Wisconsin (partially found Chris Moeller animated short film; 1994)

Status: Lost

Christopher "Chris" Scott Moeller (1967-2014) was an American animator and director. He worked on numerous animated series, including King of the Hill and The Simpsons, and was the creator of the 2004 CGI animated sci-fi series Tripping the Rift.

In 1994, Chris created a production company called Dark Bunny Productions and began producing animated shorts. One of these shorts was the now-lost Wisconsin, which notably introduced the character Chode McBlob, a purple, tentacled alien that would become the main character in Tripping the Rift.

Known information

A description of the short on the now-defunct Dark Bunny website^[1] reads as follows:

It was a quiet evening on a farm in Wisconsin. The ornery farm dog is awakened by a noise in the pantry and goes to investigate, only to discover a purple, tentacled monstrosity stealing a box of candy bars. The dog chases the startled alien through the farm and corners it, forcing it to surrender the candy bars and to beam back to the mother ship. Just what the hell are those aliens up to, anyway?

Furthermore, Moeller adds:

This is easily my best work and is the reason I managed to get a job in animation. It won the 1994 Walter Lantz award at the Producer's Show and will someday be put on cels and colored (time willing... King of the Hill keeps me pretty busy).

It's unknown whether Moeller ever got around to putting Wisconsin on cels and coloring it, but the above quote was still present on the Dark Bunny site in 2012 (the most recent available version)^[2].