Talk to the Snail

Remember March 2005? Me, neither. You may have been listening to the #1 hit, Green Day’s “Boulevard of Broken Dreams”, going to see the just-released Robots, or watching NBC’s brand new show, The Office. Right. It was that long ago.

March 2005 was also the month we took the first pitch for what we were then calling Oh Yeah! Cartoons, season four. (The first pitch, by the way, was Adam Henry’s “Krunch and the Kid”, which was also the first short greenlit.)

Three years and nine months, 39 cartoons, and 72 different premiere dates later, Random! Cartoons is all set to see the light of day tomorrow, Saturday, on Nicktoons Network. The series kicks off at 1:30 p.m. ET / 10:30 a.m. PT with “Solomon Fix”, “MooBeard the Cow Pirate”, and “Two Witch Sisters”. Then we get another new dose on Sunday with “The Finster Finster Show!”, “Adventure Time”, and “Mind the Kitty”. [Read more…]

This, year five, is the first season Frederator’s had nothing to do with the Nicktoons Network Animation Festival (other than Fred’s creator credit, course). I’m not sure, but maybe that could be why no one showed up for tonight’s live event at the Nick studio in Burbank (see above).

Ha ha ha. Actually, the event was more crowded than in that misleading picture - that shot was taken after the other six people went home.

Ha ha ha, again. Really, the event was fine and well-attended. Nick’s Brown Johnson interviewed Stan Lee, the highlight of highlights for an audience full of animators. Food, drinks, host Chris Hardwick, a live band, and - oh!- cartoons made for an all-around fun night. Thanks for the invitation.

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So our good friend Rita Street tricked me into participating in an event she and her Radar Cartons pal, John Hardman, put together with the New Zealand government. Basically, a bunch of Kiwi creators and studio reps fly to L.A. to meet, greet, and pitch mighty development executives (like me) from benevolent cartoon companies (like Frederator). Held throughout the day at a Burbank hotel, the event saw all the usual suspects from the suit side – Disney, Starz, Cartoon Network, Nelvana, Cookie Jar, and so forth were all represented (Nickelodeon sat out because the projects weren’t from the U.S.).

Anyhoo, the New Zealand folks I met with were very nice, had great ideas, and were soldiering on despite having pitched the same ideas up to ten times in the course of a few hours. I offered all the usual wisdom and advice (“Maybe a cartoon about a development executive who eats pretzels?”), ate [Read more…]