Al Roach
Created by Obie Scott Wade, Michael Maler and Jordan Beswick

Jim Rockford goes buggy!

In this six-minute animated spoof/homage to film noir and old RKO detective B-flicks from the forties, James Garner provides the voice for AL ROACH, PRIVATE INSECTIGATOR.

Roach is the fedora-sporting roach gumshoe with a seedy office in Doowylloh (read it backwards), an entire town of insects in the dirt behind the Hollywood sign. And, like the real Tinsel Town, Doowlloh is a "colony dripping with gilt, seduction, and betrayal."

But down these streets a roach must go, and Al IS that roach. The trouble starts when a beautiful bug fatale named Dede with more curves than "Motholland Drive" struts into his seedy office, promising to do "anything" in exchange for his help in finding her missing scientist father, Dede's father, Professor Bugdonovich.

Originally produced as a pilot (for a potential series of shorts?) for Turner Classic Movies, the six-minute cartoon claims to be "one of the first - if not the first - black and white CGI animated film." So far, it's been well-received atThe Palm Springs International Festival of Short Films, LA International Short Film Festival, Atlanta's DragonCon Film Festival and the Silver Lake Film Festival.

I have JUST got to catch this. It's scheduled to premiere on the Turner Movie Channel on Saturday, December 17th. "The only sucky part," our pal Obie says, "is that it’s at 7:43 am Eastern Time, which is 4:43 am Pacific Time.  But if enough people watch it and email TCM, they may let us make some more. I hope you can Tivo it, or maybe you’re a night owl. Either way, I hope you get to see it."

UNDER OATH

• "I love the expressionistic, clean, stark use of contrast (in film noir) -- light and shadow. It's almost architectural." And this palette serves CGI perfectly. All the classics of film noir are stored in Wade's feverish brain. "I love Orson Welles' 'Touch of Evil.' "
  .
  What's the funniest thing about noir? "The hair," (Obie Scott Wade) laughs. "And the language is really very funny. We just don't talk that way anymore, but it has a quick back-and-forth, ratt-tatt-tatt banter that reminds me of the radio announcers of the period. It also manages to say a lot of very dirty things in double entendres."
  
  If there's a sequel to "Al Roach," Wade says his roach fatale will ask Al to "Give me a chirp sometime. Ya knows how to chirp, dontcha? Ya just put yer legs together and rub!"
  (Obie Scott Wade, from the ObieCo Entertainment, Inc. web site)

FILM

• AL ROACH: PRIVATE INSECTIGATOR
  (2004)
  6 minutes, black and white
  Animated CGI
  Premiere: December 17, 2005, TCM
  Written by Obie Scott Wade, Michael Maler and Jordan Beswick
  Directed by Obie Scott
  Lead Animator: David Simmons
  Produced by Tim Rummel and Obie Scott Wade
  Starring James Garner as AL ROACH
  Also starring Michelle Forbes as Dede Dragonfly
  Kathy Kinney as Betty Earwiggins
  Freddy Rodriguez as The Fly On the Wall
  and Greg Berger as Professor Bugdonovich

RELATED LINKS

• ObieCo Entertainment, Inc.
  A content creato developing franchise-engineered media properties across a variety of media platforms, including television, home video, games, Internet, publishing, film, location-based entertainment and merchandising. The creators of Al Roach.

Report respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith. Thanks to Gerald So for the lead, and most of the legwork.