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View Full Version : Mike Milo's When Nature Calls


Mickialla
12-27-2008, 10:18 AM
Some Cartoonstitute news. To any of you who have ever seen "Bloo's Gang" or "Ignoramooses" on WAC! or have heard of "Flavio" for Random! Cartoons, you've seen Mike Milo's work. He's made 3 shorts for Cartoon Network; the two What A Cartoon! shorts mentioned above, and then he also made "Swaroop" (which I didn't really enjoy) for Cartoon Cartoon Fridays Big Pick II. He returned to Cartoon Network recently and has worked on a few Chowder episodes. He returned to the studio in order to pitch a little show called "When Nature Calls" for the Cartoonstitute:

http://lh6.ggpht.com/milowerx/SMHQ3fm7p-I/AAAAAAAAIS0/au9qU1Rs2Ic/s800/Woodrow-and-Mr-Flint.jpg

The show revolved around two "agents of nature". These creatures are a part of a larger group called the "Nature Squad", with Mother Nature as the head. Mr. Flint is a grumpy rock agent of nature who teaches Woodrow, a spunky forest "agent in training". The pitched pilot revolved around Mr. Flint teaching Woodrow how to make the Sun rise. When Woodrow screws up, he breaks the Sun and arouses the anger ofMother Nature (who's just a face who can appear in the sky, in water, etc.) Mother Nature threatens to take away their jobs if they can't fix the Sun. You can see the storyboard for the whole short here:

http://picasaweb.google.com/milowerx/WhenNatureCallsPitchBoard?authkey=9sb0Se6xKVQ#

Now personally, I've never ever been a fan of having inanimate objects as characters. But this is an exception. When I first looked at the image I posted above, I thought it looked terrible. I'm still not fond of the colors. But then I looked at the storyboard and the story and all the facial expressions and the writing; soon I was drawn in. When Nature Calls has a charm that I haven't seen in cartoons in a while. It brings me back to how the older Nicktoons like CatDog or Rocko or Angry Beavers used to be like. Here's two more pics of Woodrow and Mr. Flint:

http://blog.milowerx.com/wp-content/uploads/Mr_Flint_pg001%281%29.jpg
http://blog.milowerx.com/wp-content/uploads/Woodrow_pg003lg.jpg


The short was greenlighted for a pitch. Sadly however, the pitch wasn't accepted to be a part of the Cartoonstitute. Milo said that the reason supposedly was that it looked too young. I wonder if it was Craig or Rob who thought that. It didn't look to kiddy to me. In the actual storyboard, a common joke was that they would say "aspen" instead of "ass", such as "pain in the aspen" or "kicked aspen". Anyways, I just wanted to see what you guys thought of this. Mike actually pitched this a while ago; back in early September. But I just happened to find his blog last night and stumbled upon this. Anyways, so far we know of two pitches that were rejected from the Cartoonstitute; Andy Suriano's "Dynamite Jones" and Mike Milo's "When Nature Calls". The only short we know is being made for certain is Chris Reccardi's "Meddlen Meadows", which I have no clue what it's about, but it must be good if it was taken over When Nature Calls. I hope Mike sticks around at CN and hopefully pitches another idea for the Cartoonstitute; I really liked Bloo's Gang and Ignoramooses, and Flavio looks decent.

Racattack!Force
12-27-2008, 11:32 AM
Aww, this short actually looked pretty good. :sad:

Mickialla
12-27-2008, 11:34 AM
Aww, this short actually looked pretty good. :sad:

I thought so too; I think it could've been Mr. Milo's best short. But that's the way the cookie crumbles. Hopefully he'll be pitching another short for the Cartoonstitute. If not, he has mentioned that he'd like to make "When Nature Calls" into a graphic novel; so it doesn't mean we'll be seeing the last of these characters.

chdr
12-27-2008, 11:38 AM
Wow, the Cartoonstitute seems to get better and better every time some more news on it comes up. This whole project feels very old-school 90s CN, and I love it. I'm also curious as to how the accepted Cartoonstitute shorts are. If Craig and Rob turned this down, who knows how good the accepted shorts are.

Mickialla
12-27-2008, 11:47 AM
Wow, the Cartoonstitute seems to get better and better every time some more news on it comes up. This whole project feels very old-school 90s CN, and I love it. I'm also curious as to how the accepted Cartoonstitute shorts are. If Craig and Rob turned this down, who knows how good the accepted shorts are.

That's exactly what I was thinking. When Nature Calls looked to have the makings of a decent cartoon, and it was rejected. Which means the shorts that are being made must be some top-notch shorts. Which means we can expect a lot from Chris Reccardi's "Meddlen Meadows", which is so far the only short we know of (or that I know of) that has been accepted for the program.

Racattack!Force
12-27-2008, 11:55 AM
Well, at least it got the greenlight. Though we probably won't see it on TV. The Cartoonstitute shorts must be pretty good if they rejected this.

Old School Toon
12-27-2008, 02:01 PM
Wow, the Cartoonstitute seems to get better and better every time some more news on it comes up. This whole project feels very old-school 90s CN, and I love it. I'm also curious as to how the accepted Cartoonstitute shorts are. If Craig and Rob turned this down, who knows how good the accepted shorts are.

If it's even half as good as What A Cartoon aka Cartoon Cartoon or Oh Yeah Cartoons I'll be impressed. From waht I've seen it looks very promising and I'm hoping some new originals get picked up from those 2 shows and they become success.