A new fan-made animation mixes up the opening credits for Chuck — the cult-favorite Zachary Levi series — and Shazam!, his upcoming movie from Warner Bros. and New Line.
Videos by ComicBook.com
The series originally ran from 2007 until 2012, although as recently as December 2017, Levi has continued to champion the idea of occasional reunion movies to check in with the characters.
“I think Chuck is kind of a perfect premise to do those one-off installments, in the same way that Bond does it. Not to compare Chuck to Bond, but isn’t it really the same thing?” Levi joked with an audience at Heroes & Villains Fan Fest San Jose. “But it’s a happy-go-lucky kind of sillier version of James Bond. We had our baddie of the week every week or sometimes the entire year. And that’s a way easier thing to get the whole band back together for.”
The video above, just titled “Billy,” is a send-up of the Chuck opening credits — but, y’know…with Shazam! characters. the animation style is similar to the Chuck titles, and the music is a sound-alike to Cake’s “Short Skirt/Long Jacket,” which provided the opening riff for the series.
The animation was done by David M. Jones, who has done things like Arrow Jedi and the unofficial “Elseworlds” trailer. He teamed up with Mike Schmidt (presumably not the former Philadelphia Phillies third baseman, but one never knows) to provide the music.
Chuck, which ran for five seasons on NBC, centered around computer whiz and electronics store employee Chuck Bartowski (Levi), who found himself enganged in frequent espionage and world-saving plots after becoming a human Intersect — a person endowed with a government server connected to the United State’s intelligence agencies implanted in their brain.
Chuck found himself working alongside CIA Agent Sarah Walker (Yvonne Strahovski), NSA Agent colonel John Casey (Adam Baldwin), and bumbling best friend Morgan Grimes (Joshua Gomez). Chuck kept most of his secrets from concerned older sister Ellie (Sarah Lancaster) and brother-in-law Devon (Ryan McPartlin), the six characters comprising Chuck’s main cast.
Here is the official synopsis for Shazam!:
We all have a superhero inside us, it just takes a bit of magic to bring it out. In Billy Batson’s (Asher Angel) case, by shouting out one word—SHAZAM!—this streetwise 14-year-old foster kid can turn into the adult Super Hero Shazam (Zachary Levi), courtesy of an ancient wizard (Djimon Hounsou). Still a kid at heart—inside a ripped, godlike body—Shazam revels in this adult version of himself by doing what any teen would do with superpowers: have fun with them! Can he fly? Does he have X-ray vision? Can he shoot lightning out of his hands? Can he skip his social studies test? Shazam sets out to test the limits of his abilities with the joyful recklessness of a child. But he’ll need to master these powers quickly in order to fight the deadly forces of evil controlled by Dr. Thaddeus Sivana (Mark Strong).
Shazam! will open in theaters on April 5th.
Aquaman is now playing in theaters. Upcoming DC Extended Universe movies include Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of one Harley Quinn) on February 7, 2020, and Wonder Woman 1984 on June 5, 2020.