Weebl and Bob explained

Creator:Jonti Picking
Voices:Jonti Picking
Sarah Darling
Chris Vick
Animator:Jonti Picking
Nathan Malone

The everyday happenings of Weebl and sometimes Weebl's friend, Bob (best known as Weebl and Bob, and renamed Wobbl and Bob for its DVD release) is a British animated cartoon series created by Jonti Picking and co-scripted by Chris Vick.[1] [2] It revolves around a "grammatically challenged weeble" and his friend Bob[3] and their quest for pie.[4]

Description

Main summary

The two main characters Weebl and Bob are best friends, but prone to harassing and insulting each other. Both are egg-shaped creatures with wide mouths that split their heads in half, and move by rolling, hopping or swaying back and forth. They mutter and 'talk' in a way largely unintelligible to viewers while perfectly understood by one another and other characters, with visible speech balloons captioning their dialogue. Weebl is the larger of the two; it is revealed that Bob's small stature is due to a cheese overdose in the 1980s. Many of their stories are centered around their love of pie, a devotion shared by most of the other characters in their world—these episodes generally depict one of their several (often failed) attempts to obtain it. Some episodes are a vehicle to introduce a new character into the storyline, while others are parodies of cultural phenomena, such as Hello Kitty, Japanese karate and ninja movies, '80s anti-drug documentaries, Michael Moore's documentary film Fahrenheit 9/11, Kill Bill, the crime drama , the iPod "silhouette" ad campaign, the MTV show Pimp My Ride, the game show The Krypton Factor, Mel Brooks' History of the World, Part I, the video game Portal, Final Fantasy VII, the Academy Awards and even retailers such as PC World ('Pissy Werld' in the show), IKEA (or 'PIKEA') and Matalan ('Catalan').

History

The first episode, "Pie", was uploaded by Picking on June 6, 2002. By February 2007, more than 120 episodes had been released, together with 6 MTV-only episodes, 1 DVD-only cartoon, and an unofficial 30th birthday animation. Typical episodes are about two minutes in length and require three days of production time.[5] The majority of episodes are animated by Weebl, whilst some recent episodes are animated by Nathan Malone, aka ZekeySpaceyLizard. The 100th web-released episode, which is a few minutes longer than normal cartoons, came out January 10, 2006.

Along with the normal episodes of Weebl and Bob, a few special feature episodes have been created by Weebl and Skoo in which Bob narrates a story. These are very sketchy as if they were hand-drawn and 'animated' by Bob himself. There are also a few episodes that don't feature Weebl and Bob characters at all, made by Skoo alone. A single episode titled "Asshat" was created (and 'buggered up' by, among many things, turning Bob into a weird Scooby-Doo caricature) by Picking's friend Rob Manuel, founder of b3ta. Three other guest-animated episodes include "Merchandise," "Birthday Wishes," and "Thirty" (the latter two made in celebration of Jonti Picking's birthday on 17 May.).

Weebl's production company Sumo Dojo worked on the Anchor Spreadable adverts in the UK. They were also involved in the release of the first year of Weebl and Bob on DVD in late 2004. The DVD includes a documentary narrated by Brian Blessed and an exclusive episode.

A related Flash game, titled Ultimate Pie Theft, was released in September 2006. It is a remake of the popular video game Pac-Man, except the player controls Wee Bull, who attempts to steal all of the pies belonging to Weebl, Bob, Hairy Lee and Chris the Ninja Pirate Mushroom. While doing so, the characters will continuously say one-liners such as "Nooooo! Not the pie‼", and "Why aren't I eating pies when I move?".

Episode structure

The two main characters appear exclusively in the first episode, and most of the later episodes. The cartoon is minimalistic in style: it is presented on a plain magenta background, and the characters are white with dark grey outlines. Most of the episodes – usually the more recent cartoons – begin with Weebl singing a short song, usually about pie, his main love in life (an example of this "This is a song/a song about pie/hope I get some before I die.."). Bob moves on and off by rolling and remains typically to the right of the animation pane.

Both characters talk, but their voices are usually unintelligible. Picking achieves the sound by speaking without the use of his tongue, and constantly changing the speed of the audio recording; speech balloons are provided. In fact, in the episodes "Asshat" and "Stains", it is implied that this is the only reason they can understand each other. This speech is generally punctuated, but capitals are not used, correct grammar and syntax are rarely employed (e.g. "when come back bring pie!"), and the speech bubbles are occasionally entirely inaccurate; another feature is the occasional addition of an 's' to nouns or verbs that do not require one (e.g. "beefs come from here", or "I have become a Goths" "Is that rights?").

The episodes are set to music (usually of the dance/electronica genre, though it differs considerably between episodes), with the characters sometimes talking in time to the rhythm. Earlier episodes mainly used songs from Picking's music collection, but nowadays they are usually original pieces (sometimes listed in the credits).

Characters

Weebl Bull

Weebl, or Wobbl on MTV due to trademark reasons, is 29 years old ("Factor") and is an egg-shaped character who loves pie to a very unhealthy extent. This is especially apparent as, in a reference to the film American Pie Weebl's other friends aside from Bob are a whale, who has only been shown in "Blockage" and a Weighted Companion Cube (a reference to Portal) only seen in "Cube". Weebl has shown romantic fixation towards Donkey, as well as a-ha's Morten Harket (who "makes [Weebl] moist in [his] special places").

Even though Weebl's name is Weebl Bull, as he is Wee Bull's son, he usually uses the surname Chauncey, probably because he hates his father (despite this, however, he has been credited as Weebl Bull in the episode "CSI"), he was also credited as prof. Heinz Weebl Ph.D on "show". He also show signs of being illiterate (though this is probably just to make his ignorance and unintelligence more clear) as he cannot read (as seen in "Record" and "Pastry") and, according to Bob, can only spell "sign" and "beefs" ("Pikea"). A little while after Bob made his blog, Weebl made his blog.

Weebl can be immature and arrogant in most parts, as in the cartoon "Team Laser Explosion 3" he boasted what a hero he was by accusing postmen of being evil, and also being apparently stubborn, he insisted on changing the team logo because it didn't have pictures of him looking hot and sexy. He has at least 5 hats (revealed in "Pastry"). Also he is ignorant to listen to Bob such as in the episode 'snails' where he shows that he doesn't listen to Bob or let him finish his sentences. To add to that he has been in and caused Bob to go to prison with his Paris Hilton impression as shown in episode "Bird"

His last name was not revealed till the episode 'CSI', in which a set of opening credits reveal it, though a smart fan could have deduced it from Weebl's father's name, Wee Bull, or from a supposed e-mail with the subject "Son. We need to talk. Love Wee Bull".

In various episodes Weebl states that he cannot move, unlike Bob who rolls or hops to get to places. He can only be seen rolling in the Wobbl and Bob DVD, during the cutscenes when a category is selected in the menu screen. Otherwise, it remains a mystery of how he moves, although Bob uses methods of transport to carry him around in several episodes, it says that Weebl invented sheep especially on the episode 'gravy'.

Bob Bobertson

Bob is Weebl's friend, and producer of many Flash animations throughout the series. He looks like Weebl except for the fact that he is smaller. Like Weebl, he also likes pie – and 'butters' [sic] (see episode "Pikea"). His last name, Bobertson, is revealed in "Show," and is shown again in "Team Laser Explosion 3", when Weebl draws their new logo on the back of Bob's will. His last name can also be seen in the credits of some of the "made by Bob" cartoons and on his blog. Bob also became a goth (because he was depressed about not having pie, and he found the cloak and the wig in a ditch) in the episode "Gothic" but that lasted only for that episode. During that episode he called himself "Bob... Lord of the Dark... things".

Bob seems to show a fear of bees and, after Weebl's bath water destroyed his computer in "Upgrade", a fear of liquid. He is also allergic to cat fur ("Dan"), as characterized by pink spots, red eyes, and huge swelling lumps on his head. His new computer is apparently possessed by – and has affiliations with – the supernatural, as it gets demonic messages, shoots blood from the screen, makes groaning noises and came with an Angel of Death and an evil lamp (the reason being that 'Pissy Werld', the place from which it was purchased, is owned by a demon).

In the episode "Joust", we are told that Bob was once married, to a "Millionaire Supermodel Scientist," but Weebl destroyed the marriage with his constant demands for a duel. We are also told that his wife lost a toe in the duel, and that Bob retained the "zombie toe," until that, too, left him. Bob also frequently visits a book club, and it is evident that he has not yet reached puberty ("Pikea 2"). Bob also knows nothing about farming emu.

Bob often questions and pities Weebl's strange ways, though Bob himself does sometimes show a perverted nature, as seen on in "Pieku", when he admitted he wasn't wearing pants, and said "lo! meet my penis!" This, however, turned out to actually be "pianist", as Weebl misheard Bob. Bob is also known to be slightly more intelligent than Weebl, often correcting or lecturing him. He dislikes bananas, shown in "Romantic".

Regulars

These characters have appeared regularly throughout the series, and are usually older than the rest of the cast.

Major and popular characters

These characters shown below have been seen semi-regularly or been praised by fans.

Others

These characters have only appeared in just one or a few episodes.

Team Laser Explosion characters

These characters are seen only in the "Team Laser Explosion" episodes.

Goo-ology

"Goo-ology" was a series of promotional shorts for Cadbury's Creme Egg, parodying pivotal scenes from cult movies (Pulp Fiction, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Alien and Frankenstein). This was followed by a similar segment entitled "Goo's Got Talent", a parody of Britain's Got Talent in which the winner was determined by a vote on YouTube.

Reception

Weebl and Bob was "one of the most popular ongoing series" according to The Spokesman-Review in 2006[6] and the two characters were later dubbed "online animation superstars"[7]

The series was described by The Guardian as follows: "Another British creation Weebl and Bob are two wobbly eggs who like pie. That set-up took the animation through over 100 episodes, onto MTV in a series of licensed indents, and a made for DVD special.",[8] while Screen Rant commented: "The legs on this abstract series about 2 egg things with South Park Canadian style mouths who like pie were impressive. It was just as random and silly, but much more laid back than most other 'random' comedies, with long aired out dialogue scenes, idly mumbling about pie, or other things, sometimes just gibberish. It was funny and full of charm and made for a unique watch.As the series continued Weebl and Bob got more ambitious, with the likes of their Sexyback and Portal parodies, as they were forced to compete with rivals from their own website, which was growing in notoriety thanks to a certain animal and a certain fungus..."[9]

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: What Weebl Means To Us . 2024-01-09 . en-GB.
  2. News: BBC - h2g2 Weebl and Bob - Cartoon Characters . 2024-01-09 . en-GB.
  3. Book: The Michigan Daily . The Michigan Daily . en.
  4. Book: Clarkson, Janet . Pie: A Global History . 2009-04-15 . Reaktion Books . 978-1-86189-677-3 . en.
  5. Web site: A Piece of the Online Pie – An Interview with Jonti Picking . 2008-03-11 . ColdHardFlash.
  6. Book: The Spokesman-Review . The Spokesman-Review . en.
  7. Book: Mitchell, Ben . Independent Animation: Developing, Producing and Distributing Your Animated Films . 2023-04-11 . CRC Press . 978-1-000-84918-9 . en.
  8. News: Hern . Alex . 2015-01-30 . Flash is dead, and YouTube dealt the killing blow . 2024-01-09 . The Guardian . en-GB . 0261-3077.
  9. Web site: Horn . Liam . 2020-03-13 . 10 Insane Classics From The Early Days Of Animated Web Comedy . 2024-01-09 . ScreenRant . en.