I have said in the past many times after a short, "This one nearly killed me" and Avengers took the lead in that category by a long stretch. Never in HISHE's lifetime do I remember a time where completing a short was so difficult every step of the way only to turn around and become one of if not my absolute favorite to work on. It was truly a short that when completed felt like an earned victory, which is not really wise thing to say really considering this short could be a massive failure in terms of viewership. But I felt proud when it was finished. Proud for myself as well as everyone who put their sweat into this one. So I'll try to talk about that as best I can.

We started working on Avengers at about the time the Bros Before Marios cartoon was released (as you can tell by their cameo at the end) But I don't' believe the movie had officially been released at that point so all I knew was we need Avengers characters. I just had no clue where the movie was heading. I scavenged for some last second Avengers pre screening opportunities, but everyone treated me like the plague so getting to see Avengers early was impossible. So I saw it three times as soon as it came out. Tina saw it twice. And wouldn't you know it, the movie was awesome. What are we gonna do when the movie is so locked down??? Everything that happens serves the following scene so effectively there was no "flaw" really to just grab on to that we knew the audience would agree was a weak point. All we had was "convenience" Even though the story of Avengers is wonderfully entertaining, you can argue that every solution the Avengers ever needed was handed to them right when the needed. EVERY SOLUTION. So we felt like that was the strongest angle. Now lets write jokes about that... that don't sound grouchy, or preachy, because we aren't trying to be better than the Avengers..... our brains exploded...

After collecting the brain fragments, we had a script, but continued to tweak it literally throughout the entire production (which never happens, and is completely a terrible idea) so the brain explode happened a few times actually. Many hours were spent on the phone discussing "what if he said this?" "well if we do that, that will effect this, so we can" back and forth over and over. Tina was ready to murder me. :)

Meanwhile, Otis Frampton is painting away at some of the best backgrounds we've ever had. He's flying in under the radar dropping in a background every few hours. As they start to collect I'm thinking, "This might actually work out." Did I mention we also put out 3 other videos during this time? Oh yeah... we also made How Do You Do Part II, the Black Widow behind the scenes (which was easier) and Transformers Play Battleship... So yeah... all while Avengers was happening.... hold on my brain exploded again just from remembering those days.

...... brains .......

Back to the story! Time to record voices! Everyone is out of town! What? The usual list wasn't available this time, so we had to "Assemble" a new list.. (waawaaaaa assemble) but luckily Cap (Chris Oldenburg) Ironman (Stephen Dowling) and Nick Fury (Adrian Neely) all got to be their original HISHE actors. Black Widow is a new voice, Amanda Rojas. And I covered the rest.

Once we were at this point it was just a constant grind to the finish line, work work work to make this idea we had been stressing over actually a completed short. And like the miracle it was, we finished ON TIME! So this was a victory to me. I love the final look of the short. Everything felt like complete chaos and then fell right into place as if it was always going to be that way from the beginning. A concept I still can't fully believe happened. When it was over I felt nothing but gratitude for everyone in our circle who go out of their way to make these cartoons what they are. The shorts with more people involved are always the most challenging, but they are also the most satisfying when it's over... Kind of like the Avengers.

Thank you for watching (and reading this article of a post) I hope you enjoyed it. Thank you Tina Alexander, John Alexander, Stephanie Savard, Victor Vanscoit, Stephen Dowling, Chris Oldenburg, Amanda Rojas, Adrian Neely, Otis Frampton, Tommy Watson, David Katz.... this was a hard one and it wouldn't have happened without those names.