GLITCH Productions - From the guys that brought you the Super Mario 64 bloopers

[Learning Wall]

to call these masterpieces is some serious cope.

As I said in the Cartoon Industry thread, at this point in history, Glitch Productions is sacred, and everything they make is a masterpiece in in the eyes of the animation community.

Personally, I think it's too early to call Gaslight District a masterpiece, the pilot was solid, but it's still only a pilot episode; we don't yet know how the series itself will fare.

Meta Runner got a prequel comic.

And they never continued it. That comic was intended to be a regular series that would help flesh out the universe of the show. Just look at the number one in the bottom right corner. For some reason, Glitch never continued the series, which I find strange since Luke and Kevin LOVE Tari, and they used to promote Meta Runner A LOT when it was in production, to the point that there were entire episodes of SMG4 dedicated exclusively to promoting it. (Well, Tari's mere existence in SMG4 served as walking advertisement for Meta Runner, which explains why she suddenly became irrelevant when Meta Runner ended, but they refused to write her off the series because Luke and Kevin love her).

They just gave up on the Meta Runner IP after it ended, and this comic was the very last piece of media to come out of it. The closest thing of them acknowledging Meta Runner after 2022 is Tari appearing in Glitch crossovers, since the idea of her character and her show was conceived before they came up with the idea of adding Tari to SMG4, it's easy for them to distance her from SMG4, unlike Meggy and Sunset Paradise, since Sunset Paradise is an actual SMG4 spin-off.

You know, I find it fascinating how much faith Luke and Kevin had in Meta Runner. Between this episode and the Ultra Jump Mania pilot, it seems they really wanted to turn Meta Runner into a franchise. And in retrospect, is kinda hilarious that Glitch's longest original show is also one of the most obscure ones. Funny how Digital Circus achieved more in less time and with fewer episodes than Meta Runner. Given that Meta Runner ended in 2022, a year before the term "Indie Renaissance" was coined, it could be one of the reasons why most people ignore this series, because Murder Drones also started before 2023, but it was still in production when the "Indie Renaissance" began, which is why Murder Drones is considered part of the Renaissance, but not Meta Runner.

 

[BigJoey41X]

They just gave up on the Meta Runner IP after it ended, and this comic was the very last piece of media to come out of it. The closest thing of them acknowledging Meta Runner after 2022 is Tari appearing in Glitch crossovers, since the idea of her character and her show was conceived before they came up with the idea of adding Tari to SMG4, it's easy for them to distance her from SMG4, unlike Meggy and Sunset Paradise, since Sunset Paradise is an actual SMG4 spin-off.

You know, I find it fascinating how much faith Luke and Kevin had in Meta Runner. Between this episode and the Ultra Jump Mania pilot, it seems they really wanted to turn Meta Runner into a franchise. And in retrospect, is kinda hilarious that Glitch's longest original show is also one of the most obscure ones. Funny how Digital Circus achieved more in less time and with fewer episodes than Meta Runner. Given that Meta Runner ended in 2022, a year before the term "Indie Renaissance" was coined, it could be one of the reasons why most people ignore this series, because Murder Drones also started before 2023, but it was still in production when the "Indie Renaissance" began, which is why Murder Drones is considered part of the Renaissance, but not Meta Runner.

what the hell was Meta Runner anyway?, can I get a QRD of its plot?, I don't really have the will to watch it right now.

 

[Dick Lickieta]

Am I the only one who finds the visual style of all glitch productions shows unappealing, like theres something about it that just feels uncanny to me. Maybe its because I'm not 12 anymore but I feel like Jimmy Neutron had a more appealing visual style then anything SMG4 has ever turned out that wasn't just silly mario shorts.

 

[Bob Barbas]

just feels uncanny to me

Maybe that's why Murder Drones looked the best considering there were no human characters and the few human characters there were, were hidden in shadow most of the time or wearing something that obscured their features.

Actually though on the subject one thing that always bothered me about MD's humans was that the humans in the hazmat suits and stuff were clearly just normally proportioned humans yet all of the humans in the Episode 5 memory thingy were much more stylized and clearly not the same especially Tessa with her big ass bobblehead head. It's art style inconsistencies like that, that really bother me because of how blatant it is. Makes it stranger why nobody talks about it.

 

[BigJoey41X]

Am I the only one who finds the visual style of all glitch productions shows unappealing, like theres something about it that just feels uncanny to me. Maybe its because I'm not 12 anymore but I feel like Jimmy Neutron had a more appealing visual style then anything SMG4 has ever turned out that wasn't just silly mario shorts.

I actually do like how the Glitch cartoons look, maybe not the Meta Runner and Sunset because it unironically looks like its from fortnite

 

[cremechocolate]

what the hell was Meta Runner anyway?, can I get a QRD of its plot?, I don't really have the will to watch it right now.

Here's the description from the website

Set in a cyberpunk future where competitive gaming and e-sports are the center of culture, business, and technology, cybernetically enhanced gamers called "Meta Runners" go head to head in high stakes gaming competitions. But beneath the neon lights and cheering crowds, shadowy megacorporations and criminal gangs vie with each for control of everything.

Meta Runner was great, it's just dwarfed by every glitch project that came after excluding Sunset Paradise.

 

[Learning Wall]

Was looking some recent YouTube comments on random Italian Brainrot videos (it was to check if people were spamming about the upcoming "Great Meme Reset" in 2026) and found this:





Ok, I agree that YouTube as a whole is damned, but come on, why are you comparing those things to fucking Italian Brainrot? Isn't it enough for you that people calls Knights of Guinevere of a groundbreaking masterpiece that isn't afraid of shitting on corpos? Does it infuriate you that Tralalero Tralala and Tung Tung Tung Sahur are more popular than Melancholy and Princess Guinevere? Do you really expect everything Glitch makes to achieve the same success as Digital Circus? Why do people still not understand the reasons why Digital Circus became so famous? Why do Glitch stans get mad over such trivial things? Perhaps if you wait a few years, both pilots will reach more views; I mean, it took the Murder Drones pilot four years to reach over 70 million views.

In case you were wondering, the video this comment comes from has over 47 million views and is only three months old. It's just some dumb mashup between Soda Pop from K-Pop Demon Hunters and Italian Brainrot. Kids love both things, and as I said in the Digital Circus thread, kids content is meant to be watch and rewatched, and that's how they get so many views, the same reason why Digital Circus gets so many views compared to the rest of Glitch Productions' shows. And this sentiment from the fandom is nothing new, I found this Spanish meme from 2024 making fun of the Murder Drones fandom for how jealous they were that the second episode of Digital Circus got more views in less time than episode 7.

 

[Niggerphobe]

They released a game

https://glitchkarts.com/474c49544348204b41525453

 

[Life is Hell...]

They released a game

https://glitchkarts.com/474c49544348204b41525453

Here's the trailer for it

 

[Metallic Blood]

They released a game

https://glitchkarts.com/474c49544348204b41525453

It's surprisingly a very fun game, even for a demo

Spoiler: My little gay review

Compared to most kart racers I've played, GLITCH Racers is actually a very well designed game: The items are fun to use, drifting feels good, and storing a boost everytime you do a ramp trick or make a good drift is a interesting mechanic.

Of course this ain't no Diddy Kong Racing or Crash Team Racing, but those games are pretty much the top 1% of the genre anyway. And well, it's still only a demo afterall, so there's only one basic race track to judge it on.

I played it with every character, and there are so many little details that I simply love:
-Pomni animations are absolutely hilarious, she feels that she's about to fall off everytime you drift
-Uzi doesn't hold any items herself, it's her kart's little spider legs that does it for her.
-You get a nice camera zoom in if you hit someone with the Solver.
-At the final lap, you get a little theme song remix depending on which character you playing as.
-The Gattling Gun


-I also love Mel's PS1 model in general

Only major flaws are some glitches (heh) like not being able to use or drop an item sometimes (preventing you from using items for the rest of the race), and the CPU being a bit too retarded (they love bonking on walls), but all things considered, it's a solid 7/10 experience, would buy a full version if they refined some of the details and sold it for like $20.

Also apparently Gwendolyn is this game's Funky Kong according to the leaderboard

 

[Bob Barbas]

Since this is the only place I can bitch about it openly, not sure if you guys know but at some point apparently J from Murder Drones was actually going to be male and Liam even released the concept art of the original design confirming this.
Ever since he did I've been seeing retards saying they now choose to believe J is a tranny. I've also seen retards headcanon that N is also a tranny somehow. Unrelated to this but still stupid.

I don't fucking get it, they're robots. Robots don't have genders. A robot doesn't have to be a tranny because they never had a sex in the first place. Though I guess in their mind acknowledging that would prove that gender is biological and not just a concept which is why they don't. But still, it's retarded and it grinds my gears.

 

[dogs 4 breakfast]

I don't fucking get it, they're robots. Robots don't have genders.

You don't understand chuddie if a robot cut's off their RCA Jack and gets surgery that turns their Jack into a connector they will become a real fembot.

 

[The Wise Shaman]

Since this is the only place I can bitch about it openly, not sure if you guys know but at some point apparently J from Murder Drones was actually going to be male and Liam even released the concept art of the original design confirming this.

The reason why this change was made is because he couldn't make the design for a male J that didn't look too similar to N. Literally a skill issue.



She also didn't have twintails originally, but this changed as she would've looked too similar to another character from an older Glitch cartoon, they said.

Ever since he did I've been seeing retards saying they now choose to believe J is a tranny.

A similar thing happened to Alice. In episode 7, when a computer lists the drones that were experimented on, each of their numbers also has a name next to it. Other than Nori and Yeva, every other name is from people who worked on MD as a small "easter egg," and for Alice's number we had Liam's name instead during that scene (probably because they've already forgotten her).

If you thought J and Doll were irrelevant to the overall plot, then you have to remember Alice and Beau. They were the most forgettable characters despite having an entire episode for them, and that mistake by the animators themselves is further proof of this.

I don't fucking get it, they're robots. Robots don't have genders. A robot doesn't have to be a tranny because they never had a sex in the first place. Though I guess in their mind acknowledging that would prove that gender is biological and not just a concept which is why they don't. But still, it's retarded and it grinds my gears.

Understanding what gender a drone is is actually very simple. If it has stilt legs, it's a female; if it has elephant legs, it's a male; and if it has normal legs, it's a victim.

 

[Bob Barbas]

"Yeah, so J was created as an uptight corporate hard-ass and as a foil to N." - Liam VIckers

Too bad nobody would've known she was supposed to be N's foil considering she only interacts with him directly like 2 times in the entire series and they're both in the pilot episode. Even when she returns later she never directly addresses or interacts with N ever again.

Understanding what gender a drone is is actually very simple. If it has stilt legs, it's a female; if it has elephant legs, it's a male; and if it has normal legs, it's a victim.

That's the funny thing, only the disassembly drones have a visual distinction between the two. Normal worker drones all look the exact fucking same the only difference being eye color and clothes and accessories. Physically they're all the fucking same. (Makes sense considering they're mass produced.)

Alice and Beau

Who? Oh right, the weirdly southern for some reason robot who hates Nori because reasons which are never addressed or followed up on and the baby thing who dies.
You know, on the subject.

that mistake by the animators themselves is further proof of this.

I remember those solver cores they had in that heated container, apparently near the end of the episode they mysteriously vanish and everyone was convinced they were going to be relevant next episode.
The truth is, it was probably an animation error because as you know, no, it's never addressed nor does it come up later.

Anyway, blah blah I know talking about Murder Drones again but at this point it's not like we have much else to talk about here since TADC has its own thread for some reason so until something else drops there's not a whole lot to discuss it seems.

 

[Metallic Blood]

I don't fucking get it, they're robots. Robots don't have genders. A robot doesn't have to be a tranny because they never had a sex in the first place. Though I guess in their mind acknowledging that would prove that gender is biological and not just a concept which is why they don't. But still, it's retarded and it grinds my gears.

I mean, they're robots that "reproduce" and have babies by uploading a copy of their code into their usb port (I hate that I had to write this). I assume that's the autistic reason why some drones are "male" or "female".

... tbh, I'm probably being a bit too judgemental, but I'm surprised Liam "I love to draw crazy monster girls" Vickers didn't just make the whole cast female lol.

The reason why this change was made is because he couldn't make the design for a male J that didn't look too similar to N. Literally a skill issue.

That doesn't look too bad honestly. If anything, he probably could've used that design for an extra murder drone as a background character.

... isn't it a bit weird that we only ever see 3 dissasembly drones on the entire show? Unless I'm not finding a "blink it or you miss it" scene, we only hear about the existence of other murder drone squads, but no visual indication of their existence.

 

[Bob Barbas]

... isn't it a bit weird that we only ever see 3 dissasembly drones on the entire show? Unless I'm not finding a "blink it or you miss it" scene, we only hear about the existence of other murder drone squads, but no visual indication of their existence.

I think the assumption is that SOMEHOW, Alice managed to kill the rest because the only other time we see them in the series is when they go into that building and see piles of their remains in the lobby. And I guess Cyn only cared enough to clone N, V and J for whatever reason so they're all just kind of dead I guess.
How the fuck one southern retard and a spider baby managed to kill all of them? Fuck if I know. Some people say they probably just let the raptor robots do the job but that doesn't make any sense either because how the fuck does Alice even control them in the first place? How does she pen them back up? (They kill worker drones it's what they're programmed to do from what I can see.) The series is full of things that make you think "How the fuck?" if you ponder it for longer than 3 seconds.

Tl;dr: They're all dead because somehow some southern tard robot and her baby managed to destroy at least 20 killer robots that were able to resist .50 cal machine gun fire from an attack helicopter.

I think in a QnA somewhere Liam said there were specifically at least 20 something MDs in total? I think it was like 23 or some other weird odd number.

 

[Learning Wall]

I was on Twitter and saw this:





It all started because this user said that they didn't find the character designs in Murder Drones appealing.









Some screenshots of the thread:

Spoiler

Now, I want to know what you all think about Murder Drones' character designs.








In my personal opinion, I think most of them are fine, and I understand why they would use the same character model with some tweaks instead of creating many unique character models that will only be used once, but I agree with the user who said that there's no excuse that all the robots of this show look almost the same, especially when you compare it to stuff like Transformers or Robots (2005). I can mention Megaman and My Life as a Teenage Robot as examples of media that have a wide variety of robot designs and also have a specific iconic art style. I'm a little disappointed that Murder Drones can't come up with more robot designs beyond the Sonic-esque shape, heck, even the Sonic character designs have more variety like Vector the Crocodile or Big the Cat.

What I found ironic was the user who mentioned Star Wars as an example of repeated robot designs. Star Wars, you know, that franchise with many iconic robot designs (and responsible for giving us the "clanker" slur). I understand that they're using the Battledroids specifically to justify why all Drones look the same. I think I'm splitting hairs, but if Drones are mass-produced in such a way that they all look identical, why do they behave differently from one another? I mean, Battledroids being mass-producing makes sense, since they all think and act the same, and even have the same voice actor.

I wish Murder Drones had more robot models besides the main Drone design. This makes me wonder: Does that mean that in the Murder Drones universe, the Drone is the only robot model that exists? Can Liam Vickers come up with more robot designs besides the Sonic-esque shape?


Honestly, if the Murder Drones franchise continues or gets rebooted, I'd love to see more robot designs. I don't care if it's just one giant Drone, I just want to see variety. Here are some fanarts I found:

I mean, they're robots that "reproduce" and have babies by uploading a copy of their code into their usb port (I hate that I had to write this). I assume that's the autistic reason why some drones are "male" or "female".

Speaking of which, I found this headcanon on Reddit.









Now. this is unrelated, but I went to check the Italian Brainrot Soda Pop mashup from last time. You know, that's where I got this comment from:







At the time of writing this, the video already has 52 million views, 5 million views more since the last time.

You might be wondering why I'm bringing this up? You know, I had a thought the other day: What if the SMG4 movie finale is about the "Great Meme Reset" in 2026? Think about it, Modern SMG4 has the bad habit on relying on whatever's trending, and Glitch doesn't give a shit if it ends up aging bad. There are plenty of examples of Modern SMG4 videos that have aged, such as the entire YouTube Arc from 2020, which became dated after Susan Wojcicki death in 2024 (context: Susan Wojcicki appears as a secondary villain). And there's the fact that Modern SMG4's (the character) main trait is that he's OBSESSED with memes. This whole "Great Meme Reset" thing exists for two reasons: 1. Gen Z got nostalgic for old memes like MLG or Ugandan Knuckles, and 2. They think this will finally put an end to the Italian Brainrot trend once and for all. No, seriously, a lot of people unironically think the "Great Meme Reset" will permanently kill Italian Brainrot.

I can already see it: SMG4 says that 2025 memes were awful, it was all AI slop, bad shit happens, the Brainrots are portrayed as the villains (which is a very high possibility since most of the major Italian Brainrot characters have 3D models for Garry's Mod), more bad shit happens, Mr. Puzzles has to be involved just because (it can't be a post-2023 SMG4 piece of media without Mr. Puzzles being heavily involved), retcons, nostalgia pandering, Mario acts horribly out of character, they're going to fake someone's death, or if not, they're going to do the "the entire SMG4 cast is dead except for Mario, how sad!" thing for the third, I think fourth time. I don't know how many times this happened, but I know it happened twice, forced melodramatic moments, SMG4 condemns the use of AI (Twitter will go crazy over that scene, they'll say "Ooooh, Glitch Productions is condemning the use of AI"), they defeat the Brainrots, SMG4, Mario and Meggy say goodbye, and Rest in Piss SMG4.

I know this would be a shitty way to end SMG4, but honestly, Glitch doesn't care; they have to get rid of SMG4's rotten corpse before Nintendo finds out that Digital Circus was funded by animations of Mario being an idiot.

 

[Metallic Blood]

Now, I want to know what you all think about Murder Drones' character designs.

In my personal opinion, I think most of them are fine, and I understand why they would use the same character model with some tweaks instead of creating many unique character models that will only be used once, but I agree with the user who said that there's no excuse that all the robots of this show look almost the same, especially when you compare it to stuff like Transformers or Robots (2005). I can mention Megaman and My Life as a Teenage Robot as examples of media that have a wide variety of robot designs and also have a specific iconic art style. I'm a little disappointed that Murder Drones can't come up with more robot designs beyond the Sonic-esque shape, heck, even the Sonic character designs have more variety like Vector the Crocodile or Big the Cat.

What I found ironic was the user who mentioned Star Wars as an example of repeated robot designs. Star Wars, you know, that franchise with many iconic robot designs (and responsible for giving us the "clanker" slur). I understand that they're using the Battledroids specifically to justify why all Drones look the same. I think I'm splitting hairs, but if Drones are mass-produced in such a way that they all look identical, why do they behave differently from one another? I mean, Battledroids being mass-producing makes sense, since they all think and act the same, and even have the same voice actor.

I wish Murder Drones had more robot models besides the main Drone design. This makes me wonder: Does that mean that in the Murder Drones universe, the Drone is the only robot model that exists? Can Liam Vickers come up with more robot designs besides the Sonic-esque shape?


Honestly, if the Murder Drones franchise continues or gets rebooted, I'd love to see more robot designs. I don't care if it's just one giant Drone, I just want to see variety. Here are some fanarts I found:

I really love the drone designs in general, it's one of the main reasons why I bothered watching the series in the first place. I feel this specially towards the disassembly drones, with their metallic wings, scorpion tails and their capacity to just pull any weapon by changing their hands. If teen me would ever see these designs back in 2012, he probably would think it's the "literally coolest thing ever".

I can see the complaint that every character looks the same, I think it would be cool if we had a few differences from here and there, but it's not like Liam doesn't know how to come up with other robot designs: I always thought J's tapeworm looked wonderfully grotesque for example.



I also like to think it's a funny implication that the reason why we only see one robot model throughout the entire series is because JCJenson thought it was a waste of money to do anything else. Like yeah, it would be nice to have rescue drone if a human gets stuck, or a bigger driller drone for more intense excavation, but why not just produce more basic slave drones and save some manufacturing costs? Let the employees do the safety and transportation thing themselves.

I don't know, if there's any series that I feel justifiable seeing the same character model, it probably would be this one. Maybe we could see more robots upgrading their bodies with different parts like Alice and Beau, but eh, that would require the series to have good writing a different plotline.

 

[Bob Barbas]

I wish Murder Drones had more robot models besides the main Drone design. This makes me wonder: Does that mean that in the Murder Drones universe, the Drone is the only robot model that exists? Can Liam Vickers come up with more robot designs besides the Sonic-esque shape?

In.... I forget which episode actually and frankly don't care enough to check but the tape that explains how to properly dispose of your worker drone one of the reasons it gave for why you may want to do this was that you have purchased a replacement product from one of JCJenson's competitors, implying that yes there may be other kinds of robots out there. But we never see them and as i said before JCJenson the company stops being relevant to the plot at all after like the second episode with the only exception being this tape I mentioned.

 

[The Wise Shaman]

I've been following this Russian guy who's building a real-life worker drone (J, as seen in the episode 5 flashback) for quite a while now. Now she is capable of semi-independent movement and following voice commands.

Spoiler: Images and Screenshots

---

Now, I want to know what you all think about Murder Drones' character designs.

They were one of the main reasons why I decided to watch that cartoon. I am particularly fond of the design of the normal worker drones; some of them look rather cute, to be honest.

I don't think them looking too similar to each other is that big of a problem; the clothes, the wigs, and the different screen colors do a good enough job to make them distinct, and if we take logic into consideration, they are mass-produced robots that weren't really meant to have that much uniqueness to them; they were meant to be used as serfs (I mean, "robot" comes from the Czech "robota," which means "forced labor done by serfs").

One thing I do have to agree on is that N, V, and J do look too similar to each other. I used to confuse V and J for a few episodes when I watched MD for the first time.

I always thought J's tapeworm looked wonderfully grotesque for example.

I have to agree. Liam's artistic ability shines when he's not doing anything related to monster girls. This is why I'm not a fan of the Cyn-Tessa chimera's design, to be honest; Liam clearly considered his dick first and the horror elements second. All Glitch needed to do was get a co-producer for MD so somebody could tard wrangle Liam.

---

Speaking of which, I found this headcanon on Reddit.

This reminds me of how tarantulas molt, and I don't like being reminded of that.

Speaking of Reddit, I saw this on my homepage while looking for dumb redditors to laugh at: