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HOW TO GET TO SESAME STREET

If I had to name one major influence in my life as a model for the type of entertainment I strive to create, it would have to be Jim Henson. Most notably, I stand in awe of his amazing work on Sesame Street. They did everything from puppets to animation, parodies to heart-warming specials, and if that weren’t enough, they created music that stuck in your head.  What I admire most about Jim Henson is that he did it in a way that was accessible to both kids and parents.  If you were a child born after the 70′s, then you were a child influenced by Sesame Street.

From day one, Sesame Street enlisted the talents of some of the top names in independent animation. Back in 1996, Linda Simensky, the current senior director of programming for PBS and former president of ASIFA-East, put together a two hour program to celebrate 25 years of animation made for Sesame Street.  It was like watching Sesame Street in a whole new light because I never knew that the people behind the shorts were some of the most cutting edge independent animators of their time.  Now that I know what I know, and can see them in retrospect, I have a greater appreciation for them.  The works in the show included the Hubley Studios, Buzzco, Michael Sporn, Will Vinton, Dan Haskett, Bill Davis, Pixar, and Mo Willems.  The one below is by Maurice Sendak.

I still hold onto my dream of someday joining the ranks of these esteemed artists by animating an interstitial for one of their upcoming seasons.

Much to my delight, when I took my first animation class back in college, my animation professor, Dan McLaughlin, showed us how to work the university’s giant Oxberry camera by demonstrating a pan with a 2-field cel and background from a short film he did for Sesame Street.  Needless to say, I was totally in awe of this piece of artwork! You may remember the film.  It was the one where the backgrounds were black and white and these kids were sitting on the steps outside their front door.  Suddenly a man pushing a fruit cart starts yelling, “Fruit!  Fresh fruit!”  He walks on, the kids get some fruit, and the man continues on his way.  It was also shown on the Spanish PBS show, Villa Allegre, with the man yelling, “Frutas!  Fresca frutas!”

Fast forward a few years. I have my own show and I thought, “That would be awesome if I could recreate even a little bit of the fun and insane comedy that Jim Henson and his cohorts were able to do week after week.”  (Not exactly in those words, but that was my intention.)  Jim Henson had been such an influence on my life that I wanted to pay tribute to him somehow.  The only question was, “How do you extrapolate the genius of Sesame Street and infuse it into a show about a twenty-something slacker/womanizer?”

The answer: you do your best.

Like Jim Henson, I always tried to make sure that Johnny wasn’t mean spirited. He was just ignorant and naive. Most of all, I tried to capture his silliness. If I had to describe the Muppets in word, it would have to be “silly.” Silly humor is what I always try and strive for. It always trumps rude and obnoxious for me.

In our first season, we were unable to come up with a proper send up of Sesame Street that would do it justice. It wasn’t until our fifth season that one of our writers, Craig Lewis, came up with the idea for the episode, “Hunk At The End Of This Cartoon” which was a parody of “The Monster At The End Of This Book.”

I thought it was the perfect Muppet piece to translate into Johnny’s world.  Craig kept it silly and ridiculous, just the way the book was.  So we did our best.

Now.  There’s probably someone in Birmingham, Alabama thinking, “That’s great and all, but wasn’t the title of this post, ‘How to get to Sesame Street?’  You didn’t really tell us how to get to Sesame Street.”

I’m getting there.

When I was a kid, I never really grasped the concept that Sesame Street was on a soundstage.  During the opening credits, they showed all these kids wandering the streets of New York City with it’s gravel streets and tall buildings, until the final shot where they got to Sesame Street and the roads and sidewalks suddenly lost all their grit.  And it wasn’t as sunny and bright as the park they just showed. But it looked fun!  And I always wondered, “Why is it so hard to find? Isn’t it on a map or something?”

Back in 1998, my wife and I decided to plan a trip to New York City. Knowing how much I loved the Muppets, my agent arranged for us to visit Sesame Street.  What I thought was going to be a quick ushering through the soundstage by a tour guide, turned out to be a dream come true.  They were actually filming an episode when we arrived on the set!  As long as we kept out of the way of the cameras, we got to wander the street and explore everywhere from Mr. Hooper’s Store to Big Bird’s nest.  We even got to visit Elmo’s World!

The most surreal moment of the day was meeting Caroll Spinney, the Muppeteer behind Oscar The Grouch and Big Bird.  The crazy thing was, I didn’t know how I was supposed to react when I came face to face with a Muppet.  When it was my turn to take a picture with Carroll, he held Oscar up to my face and said, “Hi.  What do you do?” I froze.  I wanted to tell him what I did, but I also wanted to tell him how much he’d touched my life and how the show helped shape my world view of imagination and creativity.  I wanted to tell him all kinds of things.  But in the moment, I couldn’t figure out if I should talk to Oscar or Carroll.  I completely blanked.  I was so flustered that the only thing that came out of my mouth was a giggle.

A giggle.

I giggled like a little boy when I shook his hand while my wife took a picture of us.  I remember thinking, “Boy, Oscar has a manly grip for a grouch.”  After the flash went off on my camera, Caroll made Oscar blink as though the flash somehow affected his eyesight. I don’t even remember if I said anything to him (I hope I didn’t come across rude) but I had my moment.  Sadly, the moment quickly passed and another person came up to him to take their turn to meet him.  Or them.  Honestly, I felt as though Oscar and Carroll were two separate entities.

Everybody we met on the set that day was so nice.  I could have stayed there all day.  In fact, one of the crew said, “If you stick around, we’re gonna be filming with Sully in about an hour so you can see how Oscar gets around.”  But we didn’t want to overstay our welcome.  We watched them film a scene with Susan and Oscar, took a few more pictures, and ended up staying for about two hours before we took the subway to see the rest of the city.

So if you ever find an “in” or can get a job working for the Sesame Workshop, I highly recommend a visit to “the street.”  And be prepared to address a Muppet.

PUBLIC SPEAKING

I forgot who told me this, but a few years ago, I got this great piece of advice about doing interviews: Try and keep your answers down to a few choice words because, chances are, the reporter only needs a sentence or two from your interview for their story. So try not to give rambling answers that go nowhere.

I wish I had learned this when I first started speaking in public.

I mean, honestly, who ever thinks that they’re going to be interviewed by the media?  Not I.  And how do you really prepare for an off-the-cuff question so that you come across poised, knowledgable, and competent?  I shrug my shoulders.

I have to preface this blog by saying I, like so many others, was afraid of public speaking. I did drama in high school, but that was me being a character.  Me being me was nerve-racking.  I couldn’t even raise my hand to say anything in my interpersonal communication class in college because I was so dumbstruck.  (For 20% of our grade, we were given a choice between joining in the class conversation or doing a 30 page paper.  I opted for the paper.)  I eventually got over this fear because I had to.  It was in my job description to talk to the media.  Fortunately, the interviews got easier and I’ve now grown fairly comfortable in my skin that I’m able to speak on a dime.  I’ve breezed through dozens of interviews, taught at Loyola Marymount University for several years, given seminars at several universities, and done a number of public speaking engagements in front of some pretty diverse audiences.  Mostly because I have something to say and I’m confident in my content.  On the other hand, throw me into a room alone, full of strangers, and I head straight towards something to lean on.

I wanted to share this with you upfront so you can fully appreciate all the nervousness and anxiety that lie in between the lines of  the transcripts you’re about to read.  That is, if you’re still reading.  You are?  Cool.  The following is from my first public speaking engagement to the media.  It took place in July of 1994 at the Television Critics Association Press Tour at the Universal Hilton Hotel. The panel consisted of Betty Cohen, the Executive Vice President of Cartoon Network, Mike Lazzo, the Vice President of Programming, Fred Seibert, the President of Hanna Barbera, Ralph Bakshi, and three new cartoon directors: Butch Hartman (who went on to create The Fairly Odd Parents), Craig McCracken (creator of The Powerpuff Girls), and myself.  The audience consisted of about 75 print journalists, Turner executives, and guests who were basically there to report and judge the programs we worked so hard to produce.

Beforehand, we were given a potential Q & As/Talking Points folder which we were to familiarize ourselves with if someone asked us a question. Which I fecitiously say, did little to prepare me for sitting in front of all those people staring at me.   The following is an excerpt from the actual transcripts. This was my first recorded line of publicity:

QUESTION: This is a question for Van, what cartoon have you created? Tell us about your character and how you did it.

VAN PARTIBLE: The character I created is called Johnny Bravo. It’s this guy. (laughter) And he looks a little bit like James Dean kind of thing, but he talks like Elvis. And he’s picking up on people at the zoo, women at the zoo. And he finds this animal trainer girl, and she realizes that the gorilla’s escaped from the zoo, and basically he tries to pick up on the girl and all kind of stuff ensues. It takes off from there and it’s pretty funny. It doesn’t sound funny from what I’m saying, but it’s funny. I think it’s funny.

To highlight the absurdity of my existence in this panel and show how unequipped I was at public speaking, here’s another excerpt from the actual transcripts:

QUESTION: Van, I have a question for you. I’d like to know how it feels having just graduated from college working next to such veterans as Bill Hanna, Joe Barbera, Ralph Bakshi. What does that feel like?

PARTIBLE: It’s really neat, because the job I had before this, I was working at a school. And so I’m like — I mean, I tried applying at all these other animation places and nobody liked me because I didn’t have anything to show them.

And finally they had this talent search. I guess Hanna-Barbera had this talent search. And they saw my film and I guess they liked it because they called me back in. Because I did this student film back in college, which was last year. (laughter)

And they said, develop something. I developed something and beyond that and I was like wow. So it kind of like hasn’t really hit me, because I basically don’t feel myself on that level. So it’s really neat.

QUESTION: Ralph, you’re shaking your head. How does it feel to be sitting next to someone who just graduated from college? (laughter)

Ralph went on to say how he thought the program was “sensational” and how “these kids are coming in and being allowed to be themselves,” while I sat there thinking, “I just said, ‘It’s really neat.’  A lot.”

It’s been a long road, but I’m happy to say that I’m now able to take a breath and answer questions without rambling so much.  I mean, I still ramble at times, but I always try to make sure and conclude my statements with a breath and a few choice words.

I recently did an interview for The Loyolan, the newspaper at my old alma mater, Loyola Marymount University. Fortunately, they e-mailed me a list of questions that I could ponder and answer in my own time. You can find it at:

http://www.laloyolan.com/entertainment/lmu-originated-johnny-bravo-on-dvd-1.2243967

Before I end this post, I’d like to say thank you to everyone who has posted on this site. It’s humbling to know that people actually read my ramblings and care enough to comment on them.

JOHNNY BRAVO AND TV GUIDE

I was a TV junkie growing up.  I watched as much TV as I possibly could in between my comic book reading and drawing. Sesame Street.  The 3 O’Clock Movie.  The Brady Bunch.  Bonanza. If there was something fun and frivolous onscreen, I was there.  I would even sit and watch the Spanish show, Villa Allegre, just because it was on. (It also helped that they showed Spanish versions of Sesame Street interstitials.)

Like most kids, I had my rituals of breakfast on the couch every Saturday morning when I would wake up early and watch cartoons on our 18″ Zenith television set.  In between shows, I would rush up to the TV and manually flip the channel switch, back and forth from channel to channel, trying to absorb as many cartoons as I could, doing my best to bypass the live action jingles for Green Machines and interstitials like CBS’ In The News.

Naturally, one of my favorite magazines growing up was TV Guide. We didn’t have cable TV, but I could see what was on and read the synopses.  So it was kind of like I had cable.

You can only imagine how geeked out I was when I first saw Johnny Bravo mentioned in TV Guide.  Pretty geeky.

Unfortunately, when Johnny Bravo first premiered, there wasn’t even a grid for the Cartoon Network, so I don’t have that issue.  But I do have copies of the other times it was mentioned.

In the December 1, 2001 issue, our Christmas special got a shout out in the Cheers And Jeers section.  Although it was neither a “cheer” nor a “jeer,” it still got it’s own special box.  To quote:

“…the pairing of Donny (Osmond) and Johnny might help kids understand why Mom and Dad know all the words to ”One Bad Apple.”

TV GUIDE ONLINE:  Do you think you have a case?

BRAVO:  Are you kidding?  Bravo’s got Bravo written all over it!  I mean, they might as well change the name of The It Factor to Who Wants To Be Johnny Bravo?

TVGO:  What tipped you off that Bravo might be taking advantage of your image to attract viewers?

BRAVO:  When that (James) Lipton guy started wearing sunglasses and calling his female guests “hot mamas.”

TVGO:  Spike Lee hired Johnny Cochran as his attorney.  You’re going to need a heavy hitter, too.  Have you spoken to Harvey Birdman?

BRAVO:  I don’t know if he’s the right person for the job.  I’m thinking more along the lines of the chick from Legally Blonde. Is she available or is she in the middle of another sequel?

TVGO:  So what’s your legal strategy?

BRAVO:  Strategy?  Isn’t that a disco song by the Bee Gees?

TVGO:  Uh, okay.  Spike agreed to compensate TNN if he loses the lawsuit.  What are you willing to offer Bravo in the event you lose?

BRAVO:  I can give hair tips to some of their people – and believe you me, they need it.

TVGO:  Would you consider dropping the lawsuit if they offered you James Lipton’s job?

BRAVO:  Only if we changed the show to where actors came into the studio and asked me about my life.  Then, I’d think about it.

TVGO:  Any suggestions for what Bravo might change their name to?

BRAVO:  If they gave Mr. T his own show, they could call it the Lipton T Channel.  Ha hah!

TVGO:  Groan…

BRAVO:  How about The Channel Where People Like To Talk a Lot?

TVGO:  Better.  One last question.  If Heaven exists…

BRAVO:  If Heaven exists, I’d like to hear God say, “You’re right.  You were my gift to women.”

EDITOR’S NOTE:  When asked about the potential lawsuit, Bravo issued the following statement: “We are not worried about a lawsuit from Johnny Bravo, considering we’ve been around since 1980.  And we are not trying to capitalize on (his) noteriety.”

THE JOHNNY BRAVO LOOK

When I was first developing Johnny Bravo, I turned to the caricatures of Al Hirschfeld for inspiration. The picture below is a 1995 drawing he did of the cast from “A View From The Bridge” by Arthur Miller. In the center is a caricature of Richard Davalos. He is the original inspiration for the design of Johnny Bravo’s head.

If you look at yesterday’s post (or most anywhere else on this site), you can see how I translated Hirschfeld’s already minimalistic design to create an even more simplified character in Johnny. I ‘ve always been pretty particular about the way Johnny’s head is designed. It’s what makes him who he is. Whenever I called retakes, the recurring note usually had something to do with Johnny’s head design being off model. Like the design of Charlie Brown, it seems simple, but if anything is slightly off, you can tell. Or at least, I can.

FUN FACT: Besides being the inspiration for Johnny Bravo’s design, you might also know Richard Davalos’ face from the Smith’s album, “Strangeways Here We Come.”  He was also pictured on their “Best I” and “Best II” album covers.

I have often used James Dean as a reference point when asked to describe Johnny’s look.  Interestingly enough, Davalos played James Dean’s brother in John Steinbeck’s “East of Eden.” I never knew any of this when I was creating Johnny Bravo! What’s even more coincidental is that I was raised in the hometown of John Steinbeck! Is that stretching it? Oh well. Just another weird “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” connection to throw into a casual conversation…

PITCHING JOHNNY BRAVO

JOHNNY BRAVO AND SCOOBY DOO

JOHNNY BRAVO AND MICHAEL JACKSON

GUTEN TAG UND WILLKOMMEN

Welcome to my first post!  We officially went “live” yesterday, but I spent most of that time uploading and writing content so you (the browser) had fun stuff to look at as you “surfed” my site.

First off, I have to say a special thank you to the person who designed my new website: Lindsey Breeden.  He is a fellow alum of Loyola Marymount University and a pretty cool guy.

Not that I’m a slow-go with this crazy new thing the kids are calling “the internet,” but I always felt that if I ever created a website, I wanted to do it right.  And like the old adage says, “Nothing happens unless you make a plan.”  Plus with work and family and things like the final seasons of “Lost” and “24,” a website was the last thing on my mind.  But as I was working on the DVD extras for the Johnny Bravo: Season One DVD, I realized how much “stuff” I had that didn’t necessarily fit with what Warner Brothers was looking to put on the DVD.  Coincidentally, around the same time, I happened to be rifling through old magazines and discovered an article about Lindsey Breeden and the importance of websites.  It was the kick in the butt I needed to stop making excuses and start putting together my website.  So I did.  After the series finale of “24.”

And speaking of the DVD, it was released yesterday and, last I checked, it was listed as #500 in the Amazon Bestsellers Rank in the Movies and TV section.  But then I checked an hour later and it was ranked #600?  I guess there was a huge rush on the Tom Selleck thrillers, Jesse Stone: No Remorse (#94), Jesse Stone: Thin Ice (#33), and Jesse Stone: Sea Change (#569).

Foiled by the fans of Tom Selleck.

At least we’re ranked higher than the 2007 release of Jesse Stone: Death In Paradise (#1,075) so the DVD has that going for it.

And while we’re back in a time and space where people are watching the Karate Kid while talking about Betty White and Gary Coleman, I thought I’d dedicate my first post to someone who transcends relevance:  Mr. T.

I worked with Mr. T back on the fifth season of Johnny Bravo and found him to be an honest and hard-working individual.  Plus, you can’t help but smile when you’re around Mr. T.  The man can command a room like nobody’s business.  He came into the studio like a whirlwind and after the record, came upstairs to visit with our staff and stood in a corner inviting everyone within shouting distance to meet with him and take pictures.  At one point, he shushed the crowd and said, “This one guy over here just asked me if I’d pick him up over my head!  I told him ‘no!’  You know why?”  As I got a bit uncomfortable thinking that I should’ve taken a little more control of the crowd, Mr. T yelled, “Cause I don’t pick up men!”  He was in such a great mood that day and probably would’ve went into every office in every floor if we asked.  The laughing and pictures went on for about 30 minutes, at which point, I turned to my Line Producer Diana and suggested that maybe we should let him go home.  But not before inviting him to join us as the guest of honor at our wrap party!

Unfortunately, because of scheduling conflicts he couldn’t make it, but he did agree to film an introduction to all the guests at the party!

A few weeks later, Craig Lewis and I went over to Mr. T.’s house in the valley with a video camera.  I remember nervously ringing the doorbell and getting a barely audible voice over the speakerphone saying, “Can I help you?”  “Hi.  We’re here from the Cartoon Network to film a spot with Mr. T.”  Then, all of a sudden, the voice chimed in with that all too familiar gravel, “Oh yeah!  Yeah!  C’mon around back!”  Soon enough, Mr. T was there to greet us, all smiles and enthusiasm.  At the very least, we wanted him to simply welcome the guests, but Craig had the bright idea of writing a comedy spot and seeing if Mr. T would perform it.  Much to our surprise, he quickly memorized his lines, threw on some bling, and filmed the spot.  All in about 45 minutes.  During that time, he was extremely gracious and took the time to make sure we did it right, doing a number of takes until we were satisfied.  After we left, we quickly drove down the street, pulled over, and watched what we had filmed with giddy excitement.  As we sat in the car and watched, some lady accidentally bumped into our parked car with her car!  It would’ve been a bigger deal had we not just left Mr. T’s house, so she lucked out since there was barely any damage.

So that’s my Mr. T story.  I’ve heard from several people that have run into him in the valley, that he’s always gracious to people and takes the time to talk with whoever wants to talk with him.