Amy Winfrey
Amy Winfrey (born May 1976) is an American animator, screenwriter, songwriter, director and voice actress.[1] She is best known for creating the web series Making Fiends that was later picked up by Nickelodeon in 2008.
Amy Winfrey | |
|---|---|
| Born | May 1976 (age 44) |
| Occupation | Animator, screenwriter, songwriter, director, voice actress |
| Years active | 1997–present |
| Spouse(s) | Peter Merryman |
| Website | http://www.amywinfrey.com |
Biography
Career
Winfrey studied animation at UCLA and made a 3D film called The Bad Plant, which won her a silver medal at the Student Academy Awards in 2000.[2] At UCLA, Winfrey worked as an animator on South Park during the first and second seasons. She took a break from the school to work full-time on the South Park theatrical film.[1] In a UCLA class, Winfrey made a website dedicated to traffic cones.[3] Because of many visitors on the traffic cone website, Winfrey decided to create a series of short web cartoons, and the result was Muffin Films. When the 12 shorts were finished, Winfrey created another series, Big Bunny. In 2003, Winfrey created Making Fiends. Nickelodeon contacted Winfrey in 2004 about possibly bringing Making Fiends to TV.[4] The TV series premiered on October 4, 2008.
Personal life
Winfrey resides Los Angeles, California with her husband, Peter Merryman.[1]
Filmography
South Park
Winfrey worked as an animator on the Comedy Central series South Park in 1997.[1] She also worked on the feature film South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut, making it the first animated feature film she ever worked on.
Muffin Films
Winfrey created Muffin Films as a thesis project in 2000. There are twelve cartoons, one for each muffin in a dozen.[1] The series explores different styles of Flash animation in twelve different shorts, using muffins as the subject of the stories, which includes muffins that want to be eaten and those that don't, results of having an excess of muffins or none at all, muffins from outer space, muffins that haunt their devourers, and muffins expressing their angst. To celebrate the 10th Anniversary of Muffin Films, Amy Winfrey created six additional cartoons for the series.[5]
Episode list
| Episode # | Title | Summary | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Hungry! | A girl eats a muffin. A bigger muffin comes. The big muffin eats the girl. | 2000 |
| 2 | U.F.M | Alien muffins come to earth, planning to take over. They unintentionally land on a bake sale table. | 2000 |
| 3 | I Dream of Muffins | A dream sequence about muffins. | 2000 |
| 4 | Pssst... | A girl meets a group of talking muffins who wish to be eaten. They try to convince her to eat them. | 2000 |
| 5 | Muffinesque | A stop motion animated movie. | 2000 |
| 6 | The Muffin Tree | One day, a little girl finds a muffin tree. (Most likely a reference to The Giving Tree.) After she eats a strange type of muffin, she dies. | 2000 |
| 7 | M | A girl meets a muffin that doesn't want to be eaten but she eats him anyway. | 2000 |
| 8 | Feed Me | An interactive game in which you feed a woman different muffins before she dies. If you overfeed her, she dies. | 2000 |
| 9 | Beware | Old Man Muffin wants revenge on Mr. Turnpike, a human being who "did him in". | 2000 |
| 10 | The Muffinless | A young boy has never eaten a muffin and really wants one. | 2000 |
| 11 | Bluebirds in Spring | Two muffins saying random things in French to each other. | 2000 |
| 12 | MufFinale | Muffins from all the films sing to a girl after she says "I don't like muffins." to convince her that muffins are good for her. | 2000 |
| I | Mini Muffins | Mini muffins haunt a young girl, leading her to eat one. After which, the mini muffins get scared and haunt her to eat other stuff. | 5.25.10 |
| II | Lines | Muffins moving on power lines. | 6.30.10 |
| III | Nothing | Sounds made by different things on the farm in three different scenarios, including a normal day, a Nuclear War, and an apocalyptic future. The muffin says nothing, and surprisingly survives throughout all 3 scenarios. | 07.27.10 |
| IV | Variety Mix | Muffins are grown in a muffin tin using muffin seeds before escaping and being recaptured in a muffin box. | 2010 |
| V | The Feral Muffin | A feral muffin terrorizes the other muffins in the tin until only he remains. | 2010 |
| VI | Muffin Parade | Muffins sing as they parade into someone's mouth. | 2010 |
| VII | Mini Holiday Muffins | The Mini Muffins introduce their unsavory friends Eggnog, Fruitcake, Gingerbread and Candy Cane. | 2011 |
| VIII | Twelve Muffins | 12 Muffins set out on Christmas Day in the morning. | 2015 |
Big Bunny
Big Bunny is a Flash cartoon series created by Winfrey while she was a graduate student at UCLA. Winfrey voices all of the characters, except for the bunny who is voiced by Peter Merryman. Big Bunny is a giant, pink, serious bunny with sharp teeth and a loud, deep, booming voice. He is very loquacious and speaks with humorously broken up speech. He likes to seduce children with weird and humorously disturbing stories with anticlimactic endings. Big Bunny wants to eat every living thing in sight, including the children. He doesn't state this outright, but constantly makes insinuations to his gluttonous intentions with emphasized adjectives like "delicious," "yummy," "tender," and "scrumptious" strewn throughout his sentences.[6]
Episode list
| Episode # | Title | Summary | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Delicious Dog | In this episode, Big Bunny meets Suzy, Lulu, and Sam for the first time. Their dog, Muffin, runs into a forest. the children chase him but cannot find him. In the forest, they meet Big Bunny, who tells them a story about the Delicious Dog. After the children leave, Big Bunny pulls out a large tupperware container with the dog inside. | 2001 |
| 2 | Vegetables | The friends start out going back into the forest to see Big Bunny. Big Bunny then tells them a story about a turnip that was eaten by a king. The turnip's friends start a revolution and the story ends with vegetables ruling the kingdom. As the children leave, Big Bunny reminds them to eat lots of food and asks them to bring him a cat. | 2001 |
| 3 | Suzy | This episode starts out with the friends in the woods greeting Big Bunny with a cat from Ms. Grundimier's front porch. Then, Big Bunny tells them a story about a girl who sells her soul to the devil but eventually repents and goes to heaven. After the story, Big Bunny gives the children gouda to eat. | 2001 |
| 4 | Easter | In this episode, Big Bunny tells a story about a blue bird who died and rose from the dead three days later and eats flesh of the living. Big Bunny ends the episode by telling the friends to eat plenty of candy and egg yolks. | 2001 |
| 5 | Red | Big Bunny tells the children a story about a "red squirrel," who is actually Big Bunny. He tells of the "squirrel" inviting his enemies to dinner, where he kills them and makes them into pie. He then sends the pie to all who declined his invititation. The episode ends with Big Bunny reminding the children to eat plenty. | 2001 |
| 6 | Ties | Big Bunny tells a story about a paper clip who has affairs with a notepad while married to a staple. The episode ends when Big Bunny tells the friends to bring another friend of theirs so there is more kids to listen to his stories. He also tells the friends to eat plenty of butter pats and share them with their friends. | 2001 |
| 7 | Stuffing | This final episode starts out with the three friends going into the woods. On their way, they see a sign that reads: "Crusty Pines phase III; coming soon, forest demolition starts tomorrow." The friends jump over the fence to warn Big Bunny his home will be destroyed. Big Bunny then tells a story of the man who bought a jacket. The cashier told him to never put his hand in the left pocket, but one day the man did and the pocket ate his hand. He then returned the jacket in anger and bought a sweater. The episode ends with Big Bunny saying he is moving on to plumper pastures, and asks the children to go with him. Suzy refuses to go and waves them goodbye while telling him to eat lots of carrots, stupid bunny. | 2001 |
Making Fiends
Winfrey created Making Fiends in 2003 as a web cartoon. The series has 21 episodes created between 2003 and 2005. Winfrey voiced several characters, including Charlotte. Nickelodeon contacted Winfrey in early 2004 about bringing Making Fiends on TV. The TV series aired from October 4 to November 1, 2008 on Nicktoons Network.
Squid and Frog
In 2008, Winfrey started Squid and Frog, short cartoons about a red squid and an orange frog, who sing about various things, such as that you can't learn surgery from television.[7]
BoJack Horseman
Winfrey has worked as a director for all six seasons of the Netflix animated series BoJack Horseman.
Episodes directed
- "Zoës and Zeldas"
- "The Telescope"
- "Downer Ending"
- "Brand New Couch"
- "Still Broken"
- "Hank After Dark"
- "Escape from L.A."
- "BoJack Kills"
- "Brrap Brrap Pew Pew"
- "Best Thing That Ever Happened"
- "That Went Well"
- "See Mr. Peanutbutter Run"
- "Thoughts and Prayers"
- "Ruthie"
- "The Dog Days Are Over"
- "Free Churro"
- "Head in the Clouds"
- "The New Client"
- "A Quick One, While He's Away"
- "Sunk Cost and All That"
- "The View From Halfway Down"
Hooray For Hell
On 6 October 2018, Winfrey released a web cartoon called Hooray For Hell, co-created by Peter Merryman.[8] The series is about a girl who wakes up in Hell after voting for president and gets a ticket to Heaven. There are three episodes available on YouTube. They can be found by clicking the link in the description of the trailer on Winfrey’s main channel.
| Title | Release | Role |
|---|---|---|
| The Spirit of Christmas | 25 December 1995 | Lip Sync Artist |
| South Park (Season 1) | 13 August 1997 | Lip Sync Artist & Animator |
| South Park (Season 2) | 22 April 1998 | Animator & Moose Wrangler |
| South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut | 30 June 1999 | Animator |
| South Park (Season 3) | 24 November 1999 | Additional Animator |
| Making Fiends (Season 1) | 13 April 2003 | Creator |
| Making Fiends (Season 2) | 11 September 2004 | |
| Making Fiends | 4 October 2008 | Creator, Actress, Songs, Co-Executive Producer & Composer |
| Bojack Horseman (Season 1) | 22 August 2014 | Director |
| Bojack Horseman (Season 2) | 17 July 2015 | |
| Bojack Horseman (Season 3) | 22 July 2016 | |
| Greatest Party Story Ever (Season 2) | 8 December 2016 | Segment Director, Character Designer, Lead Storyboard Artist & Lead Background Artist |
| Adam Ruins What We Learned in School | 15 August 2017 | Director |
| Bojack Horseman (Season 4) | 8 September 2017 | |
| Bojack Horseman (Season 5) | 14 September 2018 | |
| Tuca & Bertie | 3 May 2019 | Director & Stop Motion Animator |
| Bojack Horseman (Season 6) | 25 October 2019 | Director |
References
- "Meet Amy". Making Fiends. Retrieved September 12, 2009.
- "27th Annual Student Academy Awards" (PDF). Student Academy Awards. Retrieved September 12, 2009.
- "The Traffic Cone Preservation Society". Retrieved September 12, 2009.
- "Fiendy History". Making Fiends. Retrieved September 12, 2009.
- "Muffin Films". Archived from the original on October 19, 2009. Retrieved September 12, 2009.
- "Big Bunny". Retrieved September 12, 2009.
- "Squid and Frog". Retrieved September 12, 2009.
- "Hooray For Hell". Retrieved November 1, 2018.
- "Amy Winfrey". IMDb. Retrieved February 23, 2020.
External links
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