Neil Cicierega

Neil Stephen Cicierega (/ˌsɪsᵻˈriːɡə/; born August 23, 1986) is an American Internet artist, comedian, actor, filmmaker, puppeteer, singer, musician, and animator. He is the creator of the genre of Flash animation known as "Animutation", and has released several albums as a musician under the name of "Lemon Demon" and a series of mashup albums more recently under his own name.

Early life

Cicierega was born in Boston, Massachusetts. Cicierega's father was a programmer, so Cicierega was surrounded by computers growing up. At a young age, Cicierega began using a program named Klik & Play, a simplistic game developing program. By the fourth grade, Cicierega's parents began homeschooling him and homeschooling Cicierega's brother and sister. Cicierega continued making amatuer games, and he even began creating digital music to feature in his games. Soon, Cicierega began sharing his music on the Internet through the music sharing website MP3.com under the name Trapezoid. Cicierega continued making content for the Internet, and he continued to grow in popularity.

Career

Animutation

Cicierega created a genre of dadaist or surrealist Flash animation he termed "Animutation". Animutations feature arbitrary, nonsensical scenes and pop culture imagery and are typically set to novelty or foreign music, often from the Japanese version of Pokémon. One of his earliest works entitled Hyakugojyuuichi was published on the web, and was described as a "hit" in 2001 by Salon magazine.

Potter Puppet Pals

Cicierega's Potter Puppet Pals is a comedy series which parodies Harry Potter. It originated as a pair of Flash animations on Newgrounds in 2003, and later resurfaced in the form of a series of live action puppet shows released onto YouTube and PotterPuppetPals.com, starting in 2006 and continuing to the present. The central characters of the Harry Potter series are portrayed simply by puppets. The most successful Potter Puppet Pals video, The Mysterious Ticking Noise, currently has over 170,000,000 views (as of December 2016). Cicierega has done puppetry live at Harry Potter-themed events.

Lemon Demon

Since 2003, Cicierega has released 9 full-length albums under his musical project Lemon Demon. In 2005, he and animator Shawn Vulliez released a Flash animated music video "Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny" on Newgrounds. This reached over 12 million views on Newgrounds as well as topping the "Funny Five" on The Dr. Demento Show for several weeks and becoming the No. 1 Request for 2006. The song was later included in the 2006 album Dinosaurchestra. An updated recording of the song was released to the Rock Band Network in 2010.

Cicierega also creates mashup music under his own name. He released two mashup mixtapes, Mouth Sounds and Mouth Silence, for free download in 2014, and a third, Mouth Moods, in 2017.

In January 2016, Cicierega announced Spirit Phone, a full-length Lemon Demon album released on February 29, 2016.

Video games

On February 26, 2015, Cicierega announced his first point-and-click adventure game, Icon Architect 1.0.

Personal life

On August 8, 2015, Cicierega married illustrator Ming Doyle. He currently lives in Somerville, Massachusetts.

Discography

• Outsmart (2000) - Deporitaz
• Microwave This CD (2001) - Deporitaz
• Dimes (2002) - Deporitaz
• Clown Circus (2003) - Lemon Demon
• Live From The Haunted Candle Shop (2003) - Lemon Demon
• Hip To The Javabean (2004) - Lemon Demon
• Damn Skippy (2005) - Lemon Demon
• Dinosaurchestra (2006) - Lemon Demon
• Circa 2000 (2007) - Deporitaz
• View-Monster (2008) - Lemon Demon
• Almanac 2009 (2009) - Lemon Demon
• Live (Only Not) (2011) - Lemon Demon
• I Am Become Christmas EP (2012) - Lemon Demon
• Nature Tapes EP (2014) - Lemon Demon
• Mouth Sounds (2014) - Neil Cicierega
• Mouth Silence (2014) - Neil Cicierega
• Spirit Phone (2016) - Lemon Demon
• Mouth Moods (2017) - Neil Cicierega