badger badger mushroom (with jonti picking)

Summary

Podcast Title: Sixteenth Minute (of Fame)
Episode: Badger Badger Mushroom (with Jonty Picking)
Release Date: May 13, 2025
Host: Jamie Loftus
Produced By: Cool Zone Media and iHeartPodcasts

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Introduction

In this episode of Sixteenth Minute (of Fame), host Jamie Loftus delves into the fascinating world of early internet animation, spotlighting the iconic viral video "Badger Badger Mushroom" created by English animator Jonty Picking. Combining elements of reporting, interviews, and Loftus's unique humor, the episode explores how a simple, looping animation became a cultural phenomenon and its lasting impact on internet culture.

From Accidental Discovery to Viral Phenomenon

Jamie begins by drawing a parallel between a serendipitous scientific discovery and the creation of a beloved internet meme. She recounts the story of Dr. Alexander Fleming's accidental discovery of penicillin:

“The slob's name was Dr. Alexander Fleming, and his disgusting vacation mold was penicillin.” ([04:00])

Similarly, Jonty Picking's accidental creation of "Badger Badger Mushroom" is highlighted as a pivotal moment in internet animation:

“Badger, Badger, Badger, badger, badger, badger...” ([08:57])

This comparison sets the stage for understanding how unintended moments can lead to significant cultural shifts.

The Rise of Flash Animation and Early Internet Culture

Jamie provides context on the technological landscape of the early 2000s, emphasizing the role of Flash animation in democratizing content creation:

“Flash animation was a program that became extremely popular in the mid to late 1990s and was this consumer software that made it possible for at home users to create their own amateurish animation.” ([14:45])

Platforms like Newgrounds emerged as hubs for animators to share their work, fostering a community that celebrated creativity and experimentation. "Badger Badger Mushroom" thrived in this environment, benefiting from the ease of sharing and the burgeoning online audience.

Jonty Picking: The Man Behind the Meme

The episode features an in-depth interview with Jonty Picking, offering listeners a personal glimpse into his creative process and the evolution of his work.

Early Life and Inspirations

Jonty shares his background, growing up in South Yorkshire, England, and his early interests in music and technology:

“It was always a mix of like art and music, if I'm honest.” ([55:11])

His passion for electronic music and experimentation with animation software set the foundation for his later successes.

Creating "Weeble and Bob"

Before "Badger Badger Mushroom," Jonty created "Weeble and Bob," a series of simple animated eggs that spoke through captioned speech bubbles:

“The only reason they actually spoke was because Rob Manuel and Peter said, I think they should actually speak. Which really annoyed me at the time.” ([58:43])

Despite initial reservations, this series gained popularity and paved the way for his more famous works.

The Birth of "Badger Badger Mushroom"

Jonty recounts the inspiration behind "Badger Badger Mushroom," influenced by a novelty song and his love for creating catchy, repetitive loops:

“From the duck sound in 'Saturday Night' we get 'Badger Badger Badger.'” ([61:03])

The simple yet addictive format—repeating badgers, a mushroom, and a snake—captured the essence of early internet humor.

“Badgers is Internet canon.” ([41:29])

Managing Viral Success

As "Badger Badger Mushroom" began to explode in popularity, Jonty faced challenges in monetizing his work and managing the sudden influx of viewers:

“I never really thought of myself as the badgers guy until later on, really.” ([63:54])

Despite being pigeonholed, he continued to create diverse content, expanding his portfolio beyond the infamous badger loop.

The Legacy of "Badger Badger Mushroom"

Jamie discusses the enduring impact of "Badger Badger Mushroom," noting its ability to inspire a generation of animators and internet creators. The simplicity and repetitiveness of the animation made it a perfect fit for the early web’s limitations and tastes.

“A piece of art that inspired a generation of middle schoolers to be more annoying than you could possibly imagine.” ([08:55])

Platforms like Newgrounds and later YouTube played crucial roles in keeping the meme alive, allowing new audiences to discover and enjoy it even years after its initial release.

Evolution of Internet Animation and Distribution

Jonty reflects on the changes in internet animation and distribution since the early 2000s. He highlights the shift from Flash to modern tools like Blender and the transition from niche platforms to mainstream ones like YouTube and TikTok:

“It's much harder to get noticed, I would say, for everyone.” ([66:14])

Despite these challenges, Jonty remains passionate about problem-solving and adapting to new technologies, ensuring his work continues to evolve.

“I love problem solving. I love puzzles.” ([66:14])

Future Aspirations and Continuing Creativity

Looking ahead, Jonty shares his ambitions to expand into 3D stage shows and further integrate his music and animation projects:

“I want to do a 3D stage show for Savlonic with the sort of Pepper's Ghost thing.” ([67:43])

His dedication to creativity and innovation underscores his commitment to pushing the boundaries of internet art.

Closing Thoughts

Jamie Loftus concludes the episode by reflecting on the significance of creators like Jonty Picking in shaping the early internet’s cultural landscape. She expresses concern over the current algorithm-driven environment, which she feels stifles the kind of creative experimentation that characterized the early days of internet animation.

“I really hope I'm wrong because I think every kid deserves their looping Jaunty picking badgers video.” ([73:46])

The episode serves as a tribute to Jonty Picking’s contributions and a call to preserve the spirit of creativity and experimentation in the ever-evolving digital landscape.

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Notable Quotes

• Jamie Loftus:
  “Badger, Badger, Badger, badger, badger, badger...” ([08:57])

• Jonty Picking:
  “I never really thought of myself as the badgers guy until later on, really.” ([63:54])
  “I love problem solving. I love puzzles.” ([66:14])
  “It's much harder to get noticed, I would say, for everyone.” ([66:14])

• Jamie Loftus:
  “I just want to think that there will be a Jamie coded gen alpha 30 year old one day intellectualizing Skibidi toilet.” ([11:00])

Conclusion

This episode of Sixteenth Minute (of Fame) offers a comprehensive look into the creation and legacy of one of the internet’s most enduring animations. Through Jamie Loftus's insightful narration and Jonty Picking’s candid interview, listeners gain a deeper appreciation for the creativity and serendipity that fueled early internet culture. As the digital landscape continues to evolve, the stories of pioneers like Jonty remind us of the importance of innovation, community, and the enduring power of simple, creative expressions.

Transcript

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[Jamie Loftus]

Coal Zone Media hello 16th minute listeners. Jamie here and we have one more weekly episode of 16th Minute next week before we're going on a short hiatus. We will be coming back in the summer with a brand new season. But before we go, my book Raw Dog is out in paperback today. Today and today I am on tour starting literally the moment this episode comes out. So for one last time I want to remind you this is where I'm going to be with more dates to be added in the summer during full hot dog season. But if you are in the following cities in the days to come, this is where I'll be tonight. May 13th, I will be in Los Angeles at NorthFig Bookshop tomorrow. May 14, I will be in Louisville, Kentucky, at Carmichael's Bookstore. May 15, I will be in Cambridge, Massachusetts, at Cambridge Public Library with Tory Bedford. May 19, I will be in Portland, Maine, with my friend Maya Williams at Longfellow Books. May 20, I will be in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, at Midtown Scholar Bookstore. May 21, I'll be in Richmond, Virginia, at Fountain Bookstore. May 22, I will be in Petaluma, California, at Copperfield's books. And May 31, I will be in Larkspur, California, at the Marin Country Mart. And that is just to start. All of these events are free, so there are a few places you have to sign up. So just check the link in the description and I hope to see you soon. And welcome to the Badger Zone. Some of our planet's most defining moments are the results of years, centuries of concerted effort, a singular vision willed into reality. And others are complete fucking mistakes. My favorite example of this is from the late 1920s in a science lab in London. A certain doctor, and I won't say who, because it gives it away to all you dorks. So let's just say a certain doctor went on vacation. And like many people who just got back from vacation, he had left his station at work a complete mess. But scientists don't have desks like mine, covered in Coke Zero bottles and collectible minions figurines. Scientists have workspaces that, if left untidy, can become dangerous ecosystems. What was on this doctor's desk was a collection of petri dishes that contained bacteria in them, which, now that I say it, could actually describe my desk at varying times, depending on which dishes were left on them. But when it's a scientist, the bacteria is there, at least intentionally. And in these petri dishes were. I'm gonna try to read it. Staphylococcus snuffelophagus. A bacteria that causes abscesses, sweet sore throat and boils. Probably something that the scientists should have rinsed out before going on vacation. But in this case, it was world changing that he was a slob. Because in one of these dishes, a mold had grown that appeared to be killing the snuffelophagus bacteria. The doctor took notice of this and told his assistants, who, instead of calling him disgusting, began to examine the mold, identifying it as something that very well may have saved your life a few times over. That is, if you've ever gotten an ear infection, pneumonia, strep throat, boils, syphilis, gonorrhea, meningitis a uti, or a gastrointestinal infection which probably you have. This slob's name was Dr. Alexander Fleming, and his disgusting vacation mold was penicillin.

[Jonty Picking]

Filling bottles with the medium in which.

[Jamie Loftus]

Will grow the mold that produces penicillin. Canadian output of this amazing drug, perhaps.

[Jonty Picking]

The medical discovery of the war has been greatly increased.

[Jamie Loftus]

It was a beautiful accident, one that was motivated by chance. But it would not be the most beautiful mistake to ever happen in the United Kingdom. No, dear listener, that would not happen until 2003. 2003, in the year of our Lord's School of Rock and the best season of Gilmore Girls. In my opinion, the product of another beautiful accident hit the Internet and inspired not a medical miracle, but something even more powerful. John D. Picking was already a successful animator in the early 2000s. But what most motivated him in his work was finding new animation techniques that solved a technological problem he was having. And in the 2000s, there was no shortage of problems that came with distributing independent animation on the Internet. In the days where buffering times could be the difference between your work being seen or not, when compressing a file could be the difference between being able to afford to host your work or not, Jonty took it upon himself to make animations that were memorable, musical, and very fucking funny. And one day, he cracked it. What better way to create the illusion of a longer animation than creating something that was a perfect loop, A content ouroboros, if you will, one that hit his target audience intentionally or not. People who would play this loop until their parents threatened to shoot them with a harpoon gun. It was a piece of art that wasn't a mistake to make, but was born from a problem solving stance and became a masterpiece. A piece of art that inspired a generation of middle schoolers to be more annoying than you could possibly imagine. The cartoon in question was a simple one, a looping one pulled from earlier Internet hits like Real Ones Will Know, Peanut Butter, Jelly Time. The colors in Jonty's animation, though, are distinct. Its imagery direct, its joke perfectly calibrated to the senses of a tween. It consists of three images, and if I'm evangelizing and I am, a holy trinity of images of badgers, of mushrooms and of snakes. It is this cartoon that I feel is the penicillin of Internet flash animation. All this delivered at Sugar rush level speeds. On September 3, 2003, a legend was born.

[Jonty Picking]

Mushroom. Mushroom.

[Jamie Loftus]

Badger, Badger, Badger, badger, badger, badger, badger, badger, badger, badger, badger, badger, badger, badger. Mushroom. Aka Mr. Weeble, aka jaunty picking. Your 16th minute starts now.

[Grant Crater]

Not so bad when you turn up the lights going up. Why can't we all.

[Jamie Loftus]

Take it too.

[Grant Crater]

Far and give me one moment. 16 minutes 16 minutes. 16 minutes.

[Jamie Loftus]

1 Mom welcome back to 16th Minute, the podcast where we take a look back at the main characters of the Internet to see how their moment in the spotlight affected them and what that says about us and the Internet. I'm your host Jamie Loftus. And to round out our first year of 16th minute, where we've talked about a new Internet character of the day every week, I wanted to revisit an artist of the early Internet who was and is one of my favorites. The one and only Weeble or English animator Jonty, picking the mind behind some of the Internet's most enduring flash animation classics and an artist whose work encapsulated feeling like your favorite Internet cartoon was the best kept secret in the world. And yes, of course we spoke to the man himself. What do you take me for? This video first became popular when I was in late elementary, early middle school, and was as popular as an online video could be with a fifth grader at this time. So yeah, of course it could be seen as a little bit annoying, but that was so much of the early Internet, right? And I say that with love. Randomhumor is always going to be popular with the middle school set, but RandomHumor was kind of popular with everyone around the time of this video's release. At least everyone who would dare step foot in a Hot Topic at the mall. And I'm not pulling from anything scientific here, but during the Bush into the Obama years, there was this strain of comedy among Gen X and millennials that would rightfully come to be considered cringe. It's parodied quite a bit. So I just did a thing. And what intonation could that be, ye might ask? I bought pumpkin chocolate chip muffins in true Hufflepuff fashion. But cringe is not exclusive to any particular generation. Gen Z is slowly learning that their brand of random humor by way of nihilism is going to be considered cringe by younger people as well as even Gen Alpha who will one day have to answer for Skibidi toilet. I do kind of like to think that there will be a Jamie coded gen alpha 30 year old one day intellectualizing skibidi toilet. And I bet they'll be great at it. The point is that no one is immune here. Even Gen X's most famous comedic legacy, down to the little voices that tend to appear in all of these videos, started as one of the first viral videos ever in the early 90s, South Park's Jesus versus Santa. You know, I don't think that was the real Santa Claus.

[Grant Crater]

Oh no, Sherlock.

[Jamie Loftus]

Yes. South park began as a popular video E card before moving to TV on Comedy Central. So while I know that every generation thinks that they were the one to invent random humor that appeals to 12 year olds, this goes back to your parents. And we're going to jump into this story, the story of John T. Picking as a 20 something year old English tech guy with a lot of weird energy and experimentation bouncing around in the early 2000s. In just a moment. But before we do, Jonty's deserved success needs a bit of grounding, a bit of new grounding, one might even say in 2000's Internet culture and the way that home computing democratized extremely silly art and building up skills in enthusiasts who would use the Internet to become artists in their own right. So come with me if you dare, to the early 2000s Internet by 2003, the increase in Internet use in people's homes continued to rise in the US reaching 60% of households according to the Census bureau, doubling from less than 10 years before. This was the year that my Neopets account was hacked and all 1 million of my Neo points were stolen, leading me to leave the website only to return when my dad died. And Now I have 17 million NeoPoints. I'm talking 2003. The Internet of Loud primary colors, of dial up tones and buffering, of defragmenting a desktop every two weeks in the hopes that your mom wouldn't ban you from Neopets because it was allegedly breaking the computer. And as that Internet access continued to grow as these massive machines migrated into homes and libraries and schools, it really was Peanut Butter Jelly time.

[Jonty Picking]

Peanut Butter Jelly time.

[Jamie Loftus]

On the dial up Internet it would be completely impossible to cover all of the sites and programs that defined this era. So the things I'm going to focus on here that had a hand not only in jaunty picking Weeble's success, but also with much of the Flash animation generational standbys we still talk about, is Flash animation itself and the website Newgrounds. Okay grandma, go to bed. No, it's time to talk about Flash Animation. Flash animation was a program that became extremely popular in the mid to late 1990s and was this consumer software that made it possible for at home users to create their own amateurish animation in a very particular style, very flat, but more fluid than illustrating frames by hand. The esthetic was high contrast bright, often with noticeably bad audio if you made it at home, because there wasn't really a consumer equivalent of audio equipment at this time. And while software made it much easier to create low budget animation at home than it once did, it was mainly used in TV in these early years. Some notable early examples were on shows like Ren and Stimpy, the Powerpuff Girls, Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, and later on shows like My Little Friendship is Magic and Smiling Friends. These shows all share common aesthetics, if not common character design itself. They were clearly digitally animated and usually brightly colored, but Flash wouldn't really break through to the everyday Internet user until a few years later, largely in part because the general online streaming speed wasn't fast enough to load these kinds of animation without significant difficulty. Sidebar but important Flash animation also needed the aesthetic of the Internet to catch up to its aesthetic, something that was largely assisted by the introduction of the looping GIF. I'm not saying GIF, sorry. In 1995, where the Internet mainly consisted of text. Prior to that time, kind of this big digital book. Particularly when it came to self generated websites and blogs, the wide dissemination of GIFs made it possible for everyday people to add little looping animations to their sites. Think virtually every Angelfire fan site lurking in the back of your mind. Think of and maybe I'm dating myself here, and I know I am those blingy online paper dolls where you could make your little Bratz looking doll sparkle on an eternity loop. Peanut Butter Jelly Time Peanut Butter Jelly Time literally is just a looping GIF of a dancing banana accompanied by Music. In 2020, Flash animation plugins were discontinued to the dismay of many early Internet natives, even if the slow fade of the technology kind of made sense. But in the early 2000s into the 2010s, Flash was king and was both a major generator of culture for kids and launched a lot of careers for animators that may not have had access to the big studio studios or the ability to make their own work without this tool. Which brings us to the Big Daddy Big Daddy of Flash animation, one that took advantage of increasing Internet speeds and, however unintentionally, had a hand in curating how animation online is upvoted and curated today. New Ground if you were on the Internet when cartoons like badgers were spreading like wildfire and sending parents into constant, constant spirals of you're putting viruses on the computer, you had a very specific attachment to a very specific piece of Flash animation. For me, obviously it's badgers and it's my podcast, so we're talking about that. But maybe for you it was salad fingers.

[Grant Crater]

Hello.

[Jamie Loftus]

I like rusty spoons. I like to touch them. Or statistically, if you're any man I've dated in my entire life, it is certainly home Star Runner, a wagon full.

[Jonty Picking]

Of pancakes in the championship. I'd like to see a Choi.

[Jamie Loftus]

I'm serious. My fiance is the smartest person that I know, and yet he was born in 1995. And therefore, if Homestar Runner comes up, he instantly becomes the most annoying person I've ever met. Okay, Grant.

[Lowe's Advertiser]

Yes.

[Jamie Loftus]

I'm gonna give you 15 seconds to explain the appeal of Homestar Runner. You ready?

[Lowe's Advertiser]

Yes.

[Jamie Loftus]

Okay. Three, two, one.

[Lowe's Advertiser]

It felt like a secret, like you had to find it out from a friend on the playground. And it had the humor of sort of witty, Simpson esque writing, but it felt accessible and you could actually write into it. It was interactive. It was an early proto interactive.

[Jamie Loftus]

I really thought you were going to do the voice. I'll give you a bonus 5 seconds.

[Jonty Picking]

An extra 5 seconds to do the strong bad voice.

[Jamie Loftus]

I'll take it every time.

[Jonty Picking]

Oh, geez. Thanks.

[Lowe's Advertiser]

Buenos.

[Jamie Loftus]

Nope. You're done. You're done, you're done.

[Lowe's Advertiser]

Hold on. They gotta do a better home start. I gotta do a better home start.

[Jamie Loftus]

Two seconds by four seconds. Whoa.

[Jonty Picking]

60.

[Lowe's Advertiser]

Come on.

[Jamie Loftus]

Another element I've noticed is that original music is a big part of what separated the flash animation wheat from the chaff here. And Badgers is a great example of that, because, as we'll talk about, Jonty Picking was a musician first and animator second, a quality that he was not alone in. David Firth, the creator of Salad Fingers, was also a musician first, as was Neil Cicierega of Potter Puppet Pals fame. And the marriage of a distinct online visual with music makes a lot of difference, especially the further back you go. But flash animation wasn't limited to these short narrative cartoons. It was also games. There is just as much of a culture around young game developers making early experimental or silly work in flash and gaming as there are in narrative animators. Okay. This is becoming a young millennial indoor kid circle jerk. So if you exist outside of those bounds, I'm gonna try to calcify the appeal of this style of animation. It was funny, sure, but Internet animation was funny in a different way than what you enjoyed on tv. It's like Grant was saying in his impassioned endorsement of Homestar Runner, a lot of Internet culture still felt like a secret to a lot of kids at this time. And while things like badgers would become hugely successful, it wasn't the kind of hugely successful that your parents would immediately understand the reference to. And this feeling of secrecy and exclusivity has carried on into the animation culture that exists online in the last 10 years, even as the popularity of online animation has waned. I am literally living proof of this. It was this generation of animators that later motivated me to make my own jolty absurdist cartoons. Hi, I'm Officer Crimes. And I'm Officer get on the ground. And we are the Boston PD Zamboni Crimes Division. That joint is called Boston PD Zamboni Crimes Division. Link in description unless you're scared. And animators like Jonty Picking and other early pioneers like my personal favorites Brad Neely and Amy Winfrey of Making Fiends, really did create a pathway for a lot of what would inform the next generation of animated entertainment. But I'm not saying that the existence of Flash animation meant there were absolutely no barriers to who could make something special online, because you'll notice that most of the people I've cited, including John T. Picking himself, were at the time they became famous young white men who came from at least middle class backgrounds. And while the Internet has obviously become more widely available over the years, early adaptation to home computing was largely informed by class, meaning that financially privileged, disproportionately white families were the first to get the big monstrous gateways in their homes. And add that to the highly gendered way in which tech jobs are still viewed with as recently as three years ago, over 90% of American software developing jobs held by men and, you know, white patriarchy. It even affects Badger, Badger, Mushroom. In the early 2000s, most Flash animators would have to lure viewers to their personal websites time and time again to maintain viewership, because There was no YouTube yet, there was no buzzfeed clickbait culture, there were no automated feeds, there were just shared links on blogs and very little else in terms of pulling a random middle schooler into your artistic vision, which is where the website Newgrounds comes in. And for the purposes of this story, two of the most successful forums, slash, video sharing, slash, have you seen this one? Prototypical sites that would eventually give way to sites like Reddit. Newgrounds was the big one, although there were many imitators, and successful ones at that. You might remember names like Albino, Black sheep, ebaum's world, smosh.com, to name a few. But it seems pretty commonly decided upon by Internet historians that Newgrounds was where most now iconic Flash Animation originally found its footing. I only ever knew Newgrounds as a website prior to researching this episode, but it turns out that it's easy. Even more of a Gen X endeavor than I ever realized, because Newgrounds actually began all the way back in the early 1990s as a physical fanzine for something called Neogeo that I've never heard of. But it was founded by a then 13 year old boy named Tom Fulp, who eventually converted the zine into a website in 1995. But as time went on, what made Newground special was that their greatest successes were both user generated and originally hand curated by Tom Fulp and his brother. The site started taking off in the late 90s into the early 2000s with Tom expanding from his own fan cartoons into originally submission based content that ended up costing the then college student upwards of of $1,000 a month to continue hosting. He shockingly managed to break even as the site grew more popular by selling old school banner ads, but the cartoon violence that was all but inherent to this era of flash animation.

[Grant Crater]

Charlie?

[Coca-Cola Advertiser]

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[Podcast Announcer]

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[Jamie Loftus]

Would sometimes make it difficult to sell said ads, but like so many sites before and since, Newgrounds both lost money and became really popular at the same time. This was still very much the era of being paid in exposure, being paid in, just happy to be here. An era that the Internet will never give up on. But like most sites with generational pull, Newgrounds didn't last forever in terms of cultural pull, nor did flash animation. But their legacy is genuinely important to some of the most successful platforms today. There's no doubt that early YouTube and other user uploaded sites. The same sites that alternatively turn people into fascists and create compelling six hour video essays about video games I've never heard of were taking cues from the community building and viral techniques that came together on sites like Newgrounds. Just before Newgrounds and all of its imitators became the western middle schoolers de facto destination for annoying cartoons to talk loudly about. In algebra class, a star was born and he had a really fun character design for a dancing badger. Okay class, when we come back we're talking jaunty picking.

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[Jamie Loftus]

Welcome back to 16th minute, the show where we compare the Badger Badger Mushroom video to the invention of penicillin. Happy to have you here. And now that you're fully thrown back or caught up on the state of flash animation in the early 2000s, we can jump into the story of one jaunty picking, aka Mr. Weeble, aka the Badger Badger Mushroom Guy. But make no mistake, that was far from his earliest hit. Like I mentioned earlier, a lot of his independent work would continue to blow up once it was re uploaded onto more curated sites like Newgrounds and Ebaum's World and eventually Reddit years after their original publishing, and then would blow up again when they were re uploaded to YouTube, where Jonty Picking's new work still ends up being today. So who is this guy? Johnty was born in 1975 in what he describes as a very boring suburb in South Yorkshire, England, and was a kid who was really into both music and technology, both of which would go on to heavily inform his work. I'll let him tell you more in the interview, but at the time he began experimenting on flash animation, Jyti was working primarily as a sound engineer in his early to mid-20s, and he would actually go on to work in visual effects on the Resident evil movie in 2003, same year as Badgers. Big year for Jonty. But in his 20s, in the late 90s, Jonty was a multi hyphenate with too many passions to fully throw himself into. He really loved music and sound design, but he also really loved messing around with animated visuals. And in a skill I am so envious of, he had both a great sense of humor and the ability to solve artistic problems with incredible scientific precision. And it was from a technical problem he was having at work while working in digital media that we got Jonty's first successful animated hit, a series called Weeble and Bob. There they are, the little voices again. Weeble and Bob was a series of simply animated cartoons by Jonty following the titular characters who are literally wobbling talking eggs yapping against a hot pink background every single time. The bigger egg, Weeble Bull, is obsessed with pie and his best friend, the smaller egg ball, Bob Bobertson Random Alert is his best friend, who also loves pie. This is a clip from the first Weeble and Bob short from the early 2000s, simply titled Pieces. It's set against that bright magenta background, and we see both eggs rocking gently back and forth and chatting unintelligibly. If you recognize the voice, it's because both of these eggs are voiced by John De Picking, who also voices the badger video. And the only way you ever really know what Weebl or Bob is saying is by reason creating the captioned speech bubbles that come out of them. The Weeple and Bob shorts were very lo fi, partially because Jonty was learning how to animate, and because the more lo fi the cartoons he was making, the easier he found it was for them to stream on an Internet with a much slower speed than today. And the easier a short was to stream, the more people could see it. And this experiment very much worked. Weeble and Bob were so successful in this early iteration that it eventually expanded into over 120 episodes of the show in the same short, simply animated format that is scored with Jonty's voice and music. It was so successful, in fact, that Weebil and Bob made it to mainstream television. And keep in mind, this was really early in in the process of major TV networks attempting to understand the Internet. And it would be years before the Internet was written for TV by people who had an intimate understanding of it. But when Weeble and Bob was put onto MTV UK in the early 2000s, the suits were at least paying attention to what the kids were watching, and they had the good sense to not just try to replicate it. Instead. Instead, they hired the guy that was making it. There was a stretch of six exclusively televised Weeble and Bob shorts on MTV UK that were met with positive reception. And this increased attention and financial flow meant that Jonty was able to experiment with his work using other animated concepts online when the MTV deal made it possible for him to leave his day job. And it was this that led to his Grand Opus on September 2, 2003. You know what I'm talking about. An animation with badgers appearing in a meadow, dancing identically in perfect harmony, with one more badger appearing slightly further away with each subsequent pronouncement of the species. And then we go to a bright red cartoon mushroom with a push zoom for every repetition of the phrase. And just when you thought it would go on that way forever, a danger is presented. A bright green cartoon snake presenting a danger to our badger. And probably not the mushroom. Do badgers eat mushrooms? I don't know. But while the snake is presented visually and orally as a sense of existential danger, nothing ever happens to the badger because as soon as we see the snake, the animation just loops back to the beginning. And long before YouTube hits, the Badgers became big, slowly growing their and jonty Mr. Weeble's audience to a level of public recognition that was so popular that his body of work won a UK People's Choice Awards in early 2005. The inspiration for this short, according to Jonty, was pulled from a novelty track that was popular in the UK during his childhood, a song called Saturday Night by Wigfeld, and specifically a very particular element of that song and see if you can spot it here is how the song starts. It was not clear to me immediately either, but the little repeating thing you hear in this song is a duck sound, one that apparently inspired John D. Picking to do something equally loopy and looped and silly. So from the duck sound in Saturday Night we get Art is great. And the benefit for viewers of Jaunty's first becoming successful with Badger's pre newgrounds is that he had already made follow ups in response to the cartoon's success. Meaning that by the time I saw badgers on Newgrounds, there was already a lot more to watch in this universe. And all of the follow ups to Badgers hit these very of the moment cultural touch points including themes like zombies or Santa. This I think was my favorite one as a kid. So I do want to include what went in the place of the snake. That's funny, you're laughing. And in a relatively short amount of time the animations became beloved, particularly in the UK at first, where Weebl and Bob were already popular by being seen on MTV. In 2004 Jonty released a soccer football, I don't care what you call it, both countries suck themed version of the Badgers video for the 2004 FIFA tournament. What made this format so sticky was its simplicity. While remaining very distinct in both look and sound, it was absolute drugs for middle schoolers and went on to experience many subsequent lives on Newgrounds. Albino, black sheep, ebaum's world and YouTube. Badgers is Internet canon, but like many animators of this time, this only empowered Jaunty Picking to continue exploring his ideas through one off flash animations with weird concepts. Stuff like narwhals, narwhals, narwhals swimming in.

[Jonty Picking]

The ocean causing a commotion cause they.

[Jamie Loftus]

Are so awesome like amazing horse, look.

[Discover Advertiser]

At my horse My horse is amazing.

[Jonty Picking]

Give it a lick.

[Jamie Loftus]

Or like Jonty's personal favorite in his catalog, a cartoon called A Walk in the woods, which is both very beautiful and also 90% cartoon animals shitting so hard that they fly. And while some of Jonty's work could get violent or sexual, his work isn't characterized by these qualities in a way that much. Early Flash animation was I'm gonna cut your throat open and use your blood syrup on my pancakes. Yay. Jonty or Mr. Weeble's work was musical and silly first, and so even when it did fall into violence or sex, it was never defined by shock. And again, so much of what makes his work special is that Jonty composed all of the music, and he's continued to release music on his own. He's been releasing full versions of his original songs and more on Bandcamp since at least 2010, and transitioned into making full albums of just music independent of his work in animation starting in 2014. His current band, Savlonic, is his most music forward blend of music and animation to date. It's mainly jaunty, but the animated band is composed of virtual members similar to Gorillaz.

[Jonty Picking]

I stole your keys because you stole my heart it seems like a fair trade to me Now I will drive around in your car it helps me.

[Jamie Loftus]

To feel free but as you can hear, the animation and a lot of the voice and instrumentation is still very much jaunty. As well as some of his most common collaborators, as of this writing, Savlonic has released two cover albums and four full albums. I'll let him tell you more about it in the interview, but the work itself is synthy and really cool. This is from their most recent album. Jonty remained a creature of the Internet post Badgers after emerging from a generation of online animators that I would say split the difference in terms of pursuing mainstream success in traditional animated media versus maintaining increased creative freedom for their audience on the Internet. And in Jonty's case, we are richer for the fact that he stayed online. Because while he's never pigeonholed himself as particularly fixated on any one project, he's also never resisted the positive legacy that projects like Badgers and Weeble and Bob have associated him with. Which maybe brings me to the weirdest offshoot of Badgers that exists from 10 full years after its release. Listen to this.

[Podcast Announcer]

Oh no.

[Jamie Loftus]

Now if you're thinking, wait, why did the introduction to that Badgers video sound like Queen? Well, that is Brian May of Queen who reached out to jonty picking in 2013, asking to help him preserve actual English badgers, real badgers, as a part of his conservation work. And so what you're hearing at the beginning there, in a beautiful twist of fate, is a song from Queen called Flash. Brian May said of the project at the time of the release, the British.

[Lowe's Advertiser]

People are speaking in their many thousands and yet the government is refusing to listen. We thank them for buying this track and giving the badgers a voice. Let's get this to number one so David Cameron cannot avoid it. The call is unscientific, unethical and won't work. The government is set to murder 5,000 badgers and yet all the peer reviewed scientific evidence shows that the answer to the problem of bovine TB in cattle does not lie in this slaughter, and that this action will be ineffective and potentially damaging to the welfare of both farm animals and wildlife.

[Jamie Loftus]

And so the badger became politicized to the point where this song titled Save the Badger Badger Badger literally played in the House of Lords in protest to the David Cameron backed proposal to exterminate real life badgers far beyond any ethical limit. And the intention of the song is to prevent their slaughter. Jonty Picking said this in a 2014 interview on how the project came together.

[Lowe's Advertiser]

The new version was based on the soundtrack to Flash Gordon written by Queen and Brian May. He asked me what we could do to make something together featuring my badgers and that was the first thought in my head. I love Flash Gordon. I did a rough remix using my track and samples and sang the new lyrics I'd come up with in a Queen style.

[Jamie Loftus]

And sure I'll risk a copyright strike to share Brian May Shred because it's Brian May shredding for Christ's sake. Here it is. The video ends on a screen that says Be the mushroom, stop the call and the song ended up charting on the UK charts peaking at number 79. And by this time this was a 10 year old meme and a very niche political issue. Badgers had reach and meaning and while I couldn't possibly reign all of the influence of Jonty Picking's work in the space of a single episode, I do think this is a really cool example of how much it really meant to people and the rest of the story. I'll let him tell you himself, he is incredibly funny and still innovating in the animation and music space to this day. Now a married dad of two pre teens and as you'll hear he is incredibly patient with an interviewer that has active bronchitis. When we come back my interview with Jaunty picking.

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[Coca-Cola Advertiser]

You ever looked around at your crew and thought, man, these are my people? The ones who turn the smallest moments into memories? You'll be talking about for years the folks who show up when you need them and make your life so much better. Well, now you can make those moments even sweeter because Shera Coke is back. And this time, it's all about celebrating friendships. Whether you're hanging out, watching the game, or just chopping it up. There's a Coke for everyone from bestie and bro to classic names like David and Sarah. These special cans and bottles are made for your whole squad, so grab one, crack it open and toast to the people who make life worth celebrating. But don't wait. They won't be around forever. So grab one for everybody, pop the top shop and keep the good vibes flowing. Next time you're making memories, don't miss your chance to share a Coke with all your favorite people.

[Jamie Loftus]

Welcome back to 16th minute. I just got back from visiting my nephew and all he watched was Blue's Clues and it sent me into a death spiral of listening to every interview on the face of the earth that's available with any of the hosts of Blues Clues in order to compare their general vibes and relationship to the blue screen. And they're my friends and I love them. Anyways, my interview with the wonderful Jaunty picking is up next. But a quick note at the top. My voice sounds very bad in this interview. I am aware of that. There is no need to contact me about this. This interview was recorded back in January 2025, shortly after the Los Angeles fires had happened, which while I was very fortunate to not be affected by. And you can listen to our episode about relief efforts that came out at the time. But I did have bronchitis and ended up leaving town because I couldn't breathe well. And these are the circumstances the interview was conducted in. So leave me alone and please enjoy this interview with the lovely Jonty. Picking.

[Jonty Picking]

I know it is actually pressure because loads of people call me Weeble or Mr. Weeble, which was a terrible choice of name, by the way. Never do that. Some people call me John T. Some people call me Jonathan, but usually only if I've been very bad. I'd make cartoons and music on the Internet mainly, but every now and again, not on the Internet just to mix things up. Yeah, I like to keep it interesting.

[Grant Crater]

You know, you do go by many names. Are you. Are you sick of Weeble? Is that what I'm picking up on?

[Jonty Picking]

I'm sick of the fact that I chose a word that's not spelled how you assume it would be spelled. No, it was a terrible choice of name. Oh, what's your website and you go, it's Mr. It's. We pull without an e at the end and then there's like a hyphen and then stuff. Yes, like the word stuff dot com. So you'd be like that all the time.

[Grant Crater]

Like that's a lot of early Internet mistakes. Is a name that looks funny but is impossible to say out loud. Yeah, I've had my share of like. Well it's funny to me but it's humiliating to have to spell out for others. There's. Tell me a little bit about. To the extent that you're comfortable, how you grew up, where you grew up. What kind of kid were you?

[Jonty Picking]

I grew up in the north of England in South Yorkshire, which is a. You know, in the north, in the south of the north, but in the north in Yorkshire, totally in Doncaster which is. Was a mining town. God knows what they're up to now. It's apparently very honest accents. I sound, I sound real trustworthy, me. But that's where I grew up in like the 80s, really. Quite a depressing place if I'm honest. Me being me. Didn't really have much of a plan. Flailed around for many years doing music bits and bobs and eventually got into stuff via a music course. And then company in London took notice of what I was doing, flash and hired me. And that was my life, I think three years.

[Grant Crater]

So I. I know that like music and animation, it sounds like they've all sort of like coexisted for you for so long.

[Jonty Picking]

Yeah.

[Grant Crater]

When you were a kid and like figuring out what you liked. Like was it one particular thing that you're like, oh, this is my thing. And then more things came later.

[Jonty Picking]

It was always a mix of like art and music, if I'm honest. I had the Commodore 64 which had like this weird one and a half octave plasticky overlay on the keyboard. It's awful. And it's two second sampler. I love the music of the Commodore 64 and that kind of electronic music was what I listened to. Not of like the prog rock or anything. I was very much into synth synths of fantastic. Love them new noises all the time. It's like, oh, this is great.

[Grant Crater]

That's a very particular kind of 80s kid. I love that.

[Jonty Picking]

Like when synthwave happened I was like, whoa, wait a minute, this is my shine.

[Grant Crater]

What were your like early experiences with the Internet? Do you have like memories of like, oh, this was like a website or a creator online that I really liked at the beginning. I'm Curious who. Who you were into or what you were into when you started making your own stuff.

[Jonty Picking]

I was on aol, You've Got Mail, all that business. Terrible. Quite text heavy back then. Obviously you couldn't really have it. And then Flash came along and things started picking up. I ended up on new grounds, like looking through that, I think.

[Grant Crater]

Yes.

[Jonty Picking]

Like the Britney Spears Monster Truck Jump challenge or something. It was a different time. It was quite violent and very edgy. The random movie, which was a Flash thing. I love that. It kind of opened my eyes and I started. Well, I was messing around in flash, obviously, for work. So I started doing animations more as a sort of technical thing, like, what can I do? And have it straight away on like a 56k modem. And I think that was a lot of it. And the loops came around that way as well because just keeping file sizes down really is kind of just more problem solving. Oh, this is good animation.

[Grant Crater]

Whoa, wait, that's. That's really interesting. I didn't know that. Yeah. That you were. So it was sort of like as an experiment to see, like what. How much you could get away with on a certain modem. Were you working a day job throughout all of the early cartoons?

[Jonty Picking]

Yeah. And then I work in the evening doing my own stuff. Then one day out of the blue, MTV phoned up and said, do you want a series on UK mtv? Not, you know, fancy mtv. Yeah. So they got me in to do that and then I quit my job and took a chance on doing this Friday. I think it was a year to make it something like that.

[Grant Crater]

What project specifically was it like Weeble. Was it Weeble and Bob?

[Jonty Picking]

Bob, yeah.

[Grant Crater]

I have such a hard time explaining new grounds to someone who was not there to experience it. Can you help me?

[Jonty Picking]

It was. A lot of people could get pirated copies of Flash is what it breaks down to. So teenage boys in their bedrooms were playing around, as teenage boys do, and I count myself among them. Even though I was much older than in my teens, probably. I'd. So madness happened. And you'd see just the weirdest stuff. It's very hard to describe. You've put me on the spot. Haven't you seen my head? But trying to put it into words is surprisingly difficult because it was also.

[Grant Crater]

Like you're saying, really, really edgy humor sometimes. Like the cartoon violence, especially cartoon violence in Flash.

[Jonty Picking]

Yeah.

[Grant Crater]

I think it's always very funny and never very scary, which is great, I guess. I want to talk a little bit about Weebly Bob, because that comes Before Badger Mania, how do you come up with the idea for Weepling Bob?

[Jonty Picking]

You're gonna hate me.

[Grant Crater]

No, I like you so much. But don't worry about it.

[Jonty Picking]

It was a technical challenge.

[Grant Crater]

Oh, really?

[Jonty Picking]

They were very simple shapes. I'd figured out that processors were very, very poor back then. Like you could. And you didn't really have fancy graphic cards either. It was all done with the CPU. So shapes, I think I used about 4 points for each shape of the bodies. And then the eyes are like two, possibly. It was made to be as simple as possible. And the only reason they actually spoke was because Rob Manuel and Peter said, I think they should actually speak. Which really annoyed me at the time. But I accepted his sage advice.

[Grant Crater]

What was the experiment for? Was it like another web design experiment or.

[Jonty Picking]

Yeah, it was. Can I make this playback smoothly with the very most file size for literally as many people as possible?

[Grant Crater]

And so how. How long were you making Weeble and Bobby? It started online and then it went to mtv. What was that process? Was there a big change in process when you took it to tv?

[Jonty Picking]

The only real problem was exporting them in a TV friendly video format, which turned out surprisingly tricky. So if you ever saw the Monkey Song on mtv, all the frames were all over the shop. It was. It was awful. And I said, please let me fix it. And they went, no, that's how it is now.

[Grant Crater]

Suck it up from. Or maybe during Weeble and Bob. Badgers happens. The world changes forever. 2003, big year for me because badgers came out and so did School of Rock. And these were transformative pieces of art for me personally. Take me through your process. Where does badgers come from?

[Jonty Picking]

Okay, so there's a song called the Riddle, I think by, I'm going to say Nick Kershaw. However, there were a couple of Nicks around at that time, so it's hard to say 100%. Everyone's like, oh, what's it mean? And it turned out that it had no meaning. It was all just placeholder words. And they went, yeah, that'll do. So I kind of had that going on with the lyric side of Badges. But in the sort of musical side of things, I've become obsessed. The tune will get people's attention because of the Wakefield theory, which. Do you remember Saturday night? Maybe it wasn't big in the U.S.

[Grant Crater]

I don't, I. I don't know if he knows.

[Jonty Picking]

Like the way you move. There's a duck quacking all the way through it. I swear to God. So bad. Just has an annoying squeak all the way through it. So I paired that mess and badgers happened and, you know, the rest is history. And people are like, I love how people love to apply meaning to nonsense. It's intrigued me for years. So I kind of abused that a bit, really. I like to just be very vague.

[Grant Crater]

When badgers started to really, like, explode, I mean, how does that feel as, like, an artist? Does it feel like, oh, cool? Like, there's this validation. Is there pressure to make more? Like, how do you. Yeah. What was that like when it first happened?

[Jonty Picking]

Was cool. It was very cool. I remember I'd gone away for the weekend, so I wasn't near the Internet because I don't think Wi fi was widely popular. And I got back and I think it was like 50,000 views, which at the time was huge for me. And then it just kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger. It was appearing everywhere. It's like, wow, what is going on? And I think at that point, my website costs just got ridiculous, that hosting. Yeah. We were on Fancy Hosts. I can't remember when we managed to get adverts on the website, but for a while there was nothing and I had no idea of how to monetize anything. So I'm just like, here, Here you go.

[Grant Crater]

Wow. Okay. So, yeah, I mean, how. How did you manage to adjust that so that you could make a living? I was always so curious, like, was it possible to do full time? I know now that it was, but, like, yeah, how did you make that work?

[Jonty Picking]

There are a lot more sensible people with business minds who I hung around with on the Internet. And again, it was a lot easier to collaborate with people in many different ways. And one guy I knew knew another guy and he was in advertising. What he said was, I'll set up an ad company online and we'll get you sort of. He would go off and do deals and all that sort of thing and find the banner ads. This was pre Adsense as well. It was all very new and exciting and odd. Very, like, tied to the website. Adverts would happen. So it was kind of fun. I was all for it.

[Grant Crater]

So as this video takes off, you do a series of them. It was also featured during a football championship. Is that true?

[Jonty Picking]

Yes. Fans were singing it wild. Yeah, it was crazy. But there was a lot of good vibes in the country at that point. I'm not deeply into football at all, but that one got me. I seem to remember.

[Grant Crater]

I'm always curious when it's like, oh, you became the badgers Guy. Right. Did that sit well with you? Were you like, oh, I want. I better make something else so I don't become the badgers guy. Like, how did you, you know, like, creatively think about that?

[Jonty Picking]

I never really thought of that at all because I'd always be. I'd always been making other stuff as it went along anyway. So I was always think, I do Weeble and Barb. I do Badges do. It never really occurred. Now it's very clear that badgers is the one that everyone remembers. But I never really thought of myself as the badgers guy until later on, really. I'm not really sure I do now, to be honest. Maybe it doesn't sit well with me. Maybe this is what we can take from this. I don't want to be. It's like Bart Simpson in that episode, and, you know, he's just got to do your catchphrase. I've always hated sort of catchphrase humor. And yet here we are.

[Grant Crater]

Well, but it's. I want to talk about. You have built out, like, an expanded universe of characters and works like before and since. What is your favorite series of animations that you've made?

[Jonty Picking]

Series or.

[Grant Crater]

I mean, it doesn't have to be serious.

[Jonty Picking]

I think my favorite 2D animation if, like, looking that way, probably be the walk in the woods one, just because it moves me so much to do. What if this happens and the bunny would come in and then it pooped its way off screen and that was going to be the end? But then I thought to myself, well, what if it isn't the end? So I had. I had. I had a really good time making it. So maybe that's part of why it's one of my favorites. I think it came out pretty well.

[Grant Crater]

Yeah.

[Jonty Picking]

There's only a few things I really want to change, which is it's pretty good for me.

[Grant Crater]

You started your own production company. Is. Does that change the way you work? Does it just expand it? Are you a boss now? Like, how does that work?

[Jonty Picking]

I've always been a boss now, so it's kind of. It's just a comfortable space, really, I guess, where someone else deals with the business side of things and keeps me under control, which is fantastic because I need that. My partner also joins in with writing and stuff. It's very much a partnership now, and I love it to bits. I'd love to do stuff external as well. I'd love to be a director on something and just be around people. Every now and again would be nice. 20 years in a room is Quite a lot.

[Grant Crater]

How is making stuff now for the Internet different than it was when you started?

[Jonty Picking]

It's much harder to get noticed, I would say, for everyone. And just because there was less people making stuff initially, I would say, and now it's very easy, which is great in many ways. The algorithmic changes, you could talk about those endlessly. And whether that's interesting or. I don't know, the whole tailored search thing is a huge bugbear of mine. Like, there's not much natural growth of things anymore, I would say. But maybe I'm just doing it wrong. Maybe I'm an old guy in his ways who I can't really see the future anymore. My favorite thing, though, is just I love. I love problem solving. I love puzzles. So changing with the software and that sort of side of things, it has been fantastic. I've taught myself Blender now, and I'm loving that sort of the creative tools that we have at our fingertips now, like from where we were with Flash, which was okay, I guess at times he served a purpose. But now we can just do, oh, I want to do this, and you can do it. Madness that. That's where we're at.

[Grant Crater]

You started doing this because you wanted to problem solve something. So of course you've grown with the times.

[Jonty Picking]

Yeah, I like surreality because life is surreal and I just kind of look at things and go, oh, I'm now going to poorly explain this part of life.

[Grant Crater]

Is there anything that you haven't done? Are there characters that you're like, oh. Or just even concepts you've wanted to get off the ground for years? And it's like, someday. Someday.

[Jonty Picking]

Yeah. This is part of why I've been teaching myself Blender. There's two things I want to do. I'm kind of obsessed with these ideas. I realized that asking 2D animators to do what I wanted to do was just not fair on anyone. The other thing is I want to do a 3D stage show for Savlonic with the sort of Pepper's Ghost thing. So I've been working towards that, like, trying to do live motion capturing, all DIY and indie. I'm getting there, but it's a slow road.

[Grant Crater]

That's so cool. I wanted to ask you more about Savonic because I feel like that's like, your, you know, music first project. And I know you've released other stuff over the years, but how did that come together? When. When was it, like, the right time to start that project?

[Jonty Picking]

I think it was the first one was 2008, that it was meant to be a parody back then. So the original songs are very silly. And over the years, they've. They've grown up, really. And I think when we finished this album, we all kind of looked at each of them was like, this is a proper, grown up, adult album now. Feels good. But I do about the Internet as well as, like, the fact that we've been given the room to, like, change from a silly band doing almost parodies to whatever they are now. Yeah. All because all these things are on the Internet. To let people do this, it wouldn't have been possible. Like, it's fantastic. Like, whenever I'm down on myself, I'm just like, you know, I'm very lucky, really. I've got all this stuff.

[Grant Crater]

I wanted to touch on this just because it is, like, such a. A weird, fun thing in your. In your catalog. Bring it. Bringing it back to badgers for a second. I do want to talk about Save the badger. Badger, badger from 2013. What a singular. How did that come together?

[Jonty Picking]

Like, most things, it's just odd things happen and you kind of have to say, yes, I'll do that. That sounds ridiculous. I got a phone call from Brian May himself, and he's talking to someone about badgers, and they said, I'm paraphrasing a lot. You're the badger guy to talk to. Do you want to help me save badgers? And I've got. Of course, yes, I do. Well, I'd love to help out as well. What do you see me doing on it? I think was what he said. Well, you're Brian, mate. I assume you'll play guitar. He's like, yeah, okay.

[Grant Crater]

And play guitar. He did.

[Jonty Picking]

He did. He enjoyed it as well. He had a good time.

[Grant Crater]

It shreds. It's so good.

[Jonty Picking]

He's. He's quite a good guitar player, it turns out. But I got to play around with, like, the master tapes of Flash Gordon as well, which is my favorite film of all time, and I'm not joking is literally my favorite film of all time. So that was just magical for me.

[Grant Crater]

Oh. And then it seems like it was. It was received really well. It did exactly what he was hoping.

[Jonty Picking]

Just played in the House of Lords, which, again, is insane. What is going on? Life is ridiculous, and it's wonderful that this ridiculousness is being seen in ridiculous places.

[Grant Crater]

Has that changed the, like, way you've interacted with the Internet as having kids to use it?

[Jonty Picking]

I was very aware of what the Internet was like when they were growing up. For sure.

[Grant Crater]

Yeah.

[Jonty Picking]

They've been encouraged to stay away from social media sites but they're welcome to like chat to their friends and all that. And my daughter loves Pinterest. My son just loves gaming anyway, so it's not. He plays with his friends and they chat to each other so that it's quite a walled garden Internet that they're experiencing at the moment I think. I'd like to think so. Who knows what goes off really. But you know, I'd like to. They're very sensible, much more sensible than me, which is wonderful to see. I do remember my mum phoning me up once at work telling me she was very disappointed in me about one of my cartoons. They're quite religious, my parents.

[Grant Crater]

How did they. Well, that's actually, that's. I. That's a question I should have asked you is because you're, you know, like one of the first waves of this kind of like super absurd cartoons on the Internet. Yeah. How did your family receive that?

[Jonty Picking]

I've tried to just say to them, this isn't for you. Don't watch. Every now and again there'll be one. I can go, oh, you can watch this one. That's fine for you. But yeah, in general it's like it's not for you. Please don't watch. Is my main. Yeah, that's. That's what I'll say. And generally they don't watch. But my mum is quite proud of me. Like she'll tell her friend, oh, he does this.

[Grant Crater]

And I guess my last question, which kind of dovetails with talking about your kids relationship with the Internet. How has your relationship to both the like the Internet and the work you do, how is it changed? Like how is distributing art on the Internet changed for you?

[Jonty Picking]

I mean everything's become a lot more sort of homogenized really. So you don't have your work popping up on like Albino Black Sheep and E bombs and all that stuff. It's generally. It's on YouTube and that's where everyone goes. Or it's on Tick Tock and that's where everyone goes. I can't stand this vertical video from. But that's, you know, it drives. I've got someone who does it for me. They're doing really well. I have no idea how they're doing it or what they're doing. I don't want to know. I concentrate fully on the YouTubers. Like this is how I want my art to be seen. Thank you very much.

[Jamie Loftus]

Yes.

[Jonty Picking]

So I've become kind of knobby about that I spent ages with the Savlonic video just making the red, slightly less red, so it wouldn't look as pixelated on YouTube. But again, that's problem solving again, I guess. So it all comes back to, there's a problem, let's fix that.

[Grant Crater]

It's just different problems.

[Jonty Picking]

Yeah, always new problems. Always be scared. That's my motto.

[Jamie Loftus]

Thank you so, so much to John D. Picking, not just for his amazing work over the years, but for patiently tolerating my traumatized bronchitis voice. You can follow his work at the links in the description, and I really hope you do. Jonty is a breed of Internet artists that I worry that we won't get more of in a landscape that is increasingly driven by algorithms. And while there were certainly trends during this era of online video that we were talking about, today, there was also room for experimentation in a way that I find to be way more limited now. And this criticism scales out to mainstream media, too. So many experimental shows are being pushed out of production in favor of what is perceived as a sure thing with wide appeal. And when it comes to work that appeals to young people, that seems to mean a lot more emphasis on trend following than any incredible encouragement to experiment or try something weird and new. I really hope I'm wrong because I think every kid deserves their looping Jaunty picking badgers video. So jaunty picking, your time will never be over. But badgers, your 16th minute ends now. Okay, here's your moment of fun. Grant really in his element here, doing some strong bad impressions and giving me a headache. I can't tell you why, but that cartoon, it really makes me mad. Here it is.

[Podcast Announcer]

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[Jamie Loftus]

I don't know. I wouldn't watch it. 16th Minute is a production of Cool Zone Media and iHeartRadio. It is written, hosted and produced by me, Jamie Loftus. Our executive producers are Sophie Lichterman and Robert Evans. The amazing Ian Johnson is our supervising producer and our editor. Our theme song is by Sad13. Voice acting is from Grant Crater and Pet Shout outs to our dog producer, Anderson, My cats, Flea and Casper and my pet rock bird who will outlive us all. Bye.

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