Permanent Collection

Animation Icon Bill Plympton is Back With a Trippy Music Video for Average Friends

Posted on Thursday, October 29, 2026

Fifty-plus year’s into his animation career, Bill Plympton (the rightfully self-proclaimed King of Indie Animation, who turned 80 in April) just dropped this wonderfully warped music video for California alt pop duo Average Friends.

Immediately recognizable as Plympton’s hand-drawn style (based on his dogma of “make it short, make it cheap, and make it funny”) the u know i luv u was funded by backers on Kickstarter, and premiered at the 2026 Woodstock Film Festival.

And If you’re in the mood to feel like you’ve accomplished very little in your working life, I highly recommend checking out the Bill Plympton Wikipedia page. His tally of work and awards so far:

• 50-plus short films (including two that earned Oscar nominations)
• 8 feature films
• 10 music videos
• 18 commercials
• 9 couch gags for The Simpsons
• 20-plus festival wins and awards including Annecy, Cannes, ASIFA, and Berlin

And in June of this year, he was inducted into the Animation Hall of Fame. So, yeah.

Images

A repeating Bill Plympton-style illustration of figures wearing white shirts and blue skirts, each with a pair of large, red lips for a head. Frame from Stash Magazine article.

A Bill Plympton-style cartoon drawing of a person with a long red snake-like body coiled in a spiral, holding a vintage microphone and singing. Frame from Stash Magazine article.

A colored pencil drawing of a roller coaster car with a small red heart icon at the top, traveling along a brown track against a blue, yellow, and pink geometric background in the style of Bill Plympton’s Average Friends music video. Frame from Stash Magazine article.

A Bill Plympton drawing of a woman struggling to push a giant, human-like eyeball in the Average Friends music video. Frame from Stash Magazine article.

A Bill Plympton-style colored pencil drawing of a mouth with red lips and white teeth biting down on a brown pill. Frame from Stash Magazine article.

Credits

Client: Average Friends

Production: Plymptoons
Director/animator: Bill Plympton
Producer: George Kosturos, Bill Plympton, Owen Andrejco
Editor/compositor: Owen Andrejco
Color: Nora Avissar, Brooke Murphy, Caden Zips

Mix/master: Kutan Katas
Sound design: Josh Aude

Stephen Price

Stephen is the co-founder/CD of Stash Media Inc. and the executive editor of Stash Magazine and the Stash Permanent Collection.
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Category: Animation, Character Animation, Featured, Music Video · Tags: Average Friends, Bill Plympton, Plymptoons