The San Diego Comic Con has come and gone. It was pretty busy, with the entire show selling out. Preview Night was just as busy (if not more so) than any other day. I would love to see some sort of expansion of the Con to cut back on crowd size. Maybe a professionals only night, or perhaps making the Con a full week?
I wish I had a story or two about Zac Moncrief to share with you all, but I didn’t really attend his classes while he taught at Calarts. But what I can share with you was how I felt about him, his teaching methods, when I did crash a class or two of his.
Zac is a very funny person, and was a very sharing and encouraging teacher. It’s to bad he’s not teaching at Calarts still, because the kids there need people like Zac.
Zac, himself, attended Calarts and obtained an internship on the animated film, The Pagemaster. Soon after he moved into the role of assistant animator on Cats Don’t Dance. During his time on Cats Don’t Dance, Fred Seibert (who’s that guy?) had bought a pilot from Zac entitled, Godfrey and Zeek, for the Hanna-Barbera What-A-Cartoon Series.
Zac then found himself doing work on another HB series, Johnny Bravo in the story department.
Some time passed, [Read more…]
Upper left illustrated by Lou Brooks
I don’t know, I’m asking.
One of my favorite projects back in the day was one few people have ever seen. It started out as a TV network branding assignment, our agency’s specialty, for HA!: The TV Comedy Network. And it led to one of our favorite cartoons that not enough people have seen. Cartoon creator Bill Burnett was at the center of it all.
Viacom’s HA! was their answer to HBO’s Comedy Channel. They both lost the competition and merged into Comedy Central. Some of Fred/Alan’s best work for the network, the naming of Comedy Central, and the conception and writing of the cartoon were all done by Bill (also the co-creator of ChalkZone).
Once our agency helped name HA! we went to work on its branding, figuring out the belief system of the channel. Our creative director, Noel Frankel, designed the distinct shouting logo, with various illustrators and models depicting the shout. [Read more…]
I’ve been getting emails wondering about Seth MacFarlane’s Zoomates coming on Channel Frederator.
Yes, it’s true. Tuesday’s Episode 19 will feature Seth’s Oh Yeah! Cartoons short from 1998, directed and designed by Butch Hartman, and featuring the voice of Jennifer Love Hewitt. It was his last project before starting Family Guy for Fox. We’ll post some more of the background after the short airs.
Pass it on.
I am really happy to lead off our first-ever holiday episode with one of the funniest of the original Oh Yeah! Cartoons, Mike Bell’s Super Santa in South Pole Joe.
We first met Mike at Hanna-Barbera when he pitched us his short Commander Cork (which we stupidly did not make), and then he joined our OY! team as a writer on Dave Wasson’s Goose Lady fairy tales. And that led him to a handful of solo cartoons for us, Super Santa being the first.
Mike’s gone on to develop a live action Santa film for Paramount and Nickelodeon, and boarding and writing for (among others) Spongebob Squarepants and My Life as a Teenage Robot.
And as Eric always reminds, you can see all the Channel Frederator episodes from our Website, or subscribe to the whole series through iTunes.
–Fred
