Funny Garbage: 10 Years of Making the Web Worth Watching

Okay, stop me if you've heard this one: a robotic cat alien from outer space crash lands on Long Island... No? Well, so began the story of Katbot.

Katbot.com, the original launch pad, explored new forms of narration by harnessing the creative and functional possibilities of the web to create characters and tell stories. More than a web animation, Katbot experimented with early forms of what would soon emerge as a new wave of popular digital entertainment.

With a user interface designed to represent the intergalactic PDA of its animated title character -- an alien sent to Earth in order to study pre-teen culture, lifestyles and family dynamics -- the website eschews conventional narrative technique and reveals the story by exposing Katbot's personal "files": animated video, personal logs  (an early blog prototype) ,  intra-character emails, mission reports,  "photos" , original songs and games.  

Seeing the potential in our little feline star traveller,  several major animation studios approached Funny Garbage with interest in developing Katbot for broader distribution. Ultimately, Katbot evolved from an exercise in online story-telling techniques into a traditional televised animation format.  After yielding a highly-tested animated pilot, and gaining the go-ahead for a series, unfortunately production of Katbot was put on hold and she never made it to air.