Dogs Playing Poker is an episodic cartoon about man's best friend that is smart, funny and family friendly. The show is presented in a Saturday-morning style format that combines the silliness of Looney Tunes, the intelligence of The Simpsons, and the cultural satire of Rocky and Bullwinkle. It is loved by children while still being highly entertaining to adults, even sleep deprived parents!
Every episode revolves around the friendship of 3 dogs (Shoop, Waldo, and Django) as their adventures and imaginations guide them to a multitude of exciting places. The dogs may find themselves anywhere from the local dog park all the way to the swamps of Louisiana from episode to episode.
The show's story-lines are taken from everyday life. The adventures are full of jokes, and the dogs learn about friendship and working together along the way. They often times feature historical and cultural figures such as Evel Knievel and Winston Churchill.
Children are amused by the dogs while also learning about history and pop-culture. "Oh, I know about this. I saw it on Dogs Playing Poker." is being exclaimed in classrooms throughout the land.
Waldo is the brains of the operation. He often gets annoyed with the silliness of Django and Shoop, but always goes along for the wacky adventure.
Shoop is a sassy schemer, who hates to mess up her hair. When riled Shoop quickly turns from dog to diva.
Django is silly, goofy, and his heart is bigger than his brain. He is overly optimistic, very high-energy, and anti-confrontational.
WRITER/CREATOR
Kirk is currently ranked #2 in the world in getting adorable toddlers to ham it up in front of famous bridges, behind 88 year old Hungarian grandma, Gaga. Kirk won first prize in the Finley Humor Writing Contest for "It Turned Out He Pitied Himself", which also won Best Story as a film adaptation, "T and Me", in the Scottsdale Film Festival. As a standup comedian, Kirk performed all over the country including being a two time finalist in the Laugh Across America Contest held in Las Vegas.
DOG DRAWER/ANIMATION DIRECTOR
Tim McLain is the animation director/character designer for Dogs Playing Poker. He has always had a strong passion for drawing and designing characters for animation. Tim earned a Bachelor's degree in Game Art & Design in 2004 and soon after opened Cajun Pepper Studio, a 3D animation company, with his good friend Dwight Pepper. Not long ago, a short film, Silo, that he worked on as the colorist won big at the Louisiana Film Prize by taking home the Best Editing award along with the $50,000 Grand Prize! Most recently, Tim has been working as a VFX supervisor on two independent films: Camera Store and Dark Meridian. He also edited the background videos that rock icon, Joe Walsh, has been using in his 2016/2017 performances.
STORYBOARD ARTIST/ANIMATOR
Born at a very young age, Dwight has always had a knack for drawing. He won multiple prizes for his artwork throughout school. He began his career as a sign artist and grew into a successful airbrush artist. He created many great pieces of art that ranged from designing characters, creating signs for a whole theme park and airbrushing murals. Dwight went on to earn a degree in Media Arts and Animation, graduating with honors. He continued to develop his animation chops while starting Cajun Pepper Studio with Tim McLain. Cajun Pepper was known for creating multimedia content that had a strong focus on good character design. He continues to create amazing content focused around the founding principles of animation. Having a passion for animation and commitment for good storytelling, Dwight forges ahead into new frontiers.
ANIMATION PRODUCER
Jacky started his career producing concerts in New Orleans and Houston for acts such as: Beastie Boys, Pearl Jam, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Flaming Lips, Green Day, Metallica, and Nine Inch Nails, to name only a few. Moving onto feature films, Jacky produced many movies including "Bully", "Love Liza", "Waiting", "Rosa Parks Story", "Elvis", "The Teller and the Truth", and "Camera Store". Moreover, Jacky's career in the film industry has led him to work alongside luminaries in the industry, such as, John Goodman, Laurence Fishburne, Kathy Bates, Ryan Reynolds, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Cicely Tyson, and Christopher Reeve. Jacky's knowledge of post-production grew when he served as VP of production at CineWorks from 2007-2015. He is a member of the Producer's Guild of America, Director's Guild of America, and New Orleans Film Society Advisory Board.
VOICE OF WALDO
Ryan McKee is the digital writer/producer for The Late Late Show with James Corden, where he won an Emmy for Outstanding Interactive Show. When he's not working, Ryan spends his time doing standup comedy in small bars, walking his two mutts, making plans to go camping with his wife, and writing more projects than he can remember (or finish).
VOICE OF SHOOP
Ron Babcock lives in LA. He grew up in Northeast Pennsylvania and went to school in Scranton. Yes, that Scranton. He is the youngest of five and started doing comedy on a dare. Since then Ron has appeared on Adam DeVine's House Party on Comedy Central and Last Comic Standing. He also performed at the Montreal Just for Laughs Festival in 2012. Outside of the aforementioned awesomeness, Ron has made appearances on HBO's The Life and Times of Tim, The Rotten Tomatoes Show, The Daily Habit and other cancelled shows.
VOICE OF DJANGO
Chris Bennett has performed all over the country as a standup comedian. His most notable performance is a set that he did on Jimmy Kimmel Live. He has performed all over including The Comedy Store and The Improv, Chris performs regularly in Los Angeles. Chris will soon premiere his show "Mister Chris's Apartment Show" on Facebook Live January 25th.
The Dogs Playing Poker team is on a mission to get our first 2-minute promo animation and pitch bible 100% ready by the end of May 2017. These are crucial elements that are needed to start the process of funding the show. We are well on our way, but could use the help of other talented dog lovers to make Dogs Playing Poker a reality. This is an excellent opportunity to get involved with an animated production on the ground floor. Listed below are the descriptions of the people that we need the most at this time:
We are currently in need of animators that can perform all character animation tasks including drawing, rigging, and animating in either Toon Boom Harmony or Adobe Animate CC. If you can produce professional quality 2D animation in either of these software packages, we would love to see some of your work!
We are currently in need of a sound mixer/designer that is proficient in Adobe Audition that can help clean voice-over audio, mixdown all of the tracks from our edit, and create a professional quality 2.1 master for the 2-minute promo animation. If this is you, we want to add you to the team!
We are also looking for a graphic designer that knows their way around Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign to help us compile the final images and content for the Dogs Playing Poker pitch bible. Please let us know if you are the layout master we've been looking for!