Talk to the Snail

Who’s the lucky guy? Fred is, as Alex Kirwan and Rob Renzetti present him with a very exclusive maquette of Jenny, model XJ-9, from Rob’s My Life as a Teenage Robot. It seems like yesterday Teenage Robot premiered on Nick, but it was really back in the summer of 2003. Meanwhile, you can see never-before-aired episodes of the series, Saturdays on Nicktoons Network.

As a “Where-Are-They-Now” note, these days, Alex is busy designing characters for Nick’s The Mighty B, while Rob is co-running a big shorts program with Craig McCracken over at Cartoon Network.

– Eric

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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Whoops. For a little more than a year, I’ve been thinking off and on how I needed to remember to blog on July 19, 2008, the tenth anniversary of the debut of Oh Yeah! Cartoons on Nickelodeon (although something tells me there may’ve been a sneak preview earlier). Typically, I forgot. For the record, the first three shorts to premiere that Saturday in 1998 were Larry Huber and Bill Burnett’s “ChalkZone”, Vincent Waller and Bill’s “What is Funny?”, and Greg Emison and Bill’s “Jelly’s Day”. A veritable Burnettapalooza. So, happy belated anniversary, OY!. I owe you something tin.

– Eric

Artist/filmmaker Miles Thompson has been in and out of the Frederator world for more years than I want to add. I first met Miles last century at Hanna-Barbera where I think he was working on 2 Stupid Dogs. Since then he’s created a WAC! short and a pair of Oh Yeah! cartoons. If you’re one of the fortunate few to be on the mailing list, you’ll know we’ve used a couple of his paintings for postcard art. He’s now pretty much an artiste, and you can see his work in galleries and on the covers of kids books. However, he’s probaby most famous for his painting of Louise Brooks that’s hanging in my office. Well, now, along with his Website, he’s got his own blog. He’s a good guy to check up on frequently, because you never know what he’ll be into next; I guarantee you it’ll be something different and fantastic.

While the short she created, “Mind the Kitty”, is the 13th Oh Yeah! cartoon to go into production this season, Anne Walker is the 1st OY! creator to jump into the merchandise shop Fred has set up for us over at Cafe Press. Go here now to be the among the first to buy OY!4 buttons, stickers, and shirts (oh my). And be the envy of your friend(s).

Here�s a picture Melissa shot at last week�s re-pitch of the Teapot! storyboard. It shows some of the key talent creator Greg Eagles has assembled for his crew so far: Bill Flores, Greg, Dahveed Kolodny-Nagy, Robert Alvarez, and Alex Almaguer. I’m sure Greg and Dahveed will post more about these guys, but I wanted to introduce you briefly to these artists, highlighting their past work for Frederator.

Alex Almaguer. Alex is busy polishing up the �Teapot!� storyboard. His relationship with Frederator goes back a bit � as a storyboard revisionist he was one of the key artists on My Life as a Teenage Robot. (He�s also newly married to the former Holly Kim, a color stylist over on Frederator�s Wow! Wow! Wubbzy!)

Bill Flores also put (and, once in a while, continues to put) his time in at Teenage Robot. Many of the fantastic background designs you see on the show are his work. Like Alex, Bill�s currently over [Read more…]

It’s been a busy week. We saw the big re-pitches for “Adventure Time’ and “Teapot!”, sat in on a couple of pitches by a few of our favorite artists and people, including Alex Kirwan, Eric Robles, and Pat Ventura among others, and were in a bunch of meetings about something we’re working on outside Oh Yeah! but which may be just as cool. Last night Frederator was out in full force for a smashing party celebrating the end of series production of The Fairly OddParents. It was in downtown LA at the ultra-hip Hotel Figueroa. Most importantly, I got to hear Fred’s story of his having to kick Eric Clapton out his seat at the Concert for Bangladesh. We’re continuing to have a blast here, and are looking forward to the next two weeks which will have us put five new shorts in production. Stick with us.

PS The image above is from “Krunch and the Kid” by Adam Henry who [Read more…]

Let’s all give a big OY! sa-lute to Mr Pen Ward, the newest creator at Oh Yeah! Cartoons! He’s dripping wet from CalArts and is now busy working on a little short he calls Adventure Time. Out of all the cartoon companies in town, Frederator’s the one lucky enough to have him. I, for one, hope to be riding his coattails to cartoon superstardom for a long time to come.

A) 50
B) 100
C) 150
D) More than 300

A: D, more than 300

Mind-boggling, isn’t it? But remember, Oh Yeah! isn’t a production, really. It’s actually 39 productions, each one with it’s own crew of artists. Sure, there’ll be some crossover between cartoons, but when you begin to add up all the drawers, production folk, post-production people, voice actors, etc., the number grows kind of quickly. Oh, and I’m not even including all our international support from various animation studios overseas.

So maybe it’s appropriate to tip our hat now to Therese Trujillo, OY!’s busy Line Producer. It’s her Herculean job to keep tabs on all these OY! citizens (and to make sure they get paid). Thanks, Therese. Better you than me.

So due to intense pressure from family, friends, and employers, I’m beginning my very own Frederator development blog right now. However, I’m fickle, and I may choose to pack it in at any moment. Just warning.

I reckoned my first art post would be an original cel set-up I stole — I mean, was awarded — from the second season of Oh Yeah! Cartoons! from way back in the last century, a time when such a thing as cels were used in cartooning. It’s from the Rob Renzetti short called “My Neighbor was a Teenage Robot” and shows XJ-9 as she looked so many years ago. Melissa scanned this for me so those are her fingerprints all over the art.