Eddie Alcazar loves cartoons from the ’90s. Ren & Stimpy, Rocko’s Trendy Lifethe contorted nightmares of MTV’s Liquid Tv — you identify it, he’s seen it. Possibly not that distinctive, however not like the remainder of us animation fiends who dream of the times of painted backgrounds and hand-drawn gross-out gags, Alcazar did one thing about it. Bullet Timehis new TV pilot premiering on the 2025 Fantasia Festis a clear however audacious try at reviving a misplaced artwork.
Alcazar’s 10-minute Bullet Time pilot stars Looney Tunes veteran voice actor Eric Bauza as Bullet, a bull terrier who aspires to gaming greatness. He’s a traditional burnout ’90s cartoon character, crushing cans of Fizzy Juice and clobbering his manner by way of the claymation preventing recreation Battle Blast. Mixing hyperactive visuals and hyper-detailed close-up pictures straight of Ren & StimpyAlcazar’s inspirations are all remixed in a delirious vortex of caffeinated slapstick. The look is superior — and as he discovered placing it collectively over 4 years, painfully tough to attain.
Take a look at this unique clip from Bullet Time
Whereas Alcazar had an animation background after directing shorts like The Vandalhis “starvation to see extra of these kind of cartoons once more” despatched him knocking on doorways of animators from the day who might educate him how to attract the way in which they used to for Nickelodeon. Invoice Wray, who painted backgrounds for Ren & Stimpyeven contributed to the brief. Alcazar found that in comparison with in the present day’s animation pipeline, which is extra model-based and constructed with comedy writers in thoughts quite than cartoonists, the outdated manner was destined to be pushed out by cost-cutting studios.
“It’s so time consuming to hand-draw every part,” he admits. “They have been capable of do it within the ’90s and have the finances and folks, to take that danger to attain it (…) I feel modified within the 2000s when every part began changing into very company pushed. It virtually evaporated cartoons, in a manner. Who’s supporting cartoons today? It’s type of uncommon. That’s what I used to be actually interested in: What are folks even going to think about this today when you might have a whole lot of youthful of us who haven’t even seen one thing like this?”
There’s quite a bit packed into Bullet Time the younger people most likely haven’t seen. On prime of the retro 2D animation, a giant chunk of Bullet’s gamer odyssey takes place in a Clayfighter-esque showdown, with stop-motion guided by Wealthy Zim of Gumby and Pee-Wee’s Playhouse fame. Tying all of it collectively is an authentic soundtrack by none apart from Danny Elfman.
The brief examined Alcazar’s perseverance over what was meant as a lark between function directing initiatives, however it wasn’t only a ardour for ’90s cartoons that saved him going — this was private. Sure, Bullet would possibly observe the canine lineage of Ren, however he’s additionally impressed by the director’s precise canine.
“I picked my canine that was just about dying on the time to (star in it). So, as a result of I assumed this was going to be a yearlong course of, and I used to be like, All proper, I’ve to search out one thing that’s going to inspire me for an entire 12 months to stay with this. I needed to end it and it’s acquired to be the perfect for him. After which it simply ended up going longer and longer, even after he handed away — three extra years in creating this factor.”
Over these years, Bullet Time grew into far more than slightly brief Alcazar would possibly tour at festivals and finally put up on-line. He’s hoping a studio on the market would possibly get behind this daring throwback
“I clearly would like to see it proceed on. I’ve so many concepts inside the 4 years I labored on it,” he says. And he notes how a lot of a boon it will be for the trade — there are tons of proficient artists on the market ready for this type of name. “Having the mixture of those older college guys that created this after which all these up-and-coming expertise that actually admire it and which might be prepared to do something simply to work on one thing like this… I used to be like, rattling, there’s really a whole lot of of us which might be tremendous proficient that have been simply tremendous impressed by Ren & Stimpy that drove them to grow to be animators. Though there isn’t that a lot work on the market for it, they’re simply type of doing it on their very own and actually good at it.”
