Character antecedents: Gollum, Scrat (Ice Age), Rat Fink

Archetypes:Weasel (hairless weasel), vampire, werewolf

Vocal style: Gollum mixed with Dafffy Duck

 

MUSIC - SCENE 1

TEMP TRACK -- HAIRBALLS SCENE #1:
Creepy, kooky, mysterious and spooky, THE HAIRBALLS are our 'Gollum' characters. We first meet their weasely ilk in the personages of an inept HAIRBALL duo -- let's call them Twitchy and Drooley -- whom we see sneaking and skulking around in the moonlight (similar to the scene above), then attempting to pry an egg from a SAURHEAD nest and roll it away (without being caught, of course ...)


ABOVE: An early HAIRBALLS concept, designed for traditional 2-D animation. A more 'realistic' CGI version would be much creepier.




 


HAIRBALL RUSH HOUR 

 MUSIC - SCENE 2

TEMP TRACK -- HAIRBALLS SCENE #12
This could be aother "FANTASIA"- style (i.e. 'Mickey-Moused' music & action) segment, with scores of HAIRBALLS runnning to and fro, up and down the very long tree branches of gigantic prehistoric Banyon trees, leaping from branch to branch in hyperactive, "squirelly" fashion as well as also swinging by their tails, monkey-fashion -- a 'ballet' in total syncopation with the music.
(This also suggests the "rat race" that would be the fate of their far-future descendents, the species known as Homo Sapiens. And an overhead shot of the trees might subltly reflect our most convoluted freeway systems, a la Disney's famous1965 short "Goofy's Freewayphobia".)

 



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BELOW: Skulls & bones of early mammals.

 

BELOW: Artist Bill Stout's renditions of early mammals -- still with reptilian-textured skin, and with fur just beginnng to sprout.

.....

 

 

BELOW: More possibly useful design reference for weird/ugly mammals. The top creature, Australias's aye-eye, has the ideal kind of sparse, wild and wiry hair the HAIRBALLS should have.

 


The ultra-creepy hand of the aye-eye. The first scene with the HAIRBALLS might show a similar werewolf-like hand appearing out of the darkness, in a satirical nod to horror films.

 




BELOW: More hairless cats (and 2 rabbits). The loose, wrinkly skin and 'furrowed brows' are a must for a CGI HAIRBALLS design.


RISE of the Planet of the HAIRBALLS
When our ditzy, scattershot clairvoyant Pachysaurus, PORTENCE foretells that not only will there come a time when the Saurheads will become extinct—but that the HAIRBALLS shall rule the earth (!)— the other dinosaurs just laugh at such a ludicrous and preposterous proposition. They merely chalk it up to her scramble-headedness, since most of what she says seems to them as indecipherable as Nostradamus-isms are to us (although she has earned their awe and respect for several near-term predictions that came true -- like foretelling the coming of "great balls of fire in the sky", days before a spectacular meteor shower).

 


After all, the vastly-superior dinosaurs reason, HAIRBALLS are ugly, filthy, twitchy, smelly, sneaky, creepy, cowardly, conniving, thieving and avaricious… Their voices are grating, scratchy, flegmy, and just plain repellent… plus, they leave puddles of drool and piles of that disgusting ‘hair’ stuff wherever they go.

In short, as Daffy Duck would say ... “They’re despicable!”

... and “They" is "Us”.
Bad grammar, yes — but in truth, these are the creatures that millions of years later would become Homo Sapiens. Which is what makes them extra-funny (and innately interesting) to us.

The joke is on us -- and sure to amuse (and embarrass?) modern day movie-going mammals of all ages.

 

 

 

 

 

 


All SAURHEADS characters ©2018 by Joseph Barney and Cary Bates