MY WACKY RACES PITCH

You've seen it, right?

This brilliant homage to  Wacky Racesby Peugeot: I loved Wacky Races  when I was a kid. The characters. The humor. And of course, THE CARS:

A bunch of years ago,

before I moved to LA,

I pitched a reboot 

of the show.

I thought that since

Warner Bros.

Cartoon Network

Hanna Barbera

and

DC Comics

were all within the 

same company,

why not 

mash 'em their 

characters together?

Here's the 

pitch pamphlet 

I put together:

And you know what? The guy I pitched  it to at  Warner Brothers said he LOVED IT! But he also said it would never happen. To get that many companies to agree on anything would be impossible. Licensing fees for the characters (even though they're all owned by the same entity) would be ridiculous. Revenue split that many ways would  come out to nothing. So... nothing ever happened. But I hear there might be talk of a Wacky Races reboot sometime  in the future.

THE 7-D!(or what the heck I've been doing lately)

So lots of people ask me...

Whatcha doin'?

And I'm all like,

You know... stuff.

And they're like,

Cool.

What kinda stuff?

So I go,

7-D stuff.

And everyone's 

SO 

like,

Um...

what's 

The 7-D?

Well, it's a re-imagining of

those dudes from

Walt Disney's first

feature length film

Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.

But they don't look like this:

They look like this:

And here's how it's going down:

Set in the contemporary storybook world of Jollywood, 

"The 7D" follows brave little heroes Happy, Bashful, Sleepy, Sneezy, Dopey, Grumpy and Doc 

as they work together to maintain order in the kingdom. 

Standing in their way are Grim and Hildy Gloom, a novice warlock and witch couple, 

who haplessly plot to dethrone the Queen and take over Jollywood.

Executive Producer

Tom Ruegger

(Tiny Toons, Animaniacs, Pinky and the Brain)

developed the series for Disney

and has brought his signature funsanity

to the project.

Me?

I hopped on board as

Co-Executive Producer

to bring my own brand of fun.

It's been a crazy ride

and now the show's

about to hit the airwaves

July 7th

on

Disney XD!

Check the promo:

Don't be shy to  download the game  before the show hits!

HIPPIE HOP HOORAY!

I still haven't forgiven the universe for

not allowing this 

KND toy to be made.

H.I.P.P.I.E.- H.O.P.

(Hare Inspired Piston Powered Ingenious 

Exoskeleton Hops Over Parents)

I've posted some pictures of the

one-of-a-kind

prototype

made by

my good friends at

KIDdesigns

(Hi Isaac! Hi Debbie!)

But I recently stumbled on some

more pics that

 sooper-powered

product designer

Brian Hall

posted:

And here was the 

prototype

packaging:

Sooper kick-butt work, Mr. Hall!

Such a shame that so many KND toys hit the 

shelves but this wasn't one of them.

OLD SCHOOL JJSP PICTURES

BEHOLD!

Here's a collection of

poorly scanned

photos

from my years at 

J.J. Sedelmaier Productions.

It's hard to believe everyone has 

only become

more beautiful 

as the years have gone by.

Well, except for

animator

David Wachtenheim:

Here he is in shock 

at one of our commercial project's

impossible deadlines:

Here's designer

Gideon Kendall 

drawin'

Pycho Trainer

shoes:

Assistant animator

Mike Wetterhahn

getting his

fiber on 

for a

Fiber One

commercial:

Animator

Dean Lennert 

haunts

one of my earliest mentors

Bryon Moore:

JJSP

Production Queen

Irene

"don't do that, do this"

Cerdas

Animator/Designer

Ben Price

designing some 

Beavis and Butthead:

We helped 

intern

Athena Fliakos

realize that animation is a job

reserved for

dummy heads.

Robert Marianetti's

talent for growing facial hair

was trumped only by his 

talent for getting done whatever needed to get done:

Animation

production workhorse

Masako Kanayama.

 lived down the street from me

and I spent many nights 

running stacks of drawings over to her 

for coloring.

Mr. Sedelmaier with

Barry Vodos on the left

Ray Kosarin on the right

Nate Kaunfer in the back.

And Dean's head.

(i'm not sure why i don't have more pictures of Dean,

he was an integral part of the studio!)

Me doing exposure sheets for

Schoolhouse Rock

(or penning a letter of protest)

I think someone died in this picture.

But Dave photobombed it

so we'll never know who.

Irene and

Schoolhouse Rock

designer

Bill Peckman:

This was,

I dunno...

maybe my 

25th birthday

celebrating

25 years 

(and counting)

of ridiculous hair:

And here's a sooper triple bonus

ASIFA-EAST Executive Board 

picture taken at our annual end of year party:

First row L to R:

Dean Lennert and John R. Dilworth

Second row:

John Gati, Candy Kugel, Tissa David, Bruce Knapp

Third row:

Dick Rauh, Dorky McDorkenstein, Janet Benn, Bill Lorenzo

Those were fun days

back in NY!

KND PILOT COLOR KEYS

Back before everyone was using their 

fancy computin' machines 

to draw pitchers and stuff,

backgrounds for TV shows were

painted with actual paint.

But since most of the backgrounds 

are going to be painted at 

a studio overseas,

we just do what are called

COLOR KEYS.

These are usually wide-shots 

of each location

 in the storyboard board to give 

the overseas artists an idea of what's happening 

color-wise.

The problem with doing things this way is

that the studio often just goes in tighter on

these keys for close-up shots without redrawing the BG for details.

And it looks like poop.

Generally you try to send them

as many keys as you can,

but there's usually no

time or budget for that.

But these days digital painting 

HAS

sped things up

and made the process easier.

Here are the color prints

that were sent to

Rough Draft Studios

for the

Codename: Kids Next Door pilot

"No P in the Ool"

all done by

sooper paint-powered

Jenny Gase-Baker

It's funny looking at these

since so much changed when we went to series!

HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON 2 SCREENING

Perhaps you heard 

whisperings 

of the

Below The Line

sooper special

advance screening of

HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON 2

that happened the other night?

If so,

you probably heard that the movie

ROCKS

SO

DARN

HARD!

Just like the first one, 

I found myself

laughing,

crying

and leaning forward in my seat

in slack-jawed giddiness...

ESPECIALLY

during those gorgeous flying scenes.

But you?

Maybe you'll hate it.

Which goes to show how I

can still totally love someone who's

WRONG.

(which could be considered a problem)

After the screening

there was an art show

and reception with lots of

food

folks

drink

and

SOOPER

BEAUTIFUL

ARTSY

FARTY

STUFF!

Check it:

Thanks

Dreamworks

for a stunning movie

and

thanks to

Below The Line

for a great screening!