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LA Kings cartoon series? Meet the mad geniuses behind ‘Dewy Show"

Los Angeles Kings defenseman Drew Doughty and his adorable dog were chilling in his condo when inspiration struck: They would hold a massive party and invite everyone tangentially associated with the Stanley Cup champions.

OH NOES! His teammate Trevor Lewis informs him that Mike Richards and Jeff Carter, notorious party boys, are holding an “Epic Rager” of their own!

If this sounds like something that happens every weekend during the offseason for the Kings, you’re probably right. If this sounds like the plot from some cartoon sitcom version of the team … you are also correct.

“The Dewy Show” debuted this week on YouTube, created by filmmakers Chris Pavlica and Zach Baumgartner. It’s a fascinating mix of live action and animation, with some razor-sharp observational humor about the team – from the partying past of Richards and Carter to the harried home life of Dustin Brown.

It’s pretty hilarious, and laden with Easter eggs for hockey fans to savor.

Here’s Episode 1:

Here’s Episode 2:

The syrup people … the syrup.

Chris Pavlica is originally from northwest Ohio and Zach Baumgartner grew up in South Dakota. Both are huge hockey fans, and gravitated to the Kings upon moving to LA. “We became fans when they sucked and were building this team. Dewy hadn't even been drafter yet and no one thought this guy Quick would be in the league for long,” said Pavlica.

“I guess that's what attracted us to this organization: Like much of LA, none of the players, coaches, front office is from here. Everyone is a transplant and an underdog… just like us. It was all very relatable. And of course, there’s just nothing better than hockey.”

Here’s a little Q&A we did with the creators of “Dewy” about this odd little series...

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Q. What inspired this lunacy?

One day during the Western Conference Finals we were wondering just what kind of life these NHL players have outside of the rink. A goof-ball like Drew Doughty sleeps all day, has an insanely messy home, and makes more money during sixty minutes of hockey than most of us make in a year. He's at the top of the league, two Cups, two gold medals and he's freaking 24 years old.

That’s the big question for us: What the hell is life like for a guy like that? Since we have no idea, we decided to make it up.

Aside from his play on the ice, the only real connection fans have to these guys are the video packages that are broadcast between periods (or short clips from NHL 36, 24/7, etc). Even though we had limited knowledge, Dewy is the cornerstone of this strong franchise and whether you love him or hate him, everyone seems to have an opinion of him.

From the little that we've seen about these guys... it was pretty clear to us that they were interesting and funny characters - so we said, “let's make something happen.”

Then, of course, the first thought is: Who the hell is going to watch this? The audience will be extremely small. But, any time you do something creative, you have to throw any negatives away. So we decided it would be fun. Screw it. Hopefully people like it, but it'll be fun to do. We still have this mindset since we have no idea what people will think, but we smile when we watch it. So it's worth it so far.

Q. That tech you're using is alternately creepy and awesome. How was it developed? Have you used it before?

Well, we knew no one was going to finance this so we had to do it all ourselves by hand. Neither of us are cartoonists or classical animators so we sought a solution that would look good and also not take an eternity. We knew we wanted nicely drawn faces but we didn't have the heart to beg a favor from some cartoonists we know. Instead we outsourced it. The internet is a crazy, sometimes-helpful, place. But that's where it ended... we received some Photoshop layers and that's all. The rest was on us for writing, shooting, acting (miming might be a better word), tracking, animating, voicing, editing, VFX, etc.

Animating full bodies would take too long so we thought up something we hadn't seen before... real bodies, animated, cartoon faces. We weren't sure it'd work but we went for it and we loved it from the start. It looks so weird and creepy but we wanted to laugh every time Dewy smiled... so we trudged forward into what we believe is somewhat unknown territory.

Our voices make up most of it except for Zach's good buddy (and comedian) Joey Long. We knew we needed someone with more pizazz for Dewy and Joey has been perfect.

Q. Which Kings are you most looking forward to getting onto the show, from a comedic potential standpoint?

We have a long list of ideas for future episodes and most of them are built around certain characters. We need to get an artist involved again but we might be able to enlist some pros … this time we'll stay away from the Internet and instead pull resources from our talented teammates in the local men's hockey league.

As for the characters we have in mind... some are Kings players but we have some opposing teams' players that we'd like to work into the show. Our sights are set on some annoying rival players i.e. Logan Couture. That guy was born with a face for radio. We'll use that to our advantage. And real-life Dewy is best buds with him so I'm sure they'll appreciate it.

We also would love to get Hall-of-Famer Bob Miller in there. Jim Fox is a must. Maybe even local-favorite Patrick O’Neal, who knows... but Pia's gotta make an appearance.

We're hoping those whom our characters are based upon think it's funny. We definitely mean no harm and have tried to keep it fun-loving and tasteful. Maybe we'll even convince some of these people to voice their own characters. That'd be awesome.

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Check out the “Dewy Show” YouTube channel for new episodes.