to save the day.

  • D.J. Berry
    Director
  • D.J. Berry
    Story
  • D.J. Berry
    Animator
  • D.J. Berry
    Designer
  • D.J. Berry
    Editor
  • D.J. Berry
    Narrator
  • D.J. Berry
    Key Cast
    "Mikey, Henrietta"
  • Christian Frates
    Key Cast
    "Beanie"
  • Matthew Littlemore
    Key Cast
    "D.D., Dick Avery, Delivery Snail"
    CartoonMania
  • Ryan Little
    Music
  • Project Type:
    Animation, Short
  • Genres:
    Comedy, Satire, Fourth wall humor
  • Runtime:
    15 minutes 11 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    July 11, 2019
  • Production Budget:
    0 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    Canada
  • Language:
    English
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    Yes
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Forest City Film Festival (2019)
    London, Ontario
    Canada
    Honorable Mention
Director Biography - D.J. Berry

Born in Toronto, D.J. Berry is a multi-skilled young artist on the autism spectrum who has spent several years teaching himself how to animate, write stories, edit videos, storyboard, and design characters. A prior accomplishment of his was self-publishing a children's book that was written, illustrated, and laid out all on his own. Additionally, he got to correspond with several of his favorite animation professionals and voice actors via social media, sometimes to the point where they would repost his fanart of their work. For each time D.J. would complete a project, there would be a mixture of enthusiasm and pride manifesting inside him, and each occurrence of that happening gets stronger as his skills continue to expand and improve. D.J.'s biggest influences that help shape his style and desire to create his work include (but not limited to) Warner Bros. Cartoons, Disney, Jim Henson, Nickelodeon Animation, Cartoon Network, and the NFB cartoons.

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Director Statement

August 9th, 2018 was when I first sketched out Mikey, Beanie, and D.D. while watching a video discussing how Chuck Jones' classic short "The Dover Boys" was so groundbreaking for its sharp humor, and, most importantly, its cost-effective animation style consisting of zippy smear frames. From there, I started to vaguely come up with a concept for a cartoon that was essentially my own modernized, subversive spin on that old "Looney Tunes" film. However, it wasn't until October 2018 when I got an epiphany telling me, "Hey, you know, your animation/video editing skills have grown to a point where you should consider creating a short to submit to a film festival!" Excellent idea! After all, several now-famous names in animation got their earliest attempts at animating played at festivals prior to producing some of the biggest animated shows and movies that helped shape the industry since the Renaissance age. Thus, I was on a mission to complete that brand-spanking new goal.

A total of eight months and hundreds of hours went into crafting "The Grover Guys" all on my own. Because I wanted to feel like this was a Golden Age cartoon I'm working on, the challenging
decision was made to have the short be entirely storyboard-driven, making this my very first cartoon to be so. FireAlpaca and Adobe Premiere Pro were my two biggest tools used to bring my vision to fruition. All of the designs, animations, layouts, and post-production were completed by myself. The only aspects I DIDN'T create were the music and some of the character voices. My co-stars were aspiring voice actor Christian Frates and fellow one-man cartoon studio Matthew Littlemore (a.k.a. Animator320); they did a great job on the acting, but all the raw voice recordings (including mine) required some audio enhancements to make them sound bolder and balanced out. The soundtrack consists of the free hip-hop beat library of Ryan Little, giving the short a unique departure from the typical orchestrated score.

Aside from being a love letter to the cartoons I admire (from "Looney Tunes" to the criminally-underrated "Sheep in the Big City"), I see "The Grover Guys" as sort of my equivalent to "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs". If you know your Disney history, you'd have a understanding on how "Snow White" was the culmination of the artistic techniques that Walt and his team experimented with via the "Silly Symphony" shorts, whether it'd be three-strip Technicolor or the Multiplane camera. In my case, "The Grover Guys" combines all of the techniques I taught myself during the past five years of uploading experimental animations to YouTube, including keyframing, chroma keying, CGI, and working on multiple video layers. If I had a time machine, I would go and tell the D.J. of 2014, "Hey! That MS Paint crap you're using, that's all dried up. Use FireAlpaca instead! It's got Onion Skin Mode and smoother outlines!"

Overall, the preceding three paragraphs explain how much "The Grover Guys" means to me. Special Thanks to everyone who took interest in supporting and watching it!