EPISODE DEEP DIVE: "THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT!" Part Four

Finally, we end this little deep dive into one of my favorite episodes with Little Suzy’s story entitled, “The Toad And The Mermaid.” This segment was probably our most ambitious one because we wanted to do a send up of all the different Disney tropes (the awesome part was, we had a few Disney veterans on staff to do the job!). We began with a back story a la "Beauty And The Beast," telling the back story through the use of stained glass windows. To do this, our storyboard artist, Vaughn Tada, sketched out the original designs,

Next, our layout artist Pat Agnasin (who was just coming off of "Samurai Jack") did the cleaned up version.

Finally, our BG artist Jill Petrilak (who had just finished doing work on "The Princess And The Frog") painted the final background.

To see the other windows, you can scroll down to my February 20th post.

For the environment, we went back to the designs of Eyvind Earle in "Sleeping Beauty" and tried to recreate that style for this segment. (Unfortunately, these are copies of color scans so the quality isn't the greatest.) The first thing we did was get Dan Haskett to transform Little Suzy into a mermaid. The best part about that was, Dan actually designed Ariel in the Little Mermaid!

Again, the storyboard was laid out by Vaughn Tada and the final drawings were done by Pat Agnasin and painted by Jill Petrilak.

Finally, to round out the Disney-ish experience, you have to have a Disney-ish princess and her prince. Again, designed by the ultra amazing, Dan Haskett, this princess was voiced by Lea Salonga (Mulan, Aladdin) making her the third (unofficial) Disney princess she’s voiced.

Every time Johnny got kissed by the princess, he got turned into something other than a prince, as you can plainly see...

In the end, he transformed into this handsome fella…

I hope you enjoyed seeing all the preproduction parts from one of my favorite episodes. It's one of the few where I kept a lot of the assets. But it’s not the only one! I’ll post more deep dives in the future. Until then, get off your device and enjoy nature! :-D

EPISODE DEEP DIVE: "THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT!" Part Three

The Black And White World of Jack And Jill…

Design by Serapio Calm

In our second “campfire story” Donny Osmond tells the spooky story of (Duhn duhn duuuuuuuuhn!) Jack and Jill! For Donny Osmond's twisted tale, we used the round and rubber hose style of animation used in the early 20th Century. Again, whole other style, but we had to update it a wee bit when we added the monster from under the hill.

Layout by Pat Agnasin

Painting by Jill Petrilak

FUN FACT: When Donny says, "My brother Alan used to tell me that story every night." I gave Donny the chance to insert the name of another brother that would have been more apropos. He hemmed and hawed, started to name other brothers, but then finally gave in and said, "No. I think Alan would be the one that would do this."

Do I know my Osmonds or... do I know how to make lucky guesses?

EPISODE DEEP DIVE: "THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT!" Part Two

When last I wrote, I was doing a deep dive into our fifth season episode of Johnny Bravo, “That’s Entertainment!” For those of you tracking my progression, we’re still in the Python-esque world created by Bunny Bravo (Johnny’s Mama), but now, we’re showcasing the storyboard process!

This particular episode was storyboarded by the multi-talented, Emmy Award winning, Vaughn Tada. He had to hop back and forth between four different styles and he did it with amazing adaptability and seamless ease. You’ll notice that it was done with pencil on paper utilizing Post-It Note Pads and tape. He even had to cut and tape the script to attach the dialogue and stage direction to the storyboard! Because the schedule was so rigid, Vaughn had to flip back and forth between designing the layouts and/or having the luxury of using ones that were already produced.

These attachments show the development and use of Vaughn's storyboard (which he produced first) and this particular layout (Jerry Eisenberg's design) within the context of the story.

Not to cut this post short, but thus ends our deep dive into Mama’s story. Plus, I don’t want to oversaturate your curiosity by bombarding you with too much artwork. So, feel free to soak in these beautiful pieces of art, in anticipation of my next post talking about Donny Osmond’s story! In a completely different style!

EPISODE DEEP DIVE: "THAT’S ENTERTAINMENT!" Part one

In case you just joined us, I haven’t written in this blog for a while now. Why? It just wasn’t on my radar. Until now! So, to begin again, I thought I’d go more in-depth with all you wanted to know about creating a Johnny Bravo episode. Or, at least, as much as I can remember (and as much as I can retrieve from the storage bins in my garage). So, in true deep-dive form, I’d like to walk you through an episode of Johnny Bravo from my vantage point as the guy who watched it all unfold. In this series of posts, we’ll journey through one of my favorite episodes, "That's Entertainment!" It was from our fifth season and was one of a handful of episodes that I both wrote and directed. It also showcases the talents of my entire crew. First off, let me post the video for you to watch, just in case you missed it when it was on...

Hope you enjoyed the episode! (Deep breath.) Now, let’s begin our deep dive! (Cue “Sound of Music” soundtrack.) Let’s start at the very beginning… (End song abruptly here.) First of all, before you can move forward on any episode, you have to run a premise by the network and get it approved. The scan below is the unfinished, work in progress premise I put together to get the episode up and running. It’s my version of the 1950 Japanese movie, Rashomon by Akira Kurosawa, which, many of you know, is famous for using a multiple perspective storytelling device. But, rather than tell one story from different perspectives, we told different stories with different perspectives using different styles of animation.

Once the premise was polished and approved, we proceeded to move forward on creating the episode. Since we wanted the episode to have several design styles, we went ahead and started the design process early to help our storyboard artist, Vaughn Tada. That way, he didn't have to spend his time developing the new styles himself. The first style we tackled was a Terry Gilliam, Monty Python-esque style. For this, we had one of our designers, Serapio Calm, design a cutout version of an early 20th Century Johnny Bravo.

On the story front, once we had premise approval, we moved onto writing the script. This part of the process was given three weeks. Two weeks to write, then two weeks to get notes from the network, answer said notes, and do a punch-up (meaning, make sure it makes sense, make it tighter, and make it funnier)..

Once the first draft was approved, we made a list of all the roles we needed and worked with our casting director, Collette Sunderman, to match the best actor to each role. If we had someone in mind for the role during the premise stage, we would reach out as early as possible because it often takes a long time to hear back from their representatives. For example, I knew I wanted to work with Lea Salonga to play the Disney-esque princess for Suzy’s story so we had Collette try booking her first. So, as the train kept rolling along, the writer finished up the final draft of the script, the artists continued to create all the design aspects, and our casting director contracted and scheduled the voice talent. Which leads to our ext stop: the recording session!

TOP ROW: Tony Bancroft (Disney Director), Lou Fagenson (composer), Lea Salonga (actor), Collette Sunderman (VO Director), Robert Serda (engineer), BOTTOM ROW: Van Partible (creator), Diana Ritchey (line producer), Tony’s friend whose name I don’t remember, but she was nice)

The above photo was with @MsLeaSalonga at one of the many voice records we did for this episode. Since everybody couldn't make it into the studio at the same time, we had to record the actors separately. FUN FACT: On the far left is Tony Bancroft, the director of Disney's "Mulan" who I invited to come by since he was working next door to the studio at the time.

Meanwhile, in the design department… To create our Python-esque world, we turned to our layout artist, Jerry Eisenberg, to create an old-timey look using turn-of-the-century photos that were public domain as a base. From there, we manipulated the photos by cutting them out and using them as elements for the final layout. By washing over them with color, merging them with the background drawing, and finally painting everything to match, we created a collage that merged fantasy with reality.

That’s probably enough for now. I’ll give you some time to take it all in and I’ll return back here soon with some more stories, more designs, and more photos from “That’s Entertainment!” (Not to mention, more Johnny!) So, until next time…

MY LIFE IN A PLAYLIST

On October 26th, 2018, I will be giving a TEDX Talk (What?!) at Loyola Marymount University (Yaay!). Now some of you may be thinking, what’s the difference between a TED Talk and a TEDX talk? Well, according to Forbes, “the former takes more of a global approach while the latter typically focuses on a local community that concentrates on local voices.” (Basically, we don’t have to solve climate change.) The theme of the afternoon is “Creating Conversation” and the title of my talk is “Mixtapes: The Intersection of Music and Identity.”

For those of you who end up listening to my talk, I wanted to share with you, my own personal, “My Life In A Playlist.” The premise of my talk goes a little something like this… If Hollywood were creating a movie of your life, what would be the accompanying soundtrack? These are my top 20 songs, in no particular order, with 2-3 sentences as to why they are important to me. I encourage you to click on the link of each song to give it a listen. Then go to your iTunes files and create your own “My Life In A Playlist.” As I say in my talk, your life consists of a series of events that led you to where you are now. If you’re unsettled with how your life has unfolded, I would encourage you to look back on your life and see if there was something you missed. Maybe a calling that went unanswered. After that, encourage your friends to do the same, then share them with one another. Create conversation. And appreciate the journey. Enjoy!

01. Iko Iko – The Belle Stars I was in a high school–community-show pop/jazz group in Salinas, CA called the Steinbeck Singers. It was where I was exposed to tons of music from classical to big band to show tunes. This song was our senior jam. We auditioned to perform the song at our annual concert, but failed to make the cut (I like to think its because we were too awesome, which is often the case.)

02. Bossa Nova Baby – Elvis Presley Hello! Johnny Bravo. Elvis. Sort of instrumental in my life. ☺ “Elvis’ Gold Records” was one of our family’s first LP’s. This newly produced version from the “Viva Elvis” show made one of my favorite Elvis tunes one of my... even favoriter!

03. Our Lips Are Sealed – Jane Wiedlin of The Go-Go’s This song reminds me of my family’s annual treks to Disneyland in our tan station wagon. This particular version is fun also because it’s acoustic and I LOVE acoustic versions of songs!

04. An American Dream - The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band & Linda Ronstadt This song reminds of me of my newspaper delivery days. Being driven around in a van by our district manager and being dropped off in the ghettos of Salinas to try and sell newspaper subscriptions door-to-door. It’s where I learned what the sign, “No soliciting” meant. But when we sold enough subscriptions, we got to go on a trip to Disneyland! So the ends justified the means. It’s also a great intro to the “Yacht Rock” genre of music if you’re not a convert already.

05. A Little Respect – Erasure As far as concerts go, I’ve seen Erasure four times and Yaz once. Their common link: Vince Clarke. He also founded Depeche Mode. We became friends when he married the twin sister of one of my old writing partners.

06. Cool Rider – Michelle Pfieffer I believe it was Drew Barrymore in “My Date With Drew” who said, “There are two types of people in the world. Those who love Grease 2 and those who hate it.” Eye heart G2. Which camp are you in?

07. All Shook Up – Suzi Quatro “Happy Days” was one of my favorite TV shows growing up. When I moved to Los Angeles, the first CD that I purchased at the Tower Records on Sunset Blvd was a Japanese import of Suzi Quatro’s Greatest Hits.

08. Time To Change - The Brady Bunch Season 5. Episode 1. Adios, Johnny Bravo. “Nuff said.

09. Sweet Caroline - Neil Diamond Besides being the ultimate singalong karaoke selection, this song reminds me of my college days when I pretty much lived off of my father’s gas card and had to sell my CD’s for money.

10. Heavenly - Harry Connick, Jr. Being a romantic at heart, “When Harry Met Sally” became like a relationship guide to my romanticized Hollywood movie life (which, like Hollywood, was empty and based on non-realistic expectations). And with that, came my love and appreciation for the music of Harry Connick Jr. who did the soundtrack. During my choral years, I realized that I was not a soloist, but a blender. So, in college, I was in short-lived, 8 person acapella group so I could fulfill that dream.

11. Send In The Clowns - Frank Sinatra I saw Frank Sinatra sing at the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts back in the early 90’s. This is one of the few songs he recorded with an introduction (the way he did with every song he performed at the concert) giving Frank’s interpretation and motivation for why he’s singing the song. I also remember walking into my apartment and seeing my roommate sitting on the couch, crying, listening to this song, after he broke up with his girlfriend.

12. Someone You Need - Howard Jones & Duncan Sheik My wife, Mary, has the same birthday as Howard Jones, so she has an affinity for his music. We went and saw his acoustic tour and this song stood out as one that we had never heard but instantly fell in love with.

13. Feels Like Home - Bonnie Raitt But wait! My life wasn’t always about being sad! This song opens up my wedding video. See! Happy! I love this song and the memories that it conjures up because it clearly describes the kind of emotions we felt on our wedding day. And now we work with Don Was, who produced the song!

14. We Three Kings - Spinal Tap Saw Spinal Tap play live at The Universal Amphitheater in the early 90’s. One of the highlights was watching Rob Reiner walk in from the back of the auditorium and joining the whole audience in chanting, “Meathead, Meathead...”

15. Seasons of Love – The Broadway Cast of “Rent” I grew up listening to movie versions of Broadway soundtracks because I lived in Salinas, CA and didn’t have access, or money, to see a Broadway show. When I got to college, I got a May Co. credit card because they had a little known Ticketmaster booth in the basement of the store. I would frequent there often to get tickets to everything I could run up my credit to see.

16. My Shot - Lin-Manuel Miranda Lin-Manuel Miranda is amazing. ‘Nuff said. Okay, I can say a little bit more. My daughter introduced me to the music of “Hamilton.” As my kids were growing up, I often tried to influence their musical tastes by curating the music in our car or at home. This was the first time the roles were reversed and I actually ended up LOOOOVING her recommendation.

17. Come Thou Fount Of Every Blessing - Sufjan Stevens Besides being an awesome hymn, this song was used in one of my most favoritest TV shows of all time, “Friday Night Lights.” Season 4, Episode 1, at the end of a game (which they eventually forfeit) when Coach Taylor walks to each injured football player in the locker room. So good.

18. It's Such A Good Feeling - Mr. Rogers When I was in Kindergarten, school got out at 11:30 AM. After which, I would walk several blocks home alone, and wait on the front lawn until about 12 or 12:30 for my dad to come home and let me into the house to give me lunch. After we ate, he would sit me in front of the TV and he would go back to work. I was supposed to wait until my brothers got home around 3. But until then, I would watch PBS which consisted of Mister Roger’s Neighborhood, Villa Allegre, and Reading Rainbow. When I was in college, I wrote a letter to Mr. Rogers thanking him for helping watch me after school during that time and he wrote me back a personal letter along with a signed photo that I have on my desk at work.

19. A Little Less Conversation (Live) - Mac Davis Mac Davis sang this song (which he wrote for Elvis) when he came in to record an episode of Johnny Bravo. This version contains the original lyrics that he wrote for Aretha Franklin.

20. Ripple - The Grateful Dead I consider the TV show “Freaks And Geeks” my number one most favorite TV show of all time. The producers used this song to end the entire series. The show inspires me to tell my most embarrassing stories because they’re one of the best ways to relate to others and connect.

WHAT A CARTOON! CLASS OF 1995

Have you ever pondered, "I wonder if they ever took a picture of all the people who created the 52 original shorts for the 'What a Cartoon!' show on Cartoon Network?"  Well, if that's you, (and it probably is since you're still reading this) then keep scrolling down to find out!

Now you're probably looking at the picture above and thinking, "That looks more like a class collage than a class picture." (Because it appears that I'm controlling the narrative here.)  Interestingly enough, because of the lack of a light source, it's even hard for ME to tell who was there and who wasn't!  But I CAN tell you that I was there standing in the back row.  (Special thanks to Mike Milo for saving this gem of a picture!)

The picture was taken (and Photoshopped) for the premiere of the second batch of 52 shorts that took place at the Academy Of TV Arts And Sciences back in 1995.  

As you probably know, before a show premieres on television, the publicity department of the network usually promotes said show through print and visual media, hoping to get people to tune in and watch.  

Back in the day, the publicity department at Hanna Barbera would either pull visuals from the show's model sheets, use an animation cel set-up from the show, or (for better or worse) put something together without consultation or approval from the production artists.  Below is a set of stickers used to promote the show where the network slapped pre-existing art on a generic background.  Not offensive and gets the job done, but when this happens, there are often tiny details that get overlooked.  Like giving Johnny a white t-shirt.  Or using early artwork for the Powerpuff Girls that are completely off model.   

Fortunately, we did get to participate in creating some original art to promote the show.  For example, the publicity department asked Pat (George and Junior) Ventura, Craig (Powerpuff Girls) McCracken, Genndy (Dexters Laboratory) Tartakovsky, and myself to create original art for a set of stickers. 

We even got to draw a mash-up for the side of a Fruity Pebbles box!

Ultimately, it's all good.  It gets people talking and brings awareness to potential viewers.  And most people often see these things and forget all the details that we, as creators, cringe over.  That is, until someone on the internet (like me) shares them again and points them out. 

20 Years of Johnny Bravo

As I write this, it will officially be 20 years to the day that Johnny Bravo premiered on the Cartoon Network! Yay! (insert virtual confetti throwing here)  

When I was in the middle of producing the first season, I hit a bump when I mistakenly forgot to add a piece of dialogue into the episode, "The Sensitive Male" during the final mix.  One of the animation producers at Hanna Barbera gave me some old school advice by telling me, "Don't worry.  It's just a cartoon.  It's for kids.  They'll watch it once, maybe twice, then go on with their life.  It's not the end of the world."  Mind you, the internet was in its infancy, DVD's were on the horizon, and the Cartoon Network was only available in a few million households.  Needless to say, his advice was right for the time, but ultimately off base.

Since then, I've received wonderful letters from children all over the world expressing their love for the show and drawing cute pictures of Johnny.

I've had the opportunity to hear wonderful stories from people who grew up watching the show, not just here in the states, but around the world.  From India to Portugal, Australia to Switzerland, I've heard Johnny speak in different languages (it's fun to hear the Japanese interpretation of a southern Elvis drawl).

I had a man come tell me that Johnny Bravo was the only show he used to watch with his father because it was the only show that made his dad laugh.  Another woman told me it was the favorite show of her autistic daughter who couldn't get enough of Johnny's voice (shout out to Jeff Bennett!).

So, I made a cartoon with a mistake.  I made a series with a slew of mistakes.  And they live on through reruns, DVD's, and the internet.  But if I've learned anything from Johnny Bravo, it's that you make your mistakes and you move on.  Maya Angelou said it best when she said, “I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

Right now, I'm directing on the upcoming series for Amazon, "Pete The Cat," which is being produced by Swampy Marsh (the co-creator of Phineas And Ferb) and based on the best selling children's books by James Dean.  So I'm still making cartoons.  And for that, I'm grateful.

And if you're reading this, thank you for being a part of this amazing journey.  I hope to continue making you feel joy through my work for years to come. 

FUNKY FUN THING # 9: "ROCK ME AMADEUS" MATCHBOOK

For this month's post, I continue my list of "Seemingly Ordinary Things From My Personal Collection That Have A Story Behind Them And Pertain To My Career In Animation" (or SOTFMPCTHASBTAPTMCIA for short) (or "Stories About Funky Fun Things" for shorter).  If you love 80's music, then you'll know why I love this totally funky fun thing: 

It's from an actual night club (which I believe is closed now) located in Seoul, South Korea.  I paid a visit there in 1996 with my producer, Kara Vallow and our overseas director, Bob Arkwright.

FUN FACT: The owners of the club thought that Bob was actually Chris Slade (the drummer for AC/DC) and insisted that he visit them the following night to perform with their house band.  

As much as we tried to convince them of the truth, they persisted in their belief and wouldn't believe anything we were saying.  So to preserve their dignity, we caved and went along with the charade, telling them that Bob would stop by later that week to jam with them.  Of course he didn't.  So if you're reading this, and you're one of the former owners of the Rock Me Amadeus club in the area of It'aewon in Seoul, Korea, now you know.  And knowing is growing. If you’re unfamiliar with Falco, then watch the video here.

So.  Now that you're all indoctrinated in the cult of Falco, I hope it helps you understand why the 80's were such a fun time in music history and why I tended to hire certain 80's artists to sing on Johnny Bravo.  For example, we had Rick (Jessie's Girl) Springfield and Maureen (Marcia Brady) McCormick performing a duet in the sound booth at Hanna Barbera from our first season episode, "Beach Blanket Bravo." Besides Rick, we also had Billy Vera of Billy Vera and The Beaters voice a land shark in that episode.  Also in the first season, we had the pleasure of having Chuck D from Public Enemy and Montell (This Is How We Do It) Jordan do voices in our episode, "Hip Hop Flop."

Mind you, not everybody was clamoring to work on our show.  We got a lot of responses like, "We respectfully decline" and "Unfortunately, we have a scheduling conflict." which is code for "Yeah, right!"  But even with the Debbie Downer agents, we still got a number of folks to come out and play in our sandbox which made the pimply-faced kid in me all giddy.

In our fifth season, we got a little bit more 80's flava when we hired Jimi Jameson of Survivor to sing an "Eye of The Tiger" parody during a training session with Mr. T in the episode "T is For Trouble."  We even got Sebastian Bach to perform a little ditty in our episode, "Johnny Makeover."  Both guys were fun to work with, but unfortunately we had to do a phone patch from another studio as neither of them were in Los Angeles when we needed them to record.  I remember debating with our writer, Craig Lewis and our producer, Diana Ritchey about which song we wanted Jimi Jameson to sing on cue to prove he was who he said he was.  I think we settled on a few bars of "High On You."  We weren't disappointed.

As I wrote in my last post, "Funky Fun Thing # 8," we created an episode that was a pseudo musical send-up of "Grease" and various 80's teen films.  But in that post, I didn't really elaborate on the process we went through to create the episode and its soundtrack.  

For example, the lead girl, Sandy, was designed by Vaughn Tada and Dan Haskett.  To give authenticity to the era, she was dressed to look a bit like Molly Ringwald while all the guys had swishy hair and, like Johnny's nemesis below, wore colorful wrestling pants.  

And as the pièces de résistance, we hired Vince (Depeche Mode, Yaz, Erasure) Clarke to complete the full 80's immersion. 

The first song in the show was a take on “Da-Doo” from “Little Shop of Horrors” but interpreted with the music stylings Vince originally used on “Only You” by Yaz.  The second song we did ended up being a take on the stylings of “Just Can’t Get Enough.”  And if that weren't enough, we got an even bigger treat when we got Richard Butler, the lead singer of The Psychedelic Furs, to record said last song.  Our working relationship consisted of me coming up with the words and images I wanted to convey for the song, Vince creating music and lyrics, me making changes (barely any!), and then him doing a final mix. 

As we created original musical cues to play throughout the show, Vince had me name songs that best conveyed the mood I wanted to set for the scenes.  Then I just sat tight and waited for him to do his magical musical thing.  I remember that it was like Christmas every time I got an email from him with a new track. So if you listen carefully to the background music, we took inspiration from songs by artists like Human League, Howard Jones, OMD, Spandau Ballet, ABC, and the reason why I'm writing this blog, Falco.    

(Rather than repeat what I've already posted, you can click here to see a picture and read an anecdote about the voice recording session with Tony award-winning actress, Lea Salonga.)

So until next time, do yourself a favor and go listen to some 80's music today.  It's good for the soul.  Especially Rock 'N Soul Part I. (bad 80's insider humor)

MEMORIES OF ED BENEDICT

I wrote the following article in October of 2000 for a zine called Apatoons. It’s just my musings on the late Ed Benedict.

He also worked on my two other Johnny Bravo Specials after I wrote this article.

ED BENEDICT ON JOHNNY BRAVO

When I started Johnny Bravo I wanted to develop a classic Hanna-Barbera style for the show. Not the '70's or '80's "Push it through, it looks good enough" style that the studio was accustomed to, but the very stylized and minimal look that I found appealing. The one that was developed for Ruff and Ready and Yogi Bear. I asked my producer, Byron Vaughns, who we could talk to and he mentioned Ed Benedict. I pessimistically thought, "Yeah, right! Like, Ed Benedict would come out of retirement to design my show." Byron said, "Hey, it's worth a shot."

From there, I decided to do some homework on Ed Benedict. I knew that he designed all the major H-B characters but that was about it. Surprisingly, when I asked people around the studio about him, they questioned my wanting to approach Ed Benedict for anything. I was told by several artists and production people that he was a crabby old man who doesn't like to be bothered. They said that he was difficult to deal with and that if I wanted to learn about his artwork that I should just watch the cartoons he worked on and study his model sheets. It was interesting because all these comments came from people who hadn't really dealt with Ed on a one-on-one basis. The only one who could really say anything about him from first-hand experience was Joe Barbera, and he told me that he's the main man to go to if I can get him.

Fortunately for me, the Animation Art department was still in the studio and they had recently dealt with Ed. I knew that they could give me the real answers about the Ed Benedict of today. Mike Ryan, the head of the department, told me that all the stories I've heard about him are true. Ed is a crabby old man who left Hollywood because he hates it. But he also told me that he likes when people visit him and that he still knows how to work a pencil. Then he showed me some of the line art that Ed had recently drawn for them. I was amazed at how clear the composition was and impressed that his linework was the same as it was all those years ago. I had recently gotten a drawing from Joe Barbera and noticed that there was a slight deterioration in his drawing skills. Since they were both in their late eighties, I assumed Ed had also lost a bit of his craftsmanship, but apparently it was still there. From that point on, I was determined to use Ed Benedict and all the rest of the old school H-B guys in one way or another on my show.

Meanwhile, Byron had gotten Ed on the phone. It seems that Ed gave up working in animation because he didn't need the money or the stresses of deadlines. Besides that, he's retired! Fortunately for us, from Byron's conversation, Ed agreed to talk to me and my designers, Miles Thompson and Julian Chaney, about the art of animation. Over the course of a couple of weeks, Ed would call us up and discuss animation but, in his words, "it's like trying to tell you about a pretty girl. No matter how much you describe her, you'll never know how stunning she is until you can actually see her." That prompted me to ask our head of production, Sherry Gunther, to pay for me and one of my designers to fly up and see Ed for a drawing lesson. It was a long shot, but it worked. The next thing I knew, Julian Chaney and I were flying up to Carmel to spend a day with Ed Benedict.

We arrived at his home and were kindly met by him and his wife, Alice. Entering into his kitchen, I saw my first bits of Ed Benedict artwork. He had created about twelve different rabbit sculptures, all made from different things from wood and clay, to paper clips and rocks. Alice told us that he made one every year for Easter. Next he took us past his retro looking family room to his back room working space. As we complimented him on his home decor, he proudly said, "Notice how I don't have any animation artwork on my walls except for this drawing." He then pointed to a framed drawing of Betty Boop given to him by Grim Natwick. "Now he was a good man and a great artist."

From there, Ed told us that he didn't understand why we kept asking him if he could help us figure out the "Ed Benedict" style. To him, there was no "Ed Benedict" style so it urked him that we even made a comment like that. He then proceeded to pull out his sketchbooks from the 1930's. (That right there was worth the trip.) He showed us all the different things he liked to doodle and explained how he doesn't like to dictate the way his art comes about. He also talked of how he dreamed of being a set designer and showed us sketches of sets on the MGM lot that he did during his breaks. He also had landscape paintings, caricatures, horticultural and architectural studies, and most of all, studies discerning composition of shapes within space. From there, he began to draw with that concept in mind.

We were there for hours as he took our development drawings and transformed them into works of art. It was a once in a lifetime thing to have Ed Benedict talk in abstracts and then watching these concepts flow from his pencil. The worst part about it was that he kept drawing over everything he did and then ripped it up when he was finished. By the end of the day, I had grown an appreciation for the art of animation. I had learned more in those couple of hours than I ever had before or since. I had also made a new friend and mentor on my journey through the world of animation.

After that meeting, Ed agreed to do some conceptual design for my show. As long as he didn't have a deadline. He also made it a point to let us know that he wasn't doing it for the money because he didn't need it. I like to think he did it because of the camaraderie between the two of us. Each delivery he made was like getting a Christmas present in the mail. I remember looking forward to his deliveries and the follow up calls to discuss why he did what he did. I felt like the luckiest kid in school because I got one of the greatest animation legends to come out of retirement to work on my production. It was a dream come true.

One of the funnest things about visiting Ed was going through his personal file cabinet of every single piece of artwork he's ever done. He kept all his drawings because people kept asking him for the same designs for animals and people over and over. Knowing full well that he hates having people copy his stuff, I was pleasantly surprised when he allowed me to take selected files of his original artwork to Kinko's and photocopy them for reference purposes. The best part was that he allowed me to make beautiful color copies of his development artwork from "Invitation to the Dance" and "Dixieland Droopy." All that he asked was that I not make any more copies of his material for other people to steal. I can now look at his artwork and study it in ways I could never have without Ed's thoughts and words.

I went and visited him by myself two other times during the course of my show and about three or four times socially after that. Each time I went, I tried to spend a full day with him. Each time I learned a little bit more about Ed as an artist and as a person.

He has a deep love and passion for the art of animation and is saddened and angry of its demise since the golden age. He sketches with a pencil that is not in existence anymore. He loves drawing Vegas showgirls. He doesn't think Pebbles is designed to go with the rest of the Flinstone family (he didn't do that design). He holds his pencil between his third and fourth finger. He loves classic Disney and UPA cartoons. He started Disney the same day as Fred Moore. He likes chocolate chip cookies. He only takes two or three puffs from his cigarettes. In between his cigarettes, he takes the gum out of his mouth, places it on a toothpick, and then puts it back in his mouth after he's done smoking. He's a pack rat. He loves to tinker on his organ and plays it every night before he goes to bed. He doesn't like to be bothered until after 11:30 in the morning and behind all his crabbiness is a person who just likes what he likes and doesn't give a damn about what anybody else thinks.

On one particular visit to Ed’s home, I was leafing through a stack of old drawings he had done.  Somewhere in the middle of the stack, Ed had me stop on a specific drawing.  It was a sketch he had done on an old magazine page.  I looked at it with the artist’s eye that Ed had taught me to use and was ready to tell him what I saw.  I was ready to give him a compliment on his use of positive and negative space.  I was ready to comment on his use of straights versus curves.  I was ready to show him that all the things he had shared with me had sunk in.

“You see that drawing?” he asked.

“Uh huh.”

“Feel that paper.  I saw that in a magazine and had to draw on it.”

FUNKY FUN THING #8: METAL "GREASE" BELT BUCKLE

If you were born somewhere in the 90's or later, you might not be aware of a time where everyday people attached "works of art encased in metal" to the front of their belts and passed it off as fashion.  (I'm talking about "everyday people" as it relates to myself in the suburbs of Southern California where belt buckles are not the norm.)

Anyhow, the latest "funky fun thing" in my collection as it relates to my work is:

I freely admit that I am a lover of musicals.  Even in Junior High and High School, when it was odd for a guy to love "The Sound Of Music", I lived my life like a Broadway trope, singing wherever I could and dancing to the inner beats in my head.  It's the reason I joined the church choir and the local community show-pop-jazz group, "The Steinbeck Singers Unlimited" (which is a whole other post in and of itself).

In fact, when I first moved down to Los Angeles, I made it a point to visit two distinct "Grease" sets: the drive-in theater (where I sang "Sandy" while swinging on the swing set) and Venice High School where the majority of the exteriors were filmed.

"Tell me more, tell me more... Where'd you get those fluorescent shorts?"

Johnny definitely carried the Danny Zuko torch with his stereotypical macho personality which overshadows the fact that, at their core, they're both loyal and good natured.

As you might imagine, it was an ongoing goal of mine to figure out how to do an homage to "Grease" in our show.  It took a while but, by the time we got to our fifth season, I finally figured out how to accomplish this goal.

My big idea was to have Little Suzy find Johnny's old yearbook and discover that Johnny was "a ninety-eight pound weakling" in high school.  From there, the episode would be about how Johnny became buffed to win the hand of his high school crush through a flashback story set to 80's music (not 50's music because we didn't want to make him that old!).  I had to do a number of rewrites to the outline because the network was worried that the episode was going to be too serious.  After all, the show was about high school heartbreak and unrequited love.  What's not funny about that?

FUN FACT: The Doo Wop Singers for the episode were Cat Cavadini, Tara Strong, and Lea Salonga.  Yes!  That's right!  The Filipino Tony Award winning actress, Lea Salonga!  She did an amazing job harmonizing with Blossom and Bubbles as sort of the fourth "unofficial" Powerpuff Girl.  Did I mention that Tom (Biff Tanner) Wilson was also there?  (What?!  Mic drop!)  It truly was a pleasure to be at this record.  If you scroll back to my "Number 3 Funky Cool Thing" you can see the cast photo.

So for all you folks whose names are signed "Boogedy boogedy boogedy boogedy Shooby doo-wop she-bop," enjoy this cruise down memory lane.

And for those who know nothing about the subliminal "John Travolta" repeated over and over in the "Grease" soundtrack, ask me about it the next time you see me and we'll talk...