Fred Seibert's Blog

I started reading Ken Auletta’s wonderful books at the suggestion of my lifetime friend Nick Moy and have never been disappointed, especially as he switched his beat over towards media, my consuming interest. It’s rare to find a thorough reporter who’s also a compelling writer. So I was more than flattered when my partner Herb Scannell suggested Ken talk to me about a future book he’s planning. Afterwards I walked him over to meet David Karp, someone who knows a lot more than I do.

Adrian is founder of the Bloom Animation collective in Denver. We met when I spoke at ASIFA/AIGA/Rocky Mountain College of Art + Design last year. He stopped by Frederator/Burbank to show me one of his projects and find out a little about the cartoon biz in Hollywood.

Our good friends Rita and Hadley from Radar Cartoons came by Frederator/Burbank to tell us some stuff about their Radical Cute project, and talk a little bit about plans for Boneheads.

Jim Mortensen stopped by to visit Eric and me at Frederator/Burbank with his storyboard for “Suzy Backwards.” It’s always good to see Jim, an early contributor to Channel Frederator and a talented, nice guy.

Thanks to Jim for his kind permission to use a frame from his board and this special illustration.

Joe Schiappa is a comedy writer who likes cartoons. He came by my New York office today to say hello and introduce himself and his work. Hi Joe!

Back to my week. By the way, I don’t want to leave the wrong impression here. My average week is no busier than anyone trying to keep their productions and businesses going. But, for those who wondering…

Thursday, September 20, 2007

I wanted to get this picture from the Nicktoons Studios up. It doesn’t have much to do with the post other than I took it during my trip and it reminds me of the evolution of even the best cartoon shows.

Kent Rice is the new CEO of Starz Entertainment (formerly IDT Entertainment), so he now represents our major production partner on Wow! Wow! Wubbzy! We’d met briefly in New York but I wanted us to get to know each other better, so we met for breakfast at the Graciela, my home away from home, and coincidentally Kent’s too when he first started working in LA.

On my way over to Sherman Oaks for an early lunch meeting, I called into a conference call with Dan Meth, Jeaux Janovsky, Eric Homan, and Carrie Miller about the show packaging for our impending weekly launch of the Meth Minute 39. As usual, we don’t all agree on everything, but I think there’s a solution everyone’s happy with in the end.

Peter Lee is in the LA office of Boston’s Prism VentureWorks. We met for lunch to give me my perspective on Next New Networks and Channel Frederator.

Over the hill from the Valley into West Hollywood to meet author/singer Barney Saltzberg at the Urth Cafe. Barney and I met about 10 years ago and like each other’s work a lot. As with others, we keep struggling to find stuff to do together and haven’t licked it yet.

I didn’t leave my seat for the next meeting, this time on Next New Networks business again with Damien Somerset, the creator/producer of Zaproot, our cool new green show on Viropop. We’d only met briefly before, and in case I haven’t made it clear, I really like getting to know the people with whom I’m doing things. Damien’s a nice, smart, talented guy.

East on Melrose are the Paramount Studios and the production offices of J.J. Abrams‘ Bad Robot Productions. We’re starting work on a movie and this meeting was the first time we’d met in person. Later on, Bryan Burke, JJ’s longtime producer and collaborator, and I had a great first dinner on the Sunset Strip.

Friday

Art’s Deli for a turkey sandwich for JetBlue, and home to New York.

Tuesday night, September 18, 2007
Eric, Kevin and I went right from our feature meeting with Doug TenNapel to the last screening for Random! Cartoons, featuring Doug’s Squirly Town, Karl Toerge & Jim Wyatt’s Ratzafratz, and 6 Monsters. We’ve now screened all 39 Random! shorts for the LA studio (as well as a New York ASIFA screening in May), and it’s sad they’re over, everyone did such a great job on their films. Nickelodeon’s been having a hard time scheduling an air date, so in the meanwhile we’ll do with the good feelings from our private screenings.

Karl and Jim prepped a great surprise for their honored guest June Foray when they pulled out a cake for her 90th birthday. My pictures weren’t too great, but they capture some of the wonderful mood, June looking better than anyone has a right to look, and many others having a good time.

Wednesday
Early day again when I make a reference call on one of our great interns to the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum. It’s always feel good to give a solid recommendation for a hard working intern. Then it was breakfast with my former Hanna-Barbera colleague, Julie Kane-Ritsch who now, as part of the Gotham Group, represents creators like Bob Boyle, Dana Galin, Diane Kredensor, and too many others to mention in a blog post less than 1mm characters long.

I’d met Baby Prodigy creator Barbara Marcus at New York’s BrainCamp two years ago, and she came by the studio to chat on Wednesday.

Afterwards, I zoomed over to Cartoon Network Studios to take Ramsey Naito, head of their long form development, to Starbucks. As we’re getting fired up on the Samurai Jack feature I like to keep her up to date.

The Market City Diner was across the street from Starbucks, and lucky thing too, since that’s where I was to meet Scott Greenberg, Film
Roman/Starz production president, and our fantastic partner on Wow! Wow! Wubbzy! We never seem to spend enough time together in the office, so this lunch was a good chance to catch up.

Director/artist Howard Hoffman and I have worked together since back in the day starting on MTV and Nickelodeon network IDs. we’re working together again on Ape Escape Cartoons, and it’s always good when he drops by Frederator when I’m in Hollywood.

Speaking of back in the day, Bill Burnett, creator of ChalkZone and eight other Oh Yeah! and Random! cartoons came by too. We first worked together at Fred/Alan in New York, and then again at Hanna-Barbera and Frederator. We’re working on a lot of stuff at Next New Networks. We have so many things to talk about, cartoons and more, I won’t bore you with all of them.

Finally, it’s a great dinner at Firefly in the Valley. With great friend Rita Street, our Radar Cartoons colleague on the Nicktoons Network Animation Festival, Boneheads, and more.

A little sleep, and Hollywood continues Thursday.

Gavin Logan was in New York the other day to show us an animated show he’s been working on with some friends, and a few comedy ideas for Next New Networks. Bill Sobel is a friend of ours who teaches at SUNY Albany in his spare time and he was kind enough to give us an intro to Gavin. Thanks for coming by.

I’ve known Jesse Willmon since he was a student at New York’s School of Visual Arts and he showed me his awesome make-your-own-comics site COMMIX. He and one of his creative partners, Julie Ann Pietrangelo, came by to show me one of their cartoon projects. Thanks guys.

Dan Shefelman is an artist, designer, and story guy who’s worked on Blue Sky features and a bunch of TV things too. He’s New York based but somehow we’d never met until the other day when he came by to show me his project “Ooze.”

Thanks Dan, for kind permission to post your artwork.