Twilight
These jokers don’t limit themselves to green hair and white face paint.
Two months after the release of “The Dark Knight” spoof, Evil Iguana Production’s posted their second most popular video. Their spoof of the “Twilight” movie trailer has almost 2 million hits on YouTube.
The film “Twilight,” which will be released on Nov. 21, is based off of Stephenie Meyer’s best-selling young adult vampire novel.
The “Twilight” spoof was fortunate to have been accepted by the Twilight community, because with one wrong interpretation of their beloved characters, Evil Iguana quickly could have become the victim of Twilighter rage.
“When it comes to Batman, we’ve gotten a little bit of negative feedback — pretty much just on acting or something like that, like I didn’t do a good job as the Joker or like Joe didn’t do a good job as the Batman voice, or whatever,” said Deering. “When it comes to ‘Twilight,’ I have not read a bad review about that yet, which I am very surprised about.”
Murphy’s bumbling interpretation of “Twilight” hero Edward — who fails to save heroine and love interest Bella in the Evil Iguana spoof because he is distracted by a hot girl walking by — is both funny and charming.
“Every day I scan through a good handful of emails on my MySpace and Facebook from girls — usually “ËœTwilight’ or “ËœAllen and Craig Show’ fans – who have seen me on YouTube,” said Murphy.‚ “I’m not going to lie; the positive attention is always nice.‚ Unfortunately the bulk of these girls are a little under the legal age limit for me.‚ Even if they weren’t, I doubt my girlfriend would appreciate me flirting back with them.”
(Yes, Allen Murphy is off the market, ladies)
Evil Iguana Productions has struck such a strong cord in the Twilight fan-base that Deering, Murphy and female main character Bella’s spoofer Robin Andrews were invited to the first ever Twi-Con, a convention in honor of the success and fanbase surrounding The “Twilight” Saga,‚ to be held next summer in Dallas, Texas.
The Allen and Craig Show
While not as popular as their Batman and Twilight spoofs, Deering and Murphy’s joint venture, “The Allen and Craig Show,” has a solid and devoted fan base.
The videos are also a great barometer of the progression the filmmakers have made in both filming and editing from the first episode through the most recent ones.
“‘The Allen and Craig Show’ was also started when me and Allen were really bored. That’s when we get all our best ideas, apparently,” said Deering. “But yeah, like everyone we knew that night was really busy or out of town and we were just like, “ËœAlright, let’s just film something to entertain ourselves.’ We came up with this show where like, because all we’ve done are spoofs.”
So they came up with the idea of two kids wanting to start their own‚ show and be the next big YouTube phenomenon.
“Allen’s like, “ËœI want to try and get famous and I want to be an asshole, because I’m not a real asshole in real life, so I want to just be a jerk to everybody,’ so I’m like, “ËœWell that works. I’ll be like really shy and I’ll hate the show and be like afraid of the camera and stuff, this way it causes some little conflict and stuff’,” Deering said.
Deering and Murphy filmed the first episode by themselves and did not plan on continuing the show past that point. However, at their friends’ urging, they made a second and then continued making them at their growing fan base’s insistence.
Now in their second unofficial “season,” they posted the 12th episode on Youtube two weeks ago, and Deering hints at the coming 13th episode in a recent Q&A video.
There has been some backlash to the show’s popularity, however. Some fans actually think the Craig character is an introverted shy guy who gets nervous around girl and that Allen is actually an asshole.
“People take it really seriously, it’s crazy,” said Deering. “I get asked all the time if I throw up on girls, and I don’t. Like, that’s just weird,” Deering said.
Murphy said that he receives e-mails from worried fans asking if he was as mean to Deering in real life as he was in the show.
“At first I was a little worried about it because that meant there were a lot of people out there who thought I was a terrible person.‚ Then I thought about it, and now I look at it‚ as if‚ I’m doing a good job on the show,” said Murphy.‚ “If they believe it, I’m doing something right.”
Deering laughed at the idea of his fans getting disillusioned by the news that he is very different — the polar opposite, even — of his character on “The Allen and Craig Show.”
“People start crying and stuff, and they’re like, “ËœOh, Craig doesn’t really puke on girls. So depressing,'” he said laughing.
Murphy also describes himself different than the “Allen” in the show.
“I am a textbook Libra,” he said.‚ “I get along with most all people. I’m very friendly and social and I like to keep everybody happy.‚ As far as my sense of humor goes, our videos are all prime examples.”
While “The Dark Knight” spoof is by far the biggest hit Evil Iguana has had to date, they have spoofed “The Number 23” – entitled “The Number 47” – and a spoof of the television show “24” they called “23.”
Deering also confirmed a sequel to “Fuzz,” an Evil Iguana production about two cops who pull over Mario and Luigi for street racing in “Mario Kart.”
The spoofs are fun for the group to make, but they require cash funds that Evil Iguana finds hard to come by. Deering said that Evil Iguana is trying to raise some money to increase its budget, both by making T-shirts for fans to buy and by releasing “The Allen and Craig” show on DVD eventually.
He said they will use the money to get more advanced equipment, like lights and a light meter and maybe even some audio equipment, to help make their videos even better.
“I haven’t actually looked at the footage yet. I’m kind of scared to,” said Deering of “Batman Portraits of Evil: Silent Night.” “If everyone likes this, yeah, we want to like continue with the Batman series. We have a bunch of other ideas for those. We’re definitely going to continue with the comedy, but if this works, we have another drama lined up.”
The future looks bright for the staff behind Evil Iguana Productions. Their Joker film is assumed to be a smash YouTube hit after the breakout success of their “The Dark Knight” spoof, and Deering promises a Christmas special for later in the year.
“I think we’re holding off on actual spoofs until next year, because this Dark Knight video is going to take a while,” said Deering. “We’ve got more episodes planned for “ËœThe Allen and Craig Show,’ and then whatever other random ideas come to our mind and we’re like, “ËœHey, let’s just film that tonight, why not?'”