I don't know what's wrong with the folks down at the Cerritos Public Library, but there must be something a little... off... with them.
I mean, why else would they keep inviting ME back to visit?
They've had me give a talk about my career, a workshop on creativity for the district teachers, and now they've asked me to do a cartooning workshop. Check it out:
Sounds fun, right?
If you live in the Southern California area... come on out! It'll be sooper triple fun! I promise! But watch out for the people who work at the library... they're crazy! (MY kind of crazy!)
PS I'll have copies of 1000 TIMES NO on hand to sign for those in dire need!
UPDATE: Uh oh! I just got word that the event is TOTALLY BOOKED already! Guess I should have posted about this earlier!
So I go to the studio to record some voices for Fish Hooks, okay?
But when I arrive, the session before us is running late. So we wait. And wait. Eventually, people being filtering out by the dozen. And I'm totally eavesdropping to try to find out just WHAT show could be sooooo important as to hold us up.
And then HE walks out.
Yeah, HIM! And if you've heard me talk about Ro Rao before then you know I think he rocks.
He's been in town rockin' a pilot for Fox these days. And I wanted to hear ALL about how it was going. So we agreed to meet up for some root beers the next night. Little did I know that Ro would be taking me to Soho House, West Hollywood.
Little did I know about Soho House anyway. Apparently, you can only be let up to the fancy schmancy penthouse bar/restaurant/lounge if you're a member.
Really?
Heck, I just walked right in.
How?
Three words, padawans...
JEDI. MIND. TRICK.
(Or perhaps I'm so bland-looking they never saw me.)
Regardless, I sat on the balcony overlooking LA while enjoying a well-prepared beverage and loved EVERY minute... until Ro (a member in good standing) showed up to share the ambiance with me.
We had a great time hanging and talking shop with assorted other folk who came along, some expected, some not.
And while I'd love to tell you ALL ABOUT Ro's pilot. I can't. These pilot things are always so double triple sooper secret.
But I CAN show you this picture I took in the FREE photo booth on the way to the bathroom:
I don't need to tell you Mr. Warburton trivia experts... (all two of you) (Hi Mom!) but the pilot I did before Codename: Kids Next Door was called Kenny and the Chimp.
Yeah, you've seen it. But what about those who haven't? So this is for them:
Anyway... After spending three months in Los Angeles making this pilot, I came back to NYC and quickly drew a comic describing my adventures for the ASIFA-EAST newsletter. Check it out:
Allow me a couple clarifications:
"For Hanna Barbera at Warner Brothers, for Cartoon Network, did I miss any mergers?" This is in reference to Kenny and the Chimp being the first cartoon to be made after the merger between Turner and Warner Brothers. Hanna Barbera was already working under the aegis of Cartoon Network, which was under Turner, and then Warner Brothers came along. Confused? You should be. There are people there now that still have no idea who they work for.
"To seven minutes it had to go, could have been a 3 hour show" I had never storyboarded a 7 minute cartoon before. So when we timed it out for animation, it ended up being something like 14 minutes long. SO I had to do a LOT of editing.
"To auditions by car and not by camel" Being a New Yorker, I never drove anywhere. I didn't even have a car. So it was kind of weird having to drive everywhere in LA. Re: the camel-- I just needed something to rhyme with Hamill. Speaking of which:
"I had to reject 'Luke Skywalker' Hamill" This refers to the fact that while I really wanted to hire Mark Hamill (aka Luke Skywalker) to play Professor Triple Extra Large, he just wasn't right for the part. The mighty Frank Welker got the gig. But Mr. Hamill eventually landed the role of Stickybeard in KND so it all worked out.
"Why does no one animate" Coming from the world of commercial animation (where we did everything from script to screen) I found it fascinating that no one animated anything-- and some people had never ever ever animated EVER! Since everything for cable TV animation was shipped overseas, no one needed to. You either designed, storyboarded, directed, colored, checked or worked in production... and people rarely switched into other jobs. If you were a character designer... that's what you did. So why would you need to know how to animate anything? Weird.
"Sleeping in a Murphy Bed" Cartoon Network put me up in a corporate housing complex called the Oakwood Apartments. It wasn't awesome, but it wasn't awful either. It had a nice pool, it's own deli, and other assorted amenities. But I had to pull my bed down from the wall every night. Here's a picture from their website:
"Drawn for 2 Bucks in Korea" Obviously alluding to the cheaper cost of overseas labor.
And there you go.
Man, I wish I had more time to make comics these days!
As promised in my last post, here are some more pics from the KidDesign showroom of Codename: Kids Next Door toys that never made it to the shelves:
First, here's Season 9 of the KND MICROS (Miniature Insanely Cool Realistic Operative Spies)
Who do we see there? Mr. Huggykins? Sooper Sleuth Rainbow Monkey? A couple of the babified KND from Operation: GROW-UP? And yes-- Some of the sets were going to feature individual Delightful Children From Down the Lane that you could snap together once you collected them all.
On the bigger side of things there were the KND in snow gear:
And swim gear:
Oh, and these:
Yeah... that's Numbuh Two in cat fighting gear. But WHO CARES?!
That's FATHER behind him with OPTIONAL EVIL, ANGRY HEAD! Why in the name of all that is awesome was that not made?!
I'm sure I have even more pics of even more toys that never escaped the showroom... But that's all I got for now. Hope ya liked!
UPDATE: After seeing this post, one of my sooper pals over at KidDesigns sent over some even BETTERER pics! Keep it locked here to see 'em soon!
There were some pretty cool Codename: Kids Next Door action figures out there for a while.
We had BIG action figures:
And we had little ones:
The company that made them, KidDesigns, was pretty awesome. They had never done action figures before but attacked it like my two boys attack In-n-Out Burger.
Seriously, if KND was a pool, these guys dove in cannonball-style and got the tri-state area soaking wet. And together, we came up with some pretty awesome toys. Some saw the light of day... some didn't.
Here are some that didn't. Mind you, these are proto-types that were only seen in the showroom. But I ask you...
Do they not rock?
I know, right? The fact that Grandma Stuffum (along with Liver and Onions) never got made kills me, too.
OMG... Candy Hunting Numbuh Five? Stickybeard? The Queen Louse? Food Rambo Numbuh Two AND the ultra Nerd Zombie from Operation: UNCOOL? That's too much awesome in one photo.
I don't think a day goes by where I don't burst into tears over the fact that the Delightful Children From Down The Lane never had their own toy.
Stickybeard.
'Nuff said.
The world would have been a better place if this Knightbrace figure had been made.
This Friday, February 4th (like, tomorrow) debuts an episode I wrote for Fish Hooks!
Kind of...
See, before I was a full-time Fish I pitched a bunch of story premises to the gang. Most of them died horrible, poxish deaths... but one crawled it's way out of the mire and SURVIVED:
THE DARK SIDE OF THE FISH.
Well...
Kind of.
See, stories go through a LOT of changes around here. So there's not much left of what I actually wrote in this ep. But the premise is still there!
So if you like the episode-- THANKS! (but most of your thanks should go to the writers, directors and storyboard artist Blake Lemons) (Yeah... THAT Blake Lemons.) (Uh huh... My evil assistant on KND.)
And if you're a hater-- I didn't write that part. (Blake did.) (Hee hee!)
Check it out on the Disney Channel this weekend: Fri 2/4 8:30-9:00pm Sat 2/5 12:00-12:30am Sat 2/5 10:30-11:00am
Hope you like!
(Oh, and that IS the voice of Maxwell Atoms as Razor!)
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