Omahan Len Witte is the man behind the "South Park" style videos that animate segments of the "Todd & Tyler Radio Empire" for listeners of KEZO (92.3 FM).Witte, who is known as "Dick Payne" on the videos and in posts to the "Todd and Tyler Unauthorized" discussion forum, said he stumbled upon the idea while trying to hear a segment in which a co-worker called the popular morning show.
"That night I downloaded the MP3 and cut everything out besides his call," Witte said. "A couple of days later I was playing with Windows Movie Maker and had the idea of adding the audio from my coworker's call. Then I thought a cartoon would be cute and thought of the South Park character site that I had seen before."
Since then, Witte has created cartoon characters for each of the show's stars (Todd Brandt, Mike Tyler, Travis Justice, news reader Craig Evans and producer Jeremy Campbell) as well as regular guests, Dr. Ed Dominguez, Jay Medicine Hat, "Black Tony" and "Larry The Cable Guy."
Each character has 18 images, as well as the ability to blink their eyes. Witte said it takes him about a minute to create a single second of video. The longest of the 11 videos currently posted on YouTube is three minutes and 48 seconds.
Judging by the number of views, the videos are being seen by quite a few people. One of the first videos he created (last November) has been watched nearly 9,000 times.
"I am happy they (Todd and Tyler) like the clips," the 36-year-old said. "They keep me from playing poker online."
