Trivia / The Rhino and the Redbill

• Creator's Oddball: This was the first episode-length animation of Alex Henderson ^note "Return to Krocodile Isle" comes in a close second, by 9 minutes. This is also the only animation longer than 1 minute that doesn't feature a musical number.
• Deleted Scene:
  • On the page for the 2020 campaign, there is a short animation of Niles and Red sitting on a pier near a lighthouse, snacking on an apple... before it cuts to post-drought, the pier's shore is gone and the main duo is nowhere to be found. In the pilot itself, the scene is present at the beginning, but Niles and Red are absent altogether. Although it might be downplayed, as the scene actually originated as a Patreon commission.
  • On its The Rhino and The Oxpecker days, there was a test animation of Rolo drinking gasoline and breathing fire at the main duo, with Red helping Niles dodge the attack by making the rhino jump so high that they both crash land into the hyena. The animation for Rolo breathing fire was recycled for the final pilot, but the crash part went unused.
• Extremely Lengthy Creation: Alex Henderson first made a concept for the series in 2015. The short's first Kickstarter was announced in 2018, and it failed to reach its goal. The creator took a year off from it to work on commissions and developed the concept a bit further, before relaunching a more successful campaign in the next year, and then its 2021 release date was pushed back because of the pandemic ^note  During that year, the short was exclusive to Kickstarter backers and animation festivals, before finally premiering to the public in 2022.
• Renamed to Avoid Association: There is a children's book by Faye Carruthers called The Rhino and The Oxpecker, which is about the symbiotic relationship between the two species. Whether Alex Henderson was aware of it or not, luckily it got its current name by 2020.
• Shout-Out:
  • Rolo and his gang of scavengers have some pretty obvious Mad Max vibes.
  • Rolo's Humongous Mecha is similar to The Walker in Wild Wild West.
• What Could Have Been: Both the 2018 and 2020 Kickstarter campaigns as well as Concept Art reveal some stuff that didn't make the cut into the final pilot, and some that are unsure if they'll be implemented later in the series if it continues:
  • The pilot was originally named "The Rhino and The Oxpecker". Word of God decided to change it to "Redbill" because of the Added Alliterative Appeal and the aforemented book of the same name (and possibly to avoid a Double Entendre). Its alternative title, "Tales from Scorchwater Valley" wasn't added until the short made it to public. ^note Strangely though, the original name is still used in some post-2020 campaign material, such as the Patreon tags about the pilot
  • Niles went through the most design changes. One of the most consistent changes was having only one horn instead of two. He also had different outfits, some of them lacking his backpack, and at one point even having a cigar and two handguns. Even his 2018 model differs from his current one, as it can be seen on this tweet.
  • Red at one point wore a beret and had a fanny pack.
  • The setting was a jungle rather than a drought-ravaged valley. This, combined with the fact that Niles originally only had one horn, could imply the characters lived somewhere in India (Even though there are no Oxpeckers or Spotted Hyenas in that region).
  • Rolo's original name was "Hunter", he wore a mohawk and lacked his leather vest.
  • The pilot was originally 2 to 4 minutes long in the 2018 Kickstarter campaign. It was extended by 11 minutes in the 2020 campaign, and got two additional minutes in the final product.
  • Some other antagonists have some concepts for them, such as a white tiger mercenary that was possibly a rival for Niles. There is also a crocodile with a cudgel, a flamingo wearing a spiked turtle shell, a biker warthog, the previously mentioned female hyena, a pilot bat and a cape buffalo that ressembles the one seen in the pilot's post-credits scene.
  • The second Kickstarter campaign had the estimated release date for the short on Feburary 2021, but because of the pandemic, it was pushed for the year after.