DNA Productions: Paul Claerhout, Keith Alcorn and John A. Davis - Animation Magazine (1993)

Animation Magazine - Issue #26 November 1993

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Text Version:

    "The outrageous part of what we do gives us a way to vent our pent-up frustrations at always having to work within the constraints of a corporate or commercial environment where everything has to be politically correct or cute," proclaims John A. Davis, of Dallas-based DNA Productions.

    Davis, Keith Alcorn and Paul Claerhout, the key members of this animation house, first vented with Nippoless Nippleby, a fractured fable in which the title creature is ostracized for not having nipples —until society discovers the useful member he does possess. Weird Beard, a demented and gross musical

tale of a pirate hazing system, and the series Nana and Lil' Puss Puss followed.

    In its most outrageous mode, DNA is best known for Nana and Lil' Puss Puss. Drawn in stark black and white, using a splash of color only when necessary (usually to highlight snot, blood or dung) the series follows the adventures of a Granny-type and her cat. It indulges in, as Alcorn notes, "fourth grade, bathroom humor." But an element of satire is often co-mingled with the anything-goes scat humor. (In One Ration Under God, the crimes of Hitler, David Koresh, J. Edgar Hoover and Jack Kennedy are forgiven in heaven, while Nana is damned for not buying enough cat food.)

    Thanks to festival screenings, what started as an after hours, just-for-kicks release has become profitable. Still, DNA has also had its brush with censorship.

    "The Dallas Video Festival wouldn't let us show Weird Beard, because of the violence, and some of Nana and Lil' Puss Puss," Davis says. "But they showed a William S.Burroughs video in the next room where he's talking about [doing things to] his daughter and all this horrible stuff."

    That episode underlines the strange schism that exists between what is acceptable in live action versus animation. "It's funny how you can get away with things in live action that are just too offensive if it's animated," says Alcorn. "It seems like it should be just the opposite, but people seem to be so much more sensitive to animation."

    Adds Davis: "What can be sicker than watching the evening news and seeing people in Somalia dragging dead bodies through the street — spitting and defecating on them? And then people will react to an [animated] old lady exposing her breasts."

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