INVADER ZIM Fact #6

Focus groups watching INVADER ZIM.

So I checked out the site stats for the past few days and it looks like these ZIM posts are pretty popular with the people who have an internet.  Also fascinating is that yesterday’s post that had almost nothing to do with ZIM at all was the least popular.  Do you know how that made me feel?  Do you?  It made me feel terrible, because it made me feel like you only like me for my sweet tits when I have  so many other qualities to offer.

Check this shit out!

What do you mean why am I unzipping my pants?  I wanted to show you some of the stuff that I think is way more interesting than what you’re obviously focused on.  So anyhow, get a load of THAT?  WEIRD, right?  I know!  I remember the first day that showed up and I’d be lying if I told you I didn’t try to tear it off with my own hands up until I got so disgusted by touching it for more than just a few seconds.  I was probably around 16 then, and as I tore and tore and screamed  and thrashed in that bathroom I was holding the door shut with my legs, bracing my back against the tub for leverage.  The banging from the other side, the terrified, worried screams from family members, it’s all still so vivid in my memory.

Hey, where are you going?  How can you not find this fascinating?  Just LOOK at it!  I SAID LOOK AT IT, GODDAMMIT!  Don’t open that door.  I said don’t open that door!  We’re not done here.  Oh, god how far from done we are.  Are you turning the door handle?  Oh, you’ve done it now, stupid, made the biggest mistake of your life.  See that throbbing?  It only does that when the serious shit’s about to go down?

What is it?  What IS it?  Can something this monstrous ever be named by words so small as what we use?  Maybe back when it even slightly resembled what I was used to up to that point it coulda had a name, but now…now to even think to try would be like naming…THIS.

That’s right I just took my shirt off, and fuck yes I’m seeing you through every eye you’re surely making that face at.  I see into your fucking soul, friend, and I see that you’re beginning to understand the situation here.  Woah, it’s never done THAT before!  Quick, take a video! Your iPhone, dammit!  Use that?

It’s only a 3g?  FUCK!

Shit, I’m sorry.  Look, I get all worked up, and I know how much you like science, thus that lil’ tangent there, but lemme get back to what I was getting at before.  I’m not one to give people stuff they didn’t ask for, and knowing that something is just not thrilling readers the way I hope it is hurts me.  It hurts me right there.  There.  Yeah, that thing.  No I have no clue what that is either, but it hurts like hell when I’m sad, and it…yeah…yeah it does that.  Stand back, that stream is seriously pressurized and whatever that shit is starts to burn like napalm jelly after about ten minutes.

You good?  Cool.  So what I was saying is that you’ll probably dig today’s ZIM FACT a bit more than yesterday’s as it’ll be filled with the kind of cold, hard facts that glassy-eyed internet crawlers love to absorb and then poop back out to people whose eyes aren’t quite glassy looking enough.  I know a lot of folks have felt terribly cheated by these things, which have been undeniable facts, but just not the sorta facts they’re interested in.

Well that changes today.  Stand back..this is gonna blow all minds within close proximity of the initial blast of information and give everyone else testicular cancer regardless of sex.

FACT:

In INVADER ZIM AND HIS AMAZING FRIENDS, the character, Dib’s, head was not particularly bigger than most others in the show, but the gag about it being unusual ran for the entire series, but was never explained.  Well, I’m not here to explain why that joke was to make any sense within the context of the show’s running narrative, but what I do have for you this fine day is information on how that joke came to be at all.  Believe me, it’s a lot more interesting than anything you might have imagined ever.  Seriously, you’ve never imagined anything this great, mainly because of how awful your imagination is.  If cars ran on imagination, yours wouldn’t run and it would be stupid too, am I right?!  HAHAH!  Yeah, I’m right.

Long before the “big head” gag was even a glimmer in one of the myriad of eyes peppering my chest like blinking, seeping buckshot, back when the show was just in the series bible phase, we began noticing a very curious thing during focus testing.

Now, before I get into that, lemme clear up what a series bible is for those of you who aren’t showbiz types and drive around in imagination powered cars that never run out of fuel and can plow through ten elephants lined up thanks to how goddamn powerful they are.

A show needs a document that details what the potential show could and would be visually and in terms of its content.  Included are the premise of the show, a list of characters and their traits and motivations, images to sell the show’s hopefully unique look, and often times, examples of possible episodes to give the reader an idea of where the show might go.  So that was the first official incarnation of INVADER ZIM, this bible form, and Nickelodeon had, at that point, begun experimenting with approaching focus groups even earlier, not content to wait until the show had produced a watchable pilot episode, bringing groups of kids together to peruse show bibles.

That’s when the oddness was first documented.

I won’t ask you to strain your imagination (which is hateful, by the way) and have you try to visualize this stuff, so I’m going to use mine (which once rescued a baby from a rampaging capybara at the zoo) to detail with excruciating detail, sparing you the strain on your processor.

Your typical focus group adventure.

I only sat in on a few of these things in those days, getting a sense of just what to expect from a thing my own potential show would have to pass through in the near future.  To me it was like the bit in Neverending Story where the girl has to pass through the three trials to reach the Southern Oracle because that tarted up child-empress had the measles or something and the Oracle would probably know how to help out.

So the first trial is this set of spooky sphinxes that fire lasers at you at the first sign of your lack of nerve.  the adventurer is supposed to simply walk between the two along the path that leads to the Oracle, and the usual result is that they get blasted to fleshless bone.  To me, my show idea was the adventurer, and this focus group thing was the first of many trials capable of blasting it to oblivion before it could mature, pupate, and then fly high on the most disturbing, puppy-face horror of a dragon ever created.

The way this setup worked was that they would bring a bunch of kids into a room setup to look like a waiting room, only every “casually” placed item in the room was actually very deliberately dressed to either be eye-catching or, in the case of light fixtures and couch-humidity level monitors, record changes in interest levels and moisture.  The usual two-way mirror on the wall was where I, and the other observers would spy on the kids to see how things were going down.

On a coffee table in the center of the room were strewn about show bibles from the various shows in production at the studio, with copies of the ZIM bible mixed in.  As the kids picked up and perused whatever bible that caught their eye, they were monitored for how long the thing caught their attention and which show it was that was getting the love or getting the cold shoulder.

Everyone else in the room on my side was some sort of executive something or other, creepy types who, when they made jokes to lighten the tension, sounded like soulless robots programmed to infiltrate a colony of actual humans, but doing such bad job of it for how blatantly inhuman they were that they only gave you the willies and made you wish you could talk to people that actually liked animation as an artform instead of just an avenue to a new, better office.  I did my best to pretend they were all just strange, animated furniture that would occasionally ask me to stop telling them to quiet their empty, dead voices.  These people were all taking notes, scratching chins and such, but all I could do was watch as the kids did their kid things, my interest, for obvious reasons, focused on the attention paid to the ZIM bible.

I can’t say that what happened was unusual for this sorta thing, but later events would make me wonder if it wasn’t the first sign of what was to come.  It seemed that the kids handling the ZIM bibles the longest began complaining of headaches, one of them asking to please be allowed out of the room.

That was it.  Nothing more.

The show had made it past trial one, but it did it through means contradictory to how the criteria expected things to work.  Enough kids checked out that bible to show that there was definitely something worth looking into there, but those same kids also exhibited signs of definite distress with the headaches being the most outright.

Coincidence, right?  Probably.  Maybe.  Maybe not.

Flash forward and there I am in my own little office  with a small team of guys working on a ten minute short, the pilot episode for INVADER ZIM, which, a few more focus groups and a few more headachey children later, has passed the trials, has spoken to the Southern Oracle, and been sent on its way to meet with Morla, the Ancient One, only this giant turtle is more of another sequence of focus testing groups.  Lemme tell you, dealing with a giant, suicidal turtle monster would very definitely have been more fun than experiencing focus groups for  television show, but that’s how television works, and that’s why everything produced for television and film is a total and complete success with nothing failing thanks to how meticulously these exec types fashion everything to be AWESOME.

Making the pilot was fun enough, and it’s when a lot of the show got ironed down, and all, though the series that resulted from it didn’t resemble it very much.  Still, there was enough of that certain something that eventually became the show to keep up the bizarre track record established by the bible tests from the year before.

Just getting to the focus groups was an accomplishment to be impressed by, with various parties piping in with why they would lose this bit or that, trained comedy experts who say things like “it’s not popping enough”, or “You’re the writer, not me, but I was imagining it would be edgier.”  Can’t say I was victorious in all of these deciding points, not because I didn’t try, but because I didn’t expect some of the parties involved to go as low as they did, with some taking to re-editing the pilot without my knowledge and providing that copy to the focus groups when they came about.  That’s why you never turn your back on execs and you sure as hell don’t work with execs who run a meth lab.

But that’s all boring old stuff compared toe the fascinating old stuff, and that’s the bit we’re at now.

I’m not going to bother with foreshadowing any more than I already have, so let’s just get right into this.  The focus groups for the pilot were more what you’d expect of this type of thing.  Rather than do what they did with the bibles and just sit kids in a cacophonous chamber filled with televisions displaying all the contenders, the organizers of the test groups went with the old fashioned single television showing one show at a time to various groups of kids.  It’s pretty much how focus groups for shows generally work.  Nothing out of the ordinary there.

So I watch a few of the other pilots first, as they held off on showing mine to the very end, making the whole experience even more nerve-wracking for me.  I forget what the other shows were being shown that day, remembering only that Fairly Oddparents was in development at the same time.  The kids were nice and docile while watching Oddparents, watching, but not being overly affected by it, definitely not getting headaches.

About an hour later, it’s ZIM’s turn to take the stage, and the room was refreshed with a new batch of kids, and those kids were ready for CARTOOONS, making a ruckus and taking forever to settle down enough to be told what was about to happen.  Having been made aware of ZIM’s potentially adverse affects on people, the organizers prepped the children on what to do should they begin to feel unnatural or just plain odd.

“Just close your eyes and don’t let the show into your head.”, they told the kids.

The kids, being kids, just laughed, looked around the room and forgot the bizarre instruction as soon as it came.

I looked over at one of the observers’ checklist, a list of reactions and such for ZIM’s pilot in in particular, and along with the same list of things as on the checklists for the other shows was an added line and checkbox for “headaches”.  Probably for the best, I figured.

This was a pretty high tech operation, with the paper checklists being the most old-shool part of the whole setup.  All around me was highly sensitive equipment for taking readings on heart-rates, brain activity, perspiration, etc.  I was as impressed as I was intimidated.

So the lady, the lady giving the kids the prep speech, presses play on the VCR in the room and leaves the room.  The kids instantly shut up because now “cartoons are on”, and they just watch like any kid would up until the point they decide it sucks, should that point come.

Five minutes in and three of the ten kids are rubbing their temples, and I see that one of them actually is closing his eyes, his mouth mumbling words I can’t quite make out.  Of the other kids, four are looking just a bit “off”, and the remaining four seem fine, actually laughing at ZIM being allergic to Earth foods and spouting his silly nonsense, or just not paying much attention at all.

“He’s funny!”, one of the four seemingly normal kids says, and one of the others giggles in agreement.

The rest of the room isn’t faring as well, with the “off group” getting that glassy look in their eyes, their blood-pressure dropping, going clammy.

“Off group” is doing miles better than the headache gang, who’ve stopped speaking altogether, all of them with their heads in their hands now.  Someone in the observation room, a new guy not around for the previous batch of tests on the bible, asks “So…is this normal?”

“Yes.”  I say.  “Yes it’s normal.”

All eyes in the room are on me as I say this, as I convince myself at that very moment that it is indeed normal, and expected, until the screams start up from the room of children.

Headache gang is now the rolling around on the floor clutching their tortured skulls gang, the howling and grunting they throw out spooking the “off group”, only slightly, but freaking the fuck out of the normal kids.  The normal kids do what they can to try to help the kids in apparent distress, but then give up and huddle in a corner of the room, keeping distance between themselves and whatever is happening to the screamers.

“Stop this.  STOP THIS.”, says the new guy, reaching for a red  “cancellation” button in the center console where the woman organizer sits.

“NO, MAN.  NO!”, I hiss at the new guy, smacking his hand away from the button.  I turn to the guards framing the exit telling them to “shoot anyone that tries to get out of this room.”  The guards nervously look at one another and then nod at me.

“We have to see, man.  We HAVE to see.  Don’t you understand?  We don’t know what is happening here but we’ll NEVER know if we don’t let it run its course!”

“But those’re kids!  KIDS!  Listen to them!  Don’t you hear what’s happening in there?!  Jesus Christ!”

Now, I’m a slight guy, barely able to lift my teacup in the morning, but you’d better believe I grabbed a fistful of that guy’s shirt and slammed him against the wall to make my point.

“I HEAR what’s happening, yeah, but I’m a fucking scientist, asshole, and hearing’s not good enough.  I have to know WHAT’S happening, and you’re gonna watch, even if you don’t like it.  All of us here, we’re all gonna find out and THEN we’ll think about what to do.”

New guy slides to the floor, defeated, sobbing and still not entirely convinced it’s the best thing to do, but he goes along with it.  They all go along with it.

And more shrieks from the other side of the glass.

We all turn, forgetting about right or wrong, our animal curiosity taking over once more, rewarded with the sight of the kids who were, by now, probably remember the good ol’ minutes of ago when they only had headaches to worry about.  Their heads, now twice their normal size, swelling and throbbing, cracking and splitting as the owners screamed and flailed.

“Off group” still sat, now dead eyed,  and drooling, the skin of their faces softening and running slowly, gradually down their skulls like thick pudding held together only by the skin.

The normal kids howl with terror, pounding at the door to be let out.  On the tv, ZIM is doing stupid shit but nobody is laughing.  The headache gang, their faces grotesque, nightmare cartoon versions of their former selves because of the change in scale, gurgle and screech in pain and rage and who knows what.

“Off group” by that point was almost entirely a sheet of human mud covering the floor, spreading out and threatening to touch the kicking feet of the terrified normal kids.

One after the other, the headache gang’s heads flower open, thick ropey tentacles flailing from a hideous knot at the core of what was once a head.  They feel about, snapping around the room, wrapping around lamps, the television, licking at the walls and ceiling, and finally lashing around the ankles, arms, faces of the only cool kids in the room.

The kids scream louder.

“CLEAN THE ROOM.”, I say.

The woman looks up at me, unsure.

“DO IT.”

The woman flips a switch, and the room fills with fire.  Black shutters come down over the mirror to spare us the glare.  The screams stop soon after, but for many of the people in this room with me, the nightmares stay forever.

But the visual of kids with huge heads always stuck, and, separated from the source of the idea, was undeniably funny to me, so I worked it into the show, ya see?

Well, until next time, you have fun!

Just one more thing.  I’ve included a wee fragment of audio from one of the focus group sessions.  Boring stuff for most people, but I know some of you find this sorta thing interesting, and this is as good place as any to share it.

zim focus test

–ZIM FACTS.  Here’s why—