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Newgrounds Wiki: Flash Portal History 2004

We were rapidly improving our hosting, but had plenty of bumps and bruises, especially for the first few months of 2004. The year kicked off with some fun submissions!


January


Crimson Warfare was the latest and greatest RTS game, but Punk-O-Matic had real staying power thanks to the lasting appeal of song construction and sharing.


Weebl mastered the art of the loveable Flash jingle, following last year's "Badger" with the adorable "Kenya."


Wonchop made his Newgrounds debut with "Eels on Wheels."


Dan Paladin (aka Synj) teamed up with Gel to make "cantankerousTANK"!



February


Luis spearheaded the first of many time trials, a very significant moment in the history of artist collaborations on Newgrounds and precursor to modern-day Jams with time restraints!


"Ultimate Flash Sonic" possibly reached the modern pinnacle in Flash game design, proving that Flash could indeed make games that play as well as classic arcade and console games. Clubby the Seal also showed that Seal Clubbing themes are alive and well.


Marc M submitted "Knock Knock", which I discovered a month later while I was in San Diego. Dan Paladin (Alien Hominid artist) got such a kick out of it that I mentioned it in a front page post. Marc M is one of those authors who doesn't seem to be appreciated by the mainstream users, but when you meet a Marc M fan you know they're cool. Or maybe just as f'ed up as you are. Marc has since been scooped up by Fox's ADHD.


A lot of the events of this month were overshadowed by Nipplegate. As Wade had reported, Janet Jackson had a wardrobe malfunction during the Super Bowl. Luckily, The Walrus was on the scene to make the "Tit-Tazzler Infomercial" in response.



March


The bar was forever raised when Adam Phillips submitted his spellbinding masterpiece, "Bitey of Brackenwood." A former Disney animator, Adam had specialized in animating water, as is evident in his submissions.


The "Decline" series kicked off amongst Matrix fever, with "The Matrix Has You" and "Super Mario Reloaded" both bending themes from the trilogy.


On a more personal note, we saw some great Pico fan-films this month. Films like these would eventually lead to an official "Pico Day" in 2006!



April


"There She Is!!!" is one of those movies that attracts a lot of new people to Newgrounds - only to have them get disgusted by the rest of the content on the site. Hey, when we say "Everything by Everyone", we don't necessarily mean "Everything FOR Everyone!"


"Final Fantasy A+" started as a school project and turned into a Portal sensation, snagging tons of awards and praise for John Su.


"Rokemon" raised the bar for sprite movies everywhere.


As part of our effort to beef up NG Mag, I sat down for an interview with IllWillPress, to discuss his insanely popular Neurotically Yours series and the growing controversy surrounding it, notably F-Day. (sorry NGMag isn't around anymore)



May


We had some great bizarre entries this month. "Banana Phone" become a common phrase in the NG lexicon, thanks to Dave Teatro and LazyWill's creative use of a stupid kids' song.


Smile also made a lasting impression, with it's dark statement on conformity. Sarkazm would take the theme even further with 2012's Movie of the Year, Lucky Day Forever.


There was some sad news this month - Zach Finley, aka CerealboxClock, died in a car accident.


LegendaryFrog brightened the mood with another big hit, this time targetting Final Fantasy.



June


MindChamber teamed up with PsychoGoldfish to bring his original character to life in "ALLOY: ARENA."


Although it wasn't his first submission, I officially "discovered" El-Cid this month when he submitted "Metal Gear Fiesta." El-Cid has gone on to become one of my favorite artists on the site.


This was also the month of my big Copycat Rant, where I let loose on all the websites that bite off Newgrounds. As soon as the internet economy came back, every fair-weather enthusiast (aka people who never touched Flash, but would make a website about paperclips if paperclips were hot at the moment) wanted to have a site like NG, because copying NG was a lot easier than building it from scratch. Little did I know YouTube would come along in 2005 and mop the floor with everyone...


The disturbing trend of dying Flash authors also continued this month, with the Livecorpse suicide.



July


"Salad Fingers" was submitted to the Portal, only to somehow slip off the charts with no awards and no recognition. Luckly, LilJim stumbled across it and we stuck it on the front page.


The same thing happened with Burnt Face Man, also by Firth and also without awards. I'm sure Salad Fingers and BFM would have still become huge regardless, but to this day it makes me wonder what great submissions might fly under the radar. Today, Salad Fingers and BFM are two of the best series on the site (if you like that sort of thing) and David Firth is a living legend, IMHO.


This month also introduced us to Claveman, a five part story that would become a favorite to many.


Squigo submitted "UGLY", which is one of my favorites.


The Toonimated crew (although they weren't called Toonimated yet) released "FF: Mixed in Balamb", following the success of "Super Mario Reloaded" just a few months earlier.


Weebl continued to assert dominance with "Magical Trevor" and NegativeOne got on the "top programmers" radar with "Lone Faction."



August


The original King of Flash cartoons, Joe Cartoon himself, submitted his latest work! Joe made classics such as "Hamster in a Microwave" and "Frog in a Blender."


Adam Phillips continued to raise the bar with his latest, "Prowlies at the River."


"Megaman & Pompous Robots" showed sprite movies a thing or two about how to spoof a classic video game.


Tyler Gibb submitted chapter two of Minushi but it was new to us because he didn't submit chapter one.


My month was made complete with "Mr. Happy Face", which re-invigorated my faith that Newgrounds is still the place to go for a violent fix.



September


We launched a new Portal layout this month!


"Fallen Angel: TEASER" has proven to be just that... The biggest tease on NG! While the official first episode is still in development, I hope it isn't another Pico 2. :)


Sakupen submitted "Walk-Smash-Walk", a great video that wouldn't be noticed until October, when Sakupen submits an even bigger hit.


To commemorate the three-year anniversary of September 11th, Phill Collins (no, not that Phil Collins) submitted "I miss you Daddy."


MindChamber showed fans why he got picked years earlier to draw the new Pico, in "Pico's Unloaded."



October


Sakupen, who had been overlooked the month earlier, made a big splash with "Dad's Home!" This is another one of those timeless submissions that is always fun to watch.


The Takamori Legend brought back fond memories of "The Final Task," both which prompted me to eventually make a Ninjas and Samurai collection.


This was probably the most disturbing year in Newgrounds history... After two contributors had already died, we received a submission by Jeff Weise, aka Regret. Completely overlooked at the time, the submission would later draw attention when Jeff went on a shooting spree and killed himself. His Newgrounds activity was first reported by The Smoking Gun.


Keep in mind, many teenage boys enjoy making violent cartoons and any attempt to persecute them for that sort of thing would create more problems than it would solve.


Also Halloween.



November


"There's Something About Halo" proved there's power in numbers when it comes to making video game spoofs. Multiple artists came together to share their individual Halo spoofs and the crowd went wild.


Tom Winkler, of Doodie.com fame, stepped away from scatalogical humor for a moment (not that there's anything wrong with that) to submit "Whack Your Boss", much to the delight of office grunts everywhere.


We held a contest for artists to make movies based on Opie and Anthony. The winning submission was "100 Grand Remix", by Jeff Bandelin, aka JohnnyUtah. A year later, we hired Jeff as a full time member of the Newgrounds team! He redesigned the old tank logo and turned it into what you see now!



December


This was the month Gary Brolsma uploaded Numa Numa to Newgrounds. It was like a sneak preview of YouTube (which launched the following year) and went on to become a viral phenomenon. It has since been removed to maintain our focus on animated content and original music but you can read more about it and see it on YouTube.


Of course, who can forget Stamper's classic ode to family, "Rebecca"?


Hyperboy introduced us to the 15 year old Gene Goldstein and reminded everyone to never underestimate younger artists.


Vinnie Veritas brought a lot of attention to CCC City with the release of "Hoy Te Amo." As every year before it, we wrapped things up with a Christmas collection, once again bigger than the last.



The success of Numa Numa on Newgrounds wouldn't have been possible if not for all the improvements Tim (our sys-admin) and James (LilJim, programmer) had made over the course of the year. The "viral buzz" proved to be a test of our new servers, which still weren't quite ready for that sort of traffic. But they would be soon...

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