It simply by no means ends with Kanye West. Say what you wish to have about him, but he's at all times doing one thing that catches other people's consideration. Of direction, there was once that point he interrupted Taylor Swift's award acceptance speech, his greater than controversial comments, and principally every public interaction he has had along with his spouse, Kim Kardashian. Oh yeah, then there used to be the time he tried to run for president... Honestly, it's just endless with this man. So, it should not come as a marvel that he tried to make a puppet hip-hop musical... Yep... that's right... He's the inside scoop on it and why it never saw the light of day...
The Idea For Kanye's Hip-Hop Puppet Show
Back in 2007, Kanye West had an concept for Alligator Boots, a puppet-based cartoon comedy show with a musical edge, in accordance to a superb oral history by Wired. The show used to be co-created by Rhymefest and was once necessarily going to be an overly raunchy spoof on 'The Muppet Show'. It could be hosted by way of Kanye himself and a pig puppet named Pork Troy...
"At the time, I was traveling all over documenting the making of Rhymefest's album," video director and animator Konee Rok explained. "Kanye was working on 'Graduation', and we were all in the studio: Kanye; Common; Big Sean was there too, but no one really knew him yet. Rhymefest started doing a character named Pork Troy, and everyone was laughing—then Kanye was just like, 'You know, we should do something with that.' Kanye knew Jimmy Kimmel—Kimmel is a part of Jackhole Productions, and they were behind Crank Yankers. Kanye suggested they make a puppet show."
Why oh why did Comedy Central move in this show!?
Back in 2007, Kanye was almost about to unencumber his third album, "Graduation". He used to be already well-known, even if he wasn't as well-known as he is today. But anyone could see that his big name was going to rise. Still, his concept for a puppet hip-hop show simply wasn't cutting it, even amongst individuals who knew he could make them a lot of money.
Still, Kanye managed to attract a lot of gifted people to assist carry his thought to lifestyles.
"A lot of hip-hop guys were into Crank Yankers, so I wasn't entirely surprised, a year or so later, that I got a call that Kanye West wanted to meet," Daniel Kellison, the co-creator of Crank Yankers, explained. "He said, 'My buddy Rhymefest has this idea about this puppet Pork Troy and it's a sci-fi thing.' It was a pretty convoluted idea. I said, 'It seems like what we got here is sort of a hip-hop Muppet Show. Let's develop this a bit more.' And to their credit, they were open to that."
Quite a few famous puppeteers, corresponding to Victor Yerrid and Alive Dinnean, had been contacted about Kanye's show. Many of them have been used to the theory for adult-themed puppet tasks due to Crank Yankers and Team America: World Police.
"For a long time, it was like Untitled Kanye West Puppet Show," Daniel Kellison mentioned. "We had a real hard time coming up with the name. Finally, Kanye goes, 'I want to call the show Alligator Boots.' When he was a kid growing up, if your uncle had a pair of alligator boots, that was sort of like you made it. That was what it was meant to be."
Eventually, Kanye and Daniel were given head writer Jon Kimmel to convey their show to life and were given a budget of $1 million from Comedy Central to shoot a pilot. It used to be filmed over five days and was filmed on Jim Henson's lot.
Kanye Was Very Involved In The Writing... For Better Or For Worse
According to the Wired interview, Kanye would name the writers and the director, Tom Stern, in any respect hours to contribute ideas to the show, including the glance of each and every of the puppets.
"It's not like Kanye had a ton of ideas about comedy, but the things that he did care about were more like what kinds of sunglasses and sneakers the puppets would wear," director Tom Stern defined.
"I don't remember him being a jerk about it or anything. But he was very specific with his notes," head author Jon Kimmel mentioned.
In the show, Kanye used to be going to be the one human famous person, but things modified when he had an idea for a love hobby. This co-star would be in the "slave Leia" outfit from 'Star Wars: Return of the Jedi' and that co-star can be Kim Kardashian...
Now, at this level, Kim was handiest known for her leaked tape with Ray-J. She and Kanye weren't romantically connected... But Kanye sought after her. He used to be infatuated. But the entire different creatives thought hiring her was a bad thought... But he did not concentrate.
The pilot was once shot with the puppets, the track, Kanye, and Kim in a Princess Leia outfit.
Why Kanye's Show Was Never Picked Up
Due to the superstar power on Alligator Boots, it was unbelievably sudden that Comedy Central handed on it. But they did this once they had a possibility to birthday party with Kanye...
"Comedy Central had a party, and they said, 'Hey, can you bring Kanye to this party?'" Daniel Kellison mentioned. "It was so f***ing transparent to me what the motive was there. Kanye knew what they were doing too, but he wanted to have the show get picked up. I brought Kanye and Sarah Silverman together to that party, and then the next day they told us they weren't picking it up. And I like Comedy Central, I've done 10 shows with them—the people that asked us to do that aren't there anymore—but it was f***ing low."
As 'low' as that was once, some members of the inventive team were not too assured the show was once sturdy.
"Maybe the show wasn't great," Konee Rok admitted. "But it's a seed. Look at the pilot of The Simpsons. It's a shell of what it became. It had a lot of potential—it still does. But I think this is one of those things where it just wasn't meant to be. It's probably better living as it is, as this urban legend.
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTErZ%2Bippeoe6S7zGiuoZmkYrWivM%2BepZ6cXam8brfAp7CeZaeawLW%2FjKGgqWWYpL1uvNSpp56sXai1sMOO