DAHT Update

It seems like I'm always selling something these days!

I'm throwing around the idea of making available the first season of DAHT as a limited edition DVD. The first five episodes, with commentary tracks, in a higher resolution for viewing at home. I'm thinking $10, plus shipping. I recently fixed the framing bug that plagued episode 5, and started feeling really good about the work I did on the first 5 eps.

Oh yes, and I've decided that the first 5 eps are "season one". This coming fall I'll be starting up "season two". Hopefully, it will be uploaded on a more consistent basis.

One thing for sure, the puppet will be better - I'm designing Tex 2.0 at present. Tex 2.0 will have more bells and whistles - practical wings (arms), a practical head, a more eloquently controlled mouth mechanism that eliminates the visible mouth wire, and maybe - just maybe - an eye blink mechanism.

Part of me thinks that Tex could become a minor celebrity, in a "global microbrand" sense. (If anyone else out there can point to another time someone has used a rubber chicken as a puppet, I'd love to find out about it.) I may be getting ahead of myself, but I could probably job Tex out. Seeing him on "The 5 Minute Show" really sparked the idea. Tex could do commercials . . . maybe do interstitial bits on a network like A&E or PBS. The key is expanding the Tex brand.

Tex actually fits into the universe of The Felties as I envision it, as a puppet celebrity who lives with other latex "snobby" puppets at the fancy condo complex "The Palm", just down the street from our main characters. I imagine Mimey and the gang will watch DAHT from time to time. If Tex really took off as a "global microbrand", I could use that leverage to help launch The Felties.

Well, that's all very nice and forward-thinking, but it depends utterly upon shooting more and more episodes of DAHT, and striving to improve the quality.

This is what they call "bootstrapping" but I prefer to call it "pegboarding", in reference to those pegboards P.E. instructors use to torture kids:

You have to keep placing the pegs up a a notch and pull yourself up to the next level. This sort of thing (building a "global micro-empire" if you will) is done in gradients, not overnight. It involves much strain, sweat, and cursing, but like Coach said, it builds character.

I hope.