IBM needed a Christmas card.  Oh, wait... they needed a non-religious and  non-Santa-related "holiday card."  No problem.

They contacted the Townsend Agency (which no longer exists, but it was quite large and reputable at the time). 

The catch?  They needed it in 3 days and it had to be animated. 

The super catch?  This was during the early days of viral marketing, when Internet plug-ins were new and people still used 28.8K modems to download e-cards.  So this little piece had to get done fast and be very tiny.

Conceived in a room full of panicky employees, this was written by Chris LeSueur and then handed off to me.  The president of the agency hated it.  The creative director hated it.  It ultimately won Best of Show at Chicago's CADM Awards, among a slew of other awards, and made the agency 100 grand in 3 days. Needless to say, I didn't get very much of that.

You can see it by clicking on Read More below.

I've shot a lot of video over the years.

Most of it is pretty crazy. But somehow there's just nothing funnier than little kids explaining the world through their eyes.

Here's my own formerly little kid discussing a Jeep, her forearm and a bird. And yes, somehow she manages to tie those all together.

Click on Read More below to see the video.

Another idea that almost came to fruition but didn't is a foam rubber chin.  Popeye's chin to be exact. 

Several years ago I created this costume by casting my head and sculpting the enormous chin, nose and brow.  By using a rigid but highly aerated latex compound I was able to keep the chin light and pliable so that it would move with my own lips and jaw, but could also be held on with only a little spirit gum and not be uncomfortable.

Needless to say, King Features (the owners of the Popeye character) also thought this was cool and gave me the go ahead to get it manufactured.  Hong Kong was on board, right down to the prototyping stage. 

What sank the ship?  American distributors wouldn't pre-order without seeing the finished and packaged product, and the manufacturers couldn't afford to tool the factory for small orders.  Try to convince investors that giant rubber chins is a great idea when you are just an artist, not the head of a giant company.

In any case, this is proof of concept and intellectual property, so if you think you can make money off of this you had better include ME!  Thank you for your support.