Episodes:

Fancyunderpants

Styrofoam dummies were used to create early concept art.

When polygone creator Brian Lind first approached producers with a few blurry photographs, he had a difficult pitch to make. What he had in mind was a modern-day Odd Couple with a geometric twist. But in a media dominated by three dimensional chatacters with one dimensional personalities, characters like Square, Triangle and Circle seemed oddly out of place.

But Brian refused to be discouraged. He worked solidly for months, promoting his idea at every major studio he could sneak in to. Finally the hard work paid off and he received a contract to create a pilot episode for the new Fall line-up for UPN.

A scene from "Shapes of Your Life" shot in front of a blue screen.

It was in the production of this pilot that Brian developed his signature style. He would film the actors in front of a blue screen and then digitally create a background for the scene. Although this method was extremely time consuming and put the production well over budget, the results revolutionized the industry. Two weeks into production, the pilot was $10,000 over budget and behind schedule. When rumors of trouble on the set reached the head offices at UPN, the executives descended on the Polygone set in droves, quickly taking over control of the project.

Polygone was renamed "Shapes of Your Life" and the storyline was re-worked to revolve around three hip teenagers going through college and learning a little about life in the process. The already over-budget production soared out of control as the 4 week shoot turned into 4 months. As it progressed, Brian sank further and further into the background of the project.

In January of 2001, "Shapes of Your Life" premiered on the UPN network to fill the recently vacated 6:00 time-slot. Twenty minutes into the show, UPN received the worst ranking in the history of the network, actually scoring a -3 on the Neilson ratings. Though the show was pulled from the air halfway through, it looked like Polygone itself was finished.

Brian's dream of larger than life two dimensional characters had been shanghaied into a dead end. Desperate and out of work, Brian hit rock bottom. But just when it looked like his promising career was dead in the water, Brian hitched his wagon to a new rising star and a comic strip presumably about underwear.

The first Spare Undies shows the creative process behind the comic.

Addam Pool had worked on several low budget, independent films but had yet to make a name for himself. Hoping to finally emerge as a creative force, Addam had chosen to branch off to start his own project: a media website titled FancyUnderpants.com. But he knew he couldn't undertake a project of this magnitude unassisted so he started looking for someone with a strong creative background to provide the cutting edge humor he planned to make a trademark of Fancyunderpants.

Coincidentally, Addam was one of the few people tuning in to watch "Shapes of Your Life" and he immediately noticed something familiar about the program. Growing up in Oregon, Addam and Brian had been close friends before traveling to different parts of the country to pursue their careers. While Brian had been searching for acceptance in Hollywood, Addam had been putting his time in to gain experience on the indie scene in New York. Addam immediately called Brian and offered him a job. Brian accepted and the rest, as they say, is history.

Spare Undies, Fancy Underpants' first major success, brought Brian back from the brink of disaster. He drew from his previous creative frustration to create a daring glimpse into a bizarre world full of faulty logic and talking animals. Fancyunderpants continued to grow at astronomic rates, expanding into the fields of animated media. Yet despite all this worldly success, Brian was strangely dissatisfied.

The cast of Polygone poses for a photo at a press junket.

Although he had moved on to other projects, Brian couldn't stop regreting what had happened to Polygone. He still believed in the concept and wanted to give it another try. In February of 2002, he purchased the rights to Polygone from UPN for three dollars and forty two cents. Polygone's rebirth had begun.

Most of the former cast jumped at doing Polygone without the restrictions of a major studio. Only Gail Rotunda, who had played Circle in "Shapes of Your Life" had to be replaced. Chris Flowell was cast to fill the role.

Fancyunderpants provided the perfect springboard for the project. Brian took the original Polygone style and simplified it to webcomic style. By condensing an entire episode down to two or three frames, Brian managed to save thousands of dollars in production cost. (This is something most sitcoms would benefit from). In April of 2002, the first Polygone went live. Many more episodes followed in quick succession and the show quickly gained a cult following.

What does the future hold for Polygone? Only time will tell. But judging from the way things are headed, the future is very bright indeed!