Fred Seibert's Blog

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.

 
“Victor the Delivery Dog” title sequence, by Niki Yang

Well, not really. But ever since I got into the cartoon business the classic way of introducing a short animated film keeps animating me.

In anticipation of our belated debut of the Random! Cartoons shorts (December 6 on Nicktoons, in case you were wondering), I just posted 31 of the title card sequences over on our site. (Yes, there are 39 different shorts, but some of the sequences are animated, some just haven’t made their way to me yet.) Most of them were designed and illustrated by the shorts’ individual creators. I think you’ll enjoy the wide range of approaches they’ve taken as much as we do.

And as a bonus, here are some frame grabs from our original shorts program, What A Cartoon!, from before I was smart enough to save the original artwork.

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.

It’s no small thing when a political candidate can not only inspire millions of people to vote for the very first time, but can also motivate the notorious cynical and skeptical communities of artists, musicians. and writers. You’ve all seen the famous Obey poster from last spring supporting Barak Obama’s candidacy. Maybe you’ve even caught some of the other great graphics his historic role has galvanized.

Now’s your chance to join the fray.

Obey, Manifest Hope, and MoveOn.org are sponsoring a new art contest for fresh, sharp, Obama graphics. 2D and 3D art, from painting to photography to sculpture, no matter what you’re talent there’s room for you.

Enter and win, the deadline’s August 18, 2008.

Upper left illustrated by Lou Brooks

I don’t know, I’m asking.

One of my favorite projects back in the day was one few people have ever seen. It started out as a TV network branding assignment, our agency’s specialty, for HA!: The TV Comedy Network. And it led to one of our favorite cartoons that not enough people have seen. Cartoon creator Bill Burnett was at the center of it all.
Viacom’s HA! was their answer to HBO’s Comedy Channel. They both lost the competition and merged into Comedy Central. Some of Fred/Alan’s best work for the network, the naming of Comedy Central, and the conception and writing of the cartoon were all done by Bill (also the co-creator of ChalkZone).

Once our agency helped name HA! we went to work on its branding, figuring out the belief system of the channel. Our creative director, Noel Frankel, designed the distinct shouting logo, with various illustrators and models depicting the shout. Bill led the effort to write dozens of promotional spots, including What is Funny?, probably my favorites.

Bill takes it from here:

“It featured Marc Weil–a member of England’s legendary Madhouse Company of London, asking the question “Is This Funny? I don’t Know, I’m asking” in the face of increasingly bizarre events: For example, he’d be dressed in Judges Robes holding two squealing piglets; then two Mexican banditos would emerge from his robes. Then he’d be chased and lassoed by men in diapers, smoking cigars, and so on. The series was directed by Cliff Fagin, produced by Noh Hands Productions. The recurring What Is Funny? Chorus was performed by Bill Burnett, Suzy Williams and Lori Jacobson. Edited by Chris Strand.”

Find more videos like this on Channel Frederator RAW

The spots ran in 1989 and that was the end of that though they never left my mind. Fast forward about eight years and I was starting my latest set of cartoon shorts for Nickelodeon, Oh Yeah! Cartoons. Bill was one of our early creative signings and I kept bringing up What is Funny? I reminded him that Nick’s owner Viacom already owned the original spots, so why not take a flyer on creating a balls-to-the-wall funny cartoon character based on the same concept. Bill selected former Spumco artist/director Vincent Waller (now a key part of the SpongeBob team) and they were off to the races.

Nick production chief Albie Hecht loved the cartoon. So did CEO Herb Scannell. But I guess it didn’t have the typical cartoon hero at it’s center or something and we could never get series traction. It’s too bad. It’s a damn good cartoon.

As my Mom was leaving last night she pulled this out of her purse, saying she had a drawer full of my things.

My band in high school was called, obviously, The Neglekted Few (you know, the Byrds, The Tymes, The Elastik Band, The…). We played soul and pop covers of the day. Like many back in that day I was infatuated with psychedelic typography (even though my aversion to anything actually psychedelic was constantly, amusingly noted) and I was always trying my incapable hand at my version of the art. (Who knew at 15 that I’d spend a lot more of my future on the graphics than on the music itself?)

Phil Alexander, “On guitar!”, Ray Frisby, “On drums!”, Rodney Johnson, “On vocals & tambourine!”, Brian North, “On bass!”, and I were the band. Rodney was my best friend from 10 on and our truly so special lead singer. Don’t know if this ‘card’ was my attempt to see if we’d do better as a led combo (a la Freddie and the Dreamers or Sam the Sham & the Pharohs) or whether –just possible– Rodney was asking for a better billing.