Inspiration for Sweetie & Birdbrain

One day last year while out for lunch my wife called me and asked me to pick up something for her at the Mall. Because it was a Tuesday there were only two cars in the lot and one of them was mine and the other was a brand new T-Bird Convertible. A flash of movement caught my eye at the front of the Bright Red Convertible so being a curious kind of guy I pulled up nearby in order to get a good look.

Turning his head to look at me was a large white seagull standing on the hood near the windshield with a (don't bother me) expression. I know what your thinking, but this guy didn't act like your ordinary seagull.

I yelled at him "Hey Bird, what do you think your doing?"

So he started pulling like crazy at the cars windshield wiper. He wanted that wiper for something and that was it. I don't know about you but I have never seen a bird act like this before. Anyway he was for sure scratching the new cars paint and was close to pulling the entire wiper blade, arm and all right off the car.

So I yelled again, Stop that you stupid bird! He looked back at me and kinda cocked his head to the side, then went right back to work on the wiper. A slap on the side of my pickup didn't help so that was it for me and I reached for my shotgun behind the seat.

Just kidding, I got out of the truck and started walking straight at the bird and discovered he was quite a bit bigger than your average seagull. He lowered his body and looked straight at me like for the attack but instead lifted off without his treasured windshield wiper. A few squawks and he was gone.

I started laughing and couldn't stop. The manager of the store came out and asked what was wrong. I explained and he said it was his car. He went back into the store without even looking to see if his car was damaged. Don't know who was stranger him or the bird. Anyway that's how I got the idea for Birdbrain and Sweetie naturally followed.

I was excited about some new 2-D Animation Software call Anime Studio Pro and had gotten up early that morning to try it out. Sweetie & Birdbrain was the perfect first cartoon because the characters must be drawn and developed and Anime Studio has vector drawing tools.

Walt