Fired

**Fired** is the incomplete pilot to Crash Zoom, while the animation was partially incomplete, its script was fully finished in one draft. The pilot was scrapped in January 2013. It was then later reworked into the Series 1 Finale, Firing Squad.

## Plot

The plot revolved around Ben getting fired, after making a cat food advertisement where he kills a child and no cats are featured. In a slump, he goes back to his roommate Elliot. The two play video games as Kate, the little girl who Ben believed to have killed, is now in their apartment, saying that they're out of beer. The trio go to the store to fetch more. While at the store, a robber comes in wielding a pistol, and holds Ben's old boss at gunpoint. Ben, in a trance, grabs a shotgun that is half-off. He then has a gun party with the robber, not knowing his true motive. The robber tries to shoot Ben, but is a horrible shot and hits everything *but* Ben. A bullet then ricochets into a fat guy, who dies and falls on the robber, killing him. As a thank you for saving his life, Ben's boss gives him his job back. The pilot then ends with Elliot and Kate directing Ben with a gun chasing after more children as the words, "CAT FOOD" flash on screen. Elliot then takes a swig from a bottle of beer and says, "Yup.. We're artists."

## History

Although Crash Zoom's official pilot was uploaded to YouTube in early 2015, it had been an idea of Thomas Ridgewell since 2010/2011. Ridgewell had written a script for a pilot in 2012 which was going to be animated by Edgar "Funymony" Nielson and with confidence that it was coming soon, he spread the word to everyone on his channel. But then for an unspecified reason, it was never finished. For the next 3 years, he approached several animators as he increased the budget in hopes that someone would be willing to animate Crash Zoom full time, but didn't find any luck. Any animator he approached would "try it for a bit and just quit." He eventually reproached the original animator, Edgar Nielson, who agreed to give it another try, and this time, Ridgewell was mostly happy with it. However, just a few weeks before completion, Ridgewell was unhappy with the "recurring gag" of the episode, where Ben keeps breaking into nurseries and shooting the place (possibly along with the many firearm jokes in the script as well had something to do with his dissatisfaction), which he stated was a "horrifying reality with the events of Sandy Hook", and at this point, he had just given up.

Finally, in late 2014, the show was then picked back up with a rewrite and a gender swap, and production had begun with Ben "Wonchop" Smallman as the lead animator, and the official pilot, "Movie Massacre", was finally released on January 9th, 2015.

During Tom's second Scrap'd Week, (A week dedicated to videos that didn't quite make the cut) he showed off what was made of the pilot, and released the script with it.

## Differences Between the Pilot and the Final Product.

* This pilot and its script features many things that are different from the final version of the series:
	+ Ben's design differs slightly from his final look in the show, his hair is styled differently and he has a goatee, his clothing is a pair of suspenders and pants instead of overalls in the show, and is lacking his red necktie.
	+ Elliot is a secondary character who was featured in this pilot but was never featured in the actual series (his name appears crossed out on Lucy's nametag at The ASDF Store), he was later changed into Lucy for the final product to add more character dynamic and Lucy shares the same general clothing as her predecessor.
	+ Kate appears in this pilot but is not mentioned as Ben's half-sister anywhere in the script, meaning that they were not originally related to each other during this time. She does appear to still have some form of immortality however, as she later shows up in Ben and Elliot's apartment having survived being shot in the face.

## Fired

Ben shoots up the nurseryBen's creative process"Oh it's full of guns..""You're fired."
## Production Art

Original character concept designsA comic flyer for the early version of Crash Zoom handed out at conventions in 2010/2011Different character concepts done by various animators