Live Bait Productions was an American 3D animation studio based in Alexandria, Indiana. Formed and mostly staffed by Benjy Gaither in 1997, the son of Bill and Gloria Gaither of the legendary Southern Gospel Gaither Vocal Band, the studio got its start in producing Gaither's Pond, a Direct to Video All-CGI Cartoon series about a group of anthropomorphized fish who sing Gospel music and learn biblical lessons, starring rather fishy renditions of the Gaither Vocal Band's real life members (who also preformed the soundtrack).
Finding its stride with kid-oriented direct-to-video Religious Edutainment in the vein of the then-titan of such media, VeggieTales, Live Bait would release Dorbees: Making Decisions the following year in 1998. This time, Benjy Gaither would voice the majority of the characters in addition to being the sole animator and lead writer/director, although the songs in the film would still be written with the help of the Gaither Band's musicians.
Dorbees was originally intended to be a full series of videos, and production on the unnamed next installment began when Making Decisions was released. However, for unknown reasons, this second Dorbees film fizzled out in Development Hell by around early 2002, and the rest of the planned Dorbees franchise along with it.
Live Bait would return in 1999 with the release of both Mighty Messengers: Jonah and the Whale and the second Gaither's Pond installment, Fish Tales. The following years would see The Great Divide and The Legend at Gaither's Pond, with the latter concluding the series in 2003. In December of the same year, Live Bait also released Wobots, an animated direct-to-video Christmas pilot movie about an orphan named Zak learning the True Meaning of Christmas from a ragtag band of scrapped robots he meets, it was released as a special feature on the special edition release of Hoodwinked!.
In 2005, Live Bait launched a preschooler-oriented Spin-Off of Gaither's Pond entitled Lil' Gaither, which spanned a total of 5 DVDs from 2005 to 2008. A short-lived Ghost Adventures parody series entitled Ghost Munchers also debuted the following year, and would be the only Live Bait production to feature mostly live action footage. This would be the studio's final release, with Live Bait falling quiet until being dissolved and liquidated in 2017.
While the none of the studio's work saw much success during its time, Dorbees and Gaither's Pond have since gained new life a decade-and-a-half on after being unearthed from obscurity and exposed to a whole new audience by YouTubers such as Saberspark, OneyPlays, and many others. As a result, both now have amassed something of a dedicated cult-following online for their surreal, deranged, primitive CGI animation and prevailing So Bad, It's Good reputation.
Videos by Live Bait Productions:
- Gaither's Pond
- The Lure Depths (1997)
- Fish Tales (1999)
- The Great Divide (2001)
- The Legend at Gaither's Pond (2003)
- Dorbees: Making Decisions (1998)
- Mighty Messengers: Jonah and the Whale (1999)
- Wobotsnote (2003)
- Lil' Gaither
- Lil' Gaither (2005)
- This Little Light (2005)
- I'll Fly Away (2005)
- Under Construction (2006)
- Find Bullfrog (2008)
- Ghost Munchers (2009)
