The Joey Drew Show
- This article refers to the TV show produced for Bendy. For other uses, see Joey (disambiguation).
The Joey Drew Show is a Bendy television show that airs weekly on Saturday nights. It is directed and produced by Joey Drew and his crew at Kismet Production Studios.
Overview
The show has a small set resembling a sketched-out environment, made only of black-and-white objects. The set consists of an artist's table located in the corner with original drawings of the characters—Bendy, Alice Angel, Boris the Wolf, and the Butcher Gang—plastered on the wall, with drawn-on nails pretending to hold them in place. The crew films Joey on the set for the show's introduction.
The show airs weekly on Saturday nights at 8 PM. It starts with a waiting screen, containing a drawing of Bendy caught in mid-wave, a message reading "Up Next: The Joey Drew Show!" and "Brought to You by Arch Steel" in a smaller font underneath it. The show then begins with Joey pretending to work at his table before noticing the audience and greeting them—breaking the fourth wall. He then gets up and introduces them to the main character Bendy, before informing them of the cartoon they're about to watch. The screen then changes to one of the Bendy cartoons from the Joey Drew Studios-era. The show airs seven Bendy cartoons in total, taking around half an hour or more. At the end, Joey says good night and he will see them next week, ending the show.
When wearing the 3-D glasses and using the specialized televisions, the viewer is transported to the show's set, however it appears as an actual room rather than a makeshift studio set. The room still contains the table and Joey Drew, but there are alterations made, the room is black-and-yellow instead and has a door and a ceiling replacing the environment from Studio 7. The environment is also interactable and even has a physical, living version of Bendy.
This environment itself is located in the ink realm and the viewer's consciousness is transferred to a caricature version of themselves through the 3-D glasses technology, allowing them to wander in the world. When the glasses is taken off, their consciousness is transferred back to their real-world body, but exposure to this tech causes the viewer's mental state to be influenced by the ink realm, causing hallucination-like visions from there to appear in the real world.
History
Early production
Around the early 1950s, Joey Drew joined Kismet Production Studios, planning to create a television show for Bendy. He gathered a crew for the production of the show at Studio 7. The set was made to appear like a sketched out version of his old office and was used as the shows introduction room
Joey came up with the idea of a revolutionary technology for the show, which would allow people to enter his cartoons and view the world through a different person's eyes. He hired Evan to conceptualize this idea. Soon, he invented a new kind of 3-D glasses made of glass and metal. This technology allowed viewers to get transferred to the cartoons themselves when it was used on the specialized television. But to fully achieve this the film reels were reprocessed using the ink—a new form of the Sillyvision process, which was possible due to Joey regaining ownership of the Ink Machine after Gent went out of operation.
Prior to the show's premiere, Nathan Arch, the owner of Arch Steel sponsored Joey's show due to their long-standing friendship. He was credited on the starting screen because of being one of the biggest funders of the show.
Airs of the show
The show first aired on Saturday in January 1953, which was also the testing night for the show's test families. The show was successful and the 3-D glasses reportedly worked as intended, making Joey and his crew continue the experiment. As the next step, Joey had all the old film reels reprocessed as well, completely redoing them, which annoyed Evan who thought this was dangerous since the reels were untested and fragile; the process went through either way.
The next show aired again on Saturday, a party for it was hosted in the Arch residence where Nathan and his family resided. However, before the screening, Evan destroyed one of the 3-D glasses, leading to his firing. The show was mostly successful; the viewer count was lower than expected as the majority didn't know of the show's existence, despite the grand party.
Testing the inky world
Around this time, the side effects of the technology started to catch up to Joey, leading him to figure out that this tech had more to it than he initially thought. He observed and interacted with the cartoon's world, the ink realm, testing its properties and effects. Seeing the world was alterable with the usage of the Ink Machine, Joey added new rooms to the environment, trying to recreate the old Joey Drew Studios.
During all this, the show's production assistant and a test member Rose Sorenson begins working with Dot, one of Joey's old employees from the studio, upon learning the harm he had caused in the past with the Ink Demon monster. Archie Carter, a test subject from the now-closed Gent, later got involved in the plot against Joey Drew as well.
Downfall and breakdown
The ink realm led Joey's mental state to deteriorate more, making him see visions of his old employees—primarily Henry Stein—and easily lose his temper and yell at the show's crew. He continued to recreate his animation studio in the ink realm, adding more rooms to it each day, and giving the crew a day off to solely focus on this effort.
After the third show was finished on Saturday night, the test families of the show were all trapped in the ink realm, with Archie included after his death in the hands of the Ink Demon, sending his soul to the realm as well. Joey took this to his advantage and watched over them, as a scientist, observing what would happen to them. Following that, Archie guided the families to Heavenly Toys, where Joey communicated with them using an audio log. Joey reveals to them the purpose of this world and begins to form a new idea for it's usage based on what he learns from Archie about it's cyclical nature.
The test families all managed to escape the ink realm, with Rose breaking her respective 3-D glasses after announcing she has quit. It's unknown what happened to the show afterwards, but it's unlikely that it aired for much longer if Joey's unethical plans were actually exposed to the public by the test families.
Shows
First show
The premiere of the show, airing on Saturday in January of 1953.
- Little Devil Darlin'
- Six other Bendy cartoons
Second show
Once again it aired on Saturday in January, details about the show are unknown.
Third show
It aired on Saturday, either in January or February. Possibly the last show of the series.
Crew
The show has a full-time crew working on it. However, only five workers are currently known.
- Joey Drew (Director and producer)
- Rose Sorenson (Production assistant)
- Evan (Technician; unknown date-January 1953)
- Dean (Gaffer)
- Lenny (Camera operator)
- Steve (Camera operator)
Test participants
- Main article: Test families
The show also employees volunteered families to test the 3-D glasses technology.
Behind the scenes
The Joey Drew Show was introduced and shown in the novel Bendy: Fade to Black.