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Neil Cicierega

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Neil Stephen Cicierega (born August 23, 1986), also known under the aliases Trapezoid, Trapezzoid, Deporitaz (an anagram of Trapezoid that can be pronounced any way and created by Cicierega for legal reasons) and Lemon Demon, is an Internet personality and artist. He is the creator of a genre of Flash animation known as "Animutation". He also performs as a musician. Cicierega lives with his parents and two of his siblings in Kingston, Massachusetts, United States.

Animutation

Neil Cicierega is the creator of a genre of Flash animation known as "Animutation". Animutation features random scenes and pictures influenced by pop culture. These scenes are accompanied by (and are usually in time to) foreign or novelty music, often Japanese. Most of his early Animutations used music from the original Japanese version of Pokémon. His style, seen in his 2001 work "Hyakugojyuuichi", has been imitated by other artists on the Internet. These works were originally known as "fanimutations", but due to some creators thereof feeling that their work should be viewed as art in its own right rather than fanart, the term "fanimutation" has fallen out of favor. A common convention is that "Animutation" with an uppercase 'A' refers to the original works of that name by Cicierega, while if it is spelled with a lowercase 'a' it can refer to anything in this style. Cicierega's most recent Animutation, Rugrats, was released in January 2008.

Potter Puppet Pals

The Potter Puppet Pals is a series of flash animations about Harry Potter. Episodes so far have been about annoying Snape (titled "Bothering Snape") and killing Lord Voldemort with automatic weapons rather than spells (titled "Trouble at Hogwarts"). Due to the complexity of Flash animation without physics (it was introduced in later programs), five further non-animated movies, featuring real puppets ("PPP Teaser","Potions Class", "Wizard Angst," "The Mysterious Ticking Noise," and "Wizard Swears",) which features Neville Longbottom as a butternut squash with his face drawn on with a marker have been released on the popular video sharing site YouTube. The episode "The Mysterious Ticking Noise," based around the concept of a musical ostinato, has become the nineteenth most-viewed video on Youtube, reaching over 35 million views. The newest show is Wizard Swears, which was used as a featured video on the website, further increasing the popularity of the puppets. "Wizard Swears" on Youtube

  • A running gag in all of the Potter Puppet Pals films has been Dumbledore stripping completely naked except for his hat randomly in the story.
  • There was also a cancelled episode, The Potter Puppet Pals Adventure, that still exists in audio form, and has been animated by a member of the Lemon Demon wiki. In it, Rubeus Hagrid, the Dursleys, and Draco Malfoy were originally slated to appear.
  • In "Trouble at Hogwarts" there is a bonus scene. Whenever Voldemort is using the Avada Kedavra spell on Snape, if you pause it and rewind or fast forward it slow enough, the light from the spell will turn into a star, and if you click on that it would take you to the bonus scene, where Ron is singing "follow the butterflies, follow the butterflies!" then Hermione blows him up with "Ronicus Explodicus".

Also See: Parodies of Harry Potter

Cicierega's Music

Cicierega's music is influenced by They Might Be Giants and similar "geek" bands. His lyrics tend to have a surreal, humorous slant, though he has said he rarely writes songs with "jokish" intentions. His songs are distributed under the name of "Trapezoid" and "Lemon Demon". Following a notice from a trademark holder, Trapezoid was changed to "Deporitaz" (an anagram of "Trapezoid"). Outside of music distribution, Cicierega is still known to sometimes use the nickname "Trapezoid" or "Trapezzoid".

He also produced the music for a number of AGS adventure games, and contributed to AGS forums.

Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny

On December 22, 2005, Lemon Demon and collaborator Shawn Vulliez released the Flash music video Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny on Newgrounds.com. The video features dozens of famous people and fictional characters, largely from 1980s pop culture in a large century-long brawl where "...only one will survive.

The video was featured as the Newgrounds daily feature on December 23, and the weekly user's choice on December 28; it has since been released on Flash Portal, Albino Blacksheep, Transbuddha, Weebl's Stuff, and eventually its own fan-created site at UltimateShowdown.org The song topped the weekly "Funny Five" and became #1 of 2006 on the Dr. Demento Show. The song's popularity resulted in a significant increase in sales of Lemon Demon's earlier albums Damn Skippy and Hip to the Javabean, and Cicierega encountered difficulty meeting the sudden demand. The song itself was later included on Dinosaurchestra, his fifth album as Lemon Demon.

Discography

As Trapezoid/Deporitaz:

  • "Outsmart" (2000)
  • "Microwave this CD" (2001)
  • "Dimes" (2002)
  • "Circa 2000" (2007)

As Lemon Demon:

  • "Clown Circus" (2003)
  • "Live From the Haunted Candle Shop" (2003)
  • "Hip to the Javabean" (2004)
  • "Damn Skippy" (2005)
  • "Dinosaurchestra" (2006)

Filmography

In addition to his animutations, Cicierega has created several original live-action shorts under the name of Cinema Rocketry.

He has worked on videos with fellow internet film makers and close friends Kevin James of Not A Tad Bad Flim Co., Ryan Murphy, of Rojhelio Studios and J.L. Carrozza of Gen-Y Films, recently collaborating to create the short films "Neil Saves Christmas" and "No Place Like Home", in which Neil helped write the script, co-wrote an original score for the film with Jake Quilty-Dunn, and starred as the Scarecrow.

Neil's short film "Filed Away" was aired on the first episode of the CW network's TV show Online Nation.

References

External links



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