The Bikini Proposal: A Parody of the Stupid War in Iraq

Probably one of my most well known animation series, The Bikini Proposal, takes an absurd proposition for the US war in Iraq and runs with it.

Occasionally I've been accused of being sexist for this series but in response to that I would say you're missing the point. The simple fact is, statistically, fewer women in bikinis have been killed in a war zone than those wearing military uniform therefore, logically, a women in a bikini is better protected. It's not about getting women out of their clothes it's about increasing their safety in a war zone!

The entire five part series is shown below as a Revver Video rather than GoAnimate's usual embed format (simply to save space). If you would like to see each individual episode in its original format then I've provided the links below the video.

The Bikini Proposal: Episodes 1 - 5


Links to the Original Episodes on GoAnimate:

1. The Bikini Proposal
2. The Bikini Backlash
3. The Kitten Offensive
4. The Nude Dog Defensive
5. Mission Accomplished

The Bikini Proposal was never intended to be a series which is why the first episode ends on a joke and doesn't really contain any unresolved plot issues.

GoAnimate's classic, bikini wearing, Kate character was entirely the inspiration from the start. I wanted to base an animation around her but didn't want to go the obvious dumb blonde, sex toy route that seemed to be her lot in life in so many other animations that featured her.

Although I never break her out of the dumb blonde role, she still is a US soldier and that has to count for something.

Almost as soon as I completed the first episode I had a thought of what if the media found out about this ridiculous idea of dressing US troops in Bikinis? I saw so much potential for humor that I began work on The Bikini Backlash almost straight away.

It helped greatly that the series was made in the lead up to the 2008 US Elections, giving a lot of opportunity to put differing view points across from both sides of Government. No one was safe from adding to the absurdity of the initial proposal with Barack declaring that 'I will ensure our male soldiers have the democratic right to wear bikinis too!'

Once I got into episodes three and four, where I started blowing up cats and suggesting dogs should be wearing bikinis, you kind of knew anything was possible in what is, essentially, a stupid war in reality.

By episode five it was becoming harder and harder to keep the ideas fresh. You can only do so much with GoAnimate's characters without going into some heavy duty customizations.

Whilst episode five, Mission Accomplished, is my favorite, mostly for the timely Wal-Mart/Wall Street joke, it didn't start out as being the final episode. Originally titled 'The Feral Resistance' it was going to feature the bikini stealing cats and their leader.

Unfortunately this required a fully developed custom character, that I started to create, but didn't have the right Flash animation software to make it compatible with GoAnimate's character file format. Hence the head on the Feral Resistance Cats is the only part of this character that made it into the episode.

Had I been able to create that character The Bikini Proposal may have gone on for an extra episode or two.

This series received a special mention as a finalist in GoAnimates initial launch competition in the judged category that had a prize of US$5000.00.

Trivia about The Bikini Proposal series:

• Dick Cheney doesn't appear until episode five because of my poor knowledge of the US Government. I'd heard of Cheney but didn't know he was Vice President until I bothered to do some research for episode five. Had I known this before hand he would've been in the conference room right from episode one instead of George Bush Senior (who was only there, along with John McCain because they were the only two male republicans I recognized in GoAnimate's political character set after George Bush Junior).
  
  
• Lindsay Lohan's Characature appears as the Newsdesk Reader.
  
  
• The Bikini Proposal is the first time I used GoAnimate's Text to Speech (TTS) voices. Whilst they aren't particularly great I do feel they kind of grow on you. The speech balloons have been left in because TTS is a GoAnimate Beta Feature. I figured it was better to leave the text in just in case GoAnimate decided to discontinue the feature. Plus it helps to understand what the voice is saying in those moments when it's not quite clear.
  
  
• There are a number of my custom props used through out the series, most noteably the Terrorist Cat head and the US Military Tent in episode five.
  
  
• Political Analist Ron Downer's name is meant to sound like 'Run Downer' i.e. he's someone who cynically runs down or puts down political initiatives.
  
  
• The conference room defence expert, Bob Eachway, wasn't named until later episodes and his name is reflective of the English gambling term of putting a Bob each way - as in trying to cover all bets.
  
  
• On the scene reporter, Rosie Chatup, has a name that suggests she talks a lot.
  
  
• Barack Obama, George Bush Junior and Ron Downer use the same TTS Voice (known as 'Dallas'). 
  
  
• The final joke in episode five with Sarah Palin suggesting selling guns to Iraq is a reference to Donald Rumsfeld's visit to Iraq in the mid nineteen eighties when diplomatic relations between Iraq and the US were 'restored'. At this time Iraq began buying all kinds of supposedly 'non military' hardware from US companies, empowered by the Whitehouse to sell them.