by Kambole Campbell

On December 19th, Adult Swim released The Elephant, a 20ish-minute long animated special with a star-studded lineup of some of Cartoon Network's most celebrated creators behind the wheel: Pendleton Ward (creator of Adventure Time) Rebecca Sugar (Steven Universe), Ian Jones-Quartey (OK KO: Let's Be Heroes!) and Patrick McHale (Over The Garden Wall, also co-writer of Guillermo Del Toro's Pinocchio). This alone would be interesting, but the project is presented with a twist: it was created in the style of the exquisite corpse game. 

In drawing, that means taking a piece of paper and folding it into segments, each participant draws a piece – in the example used by The Elephant, the head, the body and the legs. Each part would be drawn without seeing the others. The Elephant was also organized so it was made without the creators of each segment knowing what the others were doing: siloed off by producers with a basic theme and premise to work from, and total creative freedom. Ward led the first segment, Sugar and Jones-Quartey the second, and McHale the third and final one. 

So to fit with the nature of the game, we interviewed artists from each segment about how they created their part. We spoke to Ward about the creation of Act 1 – co-directed with Humberto "Beto" Irigoyen with animation produced by Rudo and Titmouse – and the fun and difficulties of making a vibes-based animation project based on an improvisation game.

PART 1: The Head (Pendleton Ward)

Other than the element of reincarnation, were you given any kind of connective themes between each act of The Elephant, or did you all drift towards this idea of dissent naturally? 

Pendleton Ward: We the directors came together at the beginning and established some rules – one of the very few things that we knew about what was going to happen in the short were that we knew that our characters would die at the end of every act, that was laid down in the beginning. 

We knew each other's character designs – in the beginning we each did three exquisite corpse characters, those were the first three drawings that we did. And those were the characters that we ended up using for our sections. I think I chose first because I liked the cat, and I wanted the cat. And then, Rebecca and Ian chose next, and they liked the big button on the character. And then Pat got the dregs, he got the last design without having any choice. 

Were there any other characters that were designed in that kind of threefold way? 

Yeah, there were a lot. Later, I remember about halfway through the process, Rebecca and Ian asked for more exquisite corpse characters for their section, so that was like a big like, "oh, what are they gonna do?" moment for me. Cause I had no clue what they were going to do for the time that we spent working on this over the year. So I would get a little drip feed of information like that. And that's all I had to know what they were going to do, that they were gonna have a lot of characters. 

How did the exquisite corpse character designs translate to the structure of the story, how did you end up being like the "head" of the animation special, so to speak? 

I think in the beginning Pat said he didn't want to do the first act. I don't know how I ended up with that, could be that Pat suggested it. I think because he knows that I'm a silly writer, and maybe that seemed appropriate in tone for the first act. 

In the documentary Rebecca spoke about guessing what you and Pat weren't doing to determine the direction of theirs and Ian's segment. Was it a lot of all of you anticipating each other in that way?

Because we were in the dark all you can do is feebly guess, you know, there's so many ways it could go. So much that we were all wrong about what it was going to end up like. 

Were you trying to preempt anything when you were storyboarding? 

I knew that Rebecca and Ian's session would be very thoughtful and poetic and have wild animation. And then I knew Pat's section would be equally thoughtful, but also I thought it might go dark, cause Pat likes scary things. 

That's all I really knew – again I barely knew anything – but also I was the first act, so I didn't necessarily have to connect to those things. I kind of just did my own thing. 

With that freedom, how did you find a direction for the segment? 

I just start drawing, and it's all a stream of consciousness. I didn't know where I was going in the beginning. When I first drew the image of a large cut-up corpse creature that was still alive and had their body parts being sort of regenerated and being harvested by these other characters,that's just where I started, and then I went from there. Then the eyeball pops out and becomes the character. I was just cruising, I'm just vibing, I think it's what I was doing. 

How did your collaboration with Beto Irigoyen, your co-director and art director, complement that process?

Oh, I'm just a fan of Beto's art. And I knew of Beto through his artist collective. And also Pato Bauza, their work together on their Kickstarter projects. And I'm just a fan, like I'd seen a commercial they did on Twitter – it was this wild CG anime commercial for like, braces, or something to do with teeth. I'd wanted to work with them since I'd seen that commercial. And I got this opportunity, this wild experimental project, and so I thought I could just hand off a storyboard to them and let them do anything they wanted to do. 

And that's what I did. It was really fun to get to see them go ham in that process. [I'd] be vibing and doing these little drawings and they'd be off doing their own little thing. 

Beto really pulled a lot of things together. [He] took over and hired a bunch of artists that he wanted to work with, and just made it stunning. He flew to Argentina and worked with the animation studio Rudo. It was just awesome to watch, I was just like watching new art come in and being like, "whoa!", you know, that's all I was doing for half the project. 

Going back a little bit, I wanted to know about the Dolphin Hyperspace soundtrack for your segment, how did you find them and what do you like about their music? 

Oh yeah, I love them. I've been a fan of their music, I found it on YouTube. My friend found it first and showed it to me, and then I went to start going to see their shows live in LA. They play a lot in LA and other places. Check them out! 

What I love about their music is… I love choices. Like, for me, my brain gets excited when I hear an interesting choice or see interesting new choices, and their music is so many wild choices, going like a mile a minute. 

I saw that [producer] Mike Mayfield was kind of shepherding a lot of you and kind of keeping the secrets isolated. What were your interactions with him like on the project? 

Let's see, well, I think cause at some point, we were on the first act, we were cruising. 

Beto took over and it was so smooth and Rudo's animation was so good, and everything was just so good and just working out all the time. A lot of the time, Mike and I were just like, "yeah, that's awesome." 

I intentionally tried to not steer much, sometimes Beto would ask me for input, and I would give it, but a lot of the time I was holding back. I try to let people just do what they want to do, for me, that's the most fun, free way to work a job. I just want people to be having fun, while we're working. So I try to lay off. 

How does that approach compare to something like, one of your previous projects which I really enjoyed, The Midnight Gospel?

The Midnight Gospel was a perfect project for that because it's wild across the board and changes constantly. So, we tried to just let people do what they wanted to do there too. 

There was maybe more control on Midnight Gospel in different ways, but a lot of the time, people were just getting to interpret the assignment however they wanted.

What was it like blowing up a game to the size of a full-on project like this?

I think when you're doing [the exquisite corpse game] you're really just trying to make your friends laugh. So you're just drawing something funny, and then when you unfold it all and you see what the full character looks like, everyone has a good giggle. That's all we were trying to do, or at least that's what I was trying to do. 

But the exquisite corpse game generally is like something you do in 5 minutes and this was like a year-long project, so I wasn't exactly just throwing a giggle into the air, we were making a lovingly crafted piece of art. 

It was more intense, and it was scarier too, because we weren't sure how it was all gonna connect. And so that was frightening. And then talking about Mike Mayfield and others, they were looking at everything and they would tell us like, it's looking cool, it's looking really good without revealing anything. And so we just had to trust everyone else's opinions and that it was like gonna work out. 

I think Pat said it, we're just beginning to see other people's reactions to it who haven't worked on it, and so all we can do is gauge it by other people's takes. People seem to be enjoying it, so we're relieved that it's not a trainwreck. 

Do you think it's something repeatable? I wonder if that's like trying to capture lightning in a bottle. 

I mean, the exquisite corpse game is old, and you can do it over and over and over, and this is the same. I think you could do it again. I don't think it'll ever be done again, but you could. 

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In the next Re:Frame sends, look out for our interviews with other creators on The Elephant: animation directors and designers Remus and Kiki enlighten us on their work on Sugar and Jones-Quartey's second act, to come this Friday. And finally, Patrick McHale speaks about closing the project for our next Tuesday mailout.

/out of frame

🎄 Kambole: It's Christmas time, and that means finding movies palatable for my parents to watch with myself and my brother. Roofman was the most recent success. In the meantime I've been catching up on the Oscar-nominated animated shorts – namely Éiru by Giovanna Ferrari at Cartoon Saloon, Aaron Blaise's Snow Bear, John Kelly's Retirement Plan, and Jan Saska's Hurikan (that last one was recommended to me by my friend Juan Barquin). I loved all of them: Éiru condensed the environmentalist angle on folklore Cartoon Saloon has become known for into a compact but moving little tale with its own visual idiosyncrasies. Snow Bear (available in full here) mixes the body language of animals and people to tell a very sweet story about loneliness. It feels like the kind of animation Disney should have gotten back to making years ago. Hurikan's "one crazy night" story stands out not just for the random pig-headed man but the striking contrast of its black-and-white artwork. Retirement Plan made me laugh, then feel deeply sad about my future.

🧚 Rollin: At the start of each year, I set little goals for myself, and one for 2025 was to finally watch through the Madoka Magica movies ahead of Walpurgisnacht releasing in early 2026. Functionally, this means I am now scrambling to find time during the holidays to shovel a bunch of pretty bleak films into my head. Ah, Christmas.

Toussaint is preoccupied with news we'll leave to him to announce. We wish him all the best!