Karl Pilkington

CLIENT. Curtis Brown

YEAR. 2021

Animation and sound design

SERVICES

PROJECT OVERVIEW

KP Radio was a collaborative concept between Karl Pilkington and myself, designed as a comedic animated series. The project aimed to capture Karl’s unique humor in a simple yet engaging format, featuring him in his home environment alongside his cat. Each episode was a short, tightly edited 5-minute animation, showcasing his musings, what he’d been exploring online, and concluding with him playing a song on his laptop. The abrupt endings gave viewers the impression of a larger show, creating curiosity about an extended format that remained intentionally unseen.

PROJECT GOALS

The series was developed with the aim of pitching to music-based platforms like Spotify as a comedic driver to attract audiences to their platforms. The concept merged Karl’s distinct humor with a light, episodic structure that felt modern and relatable to online audiences.

MY ROLE

Animator and Content Producer: Created animated sequences to bring Karl’s stories to life, ensuring his personality and humor translated effectively into visual form.

  • Co-Concept Creator: Worked closely with Karl to refine the concept and structure of the episodes.

  • Story Development: Collaborated on the comedic pacing and tone, leveraging Karl’s voice and persona as the centerpiece of the series.

5 KP RADIO EPISODES PRODUCED

CHALLENGES
Balancing Karl’s improvisational style with the concise 5-minute format.

  • Designing animations that felt organic and simple while engaging large online audiences.

  • Building momentum to pitch the concept to major platforms while navigating agent and production hurdles.

OUTCOME
We completed five episodes of KP Radio, achieving millions of views online. Despite strong engagement and a clear comedic appeal, the project was not pursued further due to a lack of agent support for pitching the concept to platforms like Spotify. While this outcome was disappointing, the series demonstrated the potential for humor-driven, episodic content to attract significant online attention.

Historic Context:
My collaboration with Karl builds on earlier projects with Ricky Gervais, where I served as an animator and filmmaker for the Ricky Gervais podcast. My contributions included:

  • Animations for the BBC Culture Show, based on Ricky’s podcast content.

  • Animated sequences for Ricky’s BBC show ‘Extras’.

  • Filmed and animated content for The Ricky Gervais Show (Podcast)

KP Radio reflects my ability to collaborate with iconic comedic voices and develop creative projects that resonate with large audiences.