John K.

Cartoon Cavalcade 8 - Dave the Time-Tarsier

Added 2024-04-24 18:59:11 +0000 UTC

This concept was developed in the early 80s and added to the 1985 Cartoon Cavalcade story bible.

I was fascinated by our primitive relatives the prosimians (pre-monkeys) and especially the Tarsier. I thought it'd make a good cartoon character with its huge bulgy eyes and ignorant expressions. They can also turn their heads backwards and I assumed this would enable it to travel through time.

Dave has 2 sidekicks, Buster Bee and Ken the angry baby.

Ken the angry baby was originally supposed to debut in my first animated cartoon spot "Ken Bakes One" in which a chicken runs around screaming in pain as he is about to give birth. He lays an egg and after it cracks, Ken would have been inside the egg. We even animated it, but it ran too long for the segment which was only supposed to be 1 minute long. I used some of the poses (and Jim Gomez' hilarious inbetweens) to make this model sheet below.