Beware The Furry Damon!

I saw this by way of a link on Animated-News.com (A great site, by the way) and had to comment on it. In regards to my recent post on Anthropomorphic Animals, here is what I would caution my students to avoid at all costs! This is a pic from the show "Arthur", featuring a supposedly anthropomorphized Matt Damon as a guest star. I've always felt that the "Arthur" characters themselves were too much of the "animal head stuck on a human body" variety, but this monstrosity goes even further than that, simply sticking teddy bear ears and nose on a human character. It's more of an example of that oddball style of design called "Furry". Distinguished by having mostly human anatomy with a few animal characteristics stuck on, the "Furry" is more a mutant than anything else, and not something that qualifies as an Anthropomorphic Animal at all in my opinion. If this were handed in for the Anthropomorphism assignment by a student in my class, I would have to give it a failing grade for not meeting the criteria I set out on the handout sheet.

Here's the news release on this hideous thing.

Addendum:
I knew I had sketched Matt Damon several years ago, so I went searching and finally found it. Here is my caricature of Matt back when he had a really funny haircut. He has such an interesting design to his face that I think it's a shame that the "Arthur" art staff aren't allowed to explore the likeness more, but instead have to settle for some visual pablum as per the dictates of the show's non-artistic producers.