Inanimate Insanity
 | |
| General information | |
|---|---|
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language | English |
| Created by | Adam Katz |
| Directed by | Adam Katz Brian Koch Justin Chapman |
| Original release period | April 1, 2011 – present |
| Latest episode | "Through No Choice of Your Own" October 12, 2024 |
| Number of seasons | 3 |
| Number of episodes | 56 |
| Genre | Comedy Adventure Fantasy Drama Suspense Competitional Plot |
| Channel link | AnimationEpic |
Inanimate Insanity, also abbreviated as II, is an American animated fantasy-comedy reality competition web series, created by Adam Katz and directed by the Core Three (composed of Katz, Brian Koch and Justin Chapman) which was released in 2011. It is the third known object show to be released on YouTube and it is officially the longest-running object show ever, with over 13 years in the air.
Originally animated on Anime Studio, it was directly inspired by Battle for Dream Island and started with MePhone4 inviting contestants from Inanimate Island to battle for one million dollars. II upgraded the trope of the competitional genre, with the introduction of plotlines of fantasy and suspense too, being one of the first plot object shows.
II has since been the catalyst for the start of the early Object Show Community with the releases of several object shows based on both BFDI and Inanimate Insanity, like Object Overload, Object Universe and many others. It also crossed the first object show several times through yearly events.
Development and production
It was the second object show to be released after the series premiere of Battle for Dream Island, "Take the Plunge". The origins of II originate in a school project from March 2011 called "The Coin Bros. - Korean Memorial", which was about the Korean War Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., and was the very first animation Adam Katz has ever made.[1] "The Stupid Trailer" was only uploaded on Katz's personal YouTube channel, DuncanEpic and would later upload a sneak peek.
The earliest Inanimate Insanity uploads were made on his animation-dedicated channel, named AnimationEpic, rather than his personal one, DuncanEpic. The animation for the first episodes were really lazy, with premade assets and weird mouth movements before slowly improving overtime. Anime Studio was the primary animation software Katz used until "The Tile Divide", where he switched to Adobe Animate, mixed with Moho Animation.[2] Around the same time, on April 4, the website inanimateinsanity.com was registered and changes were made throughout the years, even to this day.
On September 14, 2011, AnimationEpic was however hacked by Nate Groth, the first voice actor for Balloon, and ended up being fired. The consequence of this was that all episodes of the object show released at the time were deleted but were later recovered.[3]
With the release of "The Great Escape", the season turned to hiatus for summer 2012. The second part of "Journey Through Memory Lane" had to be delayed to December 8, 2012 and was the first time this ever happened. Later episodes of the later seasons experienced the same thing.[4]
On June 3, 2012, Adam Katz confirmed information about the second season coming out, in a video regarding the summer hiatus and the Inanimate Insanity T-shirt contest, where four entries for characters to are voted by the viewers join the second season after their creators won the contest. The winner was, of course, Yin-Yang. Other competitors that were confirmed were Baseball and Paintbrush, but Bomb and Taco were confirmed to not join the competition. On January 7, 2013, it was inferred that Soap was created by the phrase that "she has to have a clean design, but not look too generic and boring".[5] According to a Facebook post, it is alleged that Inanimate Insanity II was originally going to be called Inanimate Outrage.
Setting and premise
Characters
Contestants
Newcomers in II1
- Orange Juice
- Taco
- Paper
- Pickle
- Bow
- Apple
- Marshmallow
- Bomb
- Paintbrush
- Salt
- Lightbulb
- Pepper
- Balloon
- Nickel
- Knife
- Baseball
Newcomers in II2
Newcomers in Invitational
Contestants from Infinity
Hosts
Meeple
- Steve Cobs
- MePhone5
- MePhone5S
- MePhone5C
- MePhone6
- MePhone6+
- MePhone7
- MePhoneX
- Mecintosh
- MeBook
- MePhone3GS
- MePhone1
- MePhone3S
Other major characters
- Nick Le
- Santa Claus
- A.D.A.M.
- Tyler Bungard
- Pizza Cutter
- Milk
- Judge Gavel
- Rusty Jo
- Dagger
- Razor Blade
- Swiss Army Knife
- Hammer
- Baton
- Poker Chip
- Ballpoint Pen
Spoiled Lemon
Light Shimmers
Unvitational Committee
Crossover characters
Episodes
Season one (II1)
Season two (II2)
Beginning exactly 2 years and a day after its predecessor (April 2, 2013), Inanimate Insanity II started with 19 contestants (8 returning and 11 newbies, with Dough being 12 joining the competition after it began) and 8 others not competing (as well as 3 being missing). MePhone4 continued the style of co-hosts, initially with Toilet and then with MePad before usurpers like OJ, Taco and Steve Cobs joining in. Inanimate Insanity II is primarily a plot object show, proved by Cobs later became the main antagonist of the season. It is still ongoing, ending with Inanimate Insanity II: The Movie.
Season three (III)
Episode order and release schedule
Voice cast
Production crew
Typeface
Spinoffs
The Taco Show!
When the AnimationEpic YouTube channel was hacked, The Taco Show! was a spinoff that was also part of the deletion but was later recovered. Only 2 episodes exists. It was hosted by Taco and there was only 1 participant, Orange Juice.
Inanimate Battle
As a parody for Wuggolo's BFDI Battle video, Adam and a friend named Derek made a series of videos called Inanimate Battle, where random contestants would battle in real life still as inanimate objects. The spinoff was still hosted by MePhone4 and only had 3 non-canonical newcomers (Big Orange Spoon, Twinkie and Matza). Knife was the winner of every single episode of the spinoff.
Fan's Fantastic Features
Exit Interviews
Merchandise
Comics
Crossing with BFDI
Through episodes
Through crossing promotions
Through meetups and events
Reception
Critical reception
Ratings
See also
References
- ↑ Adamation: "The Coin Bros. - Korean Memorial"
- ↑ AnimationEpic: Behind The Scenes Animation Of Inanimate Insanity - Episode 9!
- ↑ AnimationEpic: Inanimate Insanity Experienced Some Trouble...
- ↑ AnimationEpic: Sorry
- ↑ Inanimate Insanity: https://www.facebook.com/inanimateinsanity/posts/509117405789705
