My week in Hollywood 1.2.
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.
