Channel Frederator Blog

Mike Bell

“Super Santa” creator and director Mike Bell took a moment to answer a few questions for us and give us a history lesson on the reason for the season: Egg Nog.

Channel Frederator: Where did you study animation?

Mike Bell: California Institute of the Arts.

CF: Who or what has influenced your work the most?

MB: Jay Ward and Bill Scott are my biggest influence. Monty Python is way up there also. There are many but these are some of the biggest.

CF: What is your favorite holiday animation?

MB: Can’t pick one. I like all the Rankin-Bass stuff and of course A Charlie Brown Christmas which has the best Christmas sound track of all times.

CF: Are you on the “naughty” or “nice” list this year?

MB: I’ve been naughty in nice ways.

CF: Can you please explain egg nog to me?

MB: Let’s see. I believe it came from England where it was enjoyed by people who could afford to drink their eggs and cream with brandy. It came over here to the colonies [Read more…]

Today’s Channel Frederator Awards episode features the film that you voted as “Funniest Film”. We had some serious side-splitters in this category.
Mike Bell’s Super Santa in ‘Vegetation’ comes to us from the “Oh Yeah! Cartoons” archives. Just the concept of this buff bearded Santa and his buxom wife are enough to get you chuckling, but when you see Santa duke it out with a room full of vegetables, it’s tough not to loose it.
Mortimer Pigmun and His Time Traveling Chums is both unique and hysterical. The story of a smart little pig, Mortimer, turns hysterical when his nemesis steals his secret to time-travel. It’s hard to summarize such a unique plot, but Matt Witham and Jeff Wallenhorst, the twisted minds behind this film, must have licked a lot of frogs in preparation…

In the end, the prize went to Doug Bresler of Doogtoons for his animated music video for Wierd Al’s “Trapped in the [Read more…]

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