Jonathan "Jonti" Picking (born 17 May 1975), also known as Weebl and Mr Weebl, is a British

Internet personality An Internet celebrity, also referred to as an Internet personality, is an individual who has acquired or developed their fame and notability on the Internet. The growing popularity of social media provides a means for people to reach a large ...

and Flash animator and is the creator of ''Weebl's Stuff''. His animations are known for repetitive melodies and surreal dialogue; the majority feature a catchy tune with silly lyrics, paired with a looping animation. He does most of the voices in his animations himself, and several feature himself in live action, including "Haricots Verts", "Chutney", "Boogie", "CAMRA", "Stock Market", "We Are Mature", "Tangerine" the

Weebl and Bob ''The everyday happenings of Weebl and sometimes Weebl's friend, Bob'' (best known as ''Weebl and Bob'', and renamed ''Wobbl and Bob'' for its DVD release) is a British animated cartoon series created by Jonti Picking and co-scripted by Chris Vi ...

episodes "DJ" and "Safety", the fourth On The Moon episode, and "Jazzmas". He has also worked with other animators on YouTube, such as

Edd Gould Edward Duncan Ernest "Edd" Gould (28 October 1988 – 25 March 2012) was a British animator, artist, and voice actor. He created ''Eddsworld'', a media franchise consisting of flash animations and web comics featuring fictionalised versions ...

in the video "Nuts (feat. MrWeebl)".

Career

Picking is a trained sound engineer and artist, and he has worked on 3D visual effects for the film ''

Resident Evil ''Resident Evil'', known as in Japan, is a Japanese horror game series and media franchise created by Capcom. It consists of survival horror, third-person shooter and first-person shooter games, with players typically surviving in environments ...

''. In 2003, he made several advertisements for Anchor Butter in the style of his Weebl and Bob animations (but featuring cows) which were broadcast in the UK. The television program ''

Totally Viral ''Totally Viral'' is a British comedy television programme, composed entirely of clips from video-sharing Internet websites such as YouTube. It featured narration from English actor Donald Sinden, and premiered in the UK on 27 November 2006. T ...

'' on UKTV G2, consisting of video clips and cartoons from the internet, has an animated title sequence and links made by Jonti. Jonti set up his own production company called Sumo Dojo, which he later left to set up Weebl's Stuff Limited, also known as Weebl Ltd. Weebl's Stuff Ltd was dissolved in 2014, and Jelly Penguin Productions Ltd was set up in its place shortly afterward. In 2009, Picking produced several radio and television advertisements based on the tune of the first "Magical Trevor" for the ''118 24 7'' service of Yell.com. These appeared on the

ITV ITV or iTV may refer to: Television TV stations/networks/channels ITV *Independent Television (ITV), a British television network and company, including: **ITV (TV network), a free-to-air national commercial television network in the United Kingd ...

television channel, amongst others. It was voted 6th Most Irritating Ad of 2009 by Marketing Magazine. He is also an admitted fan of

Wesley Willis Wesley Lawrence Willis (May 31, 1963 – August 21, 2003) was an American musician and visual artist. Diagnosed with schizophrenia in 1989, Willis began a career as an underground singer-songwriter in the outsider music tradition. Will ...

and created an animation for Willis' song "Merry Christmas".

Weebl's Stuff

Weebl's Stuff is Picking's personal website. Whilst initially starting with his own creations (The show "Weebl and Bob" was previously hosted on

Newgrounds Newgrounds is an American entertainment website founded by Tom Fulp in 1995 and owned by Newgrounds.com, Inc. The site hosts user-generated content such as games, films, audio, and artwork. Fulp produces in-house content at the headquarters and ...

before moving to Weebl's Stuff), it quickly grew to incorporate numerous series and numerous staff. As well as providing the site with animations, usually at least twice a week, Weebl's Stuff also provides animation services to companies. Clients have included E4,

Yellow Pages The yellow pages are Telephone directory, telephone directories of business, businesses, organized by category rather than alphabetically by business name, in which advertising is sold. The directories were originally printed on yellow paper, ...

, and

Anchor An anchor is a device, normally made of metal, used to secure a vessel to the bed of a body of water to prevent the craft from drifting due to wind or current. The word derives from Latin ', which itself comes from the Greek (). Anch ...

HuHa

In 2012 Picking began contributing to the YouTube comedy channel HuHa under the name of Jelly Penguin. He produced several shorts, including Evil Guy (a parody of super-villains from comic books and Saturday morning cartoons), Beef House (a parody of

the A-Team ''The A-Team'' is an American Action television, action television series that ran on NBC from January 23, 1983, to March 8, 1987, about a fictional team of former United States Army Special Forces who work as mercenaries while on the run from ...

in which the protagonists are butchers) and BAD Advice (a parody of public information films from the 1970s and 1980s). As of 2014, no further works for HuHa have been produced, either by Picking or others.

Team Badger

In 2013, Picking teamed up with

Queen Queen most commonly refers to: * Queen regnant, a female monarch of a kingdom * Queen consort, the wife of a reigning king * Queen (band), a British rock band Queen or QUEEN may also refer to: Monarchy * Queen dowager, the widow of a king * Q ...

guitarist and

animal rights Animal rights is the philosophy according to which many or all Animal consciousness, sentient animals have Moral patienthood, moral worth independent of their Utilitarianism, utility to humans, and that their most basic interests—such as ...

activist

Brian May Sir Brian Harold May (born 19 July 1947) is an English musician, songwriter, record producer, animal welfare activist and astrophysics, astrophysicist. He achieved global fame as the lead guitarist and backing vocalist of the rock band Queen ...

and actor

Brian Blessed Brian Blessed ( ; born 9 October 1936) is an English actor. He is known for his distinctive bushy beard, booming voice, and exuberant personality and performances. He portrayed PC "Fancy" Smith in ''Z-Cars''; Augustus in the 1976 BBC television ...

, along with a number of animal rights organisations including the

RSPCA The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) is a charity operating in England and Wales which promotes animal welfare. The RSPCA is funded primarily by voluntary donations. Founded in 1824, it is the oldest and largest a ...

, to form "Team Badger", a coalition against the British Government's proposed badger cull. Picking, May and Blessed recorded a single, '' Save The Badger Badger Badger'', a

mashup Mashup may refer to: * Mashup (culture), the rearrangement of spliced parts of musical pieces as part of a subculture * Mashup (education), combining various forms of data and media by a teacher or student in an instructional setting * Mashup (mus ...

of 2003's ''

Badgers Badgers are medium-sized short-legged omnivores in the superfamily Musteloidea. Badgers are a polyphyletic rather than a natural taxonomic grouping, being united by their squat bodies and adaptions for fossorial activity rather than by their ...

'', and Queen's ''

Flash Flash, flashes, or FLASH may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional aliases * The Flash, several DC Comics superheroes with super speed: ** Flash (Jay Garrick) ** Barry Allen ** Wally West, the first Kid Flash and third adult Flash ...

'', featuring vocals by Blessed. Picking also animate
the music video
which parodied elements of the original "Badger" animation, as well as a scene from the 1980 film ''

Flash Gordon Flash Gordon is the protagonist of a space adventure comic strip created and originally drawn by Alex Raymond. First published January 7, 1934, the strip was inspired by, and created to compete with, the already established ''Buck Rogers'' ...

'', in which Blessed played Prince Vultan, and for which Queen provided the

soundtrack A soundtrack is a recorded audio signal accompanying and synchronised to the images of a book, drama, motion picture, radio program, television show, television program, or video game; colloquially, a commercially released soundtrack album of m ...

. On 1 September 2013, ''Save The Badger Badger Badger'' charted at No. 79 on the UK Singles Chart, No. 39 on the UK

iTunes iTunes is a media player, media library, and mobile device management (MDM) utility developed by Apple. It is used to purchase, play, download and organize digital multimedia on personal computers running the macOS and Windows operating s ...

chart and No. 1 on the

Rock chart.

Savlonic

Savlonic is a synthpop/synthwave

virtual band In entertainment, a virtual band (also called a virtual idol, virtual singer, virtual group, virtual artists, cartoon group, cartoon idol, cartoon singer or cartoon band) is a band or music group whose depicted members are not people, but animate ...

consisting of singer Rosco (formerly Roscoe Thunderpants) portrayed by Picking, singer/keyboardist Eve (formerly Evangeline D'isco) portrayed by Sarah Darling, backing vocalist/drummer Kandi Flaus (portrayed by Katt Wade), and guitarist Kaspar Funk (Daniel Dobbs). As of March 2019, nine Savlonic songs have been made into music videos: "Electro Gypsy", "Tiny Japanese Girl", and "Action Causes Reaction" were all animated by Picking, the latter-most being animated in the Unity engine as a VR experience. The videos for "Wandering Eye", "The Driver", "Computer Guy" and "Spelunker" were animated by Peabo. "Broken" and "Hi-Lights" were animated by Kr3id. The band has released four full-length albums: ''Red'' (2014), ''Neon'' (2016), and ''Black Plastic'' (2019) ''Ultraviolet'' (2024). The fourth album, ''Ultraviolet,'' was successfully funded through crowdfunding website

Kickstarter Kickstarter, PBC is an American Benefit corporation, public benefit corporation based in Brooklyn, New York City, that maintains a global crowdfunding platform focused on creativity. The company's stated mission is to "help bring creative project ...

. ''Emulat0r'' (2017) and ''Emulated'' (2020), two cover albums, were released in 2017 and 2020 (these do not count towards Savlonic's numbered releases). They have also released a five-song EP named after the band's animated frontman Rosco, and multiple tracks released as singles ("Sweet" and "00:00:00"). The ''Red'', ''Neon'' and ''Black Plastic'' albums were funded by the fans of Weebl and Savlonic through the crowd-funding website Kickstarter The campaign for ''Red'' raised £34,768 from 1,320 backers, the campaign for ''Neon'' raised £40,778 from 1,276 backers, and the campaign for "Black Plastic" raised £37,055 from 847 backers.

Personal life

Picking married Sarah Darling, a radio presenter on the station

Xfm Radio X is a British national commercial radio station focused on alternative music, primarily indie rock, and owned by Global. The station launched in 1989 as a pirate radio station named Q102, before being renamed Xfm in 1992. The station b ...

, on 31 March 2007. On 23 December 2008, Picking announced his wife's pregnancy on the Weebl's Stuff forums. On 13 July 2009, Picking's wife gave birth to a girl. Picking and Darling also have a son together, born 2 June 2011.

Discography

Picking has produced several mini-albums, most of which feature extended versions of songs featured in his animations. Many are available for purchase on the music streaming site

Bandcamp Bandcamp is an American online music distribution platform founded in 2008 by Oddpost co-founder Ethan Diamond and programmers Shawn Grunberger, Joe Holt and Neal Tucker, with an office and record store in Oakland, California. Acquired by Epic ...

or to stream on

Spotify Spotify (; ) is a List of companies of Sweden, Swedish Music streaming service, audio streaming and media service provider founded on 23 April 2006 by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon. , it is one of the largest providers of music streaming services ...

. *''Pure Yak Frenzy'' (produced with

Rob Manuel Rob Manuel (born 5 December 1973) is the English co-founder of the website B3ta (where he is affectionately known as "the Ginger Führer"). Work Manuel is responsible for numerous quizzes and Flash animations. He has also collaborated with Joel V ...

from

b3ta B3ta (stylised as b3ta) is a popular British website, described as a "puerile digital arts community" by ''The Guardian''. It was founded in 2001 by Rob Manuel, Denise Wilton and Cal Henderson. B3ta's main feature is a newsletter featuring ...

) (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)

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Picking, Jonti 1975 births Living people Male actors from Doncaster British Internet celebrities English animators British animated film directors English businesspeople English comedy musicians English male singer-songwriters English singer-songwriters English male video game actors English male voice actors Flash artists 21st-century English singers 21st-century British male singers YouTubers from Yorkshire British YouTubers Newgrounds people Surreal comedians