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Neil Cicierega
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Neil Stephen Cicierega (born August 23, 1986), also known under the aliases Trapezoid, Trapezzoid and Lemon Demon, is an Internet personality and artist. He is the creator of a genre of Flash animation known as "Animutation". He also performs as a musician. Cicierega lives with his parents and two of his siblings in Kingston, Massachusetts, United States.
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Neil Cicierega is the creator of a genre of Flash animation known as "Animutation". Animutation features random scenes and pictures influenced by pop culture. These scenes are accompanied by (and are usually in time to) foreign or novelty music, often Japanese. Most of his early Animutations used music from the original Japanese version of Pokémon. His style, seen in his 2001 work "Hyakugojyuuichi", has been imitated by other artists on the Internet. These works were originally known as "fanimutations", but due to some creators thereof feeling that their work should be viewed as art in its own right rather than fanart, the term "fanimutation" has fallen out of favor. A common convention is that "Animutation" with an uppercase 'A' refers to the original works of that name by Cicierega, while if it is spelled with a lowercase 'a' it can refer to anything in this style.[citation needed] Cicierega's most recent Animutation, Wizard Power, was released in April 2003.
The Potter Puppet Pals is a series of flash animations about Harry Potter. Episodes so far have been about annoying Snape (titled "Bothering Snape") and killing Lord Voldemort with automatic weapons rather than spells (titled "Trouble at Hogwarts"). Due to the complexity of Flash animation without physics (it was introduced in later programs), four further non-animated movies, featuring real puppets ("Potions Class", "Wizard Angst," "The Mysterious Ticking Noise," and "Wizard Swears", which features Neville Longbottom as a butternut squash with his face drawn on in Sharpie) have been released on the popular video sharing site YouTube. The episode "The Mysterious Ticking Noise," based around the concept of a musical ostinato, has become very popular on YouTube, reaching over 27 million views. The newest show is Wizard Swears, which was very popular moments into being put up that already has had over 2 million views.[1].
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- A running gag in all of the Potter Puppet Pals films has been Dumbledore stripping completely naked except for hat randomly in the story. [1]
- There was also a cancelled episode, The Potter Puppet Pals Adventure, that still exists in audio form, and has been animated by a member of the Lemon Demon wiki. In it, Rubeus Hagrid, the Dursleys, and Draco Malfoy were originally slated to appear.[2]
Also See: Parodies of Harry Potter
Cicierega's music is influenced by They Might Be Giants and similar "geek" bands. His lyrics tend to have a surreal, humorous slant, though he has said he rarely writes songs with "jokish" intentions. His songs are distributed under the name of "Trapezoid" and "Lemon Demon". Following a notice from a trademark holder, Trapezoid was changed to "Deporitaz" (an anagram of "Trapezoid"). Outside of music distribution, Cicierega is still known to sometimes use the nickname "Trapezoid" or "Trapezzoid".
He also produced the music for a number of AGS adventure games, and contributed to AGS forums. [2]
On December 22, 2005, Lemon Demon and collaborator Shawn Vulliez released the Flash music video Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny on Newgrounds.com. The video features dozens of famous people and fictional characters, largely from 1980s pop culture in a large century-long brawl where "...only one will survive."[3]
The video was featured as the Newgrounds daily feature on December 23, and the weekly user's choice on December 28; it has since been released on Flash Portal, Albino Blacksheep, Transbuddha, Weebl's Stuff, and eventually its own fan-created site at UltimateShowdown.org. The song topped the weekly "Funny Five" and became #1 of 2006 on the Dr. Demento Show. The song's popularity resulted in a significant increase in sales of Lemon Demon's earlier albums Damn Skippy and Hip to the Javabean, and Cicierega encountered difficulty meeting the sudden demand. The song itself was later included on Dinosaurchestra, his fifth album as Lemon Demon.
- "Clown Circus" (2003)
- "Live From the Haunted Candle Shop" (2003)
- "Hip to the Javabean" (2004)
- "Damn Skippy" (2005)
- "Dinosaurchestra" (2006)
In addition to his animutations, Cicierega has created several original live-action shorts under the name of Cinema Rocketry. [3]
He has worked on videos with fellow internet film makers Kevin James of Not A Tad Bad Flim Co., Ryan Murphy, of Rojhelio Studios and J.L. Carrozza of Gen-Y Films, recently collaborating to create the short films "Neil Saves Christmas" and "No Place Like Home". Neil helped write the script, wrote an original score for the film, and starred as the Scarecrow.
Neil's short film "Filed Away" was aired on the first episode of the CW network's TV show Online Nation.
- ^ The Potter Puppet Pals. Retrieved on 2007-07-15.
- ^ Potter Puppet Pals Adventure. Retrieved on 2007-07-23.
- ^ Copy, paste, animate. The Toronto Star.
- "All hail Neil Cicierega" by Katharine Mieszkowski and Amy Standen, Salon.com, 26 April 2001
- "He's a hit with Internet set" by Emily Sweeney, Boston Globe, 22 June 2006
- EvilTrailMix.com, Cicierega's personal home page
- Animutation homepage
- Lemon Demon homepage
- Potter Puppet Pals homepage
- WikiLemon, the Lemon Demon wiki
- Neil Cicierega's YouTube Profile