Kyle Platts’ new 2D short spins influencer culture into a hilarious gravy nightmare

From satirical illustrations to whimsical book covers, cartoonist Kyle Platts continually shows why he needs his own sketch show on Adult Swim – especially in his new 2D short Behavy Gravy, a bizarre blend of influencer parody and a social commentary on consumerism. Constructed in a dual narrative, the short begins with an exaggerated advertisement for the eponymous Gravy, a product that can unlock your true potential. The second half is a spiral into madness, as a young girl with an ailing grandmother plummets her family into bankruptcy so that she can continue to consume magical Gravy in order to excel in maths.

The film comes from a personal place. “As someone who struggled academically with dyslexia I remember the feeling of dread that was attached with school. ‘If you fail here you fail in life’ was the sentiment,” says Kyle. “That pressure is something I wanted to reflect in Turkey Girl’s motivations. Her desire to make her family proud, even if it means chugging mind-altering protein Gravy, adds emotional grounding to the absurdity.”

Often, some of the most cutting social critiques can be achieved through comedy – in this case, it takes place in a world of strange cartoon characters, most of which have roast turkeys for heads. Of course, this film implies that all they are missing is their fated Behavey Gravy. Inspired by movies like Limitless or Lucy, narratives centered around drugs that unlock profound genius, Behavey Gravy goes an extra step forward by recycling rejected characters from a music video that didn’t get picked up.

The use of music in Kyle’s short is particularly hilarious – stock, YouTuber-esque music underpins every sad moment with jarringly upbeat vibes, creating a juxtaposition that delivers laughs as well as discomfort. “The muscle bound creator of Behavey Gravy that features in the first part of the film is directly inspired by influencer culture, particularly the morning routine broscience archetype,” says Kyle. “The licence free music that often accompanies these videos is also fascinating to me, I think you can carbon date it to when Diplo produced Where Are Ü Now for Justin Bieber in 2015. That track was sublime but subsequently influenced royalty free tropical house which has been the scourge of the internet ever since.”

As Kyle’s longest narrative to date, he went through traditional preparation processes such as storyboarding followed by animatics. Using Adobe Animate and After Effects to compose the scenes, the usefulness of digital animation was in the flexibility with editing – being able to tweak line weights and colours after the fact. An amazing digression 2D animation happens when a 3D, claymation inspired sequence shows the effects of the gravy on the brain.

“The 3D segment where we go inside Turkey Girl’s brain was actually created by the brilliant 3D animator Christa Jarrold. Her work is created digitally but she has a great way of adding texture so it has this tactile feel,” says Kyle. Transitioning from the reality of the cartoons, the gravy is given a fantastical, otherworldly presence, satirising our personal obsessions with products and what we perhaps hope our products will do to our own brains.

Although the message is loud and clear – and even horrifying, the wonderful fact of this short is that it started with a simple, funny daydream. “I was walking down the street and I just thought how funny it would be if gravy unlocked your true intellectual potential, with the caveat that you have to drink one pint of gravy every hour or you’ll die,” says Kyle, showing why an active and curious imagination always ends up leading to deeper truths – even if they are about girls with turkeys for heads and magical gravy. Get yourself a pint, coat your brain and enter Kyle’s ridiculous parody horror world.