Year of the Robo!

[Sage58]

Ahoy,

My name is Peter Tatara.  I'm a senior in Ithaca College in Ithaca, New York.  I'm also President of Ithaca College's Anime Society ( http://www.ithaca.edu/orgs/anime/ ).  This past semester, the Anime Society and I -- calling ourselves Experimental Amateur Hero Productions -- wrote, directed, and produced a series of eight anime-inspired shorts titled "Johnny Robo".  These eight five-minute episodes pay tribute to and are a parody of everything from "Power Rangers" to Pro Wrestling to Buster Keaton.  We've had the first episode screened on local television with the entire series to air in the spring.  The first episode is also online on our website ( JohnnyRobo.cjb.net ), and the entire series is now available for $10 on DVD. (We are in the process of investigating a BitTorrent release for most or all of the series, but we're waiting -- amid other reasons -- to see if BitTorrent will still exist after the MPAA is through with it.) We're very excited over the response "Johnny Robo" has received thus far, and we're looking at making as many people aware as we can.

I'm a big fan of and frequent visitor to Macross World (my 1/48 Yammie Max is my baby) although I haven't been around for a bit. I don't really want my first post in some time to be spammish, but here it is. Experimental Amateur Hero Productions are all fans, and we made this show for fans. I encourage you to visit the "Johnny Robo" website ( JohnnyRobo.cjb.net ) and download the first episode ( http://homepage.mac.com/tatara/robo/Johnny_Robo_1_online.mov ). We're in the process, right now, of making a sequel, and I'd love to know what you guys think.

Thank you,

Peter Tatara

[Sage58]

I've been perpetually getting e-mails from those interested in "Johnny Robo" inquiring when the full series will be online. It was always my intent to get all of "JR" uploaded via BitTorrent once the school year was over; however, due to a series of fortunate events, all of "Johnny Robo" is currently online for direct download at http://homepage.mac.com/tatara/robo/downloads2.html .

They won't be up forever, only until May, but if you're interested in being the first to have a low-res "Johnny Robo" collection on your hard drive, download away! Also, feel free to tell others that the full series is online. (Tell me if you have any problems watching them, too.)