MOUNT PLEASANT, SC (April 21, 2016) - MOONDOG Animation Studio, South Carolina’s premier animation studio, is celebrating the launch of willygrunch.com, a crowdfunding website created to answer the international demand for more episodes of the animated series, “Willy Grunch.”
With a guitar on his back, Willy Grunch is a carefree, philosophizing poet who stumbles through life. However, for the past 3 years, he has been locked away in MOONDOG Animation Studio’s YouTube vault. That is until March 15th, 2016 when a Russian Facebook user stole Willy Grunch and released the episode “The Water Source.” The result has been an international sensation with well over 7 million views and hundreds of thousands of shares.
MOONDOG Animation Studio released the short film series called “Willy Grunch” in 2012 after a wildly successful Kickstarter campaign. It was based on a Swiss comic book series created by Alain Auderset.
“People worldwide have spoken, and we’re listening. It’s time to free Willy Grunch and give him back to the world,” said MOONDOG Animation Studio COO, Jean-Marc Khayat.
Willy Grunch now has his own fan base, in addition to all the Kickstarter supporters from the first fundraising campaign, so Moondog Animation Studio decided to go into round two by building their own crowdfunding website, willygrunch.com, to fund more episodes of the series. “We are reaching out to the fans, old and new, to push Willy Grunch to the next level,” said CEO, Bryan Ransom.
“This viral explosion and worldwide demand for ‘Willy Grunch’ further validates the world-class nature of MOONDOG Animation Studio,” said Mayor Linda Page of Mount Pleasant, SC, “We look forward to Willy’s return as the newest citizen of Mount Pleasant.”