Club Penguin Documentary

Yes, we are currently in pre-production on a Club Penguin documentary that covers the history of RocketSnail. Since Club Penguin was first started at RocketSnail before it was sold to New Horizon Interactive, and later to The Walt Disney Company, I believe that it’s important to cover the history of RSG as much as the penguins.

By “we”, I mean me and Johnny (aka Moose). The documentary will of course touch upon Club Penguin, a world Lance (aka rsnail, the founder of RocketSnail) started in his basement.

I first started on the journey of documenting Club Penguin history back in 2007 when I pitched the idea of the “Club Penguin Archives” to Lance and team just before the acquisition was announced. That year I started on the journey of creating an internal wiki called “I.C.E.” (the Internal Community Encyclopedia) to help the internal community support team know about different key dates in penguin history.

Johnny joined my team in 2010, and we began working on a Club Penguin documentary then called “New Horizons”. After Johnny left and players kept asking for a part two of New Horizons, I attempted to continue the doc with my new videographer Cory. Thanks to Club Penguin fans for archiving these two vids on YouTube:

New Horizons part one was focused on the past with just a hat tip towards the future. It felt too retrospective at the time, but now that Club Penguin closed down officially it feels a bit more true than part two
New Horizons part two tried a different approach – documenting new features that hadn’t been released yet instead of the past

As Johnny is a far more experienced videographer than I am, he and his team will be focusing on the new film or docuseries or whatever it becomes.

At the same time, I’m working on a history book to go along with the documentary, to help guide the film and provide more context. You can learn more about the Club Penguin book here.

Goals

  1. To create a time capsule that immortalizes the RocketSnail and Club Penguin story for the last 25 years.
  2. To give back to the good eggs in the community.
  3. To make a film that captures the energy and feeling of the vibe of Club Penguin from 2006-2008, where the team was smaller and more intimate, and the community and team felt closer together. The doc should feel like like it felt during those special times in history.
  4. To capture the story of the community growing up alongside RocketSnail and Club Penguin.

Inspiration

  1. Hoop Dreams
  2. Hype!
  3. The Beatles Anthology
  4. Indie Game: The Movie
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