The Year in Review: 2021

 By: Andrew Bermudez

(Mustache Maniacs Film Co. Headquarters; December 30, 2021)

    Another unusual year is coming to a close, so it's time to reflect on what happened, where we faltered, how we'll pick ourselves up, and where we're heading in the new year.

January

    The year began with our last "spontaneous" THAC Entry: The Happiness Fund. The film is all about material goods and where our wealth should actually lie, with the film introducing the new character of Murphy Flint. You can watch the film by clicking here. This month also saw the introduction of our new Join Our Team system that allows fans and aspiring individuals to become official Mustache Maniacs Film Co. Affiliates! If you're interested in joining our team, just click here.

February

    While no new films were released in February, that month did see our biggest announcement event ever, with the rest of Project U mapped out and no less than 20 new titles unveiled. This included, among others:

• The Holy Land Paragon: An illustrated novel centered around a dig in the Holy Land and a race for ancient Canaanite Staffs, set to be released in 2024.
• Camel: The Movie: A spin-off of the spin-off Patrick: The Movie, which follows the journey of Nevada Smith's camel after it ran off into the desert. It is set to be released in 2022.
• The entire twentieth anniversary celebration in 2024, titled Twenty Years Young. It will include the release of new books, a new fan choice awards, and more.
• Johnny Thunder and the Rise to Fame: A film that explores Johnny Thunder's early years. It is set to be released in 2024.
• Pharaoh's Quest: Tyrant of the Chaco: The official sequel to Pharaoh's Quest: The Curse of Amset-Ra, set to be released in 2027.

Also this month, the short animation Without a Blacksmith was announced for a March 2021 release. This was unveiled as part of LEGO's What If: Blacksmiths Competition.

March

    On guard sans the sword, because Without a Blacksmith was released this month! The film was originally intended to imagine an alternate reality where blacksmiths never existed, but through some canon finagling, the film was added into the cinematic universe and introduced the Nobleman Knight and his distaste for refined metal! The film is simple, quick, and funny, so click here to watch this escapade for yourself!

    The very same day, the ambitious On The Theme Park Loop was announced as a new show that would broaden Mustache Maniacs Film Co.'s audience. Along with the announcement came a full strategy on how to expand the show's outreach, including a brand-new website!

April

    April 1 saw the release of 6 new videos! One of them, the film The Recycling Enigma (the first film announced at 2/1/21 to be released), turned out to be a polarizing April Fools joke, but the other five aimed to flesh out our line-up of supplementary films, with the first being a long-awaited commercial for our website! The other four turned out to be behind the scenes videos, including storyboard comparisons for The Easter Egg and New Friends: An Environmental Fable, as well as art galleries for Patrick: The Movie and The Employee of the Month. In addition to this, we also laid out our goals to reach zero waste by the end of the decade.

    The results from LEGO's What If: Blacksmiths were released this month, and while Without a Blacksmith did not win any prizes, we did congratulate the winners on their success. This month also saw some delays related to On The Theme Park Loop, an early sign of the show's ultimate fate.

May

    May signaled our official merchandise event for our store, which showcased all of the designs that would be made available at the store's July 1 launch! Among the offered items were original soundtracks from ten of our films, this caution design based on How To Build a Log Cabin, a heartfelt print of the watercolor illustration that inspired Alms Pouch, and many more! This date also marked the launch of the official On The Theme Park Loop website.

June

    While this month started with the final delay for On The Theme Park Loop, we also started out the month with a survey on how to handle some recently-recovered footage from some of our never-released films. While the survey never amounted to anything, a final decision was handled internally and our path forward with that footage has been planned for a late 2024 completion.

    This month also marked the tenth anniversary of our website, with a complete look at our website's history throughout the years up through now. The timeline included our beginnings with Webs.com, the expansion of our online network in the years since, our transition to Wix.com, and the then-upcoming release of On The Theme Park Loop. Speaking of which, June also saw teasers released for both On The Theme Park Loop and Venomosa: The Bounty of Billy the Kid.

July

    July was perhaps the highlight of our entire year, as the month kicked off with the debut of On The Theme Park Loop, the launch of our online store (click here to shop), and the early introduction of 'Stache Bot, a character created to help customers, fans, and affiliates with IT-related issues and other online services. While that last character has yet to be fully implemented across our entire network, it is expected to be rolled out fully by the summer of 2022.

    Not to be outdone, July 11 saw some major website updates alongside the release of the film Venomosa: The Bounty of Billy the Kid (above is the film's original title). This film finally gave Silencia Venomosa a major role in a Mustache Maniacs Film Co. production, as well as finished tying up loose ends from Patrick: The Movie. While the film ended up not making the deadline for BRAWL 2021, the film was praised for its creative narrative while maintaining the energy of Lord Sinister's henchmen. If you haven't seen it yet or want to watch it again, just click right here!

However, this month saw some release dates shuffled. The most notable was that Alpha Team: Mission Deep Past was put on hold indefinitely due to writing difficulties, causing A Future in the Past to be pushed back to 2023.

August

    As August wore on, the now-delayed tribute film Ninjago: Master of Fear ran into writing issues regarding making the film have actual tension and On The Theme Park Loop ran into one technical issue after another, all in the name of a show that never received any traction from anyone. The only film that was released this month (and one that was way ahead of schedule) was Old Home Movies 2: The Later Years, a film that was not released online. In hindsight, the design created for the store (pictured above) to promote On The Theme Park Loop was almost prophetic. It was almost inevitable that...

September

    On September 1 and 15 respectively, Ninjago: Master of Fear and On The Theme Park Loop were canceled. This did disappoint those who had poured so much time and energy into these projects, but considering the situation, we decided that this was the best course of action. In spite of this, we did confirm this month that we were not canceling any other projects, which are still in development today.

October

    In addition to fixing some problems with the official website, we also started the slow build-up for our 2022 projects, mostly in terms of writing scripts and production documents. However, these crucial early steps helped to streamline the production of next year's films, allowing us to quickly shoot them. On top of this, we finally removed all traces of the ill-fated On The Theme Park Loop this month, leaving behind only the show's original score and any mentioning of it on our official wiki.

November

    Not much happened in November, but this month did see the release of more music titles on our website, including the ever-elusive cast-recorded soundtrack for Kilroy Was Here!. Also released were soundtracks such as Com 50 and 007, in spite of the fact that this film is no longer available online.

December

    While Christmas was pretty quiet for us this year, especially compared to last year, but we did take this time to commemorate our Spotlight Night films by canonizing select skits. While we cannot say at this time how these skits will affect future projects, this does open the possibility for more creative ideas for future projects. We also used this time to confirm that Officer Spot will be released on January 9, 2022.

Our Plans for 2022

    It comes as no surprise that we have some plans on how to tackle our content for next year, and we're staying fairly low-key for next year's offerings. We do have Officer Spot being released on January 9, but that also speaks to our insistence that our films next year take a shorter turn. We still have a lot of work to do for our 2023 and 2024 releases, so we're focusing on short films, such as Camel: The Movie, which is set to debut on April 1 as our first spin-off of a spin-off. Tale of Ulysses will be produced for BRAWL 2022, and Speeder and Alms Pouch: Finished At Last! will round out the late summer and fall. We'll have more information in the new year as our schedule becomes more clear, but we do want to say that we think you'll love these new additions to our growing library of films.

Lead Out

    Thanks for following along with us this year as we continuously seek out the perfect balance of content throughout the year. Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and Happy New Year. We'll see you all again in 2022.