Spike & Mike's is a collection ("festival") of short animated films which annually tours theaters, film festivals, and college campuses in North America. It was founded in 1977 by Craig "Spike" Decker and Mike Gribble.
The festival is presented annually in La Jolla and then tours to theatres, film festivals, and college campuses in about a dozen North American cities.
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Mellow Manor Productions, Inc. was founded by Craig ‘Spike’ Decker and Mike Gribble, popularly known as “Spike & Mike". Mellow Manor is named after the famed Victorian house in Riverside where Spike, Mike and many others lived in a communal setting. Although Mike Gribble died from cancer in August 1994, Spike continues to produce touring theatrical festivals of animated short film collections.
Decker and Gribble began by founding Mellow Manor Productions, Inc. in Riverside, California in the 1970s as a means of promoting rock bands and special screenings of horror films as well as movie classics. After spending the summer of 1977 giving out flyers for the Fantastic Animation Festival, they decided to focus on presenting packages of animated films themselves, known as the Festival of Animation (now called "Classic Festival of Animation") in venues across the country.
The Sick and Twisted Festival of Animation began in 1990 at Wheeler Auditorium at UC Berkeley. This is an unrated, adult version of the regular program mainly featuring gross-out cartoons. In the Festival's early days, Spike and Mike would take the stage and introduce the films. Frequently Spike’s dog "Scottie" would take the stage and be driven to shred just about anything (up to the size of a two man inflatable raft) by the audience cheers and applause.
In the 1990s, Spike and Mike produced two annual tours - both Classic and Sick and Twisted - but by the early 2000s, the Classic Festival of Animation was entirely phased out by Sick and Twisted Festival.
Before the "Festival of Animation" it was difficult to see independent, experimental, and foreign animation. Spike and Mike went on yearly world-wide film hunting expeditions. They signed-on animation from the National Film Board of Canada, Cal Arts, Sheridan, Royal College of Art, Annecy, and select studios active amongst the art-house scene that did not have a public venue. This Festival has come to be known as destination avant garde. In the 1990s Spike & Mike screened early films from such animators as Nick Park, Marv Newland, Tim Burton, Barry Purves, John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton, Will Vinton, and more.
The shows have toured in theaters, film festivals such as (Cannes, Sundance, Annecy), college campuses, and dynamic events such as the Vans Warped Tour, the Winter X Games, and with the nu-metal band Korn.
Initially, Spike and Mike produced the Classic Festival and later both the Classic and Sick and Twisted simultaneously, but by the early 2000s the "Classic Festival of Animation" was phased into hiatus by the "Sick and Twisted Festival." The Festival (meaning the current show) premieres a new cavalcade of cinema fantastic annually. Spike & Mike's "New Generation Animation" was created in place of the Classic Festival to show films that did not fit into the category of "sick and twisted."
In the 1990s, Spike and Mike showed work from animators such as Craig McCracken, Miles Thompson, Danny Antonucci, Dave Smith, Steve Fonti, Craig Kellman, Mike Judge and many more. Several films under Spike and Mike's Mellow Manor Productions were funded either partially or entirely from concept to completion (such us Mike Judge's first Beavis and Butthead films). Working beyond their initial projects, many of these artists have become prominent in the industry and independent creatives, commercial artists, painters, screenwriters, and designers. Several notables and their work have gone on to be nominated for or won Oscars, Emmys, Annie Awards, and other honors.
Before the Festival of Animation it was difficult to see independent or foreign animation. Spike and Mike found animation from the Canada National Film Board and CalArts that did not have a public venue. In the 1990s they screened early films from such animators as Nick Park, Marv Newland, Tim Burton, John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton and Will Vinton.
Spike and Mike would sometimes fund films to be shown in their festivals. After Mike Judge’s first Beavis and Butt-head became popular with the Sick and Twisted crowd, Spike and Mike funded his next shorts and brought other animator's creative concepts to the big screen.