The year is 2011. I recovered from my "I hate Cartoon Network" symptoms and the schedule was improving. I was the channel's biggesat fan (but I didn't talk too much to friends about that) and I had the following in my mind: if there are cartoons where the main character is a mermaid, why not make one where the main character is a merman?
Anyway, Darwin the Merman was born from a dream I had before waking up on the morning of November 1st, 2011. That dream had nothing to do with what would be Darwin.
I was leaving my school and I noticed that there was a weird arcade nearby. I entered and turns out that it was purple and had some cabinets and some weird stairs. I got up those stairs and I went to someone else's house in turn. I had to rest in a bed.
That morning, and without any relationship to the dream, I imagined myself. As a merman. Named Darwin. Living with a younger brother. And a merman from Flapjack.
And then I started thinking on what would the show be like. I already had an idea for the theme song:
A full minute of a theme song would work for a CN song, but that would actually be shortened becuase of their policies to shorten up their theme songs.
Initially, Darwin was supposed to have a look inspired by Flapjack if he was a merman (as the final episode, Fish Out Of Water, clearly evidences), but then I changed it to a different look with a square nose.
In late December, someone on Deviantart under the name of kmy1205 posted what could end up being the best design for Darwin. I picked up a humanization of Flounder ar a merman. Let me explain: he has blue and yellow hair, his head was round, he was wearing a yellow shirt (which my design refuses) and his tail was blueish-gray with the tip being blue and yellow. Days later, I went to cut my hair and when they put hair gel on me, I felt like I was Darwin because I had the idea that his "hair aroma" was just like some hair gel they put on me. Darwin the Merman's popularity grew from mental level to personal level.
I started to think on his sister. I thought on a red and yellow color scheme on her hair, seashell bra (half-red and half-yellow) and her tail, with a significant part of it being peach colored. Initially her name was supposed to be Eivlys, because of this:
Anyway, Darwin needed someone stronger. An older brother. I called him Kevin because of the character on the various Ben 10 shows.
Not too long before Darwin's older brother was created, I had to use chats to express my ideas twice. Considering that I already recorded with Vocaroo, I decided to use Chatfoo considering that it was being advertised on Vocaroo for some time. Only recently I knew that Chatfoo closed. If you tpye "Chatfoo" on Google, you'll see my two chats. That was one of the best days of my life with my fake cartoon.
I started to pick the best design for Darwin: the aforementioned drawing of what would Flounder look like as a merman posted by kmy1205. I imagined him without any shirt.
I expanded my expressions on the awful blogs I had in 2012: that fall, I posted a lot of what remained of that wonderful artwork: now it existed in smaller sizes. I started to give ideas for more characters. I also renamed Eivlys to Bea, because Eivlys wasn't a good choice.
I joined Toonzone in late December 2012 and slowly wanted to give Darwin some "focus" on some forums nobody wants to read. In late May/early June, I published a partial script, but no one answered me.
But anyway, Darwin the Merman was inspired (in a way) by Fish Hooks, and it probably served as a demented idea that will come true one day.
Please comment.
