Jonti Picking facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Jonti Picking
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Picking in 2003
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| Born |
Jonathan Picking
17 May 1975 Doncaster, South Yorkshire, England
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| Other names |
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| Years active | 2002–present |
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Notable work
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| Spouse(s) |
Sarah Darling
(m. 2007) |
| Children | 2 |
Jonathan "Jonti" Picking (born 17 May 1975), known as Weebl or Mr Weebl, is a British Internet personality and animator. He is famous for creating Weebl's Stuff, a website full of funny animated videos.
His animations are special because they often have catchy, repeated songs and silly conversations. Most of his videos feature a fun tune with funny words, combined with a short animation that plays over and over. Jonti usually does most of the voices himself. Sometimes, he even appears in his live-action videos, like "Haricots Verts" and "Chutney." He has also worked with other animators, including Edd Gould.
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Jonti Picking's Career
Jonti Picking is a trained sound engineer and artist. He even worked on 3D visual effects for the movie Resident Evil. In 2003, he created several advertisements for Anchor Butter that looked like his "Weebl and Bob" animations, but with cows! These ads were shown on TV in the UK.
Jonti started his own production company called Sumo Dojo. Later, he created Weebl's Stuff Limited, which was replaced by Jelly Penguin Productions Ltd. In 2009, Jonti made radio and TV ads for the 118 24 7 service of Yell.com. These ads used the tune from his popular "Magical Trevor" animation. He also created an animation for the song "Merry Christmas" by Wesley Willis.
Weebl's Stuff Website
Weebl's Stuff is Jonti Picking's main website. It started with his own creations, like the show "Weebl and Bob," which was first on Newgrounds before moving to his site. The website quickly grew to include many different series and a team of staff. Besides making animations for the site, usually twice a week, Weebl's Stuff also creates animations for other companies. Some of their clients have included E4, Yellow Pages, and Anchor.
HuHa YouTube Channel
In 2012, Jonti Picking started making videos for the YouTube comedy channel HuHa. He used the name Jelly Penguin for these projects. He created several short animations, including:
- Evil Guy: A funny take on super-villains from comic books.
- Beef House: A parody of the A-Team where the main characters are butchers.
- BAD Advice: A humorous version of old public information films from the 1970s and 1980s.
No new works for HuHa have been made by Jonti or others since 2014.
Team Badger Campaign
In 2013, Jonti Picking joined forces with Queen guitarist and animal rights activist Brian May, and actor Brian Blessed. They worked with animal rights groups like the RSPCA to create "Team Badger." This group was formed to protest the British Government's plan to cull (kill) badgers.
Picking, May, and Blessed recorded a song called Save The Badger Badger Badger. This song was a mix of Jonti's 2003 animation song Badgers and Queen's song Flash, with vocals by Brian Blessed. Jonti also animated the music video for the song. The video included parts from his original "Badger" animation and a scene from the 1980 film Flash Gordon, where Brian Blessed played Prince Vultan. Queen also provided the music for the Flash Gordon movie.
On 1 September 2013, Save The Badger Badger Badger reached No. 79 on the UK Singles Chart. It also hit No. 39 on the UK iTunes chart and No. 1 on the iTunes Rock chart.
Savlonic Music Group
Savlonic is a synthpop/synthwave virtual band. The band members are:
- Rosco: The singer, played by Jonti Picking.
- Eve: The singer and keyboardist, played by Sarah Darling.
- Kandi Flaus: The backing vocalist and drummer, played by Katt Wade.
- Kaspar Funk: The guitarist, played by Daniel Dobbs.
As of March 2019, nine Savlonic songs have music videos. Jonti Picking animated "Electro Gypsy," "Tiny Japanese Girl," and "Action Causes Reaction." The last one was even animated using the Unity engine for a VR (virtual reality) experience. Other videos like "Wandering Eye" and "The Driver" were animated by Peabo. "Broken" and "Hi-Lights" were animated by Kr3id.
The band has released four full-length albums: Red (2014), Neon (2016), Black Plastic (2019), and Ultraviolet (2024). The Ultraviolet album was successfully funded by fans through the crowdfunding website Kickstarter. They also released two cover albums, Emulat0r (2017) and Emulated (2020). These cover albums are not counted as part of Savlonic's main album series. Savlonic has also released a five-song EP named after their animated frontman, Rosco, and several single tracks like "Sweet."
The Red, Neon, and Black Plastic albums were all funded by fans of Weebl and Savlonic through Kickstarter. The campaign for Red raised £34,768 from 1,320 supporters. Neon raised £40,778 from 1,276 supporters, and "Black Plastic" raised £37,055 from 847 supporters.
Jonti Picking's Personal Life
Jonti Picking married Sarah Darling, a radio presenter from the station Xfm, on 31 March 2007. On 23 December 2008, Jonti announced on the Weebl's Stuff forums that his wife was expecting a baby. Their daughter was born on 13 July 2009. Jonti and Sarah also have a son, who was born on 2 June 2011.
Jonti Picking's Music
Jonti Picking has created several mini-albums. Most of these albums feature longer versions of songs from his animations. Many of his songs are available to buy on the music streaming site Bandcamp or to listen to on Spotify.
- Pure Yak Frenzy (with Rob Manuel from b3ta) (2003)
- Hands Over Pastry (6 April 2009)
- Yesterday's Lemon (26 October 2009)
- Magical Chalk Toilet (17 November 2010)
- Shabby Bacon Hut (2 November 2011)
- Ooh. Waffle Dog (23 November 2012)
- On Board the Beef Bus (16 January 2014)
- Red (as Savlonic) (18 August 2014)
- Neon (as Savlonic) (19 September 2016)
- Emulat0r (as Savlonic) (21 September 2017)
- A Right Festive Northern Christmas (14 December 2017)
- Black Plastic (as Savlonic) (19 March 2019)
- Emulated (as Savlonic) (14 May 2020)
- Ultraviolet (as Savlonic) (9 December 2024)
