From Always Use Zip Code: One day, I read somewhere that the postmaster of Bedrock, Colorado grew so tired of processing mail addressed to Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble that they had a stamp made especially for rejecting such mail.
I had to see this, so I mailed a letter to the the 850 person town of Bedrock. The results did not disappoint.
(via Mike Hudek’s Tumblog)
Boy, did I mess this one up. Not the calendar, the series: The Real Jonny Quest. I take full responsibility for all the bungling.
We tried to do the right thing, at least we got a very cool calendar. Sorry fans, seriously.
*With apologies to Ahmet Ertegun & Ray Charles
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.
Leave it to idea man/writer/comedian David Burd to perfectly rewrite Wally Wood’s “Cartoonist’s Credo” for the modern world the same day I posted it.
For reasons I can’t remember, during a conversation the other day with Dan Meth I mentioned a card my old friend idea man/writer/comedian David Burd used to hand out (when he was working on MTV networks IDs for us in the 80s) called “The Cartoonist’s Credo.” I couldn’t remember the exact wording but it seemed applicable to our conversation.
I emailed David and he wanted me to make sure to give credit where credit is due to the originator, Mad’s Wally Wood, and that I should link to www.impko.com. And he sent me a pile of the cards too! Thanks David.
The guys at ShadowMachine Films (fantastic home of Robot Chicken) and I friended each other on MySpace a while back and I stopped by to visit their production studios last week.
Matt Senreich and Seth Green were just the kind of great guys you’d expect if you’re a Robot Chicken fan, so great in fact that I never got around to taking pictures with my crummy phone camera like I wanted (well, here’s a few). If you’ve ever been in a stop motion studio you know why I wanted to give you a virtual tour. Ah well, next time.
Wanna read about cartoons? That’s mainly in the second section down below. Someone asked me for this piece because of my recent rants about the changing media. I believe it has everything to do with you and cartoons, but you might diagree or be too bored with my writing to care. Either way, thanks for hanging around our blogs.
Happy with the mess.
Thanks goodness media is in an upheaval again. As every art form should be. Sure media is a ‘common carrier’ of writing, music, film, and all sorts of art. But media itself is art, an expression. And like everything in art, in order to remain essential it’s got to be turned upside down and shook out ever so often to maintain its vitality. And its viability.
I’m pretty happy with this state of affairs; it seems like most of my baby boomer life it was television exploding network radio and movies, or the Beatles throwing over Elvis and Sinatra. Then as professionals in cable television we rewrote the rules of how TV talked to the world, and watching the beginning of interactive technology and communication alter everything in media that has come before in almost inexplicable ways. For me it’s always been the way of the world. And the way that I work.
TV, the massive bore.
Early in my career I struggled looking for places in the media where the rules weren’t already written (the Beatles influence was pretty clear; the idea of creating wild eyed commercial success crossed with high art held on strongly). Radio sure didn’t have it, music recording should have had it, and television and movies…please! Bob Pittman came along and made me the first member of his new cable programming team and we brought the rules of Top 40 radio to all kinds of television, from music to kids to comedy, and eventually around the world.
Let’s face it, to us 20-somethings, broadcast television was one massive bore, programming to everyone, satisfying no one except the out of touch advertisers.
The rules had been happily, and profitably, established 30 years before and there was an incredible army of conventional wisdom established that didn’t want to be rocked. We just wanted take over the world, so minute by minute and day by day (I’d say show by show, but we didn’t have no TV shows) we dissected how they did it, tore it apart. We reinvented the pieces that didn’t work (and kept the ones that did) and had the conceit that no one else knew how to do what we were doing.
I Want My {Brand} TV.
We were so conceited that when I took the world’s most famous TV moment, the 1969 moon landing, and planted a flag with 100 MTV logos, I joked that six year olds would forever wonder why the official version of the photo had an American flag. (And now those 31 years olds work with me and confirm my worst fears about how communication works.)
Unwittingly we were aided by mature industries (broadcasting and publishing) that had no room for our skills, our talents, or our ideas. There were hundreds of us that were too impatient to wait 20 years to take our place in the middle ranks of media management.
Along the way, the new orthodoxy presented itself:
• No TV stations, just channels.
• Don’t watch a show, watch a channel that talks the way you talk and sings the way you sing.
• It’s not your parent’s channel, it’s not your siblings’ channel, it’s not even all your friends’ channel. It’s your channel.
And my creative, marketing, and programming groups invented a brand new idea. Networks, nah! Shows, nah! Ratings, nah! (At least, not yet.) But what instead?
Brands.
Long before our current, common vocabulary, every channel I worked on was an idea, a community, an audience. A set of beliefs. In marketing: a brand. Add a vanity that our beliefs would not only change the media, but change the world. And now, take a look. MTV is the largest channel in the world, established in more countries than anything else in all of television, and synonymous with youth around the globe. Nickelodeon has more viewing than the children’s viewing of all the broadcasters combined (that is, before they abandoned kids altogether).
Now, if only MySpace and Neopets don’t steal their thunder.
………………………………..
CU Timmy Turner: “Ah? The internet?!?!”
But, of course they will. They’re already doing it.
I now produce cartoons. You know, like Looney Tunes, but newer. Cartoons went through their own paradigm shifts I won’t totally bore you with, but suffice it to say great feature cartoons (like Bugs or Mickey) gave way to simpler, more graphic TV cartoons like the Flintstones. They giving way to ‘animated sitcoms’ –yuck– and got really boring (The Snorks, anyone?). The producers like us who entered in the last generation couldn’t take it anymore and initiated a silver age explosion that resulted in The Powerpuff Girls, The Simpsons, and South Park. And now, they’re even boring! Why? I’ll let others speculate exactly how, but the truth is everything in media always wears out. And the new has to rush in.
What’s the new this time, and how’s it happening?
To quote Timmy Turner from our production of The Fairly Oddparents: “Ah? The internet!?!?”
You bet. All over the media (cartoons, news, sitcoms, whatever) a crucial link is being killed. It’s the network. Or more specifically, the network executive (or a producer like me, for that matter). Makers of all kinds of stuff are talking directly to their customers. Bloggers publish their own newspapers, filmmakers exhibit at their own theatres, cartoons run their own asylums.
Out of frustration with being ignored by the powers that be I’ve worked with regularly for 25 years (and we get in the door, they at least attempt to take us seriously) we’ve started over 50 blogs, and a handful of video networks. Within weeks we’d established millions of monthly viewers and readers and rendered out heretofore
back-room companies to brands with worldwide recognition. Advertisers are knocking on the door, and we’re being consulted daily within the automotive and entertainment industries as to how traditional brands can see the light (one day I’m hopeful they can, depressed the next they’re more interested in only protecting what they have instead of going boldly forward).
And the whole effort is being aided again by the perfect storm of talent and ideas. If you’re a young person with designs on media once again there’s a back-up. Buck the odds and get in the door and you’ll see a ten or fifteen year line ahead of you to get the job (or show) you really wanted in the first place. But, make your own idea, post in at Blogger.com or YouTube.com or ChannelFrederator.com, and you can have 500,000 friends in a couple of days waiting for your next pronouncement (ask my colleague Dan Meth what happened to his video Hebrew Crunk for a real life proof of concept).
The revolution will be televised.
Want to be a star? Want to be a living brand? Don’t wait for MTV, don’t wait for the New York Times, don’t wait for me.
Mostly don’t blame me. From now on you’ve only yourself to look at in the mirror if no one knows you’re alive.
