By the time this calendar was published in late 1997, I’d left Hanna-Barbera for Frederator. But, not without a lot of pride in the great, original series that were finally getting under way from our first shorts program, like Dexter’s Laboratory, Cow & Chicken, and Johnny Bravo. And, lo and behold, to this day Cartoon Network Studios has kept up my tradition of cool calendars for their friends.
Whenever I get a little free time (like now, on vacation) I pull crap off of my shelves and scan it for posterity. Like these two Hanna-Barbera Cartoons calendars from the 90s (I posted 1995 on last summer’s vacation).
Over the years I’ve collected all sorts of stuff that have pop culture images printed on them (skateboards, glasses, calendars, et cetera) and when I got to Hanna-Barbera it seemed to me the studio was in need of some image repair. Calendars were my obsession of that moment, so we put together some incredible design talent and photographers (SpotCo and Mark Hill for 1994, HB in-house talent in 1995) and spiffed ourselves up a little.
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Jon Kane and I have worked together for a way long time, and I’m honored whenever I’m lucky enough to get his attention for one of our, ahem, efficiently priced jobs. So it was in 1998 when we were launching Oh Yeah! Cartoons and I thought it would be great to package it with a different vibe than other cartoon show. Calling Kane!
Jon’s company Optic Nerve was one of the leading commercial production shops in New York. Jon conceived the spots, [Read more…]
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It doesn’t seem possible, but the networks don’t just beat a path to Frederator begging us for shows. Our team works hard behind the scenes, often for years at a time, to convince folks that our creators’ series deserve a shot. The creators write elaborate presentation pieces to give executives an idea of what’s in store for characters and stories in a series, and they go in person often to get everyone comfortable with what will be eventually a very expensive investment totally sometimes in the hundreds of millions.
A few weeks ago we contracted with one of my favorite directors, Jon Kane of Optic Nerve in New York (sometimes better known as the DJ behind FischerSpooner) to put together a video for some of our current presentations. Whenever I work with Jon it makes me wonder how I can lure him into cartoons.
Those in the know know that the first season of Dan Meth and Mark Vitelli’s Nite Fite launched yesterday after a feverishly hard working spring of production. That’s right, the first spin-off of the much heralded and massively popular The Meth Minute 39, it’s the first animated talk show on the web. And one a sponsorship from Starburst candy, a major coup. I wanted to shout out a lot of the folks who’ve helped get us going. It’s a much bigger group than you’d imagine for 20 shorts, with not only Frederator in the mix, but online networks, a major corporate sponsor, and dozens of distributors, so settle in. (And when I miss anyone, please let me know so I can update my mistakes.)
Dan Meth & Mark Vitelli. Dan and Mark created and wrote Nite Fite. Thanks guys, for your great show.
I know you know Dan from The Meth Minute 39 (and his site and blog) as an animator of rare distinction, but you also know Mark through his work on MM39; he’s not only the sound designer for most all of Dan’s cartoons, but is a trusted creative advisor as well. The guys write all the episodes in the studio (Dan writes the sponsorhip spots back at our studio), and Mark takes their rantings and ravings and tightens them up to a full ka-pow of funniness before Dan and his crew get hold for the animation.
Carrie Miller. Indefatigable Carrie has produced The Meth Minute 39 as well Nite Fite. And I can say, with feeling, no one could have survived the process without her. Not only big smarts and schedules, but charm, good humor, and diplomacy –least of all needed with her Frederator colleagues– have charged Carrie’s work all the way through.
The animation team. For the first time in our New York studio, Dan and Carrie have put together a crack crew of animators and artists to help us reach our creative peaks and deadlines. Dagan Moriarty, Daisy Edwards, Adam Rosette, and Al Pardo are not only talented, but great companions to have in the studio.
Mike Glenn. We don’t really see Mike that often because he works the night shift in the post production dungeon, but he’s been our packaging editor, and dependable rock, throughout all of Dan’s projects here.
Kevin Kolde, Eric Homan, and Roy Langbord. And Angie Polk. Kevin and Eric work primarily on our Hollywood based projects, but they’ve been amazing supporters of Dan’s and Carrie’s. Kevin particularly, as we worked out way out of garage style production. And Roy, our attorney and advisor, saves us from ourselves. Angie’s my assistant in NY, but so much more for everyone.
And over at Next New Networks, our distributor, promoter, and boosters nonpareil.
George Stewart runs media sales and has been a MM39 believer from the beginning. He introduced us to our early champion, Digitas’ John McCarus who, in turn, roped in more of his colleagues that I can mention (don’t hate me for not including the whole list, it’s a lot of great folks), to believe in Dan and his characters.
Digitas brought along our sponsor, Starburst candies, which is part of the unbelievably big Mars Incorporated. I only mention their size, because it was a real leap of faith on everyone’s part to be part of Nite Fite and Next New Networks, and for everyone who took the leap, we salute and thank you. (And, you should check out Penalty and Lloyd on Starburst’s site. It not only looks awesome over there, but there’s a bunch of other cool goodies too.)
Rachel Garcia is also in NNN media sales, and it would be hard to properly explain how much she’s done to keep this project on track without making her blush or making her collapse from exhaustion looking over the looooong list of things she’s accomplished for us. But, I should highlight that hand in hand with Sarah Passe at Digitas, were we able to keep the magic group of 20 informed and happy with all our creative work over these last few hectic months.
Tim Shey is one of the NNN founders and runs programming at the company. He’s been an indomitable spirit guiding the NNN-ers through the programming, promotion, and distribution of the Nite Fite series. “I’m with Penalty!” “Well, I’m with Lloyd!”
Scott Moschella and Jeaux Janovsky run the Next New side of Channel Frederator and Nite Fite. They’re internet geeks to top all IG, and work out all the wherefores of how the MM39’s and NF’s find their way throughout our communities and beyond. Jeaux has personal relationships throughout the internet cartoon universe, and keeps them all stoked about everything Dan creates. Scott’s worked closely with Tim, YouTube, and everyone else here to get the NF site where it needs to be. Vanessa Pappas now runs the entertainment team, and her brains are going to guide us through this first season better than any of the rest of us ever could.
Diane deCordova heads up the super-distribution strategy and team COO Jed Simmons put together and was responsible for the 20,000,000 views the MM39 has garnered this year. From Veoh to YouTube to Break to UGO to to to to to… the list goes on. We’re super because of you, thanks guys.
Andres Palmiter is the Next New Networks secret sauce. His daily contacts with the distribution partners around the world are key to super-distribution success. The fact that he’s personally so in love with Dan’s work isn’t a small thing either.
The developer team of Paul Blakey, Todd Morningstar, Alex Milyavskiy, run by Marc Goldberg, is always happy and unarguing when asked impossible things by everyone.
I’m not neglecting Lee Rubenstein or Graham Smith or Jeremy Kutner for their site contributions (and, of course, so much more).
Justin Johnson’s promos. Can I really compliment him any more than I have? And Alan Kaufman?
There’s a few dozen other NNN’s too, and in different ways big and small they’ve all been important to the launch of Nite Fite. The order of thanks isn’t meant to slight anyone, but truly, thanks Liam, Herb, Emil, Michelle, Patty, Erik, Lindsey, Michael, Ramon, Erin, Ian, Max, Dustin, Corinne, Rob, Mary, Steve, Donny, Ben, Ben, Jared, Gene, Charlie, Pete.
There’s always someone who blows up the conventional wisdom and then the world is never the same. Ralph Bakshi is the one in animation, and we can all thank him every day.
Jon M. Gibson and Chris McDonnell have written Unfiltered: The Complete Ralph Bakshi and filled it with insights and tons of art that will remind a lot of people why they thought it would be cool to be in the cartoon business, suggest to others why they wonder why they got in, and introduce everyone else to the person some of us always describe by “What can you say about Ralph?”
I should add I was thrilled Jon & Chris mentioned the couple of shorts of we did with Ralph in the 90s at Hanna-Barbera. It was an honor he chose to work with our then experimental program (I guess it’s in keeping with the man) and helped introduce our wacky idea to the world. Thanks Ralph.
Blog History of Frederator’s original cartoon shorts.
Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4. Part 5. Part 6. Part 7. Part 8. Part 9. Part 10. Part 11. Part 12. Part 13. Part 14. Part 15. Part 16. Part 17. Part 18. Part 19.Part 18. Part 20.
So the Hanna-Barbera shorts program –still unnamed– was off and running. Everyone in development, and the production department leaders, was out beating the bushes looking for animators who wanted to make their own cartoons, their own way.
As we were out in the world trying to convince creative folks that Hanna-Barbera was serious about doing original shorts (remember, the animation industry had made it clear that original ideas were not to interesting or, for that matter, commercially viable), our hardest immediate job was convincing people already working at the studio. For years there had been almost no history of taking an idea from a staff member for a show. Everyone thought I was just spouting a line, or at the very least naive, and most of the company went about their daily jobs not paying too much attention to my call for shorts.
If I remember correctly, the first person who started a short was Pat Ventura. We met through John K while he was a writer on Tom & Jerry Kids (he wanted first hand experience working with a master like Joe Barbera) and struck up an immediate sympatico. He helped me often in my thinking about the shorts program, and his original style and excitement (tinged with a shade of cynicism) made me want to start a project with him. Since he was a Tex Avery fan I thought maybe launching him with one of Tex’s characters could make a smooth transition into the program, and when he suggested George and Juniorwe gave him the greenlight.
Of course, any short we began with would start a ruckus, and Pat was the perfect guy to help us through the muck.
From the very start there was a huge, tremendous positive. Basically, the feeling among the artists was, “If he’ll give that guy a short, he must be serious. Or crazy. Maybe both.” It was clear to everyone that Pat was a complete original who would never get a chance to do his own thing anywhere in the Hollywood commercial animation establishment. He was obviously a talent who would get a chance to contribute to some studio project (he’d worked on Aladdin and Roger Rabbit at Disney, for instance), but really, wasn’t he was too out there? Once it was clear that Pat was a ‘go’ lots of the folks, newbies and veterans both, started working on their own boards.
Once work started on the short the shit really started to cascade.
A little background you might already know: the real revolution at Hanna-Barbera was the ability of Bill Hanna to create tightly organized productions that could be systematized, reducing costs enough to be affordable for television stations. Everything –art & models, layout, directing, animation, voice recording, etcetera– was split up into departments, all controlled at the top by Bill and Joe. Decision making was highly centralized into as few places as possible, reducing waste of time and money. It worked great at the beginning, when the whole staff was the cream of the world class folk who made the great theatricals of the first half of the century, but began breaking down into merely hack-like efficiency as newbies came into the industry during its 30+ years. By the time Ted Turner bought the company in 1991 there were decades of rationalization piled on convenience, the famous system was spiritually, not to say creatively, broken, and existed merely for the sake of inertia.
Everything came to a head most clearly over voice acting and directing. My head of production, Buzz Potamkin, assigned veteran Larry Huber to supervise all the shorts production. Larry had been in the business since 1969 and had seen the transition from full to limited animation, from full on American production to overseas animation, and was comfortable with his superiors, his peers, and the young turks invading. But, as much as we insisted we wanted a return to a unit system of individual responsibility for a cartoon, Larry had to get along with the still powerful vestiges of Bill’s system.
Voice directing had become centralized with a “real director” who “understood actors,” like there was a big secret. Pat’s short was plugged into the game and his script was given over to one of the “voice directors” who “allowed” Pat to sit in on casting and recording, as if it was their right to decide. When I asked Pat about the session he told me everything was great, wasn’t that just the way it was? I realized what was going on and ordered everyone in the production line that from then on each of the shorts creators was to have final cut on all casting and would direct their own voice actors. If there was a disaster, so be it. To this day, I’m sure there was some weaseling going on around the edges, but all in all it worked OK. No actors refused to act, no voice sessions ended in horror, no cartoons were harmed.
When it came to directing, Larry assigned another veteran, but someone who’d been a young turk when he entered the biz 20 years before, Robert Alvarez. Robert did a pass on the exposure sheets, and this time Pat did come by my office to complain.
“He made the eyes blink!”
So?
“Tom and Jerry never blinked. Touché Turtle did. I don’t want the eyes to blink.” Pat filled me in on the directing compromises needed in TV animation, and keeping the eyes blinking while nothing else in the frame moved a hair was one of them. It wasn’t what he was looking for in his cartoons.
I called Larry and he patiently explained to me that Robert was directing on the very strict rules he was told to follow if he wanted to keep his job. And who didn’t want to keep their job? It was the same at every studio in town by then, and if a director directed by their own instincts they wouldn’t be working for long. I told Pat to tell Robert what he wanted, and that he’d be happy with the result. Robert was not only a pro, he wanted to involved with wonderful cartoons. Follow the creator.
Next thing I knew I was face to face with Robert. Scared to death I might add. Who was I, with no animation experience whatsoever, to question the wisdom of the best system ever devised for television cartoons? But Robert, a good man as well as a talented one (to very roughly paraphrase an old blues) shook my hand instead. He thanked me for trusting talent like Pat’s and trusting Hanna-Barbera to make great cartoons again. Soon, Robert was the go-to guy for everyone who wanted great animation direction in the short program, as well as creating two wonderful shorts of his own (Pizza Boy and Tumbleweed Tex).
Creators started to rule again.
(More next time)
Blog History of Frederator’s original cartoon shorts.
Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4. Part 5. Part 6. Part 7. Part 8. Part 9. Part 10. Part 11. Part 12. Part 13. Part 14. Part 15. Part 16. Part 17. Part 18. Part 19.Part 18. Part 20.
Christmastime for Jews by Robert Smigel. Dedicated to my wife and sons.
So far, My Life as a Teenage Robot (2003) is the last short from Oh Yeah! Cartoons to go to series (read: “so far”). Here’s the final interview and album from Jerry Beck’s and Russell Hicks’ Not Just Cartoons: Nicktoons!. And there’s more from the book on Oh Yeah! Cartoons, Random! Cartoons, and The Fairly Oddparents.
…..
Rob Renzetti, Creator: What made Teenage Robot truly different was the way it looked. Alex Kirwan and my designers gave the show what we called a “future deco” look, which means they brought 1930s influences into designs.
Alex Kirwan, Art Director: We both liked the look of the 1930s Max Fleischer cartoons, and we noticed that no one had really done animation in art deco style. We wanted to see what sort of influence that style could bring to the character designs. We took the “pie cuts” out of the character’s eyeballs, which helped define the genre we were going to use.
Rob Renzetti: We used art deco influences for the architecture and the props, and we tried to get a deco poster feel in all the backgrounds. We made a great-looking and very different world. It’s very sophisticated, but not too sophisticated for kids.
Alex Kirwan: We loved the look of the old Astroboy cartoon series, because you can feel all the cool things that you associate with anime and science fiction. One of the things we loved about Astroboy was the weird hairstyles that made humans look like cartoon animals or birds. We latched onto that right away.
Rob Renzetti: We tried to translate that look into Nora and Brad, and, to a lesser degree, Tuck.
Alex Kirwan: It was as if we could define the personalities of the characters by giving them hair that resembled cartoon spiders or birds, or maybe even cat ears. It was cool.
Rob Renzetti: That includes Jenny too, who is a robot and has no reason at all to have two ponytails stuck up on her head. We gave her a reason by making them into jets. Originally, the ponytails were supposed to give her a kind of Mickey Mouse silhouette, and, in fact, we often mistakenly called them ears.
Alex Kirwan: Some things that became important to the production were not part of the show. Every year Nickelodeon holds a Halloween event where the employees bring their children and their friends into the studio.
Rob Renzetti: There’s an ocean of kids– thousands of them.
Alex Kirwan: Each Nick production would build a haunted house, and every year the houses got bigger and the crews more competitive. In our last year we built a giant flying saucer facade over part of our production area, and a cardboard city that the saucer had invaded.
Rob Renzetti: Kids could walk through our demolished city and then into the flying saucer and see aliens. We had an elaborate diorama with Jenny being attacked and electrocuted by aliens, and we built a life-size replica of Queen Vexus with light effects. We had Eartha Kitt, who voiced the character, record some cackling for our replica.
Alex Kirwan: That haunted house was so elaborate that it took quite a chunk out of our production time to built it. A large portion of our crew was not only working hard to meet our show’s deadlines, but also to assemble and paint these cardboard buildings. We took almost as much pride in them as we did in the show, and the kids were just thrilled.
