Yellow Springs News
Smiling Family Releases Gassy Alphabet App
“My Little AlphaButts,” an entertaining alphabet app for children created by a fun-loving Yellow Springs family of artists, was released on the Apple Store today. Featuring illustrated letter shapes emitting hilarious back-end body sounds, the interactive alphabet was originally conceived decades ago by Mike Fleishman, a humorous illustrator. He sketched the ABCs for his own sons when they were young enough to enjoy backside images and gusty sound effects. Now they are young men – Cooper, a writer/editor and percussionist, and Max, a graphic designer who turned his dad’s sketches into the 99-cent app’s final color work.
Fleishman’s wife is filmmaker and art project manager, Joanne Caputo, who co-directed the app’s development and lent her former teacher voice to the English narration. A Spanish version was recorded by Benny Vazquez, known in Yellow Springs as the branch manager of U.S. Bank. The family’s app production involved hours of sidesplitting conversation regarding the precise look of 26 different “AlphaButts” and their associated sounds. Also developed was the app’s “Fart-o-matic” that allows users to create their own gassy tunes.
Fleishman and Caputo, natives of Pittsburgh, PA, are the owners of JoJo Beanyhead Co. LLC, creators of the behind-the-scenes “Ballerina, Ballerina!” video for children, and other independent video productions.
For further information, visit: www.beanyhead.com