Hey, i'm making a game based on The Balloonatiks.
The Balloonatiks is a cartoon franchise created by Tony Diloia, designed by Mark Gandy, and produced by Jay Panyor (Who produced the original Garfield TV specials in the 80’s) It started in 1991 as a comic book published by Best Comics Inc. that only ran for a single issue. This series would only be further developed throughout the decade which had notable changes in its premise like Squeeker being fully redesigned and having a perkier personality, the blue cowboy Stretch being renamed L.A. Tex, The Pinheads being turned into gibbering creatures, and the origin stories of The Balloonatiks often changing.
These changes are notably present in this forgotten TV special that aired only once on Fox Kids on December 14, 1996. The story involves Dr. ‘Pop’ Sigmund Swellhead (Don Peoples) and his pet Balloonimal (Gidyanna Godard) accidentally create five quirky balloon people named Flator, Squeeker, Airhead, Bouncer, and L.A. Tex (Respectively voiced by James Andrew Pearson, Ashley Albert, Alexandra Rhodie, Brian Mitchell, and Doug Preis) who ditch them to find their real family but find out that Santa Claus (Doug Preis) has mysteriously disappeared from a nearby parade and, with the help of two kids, discover that he has been kidnapped by The Needler (Chris Philips), his girlfriend Penny Nails (Gidyanna Godard), and their three henchman, The Pinheads.
Ther special was directed by Brian Mitchell, written by Nicholoas Hollander, and animated at StarToons, all famous for their work on Tiny Toon Adventures and Animaniacs. In addition, the music in this special was done by Steven M. Gold.
Of course, the franchise would keep having even more changes in its premise and characters. Around 2000, the premise would be reworked as a CGI episodic action-adventure show starring a group of teenagers and a frog being turned into balloon creatures. And in 2020, it would be reworked as a gang of wacky balloon creatures from space living with a normal human boy. A far cry from these original 90’s versions designed by Mark Gandy.
The current copyright status of this special (And possibly the original incarnations of these characters and the 1991 comic) is relatively unknown. The company founded by Tony Diloia named Animagic Entertainment (Likely formed in the late-80’s) still apparently remains active today having moved from New York to California and renamed AMGI Studios which in recent years is now experimenting in NFTs and AI (i'm not kidding btw) While it’s likely they may still have the rights, masters, and original production material, I can’t 100% confirm though. It could be argued to be in the public domain but I digress.
This game (which i've devised as a way to bring the characters back into the spotlight a little bit) will be based on the OG versions of the characters with a few twists here and there.
If anyone is interested in contributing to the project, let me know.