Anthony Padilla and Ian Hecox started a comedy website called Smosh.com. They started putting their videos on YouTube which led to their creation of the YouTube channel, Shut Up! Cartoons. I spoke with the guys about their new cartoon channel, Smosh.com, the success of the new cartoon series, and what the future holds for their new YouTube channel.
AE: I have been checking out the videos on your YouTube site and I am digging the shows. Anthony, how did the idea of Shut Up! Cartoons come about?
Anthony Padilla: YouTube came to us and asked us if we wanted to create a new channel on YouTube. That got us thinking. We always have been into animation. Smosh.com started out as a Flash animation site where people could upload animation videos. If we could get some really good animators and people that had projects that they really wanted to do it would be awesome. We went out and searched for some creators that had really great ideas. We put together Shut Up! Cartoons with these really awesome animators.
AE: Which cartoon was the original one, was it the Zombies vs. Ninjas, Do’s and Don’ts, or Pubertina?
Ian Hecox: We specifically chose these three shows to launch with on the site. There was not really one cartoon that was considered to be the first one. We loved all three of these cartoons and we wanted to have these three shows be the ones to be showcased first on the site.
AE: You guys have some great voice actors for your shows. One that comes to mind is Peter Hastings from Pinky and the Brain fame. How did you get him for one of your cartoon shows?
Ian Hecox: Me and Anthony did not reach out to Peter. That was someone else who works with us on the Shut Up! Cartoons site. Peter is working on a pretty interesting cartoon. It is not anything like Pinky and the Brain. It is in the style of the cartoon Speed Racer. Peter is working on a show called Sub 3. It is basically about an Anime guy that has to deliver pizzas in less than three minutes. It is totally over the top and very cheesy 80’s Anime like Speed Racer. It is pretty ridiculous. It is pretty funny.
AE: Were there any cartoons that inspired you guys? What were your favorite cartoons growing up as a kid?
Anthony Padilla: Saturday morning cartoons were always my favorite. I would watch all the cartoons that day. I would even watch cartoons I did not even like. I would just sit in front of the TV and watch cartoons all morning. Some cartoons that I liked to watch when I was younger were Doug, Real Monsters, and Ren and Stimpy.
AE: How big do you think YouTube has been for people such as yourselves that are able to showcase videos and cartoons that might not have been able to show off their work elsewhere?
Anthony Padilla: It is great because we have complete freedom to do what we want to do. We could not do this with a TV network. I think it is really awesome to see direct user feedback. You can read the comments right away and be like ‘Oh people really love this series.’ It makes us think if we should be making more of certain cartoons. It is great to see that.
AE: Speaking of direct feedback from viewers, do you guys ever think to create a choose your own adventure cartoon series? Could it be where viewers get to choose the outcome of a cartoon series?
Anthony Padilla: That would be amazing. I wish that was feasibly possible, but the production on that would be huge. It takes a lot of time to produce these cartoons. If people voted it would take a really long time to make another episode. On YouTube it is very important to create a constant stream of content or people would get bored and go to another site.
Ian Hecox: Yea even just the thought of a choose your own adventure cartoon is stressing me out. I don’t think that could happen.
AE: You also have a site called Smosh.com. Tell me more about the site and how did that site start?
Ian Hecox: We started the site and videos completely out of boredom. We just graduated high school and we didn’t know what we really wanted to do. We were just like ‘Oh, I guess we will go to college’. We started making videos on the side. We started just when YouTube was starting. We grew with YouTube and started making better videos each time and improving our craft.
AE: What does the future hold for Shut Up Cartoons?
Anthony Padilla: Well, we still have 12 more series to launch. So we are super excited about that. We don’t know exactly what the future holds, but we hope to create more episodes of the cartoons people like on our site. We are looking forward to each episode and hopefully our audience does as well.
