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...

VOICEOVER AUDITIONS

HAPPY NEW YEAR!  (I hope you can tell by the all caps font that I say those words joyfully and emphatically.)

I wanted to start off the new year with a new post.  Something useful to the reader.  But since every person has different interests, and you can't please everyone, I'm devoting this post to the up-and-coming voice actors in the house.  So if you're an up-and-coming voice actor AND you're a reader, then today is your lucky day!

The fact is, it's almost impossible to tell what a person looks like by the sound of their voice.  I remember doing a USO visit and a woman yelled out, “What?  Who are you?”  I explained to her that I was the creator of Johnny Bravo and she said, “Oh no you're not.  Now just turn around and tell the REAL creator he can come on in!”  We playfully went back and forth, but she was convinced that I was supposed to look and sound like Johnny.  She liked my impression of him, but I couldn’t help but feel that I disappointed her by not being tall, blonde, and buffed.

If you're an actor who wants to get into voice acting, it's not enough to be the guy/girl in your circle of friends who does funny voices.  So you do a great William Shatner?  The truth of the matter is, the producers are probably going to hire the real Shatner over you.  There's so much more that an actor needs to have in his/her arsenal if he/she wants to stand out amongst the regular professionals who do this full-time and are constantly honing their craft.  When we're auditioning actors, we listen to hundreds of voices.  We know after only a few seconds whether or not an actor has the chops to handle a character for multiple episodes.  So what does an actor need to do to stand out amongst the other hungry actors?  Well, that's a whole other master class in and of itself.  But here's my two cents...

I just finished teaching a character design course at Loyola Marymount University, and part of the course was a field trip to the Walt Disney TV Animation Studios.  While we were there, we met with the wonderful (and I'm not just using that adjective because it's synonymous with the World of Disney) Dave Wright, the Executive Director and Head of Casting for Disney Television Animation.  He meticulously walked my students through the casting process from voice auditions to recording.  While showing the students how to audition and direct, he did an excellent job of articulating how painstakingly hard it is to be an actor in the field of voice work.

Much to Dave's credit, he was able to recreate the feel during a voiceover recording so the students could take what they've learned in the classroom and see how it compares to what folks are doing on a professional level.  Needless to say, it was a priceless piece of the educational pie.  Many DVD's have extras that show you what it's like in the sound booth, but nothing compares to listening to the mistakes, the retakes, and the decisions that actors and directors make in the thick of things.

Jeff Bennett smiling from the other side of the booth at Studiopolis in North Hollywood, 2009

It’s an absolute skill to be able to come in cold and read a page of sides and really nail the character.  I feel for each and every actor going into the booth, thinking that they have a shot at impressing the producers and directors.  Unfortunately, 9 times out of 10 they’re totally off.   Which is good news to some actors and bad news for others.  The thing that actors need to know is that they are coming in to solve the producer’s problem.  And believe you me, we REALLY want every person that walks through the casting door to succeed.  What we want is someone to match or exceed the expectations that we’ve already put down to paper.  Unfortunately, the agents think that just because a person looks the part, they obviously should be able to act the part.

At auditions, I usually sit to the side and stare at a drawing to really see if the actor’s voice has merit and matches the character.  Often, a person comes in who looks the part, but after hearing them, I can tell that they're anything but.  One time, a guy came in who had some really odd beats of silence, which made me curious as to what was going on in the booth.  Sure enough, he was acting and getting into character amidst those beats of silence.  I watched as he made faces and contorted his body to embody the character, but then when I turned away, his voice came out flat and dry.

The saddest part for me is when veteran actors come in deflated.  I can recall one particular instance when a really talented guy (I’m sure if I said his name you could name a number of roles he’s played over the past few decades) entered already thinking he wasn’t going to get the part.  I’d been in the booth with him before and he was always fun and witty, but this time he lacked any kind of life in his reading (at least any kind I was used to).  In the end, he was better than most, but not quite what we were looking for.  But it made me think, how many auditions does he do every week?  And out of those auditions, how many gigs does he actually get?

I’m guessing that most actors get passed on more than they get booked.  There are a select few that are constantly working, but for the most part, many of these “voice actors” end up falling by the waste side.  And I don’t blame them.  I would have a hard time going to audition after audition, being judged and berated, with the hopes that I might book a gig.  I would go mad.

Hopefully you're not left thinking, "Why is Van posting such a downer at the start of the new year?"

Well, there's some good news that goes along with this. (Thank you, Van!)

There are a lucky few that make the cut.  There's always someone new that breaks through all the mucky muck that holds others back.

The other side of the recording booth at Hanna Barbera.  From left: Kara Vallow, Ed Collins, Bodie Chandler, Maureen McCormick, 1997

Basically, what I want to say in this new year is, keep trying.  Keep working on your craft, hone your skills, and study.  Take classes.  Do regional work and make your mistakes where it's not on a national or international stage.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg.  Honestly, if you really want to hear stories from the trenches, (mind you, this is not a paid plug, but he's a good friend) I would listen to Rob Paulsen's Talkin' Toons podcast.  You can get all the episodes on iTunes.  It really goes into detail about voice acting and directing.

I hope to see y'all and work with you in the booth someday.  Good luck!

CN TWENTY

“What’s so special about October 1st?”

It’s the 275th day of the year (except on leap year).

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, actress Julie Andrews, and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court William Rehnquist were all born on this day.

In 1962, Johnny Carson hosted his 1st Tonight Show.

In 1972, nothing really happened. It fell on a Sunday.

In 1982, EPCOT Center opened in Orlando, Florida.

In 1992, The Cartoon Network premiered on basic cable! (as if that weren’t the point of this post.)

If only Jimmy Carter, Julie Andrews, and William Rehnquist had formed a supergroup to combat the forces of evil, the world would be a better place today.  Sadly, the three never crossed paths simultaneously.

Above is a picture of Ted Turner at the launch of the network 20 years ago today.  I like how he wore sunglasses that were tinted the same color as Fred Flintstone’s garb.  Coincidence?  I wouldn’t put it past him.

So if we were to step into Mr. Peabody’s Wayback Machine, we would discover that the Cartoon Network first opened with an introduction by Droopy. After that, the very first cartoon that they played on-air was “Rhapsody Rabbit.” 

This year, to mark the occasion, the network commissioned the London-based design shop, I Love Dust , to create “an epic 2 minute music video feature original music by Mad Decent and nearly 100 of our favourite Cartoon Network characters from over the years.”  All I have to say is, “I heart it lots!”

It’s always fun seeing Johnny Bravo hanging out with other cartoon characters.  Especially when they’re dancing!

So Happy Birthday Cartoon Network!  I guess next year you can legally drink.  Or adopt a child.  Just try not to do both at the same time.

JOHNNY BRAVO AND MICHAEL JACKSON

With the anniversary of Michael Jackson's passing coming up, I thought I'd dedicate this post in his memory.

I'm always curious as to what goes in to making a character a character. Like "Why does Donald Duck have a temper?" or "Why does Indiana Jones use a whip?" or "How come I loved Eliza Dushku on Buffy the Vampire Slayer but couldn't love her in Dollhouse?" There's a certain chemistry that creators and writers and actors and environments concoct that is such a wonder. Even when creative folks are fortunate enough to concoct the "lightning in a bottle," it's a struggle to maintain it. One can only hope to ride the wave the best they can and tap the bottle as often as possible before it escapes.

By no means can I lay claim to have created an amazing character or even have the answers on how to do it. My angle is my own individual "how and why?" How does a character come about? How do you make him believable? Why do you choose these traits or this design style? Where are you in this character?

People often say, "Write what you know." When I created Johnny Bravo, I tapped my 24 years of existence to create a character that I liked and made me laugh. Like all the other directors in the "What A Cartoon!" program at Hanna-Barbera, I was encouraged to tell my story using my own unique point of view. And my own unique point of view involved doing a mash-up of Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson, Arthur Fonzarelli, Luke (Dylan McKay) Perry, The Dover Boys, my friends obsessed with working out, my friends who had an active social life, and my own frustrations with popularity, insecurities, and relationships.

Which is a nice segueway into Michael Jackson's influence on Johnny Bravo. It's no secret that I pretty much used Michael Jackson as the impetus for using whip snaps and cracks whenever Johnny strikes a pose. As you can see in the excerpt from Captain Eo below, it's done to make a point, or rather, an exclamation mark so that each movement has a purpose...

Michael made strong silhouettes and powerful lines whenever he hit a pose. Often times when I draw Johnny Bravo, I use pictures of Michael Jackson (along with body builders and fashion models) as inspiration. He was a huge part of my life growing up and I'll always be grateful for his influence on the creation of Johnny Bravo. I remember growing up, knowing that Michael was a Jehovah's Witness, and thinking that there's a possibility that he might one day come knocking at our front door. And what would he be wearing? Obviously, he never came, but I just read that Prince is also a Jehovah's witness, so a knock at our front door from an 80's icon is still in play.

FUN FACT: Michael Jackson and Joe Barbera were good friends and developed a show together which was loosely based on The Prince and The Pauper. Mr. Barbera showed me the designs that were done by Iwao Takamoto back in the early nineties. Unfortunately, it never got past the development stage.