A colorful cast of cute characters prepare for an upcoming interplanetary AirBurst tournament. However, the villainous MM—Ci wishes to halt the tourney before it can begin. He hatches a diabolical plan to trick the athletes into drinking the Soda of Doom, a crazy concoction causing rapid weight gain.

Since the sport of Airburst is all about bouncing above the clouds, the Soda would make the athletes unable to compete. With ingenuity and the help of their robotic friend, the AirBurst crew find a way out of this fizzy situation. Inspired by the AirBurst series for the Mac.

Starring Joe Mantegna as MM-Ci

In Collaboration with Strange Flavour Ltd.

Aaron Fothergill: Executive Producer

Aaron Fothergill: Executive Producer, Sound Editor

Dani Bowman: Producer, Writer, Director, Animator, Storyboard Artist, Character Designer, Sound Editor

Nicholas Guzman: Musical Score Composer

Patrick Eidemiller: Animation Supervisor

Sandy Vielma: Supervisor

Nicholas Guzman: BCM/Veng/MCB

Jake Tashjian: Flux

Mia Mantegna: Maya

Keaton Bicknell: Moon

Dani Bowman: Inku/Jera

Rachel Barcellona: Pook

Joe Mantegna (MM-Ci)

The history of this short is deeply intertwined with the history of Dani Bowman and DaniMation as a whole. As a child, Dani would spend time playing video games on her Mac computer. Her favorite game was AirBurst, and she enjoyed drawing its characters and coming up with stories starring them. Her love of AirBurst ignited her creativity and made her realize how much she wanted to be an animator.

When Dani was 15, she created a tribute animation called “AirBurst: Soda of Doom” and posted it to her YouTube channel. Aaron and Adam Fothergill (the minds behind video game company Strange Flavour Ltd) were impressed with Dani’s interpretation of their game. They asked if it would be all right to post the animation on their official website. Overjoyed, Dani said yes.

Later on, Dani would get permission from Aaron and Adam to turn the tribute animation into a Comic-Con short with the brothers as executive producers. This was 4 years before Strange Flavour released an updated version of AirBurst for iOS and Mac. Not only did we get permission to use AirBurst characters, we also got the opportunity to incorporate its music.

The song “PopPopPop” by Abdoujaparov was originally from AirBurst: Extreme in 2004. Our friend Nicholas Guzman sang a cover version for AirBurst: The Soda of Doom’s end credits. We were also lucky to have Joe Mantegna (Criminal Minds) join our cast of voice actors. Dani counts AirBurst: The Soda of Doom as one of her favorite projects in the DaniMation catalog. Feel free to watch it here.

Listen to PopPopPop as sung by Nicholas Guzman on Soundcloud!

Check out AirBurst on iOS here

Check out AirBurst on Mac here

Thank you to Aaron and Adam Fothergill for helping Dani’s childhood dream come true.