Night of the Tickling Dead
A "film within a film," Night of the Tickling Dead is a short film from Count Morbley's Cartoon Festival, shown supposedly as a substitute when another unnamed film is damaged (during an in-flight lightning blast on Bumfuzzle Bat).
Count Morbley introduces the short as Zachary and Carl's first screen appearance as extras in a zombie film ("Is there any other role for a zombie in a zombie film?" moans Zachary, the notably smarter of the duo.)
As part of Prof. Mark's original plan, one of the advantages of the "film festival format" of The Count Morbley Show, meant that the film could be submitted to real film festivals in whole or in parts, and Night of the Tickling Dead was an obvious choice for the first round of submissions. (Especially since it was the first sequence of the show finished, and stands nicely on its own as a sort of "mini-story," in this case, a fake preview for a longer film that doesn't exist... unless of course, it ends up being such a mind-boggling hit that has audiences, digital movie service-providers and merchandisers begging otherwise...)
Production Notes
Night of the Tickling Dead, like its companion film, The Count Morbley Show: Cartoon Festival, started as a workshop at Art Institute Atlanta, utilizing characters created by Prof. Mark "Toonery" Smith.
The Count Morbley Show features talented student puppeteers, Jenn Lee and Jay Sharp.
Jenn has a theatrical background, which made her vocal talents a valuable addition to Count Morbley's Crew. Besides Miss Canoodle in NOTTD, Jenn also performs Essie, Count Morbley's long-suffering Ex. Jenn also contributed her voice and character designs to another Morbley festival film, Confessions of a Retail Worker.
Jay is a talented character designer and voice performer, quickly coming up with diverse creative options for both fields. (Not to confuse matters, but it should be noted Jay worked Carl for the rest of the show's dialogue scenes, but not in his NOTTD guise as a "background zombie." So why include the image here, then? Hey, it was a cool production photo, and had to go somewhere, OK?)