The animator is YouTube user Trevor Carlee, who wrote, "A few months ago I set out to get better at animation, so I took on a project way beyond my scope and centered it around Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I did this before with my Buffy art, where I'm improving my 3D skils by creating an art piece for every episode of Buffy (and also Angel)."
Check out the trailer here:
Back in 2002, there was active development by Joss Whedon and showrunner Jeph Loeb on a proposed Buffy: The Animated Series, that ultimately didn't end up going into production. “It was an opportunity to do the things or the jokes that we only did in the writers room,” said Whedon it what was an exlusive interview. “But with the animated series, we had a chance, while being cool, scary and empowered, to be really whimsical. It would have been a return to the adolescence of year one and very freeing. A completely different kind of fun than the live show or the comics.”
Added Loeb, “We had put together a Class A animation team. We had all 13 stories for the first season and nine scripts that were all written by Buffy writers and myself. I spent a year and a half over there running the show, but it just sort of stopped, everything was put in a box and we waited. While there are darker aspects, the show was absolutely geared to go a little younger, simply because of the nature of animation. What would be the point of doing an animated version of the live-action show that’s exactly the same?”
Whedon admitted that when the characters graduated from high school, he got a bit choked up, believing that there were more stories to tell, but not willing to defy the reality of the actors aging. “That opportunity in animation,” he said, “was a well to draw from forever, and the relationships could be fluid within the boundaries of the show. One of the points of the show was that even though things may look like they’re set a certain way, some days your best friend is your worst enemy.”
Noted Loeb, “The show was about the grounding principles of Buffy as a metaphor for high school anxieties; high school troubles and how they manifest themselves. Joss feels that the metaphor is never stronger than when you’re in the middle of high school and you’re trying to figure things out. So Buffy has moved to Sunnydale, she’s friends with Xander and Willow, and she has begun to accept her role as the Slayer. But there were stories that fall in between the stories that you know and love. Then there are just certain things that the budget of the live show would not allow that we would have been able to do. That’s the most fun.”
But these dreams never came to be since no network was interested in the animated series. “’Teenie Buffy’ was the first script turned in,” added Whedon. “We wanted the toughness of a Batman show, really good action, strong hero, but at the same time the completely off-center humor of The Simpsons. But we couldn’t find a home for it. Nobody seemed to want it, and it blew my mind. I feel like I’m standing here with bags of money. It’s Buffy Animated, what more do I need to explain here? People were just, like, ‘We’re not doing that sort of thing, we have a different agenda,’ and I’m wondering, did I miss the memo where this wasn't a cash cow? I had the Buffy writers writing it and the Buffy actors wanting to be in it. What did I miss?”