Bang Cartoon

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Bang Cartoon
Image:Bangcartoonlogo.jpg
URL Bang Cartoon.com
Commercial? yes
Type of site Website
Available language(s): English
Owner John Tayman
Created by John Tayman
Launched September 2003
Current status Active
“Bang!” redirects here. For the arcade game, see Bang! (arcade game).

Bang Cartoon, sometimes called Bang Cartoons or Bang!, is a website which features satirical Flash cartoons based almost exclusively on the NFL. It is owned and operated by John Tayman who is a life long fan of the NFL and follows the Washington Redskins. The cartoons grew out of Tayman's love for the NFL and his belief that many NFL fans take the sport too seriously. It has attracted both praise and criticism and has also become popular among a number of the players that they generally parody. Links can be found on many player websites, most notably Clinton Portis and Santana Moss.

Contents

[edit] History

It began in early 2003 when Tayman produced two cartoons, about the Washington Redskins owner Daniel Snyder stealing players from the New York Jets and broadcaster John Madden getting his head stuck in a bucket. From there each cartoon gained an increasingly audience. The release of "Booyah!", a cartoon parodying ESPN anchor Stuart Scott, Arizona Cardinals running back Emmitt Smith and Oakland Raiders owner Al Davis saw the numbers of visitors increase significantly.

The site's popularity increased significantly in December of 2003 with the release of "Michael Vick Takes A Crap" (viewable at [3]), parodying the seemingly endless praising of Vick by Mike Patrick, Paul Maguire, and Joe Theismann during a Sunday night game on ESPN against the Carolina Panthers. The cartoon closed the site down and Tayman was forced to search for a new server.

Tayman was contacted by Eric Leichter, an owner and administrator of Extremeskins, a Washington Redskins fan site. Leichter offered to host the cartoons on Extremeskins. Tayman agreed and it became Bang Cartoon's new host. It remained there until the summer of 2005 when it was removed from Extremeskins after the Washington Redskins purchased the site and determined that, due to the scornful nature of some of the cartoons, it not be officially connected with Bang Cartoon. Bang Cartoon then became exclusively featured on its own domain where it remains to date.

A new website and forum were introduced in early 2006 and the websites content was expanded in August of 2006. The site now also covers music, movies and politics through columns e-mailed to the site.

[edit] Development

In April 2004 Bang Cartoon achieved notoriety once again with the release of "Going Poston", a cartoon about sports agents Carl and Kevin Poston, and their client, then NFL rookie Kellen Winslow, Jr. The cartoon was a satirical look at the upcoming contract negotiations between the Postons and the Cleveland Browns. The cartoon was an overnight hit, and recorded over a half million downloads in its first week of release.[1] The following Sunday, ESPN used the cartoon on their program Outside the Lines in a segment about the Postons the following weekend.[2] In the segment they showed the cartoon to one of the Postons, who laughed at it, and called it "unfortunate". Later in the program, sports agent and former NBA star Len Elmore said the cartoon was "disgusting" and carried "racial overtones", due to the accents and attitudes of the characters.[2] From there a small storm began in which the accusations of racism surfaced.[3] It culminated when Tayman appeared on sports radio in Cleveland to answer growing questions as to the motives behind the characterization.

Tayman explained, "The characters are not in any way to depict race, they are to appear to be belligerent and ridiculous in their demands during the cartoon. They are fast talkers and intimidators who negotiate from the position of being insulted from the opening greeting. They are not meant to depict the actual men themselves. The actual Postons are soft spoken educated men, hardly conducive to comedy. They are exaggerations in the same way as all of my characters."[4]

Since then Ohio has become the number one source of traffic for the website, and Bang Cartoon counts more actual fans from Ohio than any other state in the Union.[1]

[edit] Controversy

Many fans believe that the cartoons are expressing Tayman’s hatred for the NFL. Tayman has received a large amount of hate mail as a result. Tayman maintains however that he loves the NFL saying “I wouldn't pick on you if I didn't like you”.[4]

Other cartoons have caused controversy, although not in the same way. A cartoon with Benjamin Franklin showing a young Eagles fan called Tommy ask why all sports teams from Philadelphia lose, raised a lot of hackles in that city. Criticism from Philadelphia fans poured in, complete with physical threats. The traffic for the cartoon rapidly increased. After a while the traffic decreased. When Tayman released "Child's Play", another cartoon about the Philadelphia Eagles and their problems with Terrell Owens, it set records for traffic and within a day had closed down another server and had to scramble for more bandwidth. Eagle fans praised the cartoon. The feedback this time was decidedly positive. Philadelphia and New Jersey are now the top traffic providing area for the website.

In early 2006 "Greetings from Detroit" made people in Detroit angry with the depictions of their city being a crime ridden dump, so much so that they had Tayman on the 6 O:Clock News to explain why he did it.[5]

According to Tayman "They had me on for a 10 minute phone interview, during which the reporter asked about 4 questions, and spent the rest of the time telling me how Detroit wasn't at all like I had said. I wasn't sure if he was a journalist or he worked for the Chamber of Commerce." [4]

During the interview, Tayman said sarcastically that "if anyone up there had such thin skin that my little 3 minute cartoon offended them so much, well then I guess I'm sorry."[5]

Later that night on the 11:00 news, everything except "I'm sorry" was edited out.[5] Since then each bang cartoon has seen a large amount of traffic from Detroit Lions based websites.[1]

When asked what people think of his website Tayman said "Sometimes they love to hate me, but in the end they tend to love me"[4]

[edit] Characters

Most characters are satirical portrayals of actual NFL players, coaches and journalists. However “The Justice Guys” feature NFL players and coaches as superheroes. Non-NFL personalities such as George W Bush have also appeared. There are also a number of characters that have created by Bang Cartoons, with news reporters Harry Sphincter and Bill Spleen and newsreader Lance Pants the most frequent of these.

Other frequent characters include:

[edit] The Bang Cartoon Radio Hour

In September 2005 a podcast series called "The Bang Cartoon Radio Hour" was introduced to the site. It features Tayman and fellow site developer Tom Lacks talking for about an hour discussing issues in the NFL. Like the cartoons they take a satirical approach to most issues. They will try to avoid analysis of games or player, believing that to be something eveyone does. Lacks often provides audio of notable or amusing quotes from players coaches and announcers.

Episodes are produced weekly and feature a contest called "The Big Bang contest" and e-mail segment called "The amazing Bang cartoon e-mail of the week". The prize in the contest is always provide by sports apparel site Banditmax.com. During the season Tayman and Lacks will make spread bets on the week's games.

In May 2006, the Radio Hour was named the winner of the Podcast-O-Rama, a contest which pitted podcasts against one another in a bracket style tournament. the contest was hosted and sponsored by vitalpodcasts.com and tpsradio.net. In November 2006 a MySpace page was setup for it.

[edit] Other features

With the introduction of a new website a number of other features were added.

  • Ask Edna where Edna Blumpkin, a fictional, middle aged, sexually promiscuous woman portrayed by Tayman answers fans questions. Although the questions asked vary the answers are always manipulated to give an extremely sexual approach.
  • The Red Hot sports chick which steams clips from AM 1300 ESPN radio host Anita Marks’ Afternoon Drive Show.
  • Meet the Mullettes a sitcom about rednecks Skeeter Mullette, his wife Raylene, his brother Duane and his best friend Jim-Bob Stuckey. Tayman portrays all characters. This has now exspened into a weekly cartoon feature called "The Super Awesome Football Show".
  • The Bang Music hour which Showcasts unsigned artists and bands which have been e-mailed to Tayman by visitors to the site.

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c Website traffic reference- Google Analytics
  2. ^ a b Bang! Cartoons characterizations in relation to race is discussed on the Greg-O Show on WBZX in *Columbus Ohio, Jan. 15, 2006. "Outside the Lines" ESPN television program May, 2004 [1]
  3. ^ "Winslow contract is no laughing matter to Browns" By Patrick McManamon Akron Beacon Journal, May 2004 [2]
  4. ^ a b c d Quotes directly from John Tayman
  5. ^ a b c Detroit news January 2006
  • "Drawing Attention" By Ryan Basen Baltimore Sun, December 3, 2005 [4]
  • "McNabb- Blue Christmas" Eagles Notes The Philadelphia Inquirer, December 30, 2004 Bang! Cartoons characterizations in relation to race is discussed on the Greg-O Show on WBZX [5]

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../b/a/n/Bang_Cartoon_8e45.html"