Animatronics Designers (with Shayne Topp)
Cast & Characters (5)
Bits & Timeline (13)
Roundtable Introduction: The Masters of Mechanical Puppetry
The panel of animatronics designers introduces themselves, ranging from a creator of 'hot' Avatar aliens to a woman who builds wriggling mechanical babies with her feet to avoid maternal attachment.
"I make it so that the blanket wriggles around a little bit so my animatronics are little itty bitty babies"
"I built the one and only shark in Jaws haven't been hired since"
"When you see an owl it might not be an owl it might actually be an animal"
The Green Berets of Animatronics: Robotic Breasts and Monkeys
Jeffrey Funk reveals his high-tech work on Bruce Almighty, specifically designing robotic breasts with 100 pistons each and a monkey that rips through a human body, earning him legendary status among the panel.
"Upwards of a hundred on each breast and they expanded"
"You made boobs and an asshole dream job"
"It got caught in the asshole who could have guessed that classic asshole closing too quickly"
The Hall of Presidents Feels Pain
Jeffrey Funk explains his software that allows animatronics to feel pain, revealing that the Abraham Lincoln robot in Disneyland experiences an explosive headache at all times to simulate his death.
"Every single one of the presidents in Disneyland feels pain"
"He's feeling an explosive pain in the back of his head at all times"
"George W. Bush the real person doesn't feel pain but the animatronic does"
Uncanny Valley and Bedroom Mandrakes
Noah Victrola defends the 'weirdness' of robots by comparing them to public defecation, while Dottie Jones explains why she only builds mechanical babies with her toes to maintain professional distance.
"If a human being is taking a dump in the middle of the street I don't freak out I say that's somebody doing something weird"
"I use my feet on purpose so that I never have to feel the feeling of holding a baby"
"I want to be childless I want to be able to go to the beach without hiring a babysitter"
The Rainforest Cafe Grind
The panel discusses the low-budget horrors of working at the Rainforest Cafe, where soda fizz corrodes the mechanical animals and the pay is essentially cents on the hour.
"The fizz from the Coca-Colas would get in the air and was corroding the gorilla"
"I'm a milkshake man through and through"
The Great Animatronic Escape of Upstate New York
Jeffrey Funk reveals that he released the animatronic animals from 'We Bought a Zoo' into society after learning they would be replaced by CGI, leading to a rhinoceros terrorizing a Wawa.
"I decided to take it within my own hands to release them onto the set and out of it."
"There was a rhinoceros that absolutely terrorized a Wawa."
The Accidental Genius of the Jaws Shark
Buster Reverend admits she has no idea how she built the shark from Jaws, describing a fugue state of building at 4 AM that resulted in a fluke success she can never replicate.
"People ask you how did you make the shark from Jaws and you say I don't know."
"I don't remember if it was the blue cord or the red cord."
The Arby's Baby and the Twin Study
Dottie Jones discusses her career building 'regular' babies for commercials while her identical twin sister builds 'sinister' babies for horror films, all while being part of a lifelong scientific study.
"It didn't even cross my mind that the baby would have arms."
"She does the sinister babies in Hollywood and I do the regular babies."
Gears, Pistons, and Pain: The Jurassic Park Incident
Jeffrey Funk recounts his origin story as a PA on Jurassic Park who was trapped inside a Triceratops for three days, learning animatronics by matchlight while acting as the creature's lungs.
"I was inside the Triceratops on my back with my feet pressing out and in."
"If I had designed this, trust me, its asshole would have been able to expand."
Inter-Species Romance with the Na'vi
TJ Thibodeaux confesses to hooking up with all 57 Na'vi animatronics at Disneyland, utilizing both the 'people version' and the 'hair-linking version' of intimacy.
"I have hooked up with the Na'vi, all of them."
"They used a lot of my asshole blueprints on those Na'vi."
Harry Potter's Cigarette Habit
Jeffrey Funk describes working with Richard Harris on Harry Potter, claiming the young wizard was a chain-smoker who refused to look at CGI and eventually portrayed an offensive 'robot face' animatronic.
"When I was your age I was smoking cigarettes."
"It was robot face, it was offensive."
The Bicentennial Man Murder Mystery
Jeffrey Funk confesses to a romantic encounter with the Bicentennial Man animatronic, revealing that the robot later escaped and murdered both of Jeffrey's ex-wives by strangulation.
"Robin Williams was not there on those days. That was a real animatronic robot."
"Both of my ex-wives have been murdered, strangled, by someone with no fingerprints."
The Shark's Sexual Awakening
TJ Thibodeaux reveals the secret to fixing the broken shark animatronic: he had sexual relations with it, which successfully 'turned it on' for the production.
"I know what happened with that shark. I fucked it."
"I fucked it and it turned on."