#(speaking of the last time i played annona. can you fellas believe i had to slap an s at the end of my own character's url

[annonabright]

HEADCANON: annona's two biggest projects !!

ANNONA & JOE (2004-2009).

A quirky kids show about a precocious ballerina (Annona) after she moves into a new house inhabited by a lonely ghost, Joe (originally played by a boy Annona’s age named Danny Joe Bradley), who starts to follow Annona around when he finds out she’s the only person on Earth who can see him.

The show started as an innocent, offbeat but light-hearted little sitcom, with one or two gallows humor jokes (usually related to existentialism) thrown into the season for the parents who are watching with their 6-year-olds. (Think EERIE, INDIANA if anyone has ever heard of that.) They originally never touched on the logistics of how Joe died or why Annona had the ability to see him.

Annona gained a lot of attention for doing her own dancing for her character. She was classically trained in ballet from 2002 until 2010.

It was a success with children, but it gained massive attention when someone popularized an internet fan theory that the character of Annona was schizophrenic. Suddenly everybody was watching the show through the lens of it being about a deeply disturbed girl who’s too mature to connect to anyone her own age, and the writers of the show decided to embrace that in the following seasons.

The show’s dark humor became less subtle in season 2, with more hints of Annona’s mental illnesses and existential crises. It was still marketed as a show for children and popular among the alleged target audience, but it was clear that it was being written for adults. By season 3, the show had become one huge allegory for SOLIPSISM. The controversy around the show only helped it become more popular. It was too big to cancel.

But while filming season 3, Danny Joe Bradley died while they were filming their Hannukah episode in a ski lodge in December 2008. (I’ll make a headcanon post about how he died if anyone is interested but I’m trying to keep this bio condensed!)

Because the show was too successful, the studio decided they needed to milk a full 4 seasons out of it, and so the role of Joe was recast.

The show ended on a high note. The boy they cast as Joe looked close enough that the child audience didn’t notice. But headlines and buzz about the dead actor who played a ghost turned the show into a cultural staple, and the recasting was the last piece of controversy it needed to go down in history.

7 years after it’s ended, people talk about about as much as they talk about shows like The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack, but everyone who lived through the tabloid stories and urban legends surrounding the show will remember it whenever it’s mentioned to them. It has a tremendous cult following on the internet and at geek conventions, but it may be more of a distant memory to the average teenager, since it aired when these kids were about 5-10 years old.

But it’s still very popular among stoners who watch shows like Adventure Time and Courage the Cowardly Dog. It was and still is HUGE in Japan.

SPITTING IMAGE (2015).

A sundance darling psychological thriller that became an instant classic in the horror genre, akin to the likes of The VVitch, It Follows, The Babadook, Hereditary, and so on. Super atmospheric mystery movie about human cloning; big themes and ethical questions involving duality, replacement, artificiality, identity.

94% freshness rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Annona played the main character’s daughter, Dolly (maybe the clone of his dead wife? idk I’ll figure out the plot to this movie as we go), and there’s a big base of people who say she was snubbed for an Oscar nomination for her performance.

There’s a line in the movie that’s probably really well-acted and powerful in context, but it’s so dramatic and over the top that it became a meme for Youtube Poops and shitposts all over the internet. (Think Leonardo DiCaprio’s “MAL!!!!!! JESUS CHRIST!!!!!” wailing from Inception.) The iconic line is probably something like “HE’S DEAD, DOLL, DON’T DO IT!!!!!!!” and maybe the youths thought it was funny because of the alliteration. If you shout this quote at her she’s very likely to try to smack you. It’s been three years. She’s tired of hearing it.

She’s been in a lot of horror movies (both artsy and trashy) and made cameos in some tv shows but these are the two she’s most known for. She’s done a lot of quirky-weird-dark indie movies and a Hocus Pocus-esc halloween kids movie back in 2012. Her career slowed down after 2015 when she started to really spiral into depression. 

She’s not in the public eye too much anymore, and doesn’t frequently get noticed in public. But she’s become a kind of idol in Japan and has cult princess status in the horror movie fanbase.

her family’s credentials.

UNCLE: Grant McKean. Critically acclaimed director specializing in thriller movies. (think: Christopher Nolan logic/storylines meets David Lynch atmosphere!) He’s slowly turning into the next stereotypical film bro’s favorite director. Not quite Tarantino/Fincher level, but he’s getting there. MOTHER: Linda McKean Bright. vapid indie/arthouse director whose career never really took off. FATHER: Sam Bright. middle-aged actor who hasn’t been in anything widely successful since he was 22.