He wrote the first episode and began working on it alongside Gheith, Najarian, and Chunn. Roiland and Chunn would design and draw characters and scan them into a computer, where they could be further manipulated in Adobe Photoshop. From there, Najarian would digitally animate the drawings using Adobe After Effects. As the series progressed, he enlisted friends Myke Chilian to help with character design and background art, respectively. Roiland later likened it to "our own little animation studio." The first episode debuted at a screening on January 30, 2005, and received a wildly supportive reaction from the audience. Two more episodes were created over the following two months, where it remained the most popular show at each screening. By the fourth episode, Roiland fell ill with bronchitis, which resulted in what they felt was a subpar installment. Following this, a "perfect storm" of things helped lead to the ending of the series: Roiland had a close friend die in a car accident, which was "traumatizing" for him, he and his small team grew exhausted with making the series, and he and Channel 101's site administrator Dan Harmon received a cease and desist letter from Bill Cosby's attorney in June 2005: