On July 28, The Glue Factory – an NFT-based animated dark comedic series about the lives of misfit horses – releases its full pilot series to Youtube. As part of the series, ZED RUN is set to make its dramatic debut Hollywood cameo appearance beside its eccentric equine friends.
“We’re pumped to be releasing the pilot series of The Glue Factory,” Co-creater Sam Korotkov says. “We made the decision to drop all the remaining episodes at once so everyone can binge the full series.”
Ties between The Glue Factory and ZED RUN go beyond just your classic racehorse-support-horse in the metaverse relationship. In fact, Sam and the Glue Factory team found initial inspiration from being ZED RUN stable owners themselves.
“ZED RUN was one of the earliest NFT projects I came across,” Korotkov says.
“One night I was racing and making jokes about what might happen if ZED RUN racehorses accidentally jumped the track like in Mario Kart 64 on Rainbow Road. My wife joked that at least there wasn’t a virtual glue factory. We instantly began to riff on the possibilities.”
The riff became a reality when Korotov and showrunner Jon Barinholtz built a team featuring experienced Hollywood writers such as; Rob Belushi, Colton Dunn, Katie Rich, and Jim Wise.
In August of 2021 Glue Factory’s genesis collection of 10,000 NFT’s sold out, with proceeds from the sale fully-funding a pilot series, with $315,000 donated to the Red Bucket Equine Rescue, a horse ranch in Chino Hills, California that specialises in the care of neglected and abused horses.
Those discovering ZED RUN played an influential role in the inspiration behind The Glue Factory often naturally progress to asking one very obvious question – does ZED RUN make a cameo in the animated series?
“ZED RUN racehorses do indeed make an appearance,” Korotkov says.
“In our new equine utopia, ZED racehorses are revered as celebrities and mighty fine specimens that every horse Glue Factory worth its weight in hay aspires to be like.”
ZED Headz may remember last year’s ZED RUN x Glue Factory Community Writers Room brainstorm session that encouraged submissions of storylines to be used in the show. Glue Factory says the turnout was a huge success and they certainly haven’t forgotten about those ideas. In fact, Sam says fans can expect some of the pitches to become a reality in the coming seasons.
“From Floretha’s ‘Glueshine Dealer’ to Gweiner’s ‘TheraEquus’ (Therapist), Dan’s morally corrupt paparazzi horse, to Graydaves’ ‘Tale Phineas (12) Gauge’, we have our eye on a couple of key characters from the ZED Headz that we would love to bring to life,” Korotkov says.
“Beyond this pilot series we have a lot of new ways for our community to be a part of the production process.”
To watch the first season of the Glue Factory subscribe to their Youtube channel.
