If you're a fan of American animated sitcoms like South Park and Family Guy, you are going to love Cabbie Chronicles.

Here it is: a group of local actors, scriptwriters and animators took a look at Jamaican life and made it funny with cartoons. In reality, it wasn't that simple, but Cabbie Chronicles does showcase the absolutely hilarious interactions that are truly Jamaican.

And it's not easy. Each episode of Cabbie Chronicles is roughly five minutes long but takes months to make. It starts with the characters, story, the script and the storyboard. This is a heart and soul of the project; this is where the true Jamaican personality comes out to shine.

Next, the team moves to the studio to voice all the characters and, in some cases, create original music for the TV/Internet series.

Then, the really time-consuming work begins. Graphic artists, now animators, spend months creating the images needed for the animation. Locked down in dark rooms with advanced equipment and cutting-edge software, the animators string together hundreds of thousands of images in a precise and specific sequence to give the illusion of movement.

uniquely Jamaican

The look, language and situations are uniquely Jamaican. We love seeing ourselves on TV which is cool; seeing our animated selves is even cooler. You've probably met the lead character, Cabbie, in real life or perhaps, you will identify with one of the characters, Professor, Mason, Cashier or Roach.

So good is the series, it won the Best Caribbean Animation Award at Animae Caribe Animation and New Media Festival 2010. Forget the awards and check it out for yourself on YouTube or on Flow OnDemand.

More Jamaican animation is available online, like Clean Game. Professional and amateur animators are churning out enough content to start a new creative industry. Some are funny, some not so much, but all creative in their own right.

If the pro software option, Toon Boom, is out of your hands, try consumer animation applications like Ulead GIF Animator, 3D Studio Max, Adobe AfterEffects or Anim8or, all of which are free to try online. A committed animator can generate a feature with little more than an internet-enabled PC and a dream.

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Tech Glitch: Alex wants to know, "Is the new Office 365 as good as or better than Google Apps?"

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