Monday, June 30, 2014

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.

Thursday, June 26, 2014

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
(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!

Monday, June 23, 2014

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
(Hi Isaac! Hi Debbie!)

But I recently stumbled on some
more pics that
 sooper-powered
product designer
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.








Thursday, June 19, 2014

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


Here he is in shock 
at one of our commercial project's
impossible deadlines:



Here's designer
drawin'
Pycho Trainer
shoes:


Assistant animator
getting his
fiber on 
for a
Fiber One
commercial:


Animator
haunts
one of my earliest mentors
Bryon Moore:



JJSP
Production Queen
Irene
"don't do that, do this"
Cerdas


Animator/Designer
designing some 
Beavis and Butthead:


We helped 
intern
realize that animation is a job
reserved for
dummy heads.


talent for growing facial hair
was trumped only by his 
talent for getting done whatever needed to get done:



Animation
production workhorse
 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:
Third row:
Dick Rauh, Dorky McDorkenstein, Janet Benn, Bill Lorenzo

Those were fun days
back in NY!

Monday, June 16, 2014

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
all done by
sooper paint-powered










It's funny looking at these
since so much changed when we went to series!



Thursday, June 12, 2014

HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON 2 SCREENING



Perhaps you heard 
whisperings 
of the
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!