Unhappy Birthday Martin Anderson is the first episode of Season 1 and the first episode overall of the YouTube comedy/animated sitcom/social commentary The Lenny Leggo Show. As the first episode of the series, it was in production for several months, while The Lenny Leggo Show itself was also preparing for production.
It debuted the series on June 22nd 2016 and received a TV-PG rating.
Synopsis[]
On February 29th 2016, it is Martin Anderson's first true birthday in four years. Lenny is beyond busy planning Martin's surprise party while he is at work, but realizes that the party is falling apart due to sudden friendship terminations (all of which for unrelated and nonsensical reasons). When Lenny seeks out to unite the gang together in time for the party, he quickly realizes, the hard way, that he has actually become just as much of the problem as everyone else.
Plot[]
It is February 29th 2016, Martin Anderson's first true birthday since 2012, so titular character Lenny Leggo plots to throw him a surprise party. He manages to break into Martin's house by telling him he's just borrowing a "StareStation" game, but is actually there setting up party decorations instead.
At the Skyler City Public Library, Harvey Duncan and Randy Stallone are, foolishly, openly talking about Martin's party when Martin himself suddenly shows up unexpectedly behind them, who begins asking questioning their discussion. The two appear to be cornered into blowing the surprise, however, Harvey quickly turns the tide by bringing up the upcoming birthday of Jonah Flenderson's great Uncle Lou. This ends up igniting a huge verbal brawl between Randy and Harvey regarding Uncle Lou's true age. Eventually, Martin gets bored of listening to the two bicker and leaves.
Back at Martin's house, Lenny gets a phone-call from Jonah, who offers to pick up the birthday cake on his way home from work. Lenny is reluctant, but agrees nonetheless, asking Jonah that he arrive by 3:30PM. When that time comes, however, Jonah does not show up. A concerned Lenny realizes that nobody else has shown up for the party either. After asking himself where Harvey and Randy are, the scene cuts back to outside the library, where the two are still arguing over Uncle Lou's age.
An hour passes and still nobody has shown up. Jonah then suddenly calls Lenny, to-which Lenny is initially relieved, but becomes horrified that Jonah has been pulled over for driving a car without a driver's license. He explains to a furious Lenny that he was "required" to drive to the bus stop so he could take the bus to the bakery: although there is a bus stop just outside of the fire department, Jonah refuses to use it on Mondays due to a "creepy old man that smells like fish" that works at an APS directly next to the fire department and goes home at the same time Jonah does on Mondays (Jonah usually just walks home on these days). Even worse, Jonah reveals that the police are eating the birthday cake, to prevent it from going to waste. Just before hanging up, Jonah informs Lenny that his bail is $75,000 and suggests that he bail him out in time for Martin's party (Martin is unable to as he is broke). Lenny initially tells himself that he refuses to bail out Jonah, vowing to leave him in prison all night, but ends up changing his mind and goes down to bail him out anyways. How exactly Lenny changes his mind is never revealed.
As Lenny and Jonah head home to the party (which by now is likely already spoiled, since Martin has gotten off of work at this point) things suddenly take a turn for the worst when Jonah asks Lenny if he remembered to get a back of "Jelly Chests" for the party. Lenny admits that, in the midst of his very busy day, he forgot them, but vows to stop by the Dollar Bush to get some on the way home. However, Jonah suspends his friendship with Lenny, as Lenny, according to him, has broken his promise of never "forgetting [his] friends when they are in great need". Jonah tells Lenny that if he'll be at the party, then he'll just stay home instead (even though the party is taking place at Jonah's house). Lenny furiously tells Jonah that they're no longer friends as well, and the two go off in their separate ways.
Lenny returns to the party to find that Martin has already shown up, where Lenny apologizes for the blown surprise. When explaining everyone else's absence, Martin traces Jonah's location to Ncdonald's, where Jonah always goes to "feel sorry for himself". Moments later, Harvey "butt dials" Lenny by accident, which conveniently reveals to Lenny Harvey and Randy's location; the library, where Harvey and Randy are still arguing over Uncle Lou's age (by now, they have been arguing for at least two and a half hours). Lenny immediately gets in his truck and drives off to the library to pick them up (as he does this, he runs over and kills a retarded squirrel that begins dancing in the street right as Lenny backs out of the driveway: the dead squirrel's corpse remains on the street for the rest of the episode).
As Lenny, Harvey, and Randy return to the house, Lenny scolds the two after he learns that the two suspended their friendships on each other, and makes them apologize to each other. Lenny then realizes that he just did the same thing to Jonah, and rushes out to make it up to him (where he runs over the already dead squirrel a second time).
Martin has discovered Jonah at Ncdonald's, sulking in one of the bathroom stalls. Martin tries his very best to get his cousin to come out, but has been anything but successful. Suddenly, Lenny bursts in and immediately apologizes to Jonah for betraying him, claiming that Jonah will always be his best friend no matter what. This causes Jonah to then apologize himself, re-uniting their friendship once again, as well as causing an overly dramatic and emotional breakdown between both of them, while Martin stands and impatiently watches.
With everyone's broken friendships mended, everyone, finally, gathers at Martin's house to celebrate his birthday (As the scene opens with an exterior cut of Martin's house, the dead squirrel's corpse is still in the street). Everything seems perfect once again, as Martin makes his birthday wish while blowing out his candles. No more than a few seconds go by when all of the sudden Jonah's co-worker Johnson Freso, who is dressed as a clown, suddenly collapses through the living room ceiling from the attic and onto the floor below. What exactly causes Johnson to do this, the episode never fully explains, but is mentioned to be due to an unsuccessful plan collaborated by both Johnson and Jonah for Johnson to present Martin's birthday gift by coming down the chimney. The present turns out to be a 250lb box of Koreos, which is still up in the attic. Martin, initially furious by this whole ordeal, suddenly becomes gleeful by his present, as his birthday wish has been fulfilled, even though he actually wished for 300lbs of Koreos.
Appearing Characters[]
- Lenny Leggo
- Jonah Flenderson
- Martin Anderson (titular character of episode)
- Harvey Duncan
- Randy Stallone
- Johnson Freso
Mentioned[]
- Uncle Lou
- Lenny's unnamed mother
- Buzz Tarco (not referred to by name, but rather from Jonah as "[my] boss").
Production[]
The editing process of the episode. Notice that Martin's mouth animations have not yet been added.
When the first draft of the script was written in March 2016, Jonah, Martin, Harvey's characters had not yet been renamed; they retained their prototype names of "Mr. Fireman", "Mr. Ambulance", and "Mammoth" respectively. Three drafts were written with these names while four more were written afterwards, following their name changes. In total, seven drafts of the script were written, with the seventh one being used for the actual episode.
In addition, the original plan was to feature animated characters while retaining practical backdrops. However, this proved to be too impractical and the episode's first sequence, which featured a practical backdrop of a library, was scrapped and had to be entirely re-animated. This scene also included older animated character designs that had large black outlines that traced their character shape. The outlines were later significantly reduced in size before they were eventually edited out entirely.
A prototype version of the episode's prologue. Notice the practical backdrop and the older character art conceptions.
The same scene as above, this time in the newer, fully animated form, as seen from the final cut of the episode.
Because this is the first episode of the entire series, a new character cut out had to be created for virtually every different character position necessary. In total, over 100 different character position portraits were created and used for the episode. Subsequent episodes are expected to take less time, as many, possibly all, of the necessary character positions will already be made, having been reused from previous episodes.
In addition, every backdrop that is used for the episode also had to be created from scratch for the episode prior to release, meaning subsequent episodes may take less time, as more of the regular backdrops are completed. Each backdrop took at least a day to complete, with some, such as the library exterior (which was the very first backdrop created), taking up to four days to create. However, one of the interior Ncdonald's bathroom backdrop took a mere 10 minutes to create, as all that was required was to copy a bathroom stall and the sinks from the opposite side of the room perspective, paste, and horizontally invert them into place.
The animation in the final cut of the episode was shown to be somewhat different compared to the two animated 30 second ads (Unmemorable Jonah and Contributions) that proceeded the episode. Characters moved slightly to the left and to the right whenever they talked, in an effort to give them a sense of motion and life, rather than leave them completely stationary while only their mouths moved. While this was manageable with 30 second videos, it was quickly proven to be impractical when it came to the actual episode itself. This is because anytime a character talks, they're mouths are animated completely separate from the rest of the character, so the mouth itself also had to be rotated along with the character itself, and in the same direction. Due to its confusing and time consuming nature, his method of animation was subsequently scrapped. It was replaced with a different system where the character moves their arm, as some sort of form of gesturing, as they speaks. With this form of animation, the character regains that same sense of motion while allowing the mouth to remain in the same position throughout the character's dialogue, unless the character is actually walking while talking. It also reduced the amount of time it took to complete each sequence. The mouth animations for the prologue took an entire day to complete, however, this process, had the animation not been altered, could have easily taken as many as three days to complete. Which arm the character uses depends on their handedness: for example, Lenny is left handed, so he always uses his left arm to express his words. The rest of the main cast, on the other hand, are right handed, so they use their right arms.
Audio recording was executed on May 30th 2016, going through the entire script. Pick-up re-recordings were done June 14th-20th, during the editing process. over one hour of audio was recorded and has since been edited down to approximately 20 minutes, although the actual running time is about three minutes longer than this due to the episode's introduction and closing credits.
On June 9th 2016, the episode's first segment, a four minute sequence, was completed and was rendered in fully animated form. The episode was completed June 21st 2016.
Release[]
The episode was released on June 22nd 2016 to debut The Lenny Leggo Show. It was moved up from its original June 13th, 18th, and 20th release dates for more time to finish production. Later on the same day of release, the episode was temporarily pulled due to some minor editing mistakes. It was re-released just a short time later.
The episode was once again re-released on September 1st 2016 as a single part episode, after being split into two parts upon original release.
Link[]
The episode can be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlCYMQT9Wn8
Trivia[]
- The episode was in production since February 2016. Since the show had never been animated before, it was unclear how the animation process would work, and was changed many times throughout production.
- The audio dialogue between Harvey and Randy's heated debate that is heard when Harvey "butt dials" Lenny is actually recycled audio from the second debate scene, which was originally cut out to reduce the episode's running time.
- The scene at the end where Johnson Freso collapses through the ceiling was inspired by an a famous AFV home video submission. The home video depicts children in a said person's garage, eagerly awaiting the arrival of Santa Clause. As the garage door opens, the children wait for Santa to show up, but initially, nothing happens. Finally, minutes later, Santa comes unexpectedly crashing down from the roof on the outside, landing on the hood of a parked Chevy Suburban.
- The theme song for the show was originally supposed to be at the very beginning of the episode, but ultimately, it was moved to after the opening scene where Martin and Randy's age argument ignites, which made the scene become the prologue.
- The episode is, so far, the only one where the entire episode takes place all in day: February 29th 2016.
- Jonah's line "[The creepy old man that smells like fish] goes home the same time I do on Mondays" implies that the episode takes place on a Monday. February 29th 2016 was indeed a Monday in real life.
- Lenny's wife Katrina Leggo does not appear in this episode nor is she mentioned (mainly since her art conceptions had not yet been created at the time it was released). However, it is confirmed that the two were indeed married at the time, since in the next episode, Fireworks, Katrina mentions events that happened in July 2015, implying that they were married at that time as well. An explanation for her absence was never given: it could be assumed that she was out of town for some reason.
- Although the episode never specified Martin Anderson's age, it was later proven that he was turning 29 years old during this episode. This is because the episode, 30 Years Young, Martin's birthday one year later, he is turning 30 years old, thus he was turning 29 in this one.
Goofs[]
- Lenny's truck is shown in front of Martin's house during the last exterior cut at night. However, during the credits, when an image of the scene is shown, his truck is absent.
- Martin's watch disappears and re-appears a few times in the episode.
- Randy Stallone is right handed, but uses his left arm to express communication on a few occasions in the episode.
- Johnson's facial hair is identical in pattern to Jonah's, making it obvious that Johnson's character files were the same as Jonah's, just altered to look like a clown.
Amended Goofs[]
For the re-release, some of the goofs were fixed.
- Randy's line "Your cousin's great Uncle Lou..." was supposed to be "your great Uncle Lou..." instead. This is because he is talking to Martin, meaning Uncle Lou is both Jonah and Martin's great uncle Lou, not just Jonah's. This line was recorded the same day the episode was re-released.
- The scene where Lenny is in the waiting room, his mouth was missing whenever he was not talking. His mouth was added over during the few frames when he was not talking by being placed onto the pre-rendered footage prior to being rendered into a single video file.
Gallery[]
