‘Animation Outlaws’: How Spike & Mike Turned Indie Shorts Into a Cultural Phenomenon

Without Spike & Mike, two hippie friends from Riverside, California, who pioneered the animation festival in the late ’70s, the indie short wouldn’t have become the cultural phenomenon that has helped shaped the industry today.

That’s the takeaway of the celebratory documentary, “Animation Outlaws,” directed by stop-motion animator Kat Alioshin (“The Nightmare Before Christmas”), available now on Apple TV, Amazon Prime, iTunes, Vudu, Fandango Now, PlayStation, and Vimeo.“Beyond anybody in the world, we stepped up and did it first, and premiered it first, and made it first — and that’s why the documentary is so important to me,” said Spike Decker, who first promoted rock bands and classic horror movies with the late Mike Gribble (who passed away from cancer in ’94) before segueing into animation festivals.

Their “Spike & Mike’s Animation Festival” and the “Sick & Twisted Festival of Animation” (launched in ’90) made the art form “something more dangerous

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