Fanboy and Chum Chum

Howie Perry

Why, it’s time to say hi to our good friend, storyboard artist Howie Perry. Fanboy creator Eric Robles told me Howie’s early storyboard test set the standard for what they were looking for from the show’s board artists. How’s that for a compliment? Howie’s a busy guy, but he was nice enough to take the time to answer a few of our tedious questions for blogging purposes.

Frederator: Where did you grow up?

Howie: I grew up on Long Island in a town called Levittown, the first scientifically planned community in the world. It’s an amazing place, about 45 minutes from New York City.

Frederator: What made you realize you wanted to go into cartooning?

Howie: The fact that I can’t do anything else!

Howie excels at repulsiveness

Frederator: Who are your big influences?

Howie: I could name the usual big fancy Hollywood animation legends, but I’m not. I’ll make this more personal. When I was in high school this guy Brian Mitchell opened an animation school in my hometown. I was, um… sixteen, I think. So at that point I drew like a sixteen-year-old and I had no idea how to animate but I wanted to in the worst way. Anyway, this school comes along and Brian opened my eyes. He was from LA, worked at Bluth and WB, etc. He taught me how to REALLY draw, with line of actions, using silhouettes, so on and so forth. I also learned how to animate! Other influences are the various people that I’ve worked with before. Being a storyboarder, there’s always a group of us on each production, so it’s great to feed off others and get inspired.

Frederator: Any animation education other than Brian?

Howie: Aside from that class I took in high school that I mentioned above, pretty much none. I taught myself by watching cartoons. And not the good cartoons! I probably watched way too much Animaniacs when I was a kid. I went to an art college in Philly that was down right awful. The only good things that came out of that school was the friends I made. Otherwise, they just let any hobo in off the street that once said “Hey, cartoonin’ looks easy, I can do dat!” Joke’s on me though – I’m still paying off my student loan.

Frederator: What was your first job in the cartoon business?

Howie: Funnybone Interactive. It was (surprise, they’re out of business!) a CD-ROM “edutainment” place in the backwoods of Connecticut. They hired me a couple months after I graduated. Even though that place was torture, the people I met led me to my next bigtime job working for Nickelodeon in New York City.

Howie excels at imbecility

Frederator: What did you do at Nick in New York?

Howie: I worked on a preschool show called Lil Bill. It was Bill Cosby’s show. I did hand-drawn animation, which was then scanned into the computers and brought into After Effects and textured to give the show a cut-paper feel. It was real fun and easy to work on.

Frederator: How’d you get the job on Fanboy and Chum Chum?

Howie: I heard through a friend that this new show at Nick was ramping up. I was also doing freelance here at Nick with the same producer that was starting up Fanboy. So that made it easier. I had to take a storyboard test and then I played the waiting game.

Frederator: What’s the timeline for a Fanboy storyboard?

Howie: It’s a five to six week schedule. You have like 2 1/2 weeks to do your rough storyboard, which in my case is the whole storyboard in scribbles only I can understand. Then, I have a little over three weeks to clean up those scribbles into something presentable.

Frederator: Any characters emerge as your favorites?

Howie: If you’re talking about Fanboy, then it’s Chris Chuggy. I think he has some kind of dark past that the kids in school aren’t allowed to talk about.

Howie excels at Chris Chuggydom

Frederator: Most importantly, who’s the guy who eats just one-half of the muffin tops in the kitchen? It’s kind of weird.

Howie: Walt Holcombe. He doesn’t even work here, which makes it even weirder.

Maybe too weird. Thanks, for the interview time, Howie.

– Eric