When we came up with the gag of having them fall through the rainbow of ‘Hope’ we didn’t think of how difficult it would be to paint and cut out all those letters and shapes! When it came time to insert the puppets into the scene we knew the big puppets would look too fake…

There were two key components to this shot. First, there is almost nothing funnier than a puppet getting tossed around like a rag doll. Especially when it bounces on his head… Over Halloween we had run a contest to see which JibJab fans could put together the mightest mustachioed JibJab guys photo. 10 lucky winners…

We were super excited about this shot, as it proved to be the only bit of stop-motion animation that we worked into the whole piece. Ian carved this set out of green floral foam, then animated it frame-by-frame using pins to keep it all in place. The program he is using called Dragon and it…

We thought this scene would be a breeze but it actually turned out to be quite a challenge. First, the balloons kept popping every time we would draw or paint on them. Then, when we finally got the balloon painted and blown up, we had a hard time popping it! Thank goodness for blow guns……

We just love thrown’ money around! We collected a big old stack of ones and fives, pinned a few to Obama’s hands then the puppeteers got to have a party… The second part of this shot was equally as cool. In keeping with the whole ‘in-camera’ theme we had Alex build a miniature version of…

This scene proved way more complicated to shoot than we initially expected.  First, Mike had to build two puppets; one that looked uncomfortable and could actually swallow the Healthcare pill and the second that looked really pissed off and could spring up to shout ‘REPEAL!’ Getting the Obama puppet to actually hold the pill and…

Joe Biden cursing on television is comedy gold! After the puppet was built Ian mocked up an old school TV that we could slide ol’ Joe into. Here’s some shots from the process…

We could not get enough puppet dancing. It’s just hilarious, you guys. You try capturing ridiculous footage of dancing puppets and cutting it out, it’s close to impossible.  So it is with great pride we give you MORE puppet dancing…

Here’s a clip of the guys workin’ the waves. Once the puppets were filmed, we just plugged them right into the raft… We had done some early tests that relied much more heavily on compositing effects into the background. They came out beautifully but ultimately we felt like they were too slick for this project…

This scene is super fast but we think it’s one of the funniest clips in the final video. It’s amazng how much effort can go into ONE second of screen time! Here’s some shots of Romney sculpting the puppet… Then there were the backgrounds to contend with! Here’s a sequence of Kevin doing the layouts,…

When we wrote Wikileaks into the Year in Review, they were a fairly big story, but nowhere near the story they are now! Here’s a shot of Kevin building the Pentagon… And here’s what the final set looked like and a clip of the guys in action. One of the best parts about making this…

Ian had done some early storyboards trying to figure out all the different ways that Obama and Biden could physically destroy the year 2010. We had them pop the 2010 balloon early, on but when we saw them beating the 2010 with sticks… we just knew it had to be in the short. As mentioned…

The only thing better then goofy puppets are goofy puppets being dramatic! We were really psyched to build a Shakespearean Obama puppet. Here’s a detailed look at the costume and a shot of the Swazzle guys in action…

Building the giant Easter Island head inspired versions of Charles Rangel, General McChrystal and Hamid Karzai was a task we couldn’t wait to see Justin undertake. He had never sculpted before but his drawings are just magnificent and we knew he’d be able to turn these three out like no one else. Here’s just a…

How do you make a big Broadway style prop? Foamcore, Gold spray paint, sparkly foam and a Bedazzler! Once Evan finished building the prop he passed it off to Ian for filming. Here he is withe some hooks and fishing wire lifting it into frame…