BTS: Simpsons Road Rage (151) (Patreon)

G'day simps, today is kinda special for me because I finally get to spill the beans on this project... a project was supposed to be a collaboration episode in 2020 that was continuously delayed, to the point of a full rework! Yeah the Simpsons Road Rage episode... let's jump into it!

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Original Inspirations for the Episode:
I haven't really worked with many people in the past, only friends for small cameos and such that are really more about in jokes and such. However another big creator I've wanted to work with for ages is The Lonely Goomba given we seem to share a similar old school YouTube mentality when it comes to content creation. We'd been discussing working together for a few years in passing but I figured the best approach, given his core focus on handheld games, that we should cover something broad and popular that had an interesting port. Ultimately I pitched my concept for Road Rage with the idea being we'd cover the PS2 version on my channel and the GBA version on his.

Goomba was concerned that the GBA port wouldn't include enough content for a standalone video so we bounced other games around such as The Simpsons Game OR simply doing a single video on Road Rage for my channel. As far as presentation was concerned, my big concept was to buy a big Goomba plush to actually sit on my couch in the apartment and interact with, so that it looked like he actually existed in a physical space. While on his animated channel, I would be a cardboard cutout or a body pillow or something along those lines. This type of shit is typically hella cringe with how so many YouTubers INSIST on some convoluted explanation for collaboration. I agree it's tired as fuck. But for an animated character, I thought it could be a bit of fun and stand out from the crowd somewhat.

Despite playing the games and taking notes last year, in the end it just never came to be unfortunately. Both of us had things going on behind the scenes, other projects with greater priority and ultimately in June of 2021, I reached out to cancel the collaboration as I wanted to cover the game (given half the work was already completed) so I could get a video out amidst my complicated living situation. We both agreed the collaboration had lost all momentum anyway and that it'd be for the best. Hopefully one day when things aren't as chaotic, we can jump on board a new idea together!

Logos and Graphics:
Creating the actual graphics was an incredibly quick process, completed in the space of about 40 minutes for all of the different parts, however the animation process was complex. That's the case with animated stuff but the end result is ALWAYS worth it in the end and is always spectacular to see completed.

I knew that I wanted to spark up the project again this year in some form so having the logo on my desktop gave me something to help ignite that fire to work on it again!

For the thumbnail artwork, my general rule of thumb for Simpsons or any related animated topics moving forward is to try and get something commissioned to help it stand out. in a rare move, I actually reached out on Twitter and spoiled that I was working on something Simps related and needed an artist. 8-Bit Brody is a mutual creator and he put me onto his friend @cryptidkitten who was absolutely perfect for the job. A very multi-talented artist capable of so many styles! I wanted to recreate the cover for the game just because it's iconic in my mind, so I put together some references in a mood board and sent that over to Cryptid so that they had a good idea of what I was looking for.

The moment I saw the initial rough sketches, I was FULLY sold and just let them go which resulted in the perfect end result in my opinion. I'm just so fucking happy with it, I'll certainly be working with them again in the near future without hesitation.

Production:
Writing the script was a task that I had to force myself to start after putting it off for the entirety of June, until one day suddenly... I smashed out the entire 4 page script in the space of half an afternoon which tends to be how things go with me! 😅 Unfortunately that effort was met with constant disruptions from life for an entire week or two until finally, I took the first opportunity I was granted to film the episode. Nothing really special in that department as I wrote the video be as simple to perform as I possibly could. There were enough funny things to discuss which took the pressure off needing much of any live action 'fluff' to up the final quality. Editing again was an incredibly efficient process being completed in the span of 2 days, though I did have to re-record a few lines I messed up. Can't really remember what I said exactly but in relation to my Smashing Drive on GBA reference... I called it "Crazy Taxi clone" which is WRONG! So I changed the line to "...another Taxi Cab racing game" just to kinda save it.

If there is one area that suffered overall, it's classic Jak back at it again with the conflicting feelings on a game. I hated it as a kid, it was BRUTAL revisiting it to play... BUT... I grabbed a copy of Crazy Taxi and oh my god, I'm so glad I did. It allowed me to properly compare the two and in my honest opinion... Road Rage is far superior despite it's vat of problems. There was a point I actually considered scoring Crazy Taxi within the episode as well but I decided against it, just because it seemed unfair to score it based on another game.

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That's a WRAP!
In the end despite being stuck in limbo for the better part of a year, the end product on this one is another standard, yet solid episode that I'm quite proud of. It's a game I've had on my radar since even BEFORE having a channel and those are the best episodes. Ones that stem from personal experiences with stories to tell and the like. Performance wise on YouTube, it's been ok. Nothing too spectacular view wise or anything, in fact I'd argue it underperformed for something with The Simpsons involved with but... oh well. Story of my life at this point!!

Anyway I hope you all found that interesting and informative. Sorry for the lack of visual material this time, simply wasn't much worth showing in the end. But if you have any further questions, please do not be shy to drop a comment and until next time... I hope you all have a great fucking day. Cheers guys! 😁