The second Cold, Hard Flashback focuses on the upside of plus-sizes and how inebriation can lower inhibitions.

In 2000, there were few Flash animation companies doing quality work like eStudio, the now defunct interactive unit out of Venice, California. The team consisted of the uber-talented Mark Cohn and Ken Martin, who now run Blitz, the bad-ass Beverly Hills interactive agency headed up by my good friend Gregg Apirian. The eStudio team produced many notable Flash pieces during their heyday, but one in particular stands out – ‘I Want A Fat Babe,’ a parody of the massive Backstreet Boys hit ‘I Want it That Way.’ The short was storyboared by John Watkins-Chow with background designs by Alx Meza, the talent artist whose work can be seen on Cartoon Networks’ ‘Foster’s Home For Imaginary Friends’ and ‘Hi Hi Puffy Ami Yumi.’ The eStudio gang was one of the first crews to use bitmap blur transitions, and their fluid animation was a benchmark back in 2000. ‘I Want a Fat Babe’ went on to win many awards, including ‘Best Comedy Animation’ at the 2001 US Comedy Arts Festival, and the team also notched a 2001 Annie Award nomination for Outstanding Achievement for an Animated Production Produced for the Internet. Head on over to Atom Films to relive the plus-sized hilarity.

Aaron Augenblick and his Brooklyn studio buddies have had their hands full lately with a bunch of animated shorts for MTV2′s hysterical ‘Wonder Showzen.’ But back in 2001, Aaron was hard at work on another fascinating little gem – ‘Drunky – In Through the Out Door,’ a hallucinatory Flash short that recounts a few nights of inebriated homosexual encounters. The character designs pay homage to Max Fleischer’s studio, but the result is surely something all unto itself. The funky shading, the muted color palette and the superb line-work all add up to one of the most beautiful shorts in recent memory. The animation is also quite remarkable. Aaron and his crew were one of the first teams to effectively use tweened mouth shapes, and their brand of squash and stretch goes a long way to make re-use look like the fullest of full animation. The result is jaw-droppingly good, and the judges of the 2001 Level13.net Film Festival agreed, handing Aaron the 1st place award in the 2D category. If ‘Drunky’ is your brand of booze, you’ll also be happy to hear that a new installment titled ‘Fish House Punch’ is currently in producing at Augenblick Studios. Now order up a round of ‘Drunky’ and then check out this glowing article on Aaron in the Delaware Journal.