Fred Seibert's Blog

Jaime Diaz, self portrait, 2008

We just got the sad news that our old friend Jaime Diaz passed away this Saturday.

His daughter Claudia wrote:

“My dad was born on Jan. 6th, 1937, and passed away on Jun 20th on the Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. His full name is Jaime Reyes Diaz; born in Saenz Pena, Chaco Argentina. He married Maria Ines Aguero on June 8, 1961. Children: Claudia Zambon, Annabelle Diaz and Bill Diaz. Grandchildren: Nicholas Lalli, Andres Diaz, Amanda, Clara and Felix Tonconogy, Rocio Belen Diaz, Bryana Diaz, Steven, Anne Marie and Michael Zambon.

“He arrived in the States in Nov. 1963. Please ask to pray for his soul. He was a hard working talented man who provided for is family all his life. He was passionate about cartoons and was highly creative. He will be deeply missed by his wife, her first and only love, and by his children who are still living.”

As you can tell by looking over his incredible resume on imdb, Jaime was an active and passionate part of the cartoon industry for over 40 years, from Hong Kong Phooey to Duckman. What a list can’t tell you is what a sweet, wonderful guy he was, with a completely puckish sense of humor. And talented, way talented. In addition to working on a lot of our series over the years, Jaime created shorts for Frederator; an Oh Yeah! cartoon with Russ Mooney, and a Random! cartoon with Bill Burnett.

Gaucho Pampa by Jaime Diaz from fredseibert on Vimeo.

We were introduced by his close friend and my long, close colleague, Larry Huber, who writes this moving tribute at his blog. He also produced Jaime’s cartoon, Gaucho Pampa (above), which was screened at the Taiwan International Film Festival.

Adios Jaime, we’ll miss you.

Kameleon Kid, 2000, Created & directed by Jaime Diaz & Russ Mooney

Bambi Meats Anime Hell from tohoscope on Vimeo.

I found this over at the RAW blog, and since Marv Newland is my hero (and he’s mentioned a lot on our blog)…

A video flier for the May 2009 Anime Hell shows. Inspired by Marv Newland’s Bambi Meets Godzilla.

If you’ve never seen Marv Newland’s Bambi Meets Godzilla then this will mean nothing to you. In this age of youTube I’d be surprised. After all, it’s only been around since 1969. Here’s the Wikipedia entry…

Posted by Tohoscope

We all fell in love with Kirsten Lepore’s work when she was the first “featured filmmaker” on Channel Frederator a few weeks ago.

It came at a great time; we need a new HD production tag for the posting of the first episodes of Fanboy & Chum Chum. I thought it would be fun to have Kirsten make us a claymation tag (don’t want to be biased toward 2D, flash, or CG, do we?). Here’s a few of the Fredbot sample stills she sent over.

The other day I was enjoying some of the interviews Eric and Bailee have been posting, which kicked me to reading some of Jeaux’s and Mike Milo’s and Floyd’s, and it got me wondering. I know we’ve run almost 400 films on Channel Frederator and that we’d interviewed a lot of under exposed filmmakers and artists… But, how many exactly?

One hundred and forty five. Right, 145. And they keep on coming.

There aren’t too many places that play such close attention to the people making animated films, unless they’re Walt Disney or John Lasseter (not that there’s anything wrong with that). And while we can’t begin ton compare our archive to some of the in depth work done by folks like Michael Barrier, Amid Amidi, Jerry Beck, and others, it’s a darn good start I think.

We’re going to keep it up. In addition to the weekly Channel Frederator animated filmmakers, I’ve always thought the dedicated folks who work day to day in our crews deserve a spotlight, and we’ve started that up with the Fanboy & Chum Chum crew. Adventure Time’s crew will be coming up, and we’re going to try and backtrack into our shows like The Fairly Oddparents and Wow! Wow! Wubbzy!

And don’t be surprised when you start reading interviews with some of the (truly) misunderstood production crew and network executives that work on our shows. It takes a lot of people to make even one film, and I think we should try and get to know a little more about them all.

If you’re interested in getting in on the action, we’re always looking for new interviewers too, it’s a lot of work to keep this effort going. If you’re interested, just drop a note to our New York producer Carrie Miller, and she’ll try and get you going.

Our friend Nina Paley got a great article in The New York Times yesterday highlighting her independent (really independent) movie “Sita Sings the Blues” and it’s public television debut in NY on March 7. Amid Amidi writes a little about the music copyright issues Nina’s encountering (and solving it seems).

Many of us know the difficulties and sacrifices necessary to make our own films. Shorts are hard enough, dontcha think? Now, imagine Nina’s Herculean efforts to make a feature. And a wonderful feature people love. Check out her movie, you’ll have a grand time watching.

Eric, Kevin and I went over the Casa Butch at Nickelodeon Studios where Butch Hartman told us a little about some of the movies he’s been developing. Thanks Butch.

Frame grab from “Top of the Hour”, by Marv Newland/International Rocketship

“The Fred/Alan television branding execution often started with defining a network’s sound.”

Slowly over the last few years I’ve been putting some of my archives online. For me it’s easier to organize than shelves and drawers.

Anyhow, one of the things I uncovered was this fave that I think regular readers of Frederator Blogs are going to love. My partner Alan Goodman and I took one of our favorite doo-wop groups, Eugene Pitt’s The Jive Five, and built the on-air Nickelodeon brand around them.

Frame grab from “The Jive Five”, by Jon Kane/Optic Nerve

With the help of our producer Tom Pomposello, and animators/production companies Eli Noyes & Kit Laybourne, Joey Ahlbum, Colossal Pictures, David Lubell, Jerry Lieberman & Kim Deitch, Marv Newland/International Rocketship, and Jon Kane/Optic Nerve, we established Nickelodeon’s identity at a moment they were teetering on complete and abject failure. And, we had a righteous ball doing it. (You can get the whole story here.)

Fred/Alan IDs 1985-1991 from fredseibert on Vimeo.

Year of the Ox. Series 11, 2008, painting by Randy Saba

Randy Saba’s a filmmaker and artist who’s been a FOF (Friend of Frederator) since he worked as a production assistant on Oh Yeah! Cartoons and ChalkZone in the late 90s, and as he continues as production manager on The Fairly Oddparents. His film Wishy Wormy was featured on Episode 24 of Channel Frederator.

For the last couple of years I’ve been honored to receive his wonderful, annual paintings dedicated to the Chinese New Year. This year Series 11 is the Year of the Ox. Thanks Randy!

Carrie and I were happy to host a New York visit from senior designer Meghan Killeen and owner Robert Feldman from Earworm Media, based in Milford, New Jersey. Earworm specializes in web design and animation for clients, and themselves. Their series Dr. Shroud is hosted over at Joost and you can check out the episodes there. Thanks for coming by guys.

Wow! Wow! Wubbzy! show bible

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Culture wubbzy

Wow! Wow! Wubbzy! is doing so well in it’s second season (so well that it’s a state secret right now; I’ll share the details when I can) that I was looking back on it’s origins (that’s the original pitch bible above). And I was being fascinated with how true to it’s original vision creator Bob Boyle has kept it.