The guys from Charged –Alex Cohn, Adam Pierce, & Kevin Maher– came into our New York office early last week to show us their animated/puppet short called AstroNuts in Outer Space.
Thanks guys-from-Charged for kind permission to post your art.
We’ve started 21 shorts in this season of Oh Yeah! Cartoons, and I met 9 of the 15 creators in their pitches over the last year or so (that’s 60% for the mathematically inclined). I only mention this statistic to counter the impression I sometimes leave on this blog that I’ve known everyone forever. I love meeting and working with new people; it’s the lifeblood of how I do what I’ve done for my working life.
Now, the other side of this startling fact is that once I become a fan of someone it’s great to work with them over a long period of time, through various phases and ebbtides of life. I try to be a loyal collaborator; I think it has served everyone well.
All of which leads to my full disclosure that I’ve worked with Alan Goodman for 35 years, and now he’s making his first Oh Yeah! cartoon with Nickelodeon New York animator and comic book artist Manny Galan. I won’t bore you with all the details, but suffice it to say that I met Alan in college radio, did my first moving picture work on his student films, was partners with him for several years, and he’s my brother-in-law. Along the way he’s been a journalist, ad writer, TV series creator, and my most constant creative confederate.
I’m thrilled beyond description that Alan and I have found another great way to work together.
Photography by Elena Seibert. Hand coloring by Candy Kugel. See, I was too skinny once.
Frequent, careful readers of our Frederator blogs might recognize Steve’s name as our most frequent fan commenter. Turns out he’s also a hopeful cartoon creator, and because he lives north of New York, he came to my office to pitch his short Moonlife for Oh Yeah! Cartoons, before we’ve greenlit all 39.
Thanks Steve for kind permission to post your artwork.
You’ve all been asking me –and with good reason– “When are getting the new name for the shorts show formerly know as Oh Yeah! Cartoons?” And I can’t say as I blame you.
I mean, it has been since September 27 since we asked you all to come up with our new name.
Easy answer? Pass the buck to the network (ooooh, shake, shudder).
Slightly clearer answer: the network. Sure enough, it’s in their hands now. They’re considering the options, and I’m sure you’ll get your money in January.
Happy Holidays.
Regarding our post on Alex Kirwan our loyal fan Stephen Levinson comments: “Is 16 the youngest age someone has been in the animation business?”
I can’t answer for the history of the animation business Stephen, but as for Frederator and Oh Yeah! Cartoons, believe it or not, the answer is an unequivocal “No!”
In 1998 Butch Hartman came into the office and introduced Larry Huber and me to 11 year old John Reynolds, a friend of a friend of the family, who had written his own cartoons. In and of itself that wasn’t too unusual, but the interesting part was that he also had worked out a complete storyboard and character designs. We were very impressed with Johnny’s initiative.
We liked his Terry & Chris best, and Butch agreed to supervise and direct the short. Johnny would become our creative consultant and come in Fridays after junior high in Simi Valley (and any other day he could squeeze it in). We finished John’s (and Butch’s) short in 1999, and it debuted in the second season of
So Stephen, there you you have it. John Reynolds, the youngest Frederator Studios creator.
Here’s another of my irregularly appearing features on composers who are working in cartoons, one of the unsung (bad pun intended) areas in animated filmmaking.
Geoff Levin is the rare artist who’s made a career for himself in a multitude of areas. Of course, he’s composed for cartoons, but also for live action feature films, TV series, and documentaries. And he’s a songwriter, guitarist, and recording artist to boot. In fact, he’s scored the Academy Award nomiated animated short The Janitor as well as James Cameron’s Last Mysteries of the Titanic.
We first met Geoff on some projects at Hanna-Barbera in the 90s, and then again as the guitarist and mixer on our original seasons of Oh Yeah! Cartoons. And most recently he did over 20 episodes of the Bill Burnett & Larry Huber creation ChalkZone, where he worked overtime to compose each score with a completely unique style suited to the individual theme of an extremely diverse series (unusual by any standards of TV production).
Thanks Geoff, we look forward to hearing your work on our productions again.
Carlos Ramos is one of the best artists I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing. So we’re all thrilled that he launched his first series as a creator –The X’s, on Nickelodeon– this past Friday night.
Carlos was one of our first hires at Oh Yeah! Cartoons (Larry Huber to Fred: “Are you nuts? Why haven’t you hired him already?!”). He designed the Oh Yeah! logo, art directed and designed the original ChalkZone, and stepped up and created two incredibly distinctive shorts.
Congratulations Carlos. We’re proud to have worked with you.
Two old friends stopped by today in New York to pitch us some Oh Yeah! Cartoons.
John Dilworth and I worked together at Hanna-Barbera Cartoons in the mid 90s on Courage, the Cowardly Dog, and today he brought by a storyboard on Garlic Boy.
Voice actor and producer/writer Joe Bevilacqua pitched us a story of Willaby & the Professor.
Thanks to John and Joe for kind permission to post images from their storyboards.
Blog History of Frederator’s original short cartoons. Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4. Part 5.
It’s been a couple of months, but these are my sporadically continuing postings of how we starting producing original cartoons. As usual, feel free to interrupt with any questions.
So, Nickelodeon was not going to exactly follow my suggestions as to how they should get into original animation? So, I was frustrated beyond belief? So, what was I going to do about it?
Nothing.
We weren’t in the animation business. Sure Fred/Alan had a small production company run by our college friend Albie Hecht, and sure, we wanted to produce anything we could, including cartoon shows. But, our main business was network consulting, branding, and advertising, and the animation we were involved with was mainly 10 second network IDs and commercials. And it sure wasn’t the first time our clients had ignored our advice and gone their own way. But, as usual, it wasn’t completely their own way, and they felt like they were following what they saw as the best part of our approach. As we had inculcated into their culture, the network would go off the beaten path looking for skilled talent who could make fresh, animated series that wouldn’t look or feel anything like the mainstream (i.e. Hanna-Barbera), without sacrificing quality. The shows might have a new look, but they’d follow classic entertainment values, they’d include great characters and great stories. And instead of relying only on an in-office pitch, they’d make short pilots to see whether the final film would really ’sing’ before committing to a series.
Fine, I thought. A tenth of a loaf is better than none, better than the times they ignored us completely. And besides, the network production executive was on the phone offering us a deal to make one of the pilots!
Usually we jumped at these kind of phone calls, but this time I was unsure. As I had told Debby and Anne at the very first breakfast, we knew nothing about character based cartoon shows, and while my partners Alan and Albie would probably vehemently disagree (Let’s get a shot at fiction! Any shot!), I felt like it was too complicated for us to come up with an idea, write it, and find one of our animator friends to execute. I told this to the executive, he flatteringly disagreed, and I said send over the deal memo.
(More next time.)
Blog History of Frederator’s original short cartoons. Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4. Part 5.
Devin Clark came into the New York office today to show us a pitch on his cartoon Go-Wheely Rilla (with a script by Alec Coiro).
Devin animates Comedy Central stuff for our friends over at Interspectacular. And coincidentially, he’s college friends with Dan Meth who was in to see us earlier in the week. Go figure.
Thanks to Devin for his kind permission to post his artwork.
