The missed opportunity of Hullabaloo

In my opinion, Hullabaloo is one of the biggest missed opportunities in steampunk. Like I mentioned in my post about Steamboy yesterday, it seems like there are plenty of movies with steampunk elements but very few that actually lean into steampunk as a whole. I mean, not just airships or steam-powered devices but the whole world that the DIY steampunk community has been creating since it started. So I was excited when I first heard about Hullabaloo. It wasn't just going to be an animated film with steampunk "influences", it was first and foremost a steampunk animated film.

Hullabaloo started as an indiegogo campaign in 2014. They wanted $80,000 to make a 2d steampunk film using traditional hand-drawn animation and a bunch of ex-Disney animators. Their plan was to release this film in 2015. The campaign was so successful that they blew past their initial goal and started adding stretch goals to create episodes of Hullabaloo. And they kept blowing past those goals too. In the end they raised $470k; passing enough stretch goals to make 4 episodes of Hullabaloo. And then came... the wait.

To their credit, they kept updating the indiegogo page with their progress. They didn't just take the money and run. But their plan for 2015 came and went with nothing to show for it. Another year past, and another, still nothing to show for it. 5 years... 6 years... 7 years... Finally, 8 years after their intended 2015 release date (in 2023) they released episode 1. It was less than 7 minutes long. And didn't exactly have a plot. It's mostly just two characters driving in the desert.

Again, to their credit, this crew of ex-Disney animators did an amazing job. The animation style reminds me a lot of the Don Bluth movies. But this 7 minute short film feels more like an animation test than an "episode". Now here we are another 3 years later and there's no sign of episode 2.

I guess the goal had always been to make a short film and garner enough interest to fund a feature-length movie, but the talk of "episodes" had me thinking we'd get more than 7 minutes. And while I know hand-drawn animation takes a lot more time and effort than I would expect, an 8-year wait for a 7-minute short film seems excessive. Although aside from being terrible at estimating how long it would take, I don't think they really misrepresented anything. They never specified how long these episodes would be.

Still, the idea of a feature-length steampunk movie made from ex-Disney animators would've been amazing. And these 7 minutes really do show a cool spark of an idea. But right now, that's all it is. Here's episode 1 in full. You can watch all 7 minutes yourself.