| “ | Allo it's me DM! | ” |
―UNODASH !!! | ||
Derrick Uno McKilligan (born: June 11, 2003), better known online as UNODASH!!!, is an American actor, animator, voice actor, writer, director, producer, and singer known for his Web Series for YouTube, “Derrick McCormick” (June 22, 2016-August 13, 2022) “The Ricans” (November 29, 2017-September 1, 2022) and a series of shorts called "Zoya, the Bamboozle Fearless Stickman" (April 27, 2020) amongst others. His shows are heavily inspired by shows on Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, Disney Channel, and so on, he shows a fiery passion for creating entertaining works by himself.
“Derrick McCormick” (Web Series) started as one-minute skits as ordinary videos, later turned into a series when McKilligan noticed that he was gaining a viewer base. A sneak preview for the series aired on June 17, 2016, Derrick introduces pilot episode "BenJamin McRooney Fights Back" as a BenJamin skit. The pilot was originally titled "When you tell a joke to somebody, but you don't mean it in a bad way" but Derrick thought the title was too long, so he renamed it to "BenJamin McRooney Fights Back".
The official series premiered on June 22, 2016, the series theme song is "Nah Nah Ne Nah Nah" which is the former theme song of the British cartoon "Horrid Henry". The series is rated TV-G for all audiences to watch, though some episodes contain a small amount of profanity, which McCormick discontinued in the series since he thought it was a bit too drastic. Shortly after, McCormick wanted to make a cartoon series, which ended up being “The Ricans” premiering on November 29, 2017. The Ricans was based on an old drawing of a family Derrick drew years ago when he was younger.
Series[]
Derrick McCormick (2016–2022)[]
Genre: Family, Sketch Comedy, Animation[]
The first show from UNODASH!!! A live-action show about a teenage boy named Derrick who introduces the viewer into his room and an insane world of craziness. Derrick talks about random topics and he does a lot of random things in his room. The series is a variety sketch show filled with random live-action skits, animation segments, and lots more.
The Ricans (2017–2022)[]
Genre: Animated Sitcom[]
The first animated series and the second show made by UNODASH!!! about a Puerto Rican family, Martin, Valentina, Anna, a cat named Mr. Memoth, and the crazy yet mischievous child, Dax. The series is set in the town of Stamford Connecticut and the family deals with each other’s craziness and other strange things happen in their universe.
The series was produced in a manner reminiscent of the Hanna-Barbera cartoons from the sound effects to the animation style.
Zoya, the Bamboozle Fearless Stickman (Series of shorts 2020)
Genre: Animated Comedy
The second animated series and third show made by UNODASH!!!. It’s about a Stickman named Zoya, who lives in the city and deals with many situations and certain different scenarios surrounded by him. However, Zoya always does his best to face his fears, and be fearless of every impossible challenge thrown at him. Anything challenging, ridiculous or dangerous even, Zoya will do it.
Like The Ricans, Zoya, the Bamboozle Fearless Stickman was also heavily influenced by Hanna-Barbera cartoons.
History[]
Derrick loved to draw and perform at a very young age. He liked to entertain and make people laugh. Some people suggested that he made a YouTube channel, which he did on October 6, 2013 at 10 years old. He made a few skits which are now deleted along with all of his old videos since he thought they were poorly made. He temporarily gave up on YouTube since he had a low-quality camera, bad sound, and didn't know how to edit.
Around late 2014, Derrick returned to YouTube to do skits again. This time, he used an iPad to film, improving his camera quality and enabling him to edit. At the time, he started out doing skits for fun, until Derrick noticed that many people enjoyed watching these one-minute shorts, complimenting Derrick about how great and funny they were. This is where the Derrick McCormick series comes in the works. McCormick started production on the series in late September 2014, where he started making the show and filming the episodes.
He called his outfit "DM clothes", which was Derrick's own style of clothing with a few changes. He wore a long cerulean shirt with a light green shirt over it, making it seen as sleeves under the light green shirt. Over it, he wore a red necktie to add a new aspect to his style from his regular clothing, and lastly, a purple beanie. Derrick said he would wear these clothes in every episode because he liked how characters often wear the same clothes in a lot of cartoons and live-action series. He did not wear the DM clothes in episodes one through five, with a slight exception in episode five (titled, "DemonicBunny") where he wore the necktie over a "Speed Racer" shirt instead.
The pilot episode, titled, "BenJamin McRooney Fights Back", aired June 17, 2016, five days before the show came to the premiere, is the first appearance of the BenJamin skits. The skit was about BenJamin McRooney telling a joke to Big Boy Barry, but he takes the joke in a bad way. This was originally titled "When you tell a joke to somebody, but you don't mean it in a bad way", but Derrick thought the original title was too long, so he changed it to something short and simple. The original title is still included at the beginning of the video. BenJamin later became a character in the series because McCormick loved him, though he didn't have a name or role at this time. He was later named BenJamin.
Five days after the premiere of BenJamin McRooney, the web series "Derrick McCormick" premiered on June 22, 2016. The first episode was titled "Happy Silly Dab". He looked different because, at that time, Derrick didn't wear his signature outfit until episode six. This episode along with episodes two and three was twelve minutes long, instead of its ordinary fifteen or twenty-minute duration, this was due to Derrick's iPad Air 2 running out of storage and not accepting the longer video. This was fixed after episode three, "Groovin and Moovin", when episode four, "Yogurt Milk", lasted fifteen minutes long. This continued for the first season, until the second season where it was extended to twenty minutes long, which continued throughout the series.
Making the episodes were very difficult at the beginning. The audio would often spike up accidentally in earlier episodes since they were mostly edited on iMovie. Saving the episodes was also hard on McCormick as he had to delete most of his footage to make room for storage, which at that time, was difficult and irritating. This issue was resolved later on. In August of 2016, Derrick's mom bought him an iPhone 6s, which was a great backup to film videos, when he couldn't on his iPad. The only problem was, he had to save the intro and many other things in the opening sequence of the series, so he used storage apps like "MyMedia" to save his material.
After Derrick McCormick, The Ricans were in the works into becoming a series. It’s based on an old drawing McCormick made as a little kid about a weird family. It was originally called “The Weird Family” but McCormick wanted a design makeover and alter the family's last name. Names like The Burnlans were conceptualized, until he completely changed it over, and decided to make it a show about a Hispanic family, based on his nationality, and changed it to The Ricans. The decision narrowed down to a toss-up because Derrick also had another old drawing he wanted to reboot called “Patrick and Marvin” which is now “October and Maverick,” shown as animated segments on Derrick McCormick (the show). He decided to make the then called Patrick and Marvin cartoons on Derrick McCormick, as animated segments, but redesigned and switched the names to October and Maverick, and made The Ricans into its own show. The Ricans started production in November of 2016.
Leaving YouTube[]
On May of 2021, Derrick announced that he will be ending "Derrick McCormick" and "The Ricans" and the final seasons and episodes for both shows will premiere in 2022. Derrick had plans to make more episodes to last several more years, but then realized he already did enough and the shows ran their course. As he said in a tweet, "I want to focus on other projects I’m passionate about now, and college." On April of 2022, Derrick also announced that after the final episodes of "Derrick McCormick" and "The Ricans" have posted, he's not going to be posting any more videos on YouTube due lack of interest in producing more episodes, to a genuine desire to move on and focus on other things and develop new ideas. As he said himself, "I’m done with YouTube, but I still will be around on social media".
"Derrick McCormick" ended production in February of 2022 and aired its final episode on August 13, 2022 with the episode "Way Too Far". "The Ricans" ended production sometime later and aired its final episode on September 1, 2022 with the series finale "The Lease", which also serves as the final video posted on UNODASH!!!.
After Derrick released his final YouTube video, YouTuber Baby Lamb Creations (a close friend of Derrick who has collaborated with him several times) released a special short goodbye video as a sendoff for Derrick and his YouTube channel. It features "Derrick McCormick" and "The Ricans" as well as several other YouTube characters waving goodbye to them, parodying Adult Swim's farewell bumper for Family Guy when it stopped airing in September of 2021.
Though Derrick has stopped producing content on YouTube, he will continue to regularly post content on other social media platforms such as TikTok, Twitter, and Instagram.
Trivia[]
- Derrick uses Anizone to animate.
- Derrick McCormick was originally going to premiere in October 2015, but even though production started at that time, it kept getting delayed due to a lot of filming going on and a lot of episodes were not finished yet. It finally premiered in the summer of June 22, 2016.
- The Ricans has many references and background cameo appearances of its sister show Derrick McCormick.
- Derrick’s production company, UNODASH!!! Is based on Derrick’s middle name, Uno. Which he thought would be good for a company name. Then he added the word Dash at the end because it had a nice ring to it.
Gallery[]
