Supa Pirate Booty Hunt is an extremely funny animation series by Steven Sievers and Dahveed. The themes are geared toward a young adult audience of the late night shows on Adult Swim. It’s classic slap stick humor as Captain Zack and Daniel the Turtle poke fun at current events, celebrities and the media set in a world of ancient magic and futuristic technology. I asked Steven to share a little history of his life and Supa Pirate Booty Hunt with us on Don’t Pick the Flowers blog, and here is that conversation.
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Steven: Supa Pirate Booty Hunt started as a skit on my internet college radio show back in 2004 called “Storytime” where I did the voices of this whacky pirate & turtle going on adventures on the seven seas every week. The skit became a hit but I didn’t realize how much to that summer when I went on the whole Vans Warped Tour all across North American for two months. I had a booth for my clothing line Level 27 I had at the time and I was surprised by how many people told me at each date how they loved the skit. It was at the Vancouver, Canada concert date that a girl asked me to record her cell phone voice mail greeting in the Daniel the Turtle voice that I knew I had to do something with this radio skit. For my grad school thesis project, I turned into a cartoon show. After I gradated from American University in Washington, DC I moved out to Los Angeles and teamed up with talented artist Dahveed to bring the project to life. We spent a year rewriting the bible and getting our characters done 100% and released our first animation in 2008.
Watch: Supa Pirate Booty Hunt Episode “Love Bites”
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The biggest animation that has had an influence on me is The Simpsons; I basically plan on my day around when the reruns come on TV. It’s more excited to me watching them on TV or DVD because I don’t know what episode it is going to be but I can figure it out with in the first minute of the episode. I so look forward to when a new episode comes out, I honestly don’t know what I will do with myself if the show every goes off the air. I also really loved the 90’s comic book animated series of Batman, Spiderman, & X-men. They were done so well! I really got into Adult Swim in my college years watching Sealab 2012, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, & The Brak Show. I figure if I watch so much animation and love it so much, why not try it for myself.
Watch: Supa Pirate Booty Hunt / Music Saves Lives Animated PSA Episode “Nurse Boobies Please” featuring guest appearance by the band 3oh!3
www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5s4YfOElzQ&
David: What’s it like for you on a daily basis working on Supa Pirate Booty Hunt?
Steven: It depends on what is going on in Supa Pirate Booty Hunt world. I defly spend some hours each day doing online marketing for Supa Pirate Booty Hunt. You can’t just put something on YouTube and expect people to find it out on their own. So I use all the social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, message blogs, and yes I still use MySpace to promote SPBH latest animation & video blogs. Other days I might be doing script writing, color pages in comic book, doing actually animation in Flash, recording Daniel the Turtle lines, mixing sound of animation in pro-tools, planning upcoming SPBH events, going to SPBH events, or editing video blogs for SPBH. I’m always busy because there is always something going on in SPBH world.
David: What kind of plans do you have for the animated series in the future?
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It’s been a busy summer for SPBH. We are now working for the non-profit Music Saves Lives and trying to get young adults to donate blood. Each donation can save up to three lives. We produced an animated PSA for them called “Nurse Boobies Please” and also turned it into a comic book. Both the comic & animation feature guest appearance by the band 3oh!3. The animation has been featured on 3oh!3 website, Vans Warped Tour Website, Monster Energy Website, and on Clevver TV. A shorter version of the episode will be airing late nights on TV as a PSA commercial. The comic book was given out on every date of the Vans Warped Tour this summer and blood centers through out the country. I did a comic book signing on 5 dates of the tour with one more coming up next week. We also gave out a bunch at our booth at San Diego Comic Con. Our animation will be screened at the iTV Fest and Burbank Film Festival. I’ll also be flying out to Chicago Comic Con Wizard World this month as an invited voice actor guest. We are going to make future Supa Pirate Booty Hunt episodes for Music Saves Lives with Dave Mastaine from Megadeth, Chuck Billy from Testament, & Steve-O from Jack-Ass.
David: Thanks so much Steven for talking with me about Supa Pirate Booty Hunt. Your animation series is absolutely hilarious. You have every reason to be proud of your work and to expect even greater success in the future.
