Neil Cicierega

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Neil Stephen Cicierega (born August 23, 1986), a.k.a. "Trapezoid" and "Lemon Demon", is an Internet personality and artist, who has at times described his occupation as "youthful dipwad". He is the creator of many absurd Flash animations, which became highly popular circa 2001, as well as other animations and his own music (see below), both of which have gained him a small cult following that continued even after his mainstream Internet popularity died down. Cicierega currently lives with his parents and two of his siblings in Kingston, Massachusetts, United States.

1 Animutation
2 Potter Puppet Pals
3 Cicierega's Music
- 3.1 The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny
4 Neil Cicierega Filmography
5 Neil Cicierega Discography
- 5.1 as Trapezoid/Deporitaz
- 5.2 as Lemon Demon
6 References
7 External links

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Animutation

Neil Cicierega is the creator of an original genre of Flash animation, which is widely known as "Animutation". Animutation features random scenes and pictures, frequently 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 run of Animutations use music from the original Japanese version of Pokémon. His style, most famously 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. Currently, 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 last Animutation, Wizard Power, was released in April 2003, whereupon he began another, but never finished it due to a lack of inspiration and an increasing interest in other types of projects. However, he has mentioned that he hopes to return to the style at some point. [1]

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Potter Puppet Pals

Cicierega's more recent animation projects are vastly different from his original animutation style. In 2003, he created two parts in a series named "Potter Puppet Pals," a spoof on Harry Potter with all the characters played by hand puppets. Characters in the cast so far include Harry, Ron, Hermione, Snape, Dumbledore and Voldemort. Episodes so far have focused on simply bothering Snape and on saving the school from Voldemort in a manner not typically used by wizards — namely, automatic weapons. The style is done in the manner of a Punch and Judy show, with the puppets moving around a small area. The puppets are animated using Flash.

He also has made a special tribute to a favorite character, voiced an animated excerpt from one of the Harry Potter books (drawn by his sister), and made an animutation Snape music video, all of which can be seen at the Potter Puppet Pals homepage (see below).

He and his sister Emmy also produce shirts featuring the Potter Puppet Pals.

No new Potter Puppet Pals shorts have been released on the Internet since 2003; however, a new one is currently in progress.

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Cicierega's Music

Cicierega has enjoyed some popularity as a musician, writing and performing his own music with the help of music authoring software such as Cakewalk Pro Audio 9. Cicierega says that his 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. He started widespread distribution of his songs under the name of "Trapezoid", and then as "Lemon Demon". Following a notice from an annoyed trademark holder, Trapezoid was posthumously changed to "Deporitaz", though outside of music distribution, Cicierega is still known to sometimes go by the nickname "Trapezoid" or "Trapezzoid". Lemon Demon has a website on Cicierega's eviltrailmix.com. Some of his music is available for download there, and he also occasionally posts a link to a new song on his weblog (see link below). A song off of the Damn Skippy album, "Dead Sea Monkeys", was almost featured in the VH1 show "I Love Toys" but canned at the last moment.

Some of his songs have had subtle political themes, such as What Will Happen Will Happen on Damn Skippy. Although no political figures are named nor are any particularly politically-charged opinions expressed, Cicierega has stated that it was written in response to how he saw some of his friends reacting to George W. Bush being reelected, suggesting that they were reacting in an unproductively angry or depressed manner, and proposing an alternate way of looking at world events one finds upsetting. Cicierega is known to have liberal politics in general, and he has identified as a "hardcore agnostic / secular humanist / kitchen witch / miscellaneous / Discordian". [2]

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The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny

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On December 22, 2005, Lemon Demon and Altf4 released the Flash music video The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny (often shortened to Ultimate Showdown) on Newgrounds.com. It became the daily feature on December 23, and the weekly user's choice on December 28. The video has since been released on Flash Portal, Albino Blacksheep, Transbuddha, Weebl's Stuff, and eventually its own fan-created site at UltimateShowdown.org. It later topped the "Funny Five" on the Dr. Demento Show.

The video features many famous real and fictional characters (largely taken from 80's pop culture) in a large century-long fight where only one will survive. Because of the numerous characters and humorous fashion, the video has gained a cult following. This resulted in a significant increase in sales of "Damn Skippy" and "Hip to the Javabean", and Cicierega encountered difficulty meeting the sudden demand. The song itself is set to be included on "Dinosaurchestra", his next album[3], though the song itself was created for the purpose of making a video that would be popular on Newgrounds.com [4].

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