Panini

A love-struck apprentice to Ms. Endive, she believes that Chowder is her boyfriend. Unfortunately for her, he's still in the "girls are icky" phase.

When Will Chowder Air?

All I know is sometime in Novemeber. So feel free to take a little nap until then.

Brushing is Important

Not the most exciting shot ever. Here's another scene from the Mahjongg Night board. But you get a glimpse of Chowder's bathroom and his burlap-sack pajamas.

The Thrice Cream Man

He's a dream come true for Chowder. Or is he a nightmare?

We originally called him the Twice Cream Man, but someone owns that name. We didn't find that out until we had already recorded half the episode! So we had to go back and re-record every mention. That's an issue we've run into a lot. We make up stupid food names only to be told they're already tradmarked. We were even told we couldn't use the name "Kimchi." That's like saying we can't use the word "Ketchup." Screw that. We're using it.

I'm all for protecting copyright infringement, but it's getting kind of out of hand. Soon every word will be trademarked. I should get a jump on it and trademark the word "and." I'll be a gazillionaire from royalties.

The Lamp Lighter

Here's another scene from Mahjongg Night. This little guy is in charge of turning on the lamps in the city. What a fun job. Kudos to the crew for making this stuff look so amazing. Here's a quick run down of whose work you're seeing as I post this stuff:

Art Director - Dan Krall!
Background Design - Bill Flores & Rebecca Ramos
Background Paint - Joe Bingelli & Anna Chambers
Character Design - Phil Rynda & Serapio Calm
Prop Design - Mark Bachand & Tara Whitaker
Model Cleanup - Frank Homisky & Laura Dalesandro
Color Stylists - Roger Webb & Brain Smith

Ms. Endive!

She's the thorn in Mung Daal's side. A meticulous mountain of a woman who insists on perfection in everything she does. Her cooking style is the complete opposite of Mung's. He cooks from the gut. Make food with love and it'll taste good. Endive doesn't understand love. If one wants proper food, one must cook properly. She's basically Martha Stewart taken to the millionth degree. With Oompa-loompa colors.

Mahjongg Ladies

A while back I put up a panel of the mahjongg ladies from my Chowder board. Well here they are in their multitude of colors.

The story is inspired from my own childhood. Each Tuesday night my mom plays mahjongg with her friends. They rotate who hosts it. When it was my mom's turn, she would set out all sorts of goodies that I wasn't allowed to snack on. I'd lay in my bed at night and hear the clack-clack of the tiles as the women yelled expletives at each other for taking their nickels away. Apparently her friends' favorite part of coming over was my mom's egg salad. I wasn't into the egg salad so much. I wanted the chocolate.

My mom believes there's a direct correlation between each character here and the actual ladies she plays mahjongg with. That's not true. Her friends are weirder looking. (If you read this, mom, that's a joke.)

King of the Sky

This Chowder character is the King of the Sky. When I was working on the second board, I wanted to have the wind blow. I thought it might be fun to turn the weather into a character, like when you see a big face in the clouds. But I wanted him to be weirder and more of a real character. And since I love Katamari Damacy, I was inspired by the king in that game.

Here's the the Katamari version. The purple tights are a direct lift.

And yes, there is a full fledged Katamari-inspired episode in season one.

Kiwi

This is a Chowder character named Kiwi. He occasionally pops up and makes a random comment. He started as a doodle I made back when I was working on the pilot. I never found a place for him in that board, but I was able to squeeze him in my second board. He's shown up in a few boards now. His arms wiggle. Oh, and when you see him, he'll be stop-motion.

Bus Driver

This is a character from a Chowder board I did called "Shnitzel Makes a Deposit." As is often the case, I over-board my episdoes and so I had to make trims. He's gone. I always gotta kill my babies. Poor little dead babies.

I like this guy, though. He'll have to show up some other time.