Co-Habitation In Action
Take the television show, for example. When the Butt-Ugly Martians decide to stay on Earth they turn Zapz, an abandoned Laser tag emporium, into their home base on Earth. And in cyberspace, you’ll find that Zapz also represents the Web environment for the Butt-Ugly Martians Website. Web surfers can play a variety of arcade games similar to those on the TV show and in doing so can score "Martian points." Butt-Ugly Martians’ very own technical officer, 2-T Fru-T acts as Webmaster for the site, and also as a tour guide. 2-T gives commentary and advice as Web browsers plough through the site unscrambling words and definitions in the Gibberish Decoding System, playing cool games and solving puzzles.

Protectors of Earth: the Butt-Ugly Martians! © 2001 Universal Worldwide Television, Inc., Just Group PLC, Mike Young Productions, Inc., DCDC Limited

When the Butt-Ugly Martians team stay on Earth they befriend three human teenagers -- Mike, Angela and Cedric. In their adventures they defend their human friends from more evil invaders, not eliminate them as promised to Bog. So they end up making phony videotapes of themselves destroying Earth and taking human children as prisoners, which they send back to Emperor Bog as progress reports. On the Website, one of the teens, Cedric, hosts a section of the site where visitors can trade in their Martian points for movies, images, audio, wallpaper, screensavers and merchandise.

And as if that isn’t an exciting enough crusade, the Butt-Ugly Martians also have to steer clear of Stoat Muldoon, a zealot who hunts aliens and has his own cult cable show, Stoat Muldoon, Alien Hunter, where each week he investigates sightings of suspicious extraterrestrials. Stoat is a crazy adventure-driven character. This show within the show also has its own real Website to accompany it. Web surfers can learn more about Stoat’s mission, access secret files about the Butt-Ugly Martians and other aliens, read transcripts of online chats with Stoat and see previews of his upcoming TV shows.

The Butt-Ugly Martians Web presence is innovative, creative and entertaining. Later in the year, original Webisodes of Butt-Ugly Martians will be a regular feature on the site, and if the TV show is as superb as it looks and sounds, they should be a huge hit. The 3D animated series features some top voice talent: Emmy Award-winning Rob Paulsen (The Mask), TV star Charlie Schlatter (Diagnosis Murder) and Jess Harnell (Who Framed Roger Rabbit?) play the aliens, with Rugrats’ Kath Soucie, Disney Channel on-air host Ogie Banks and Emmy-Award winner Robert Stack (The Untouchables, Unsolved Mysteries) portraying the earthling youngsters.

Wilf Shorrocks admits that, "This might all seem alien at first, but I suggest everyone get their butts in gear now before it really gets ugly this fall!"

Check out Butt-Ugly Martians’ Website at www.buttuglymartians.com and Stoat Muldoon’s site at www.stoatmuldoon.com. Butt-Ugly Martians will air on CITV in the UK in January 2001.

Paul Younghusband is editor-in-chief of Visual Magic Magazine, a publication focusing on the 3D graphics and digital effects industries.