How Hypnotoad Was Brought To Life For Futurama Fan Film

After releasing the debut trailer for Cinema Relics' Fan-O-Rama: A Futurama Fan Film, the upcoming live-action fan-film based on Matt Groening's sci-fi comedy Futurama and led by Dan Lanigan, a couple of behind-the-scenes videos have been released, showing how some of the iconic characters and sets were brought to life.

In this latest video, posted by Adam Savage's Tested, their very own Frank Ippolito, a special effects and makeup expert, explains to Norman Chan how he, with help from sculptor Brain Wade, designed and built the animatronic version of Hypnotoad.

For those of you not familiar with the show, Hypnotoad is exactly what his name suggests: A toad that uses his large oscillating multicolored eyes to hypnotize humans, animals, and aliens. The character, which is one of Groening's favorites, usually just stares blankly into the camera and emits a loud, droning hum.

Additionally, Hypnotoad is the star of Everyone Loves Hypnotoad, a show within the show. Because Hypnotoad hypnotizes the audience, the show is quite popular; however, it went downhill, according to Fry, after the third season.

Hatched from the mind of The Simpsons creator Matt Groening, Futurama blasts contemporary culture and science fiction alike with an animated comedy barrage. Hapless NYC pizza guy Philip J. Fry (voiced by Billy West) makes a fateful delivery to a cryonics lab on New Year's Eve, 1999 when he's accidentally flash-frozen until the next millennium. Reawakened in 31st century New New York, he finds work at his great-great-etc. grandnephew's Planet Express delivery service. Together with his hedonist robot buddy Bender (voiced by John DiMaggio) and cyclopsian love interest Leela (voiced by Katey Sagal), Fry travels to the farthest reaches of the universe. Along the way they discover strange alien life forms, velour-clad lotharios, freaky mutants, intergalactic conspiracies and the disembodied heads of celebrities throughout the ages.