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Tooning In. 23 Greg Bailey Part 9 of 10

DL:So,what was Anatane Saving the Children of Okura because I don't know what that series is?

GB:I don't think many people know because it hasn't really aired much outside of France and Belgium. But it was a pretty interesting and nice looking sci-fi series. It was made in French and dubbed to English. It was a strange series because they made half the series 10 years before I worked on it , but the company went out of business or ran out of money and they stopped. When I worked on it it had been refinanced and they redid the original episodes in HD and then did the remaining 13 shows. The original was done in standard definition but they had kept the animation which they could then colorize and extend the BG's to fit the new format. It was a 2D series of 26 episodes and it had a mix of some 3D characters and spaceships mixed in. It was a post apocalyptic story and was a continuous story for the series. It really looked great but it never really sold. I was the third director of the series so it wasn't my creation. It was produced in Montreal at ToonCan.

DL:Ah, so there are animation studios that are not focused on CGI or video games.

GB:the animation was produced overseas on this show. It was just the pre prod and post prod that was done at ToonCan. They aren't usually in production on animation. It was kind of a one off production for them. They mostly do live action and film services contracts.

DL:So your most recent show, Saving Me for Brigham Young University and Sphere (formerly Oasis) Animation. How was working on that show and your relationship with the University?

GB:I got along well with the BYU people. I know it was connected to the university but it was more like working with the online network BYU TV. It was a pretty intense and complicated show that was developed at BYU where they used students to do design for the series bible and sort of main characters and some backgrounds. We started that show production during the covid lock down period so everyone was working for home at Oasis. It would have been better if we had at least got it going before the lock down. The experience with Oasis/Sphere was not so wonderful. They were going through a lot of changes at the time in management and producers and production managers were coming in and out of the show almost every month. So it was incredibly disorganized at the production level.

DL:Well did you like the series concept?

GB:The concept was pretty good I thought. Some things were kind of complicated or maybe too subtle to understand for the audience. I'm thinking about how the 2 Bennet characters could not touch or even do a high 5 in the present day world but they could contact in certain places like the island or the Unicorn world. It was clear in my head at one point but hopefully the audience understood. Also things like we didn't want the audience to know that the mother was actually the helmeted secret saviour that kept appearing to fight the bad guys. It had to be a secret until a certain episode but I was never sure that was successful or even a big surprise for anyone. The overall message of going back in time and trying to right your wrongs from the past was fine. It was a show about redemption so it's a pretty universal theme.

DL:Ah, will you return to do season two of the series?

GB:No definitely not. It didn't end well for me with the new company Sphere. I didn't even make it to the end of the 20 episodes we did. I believe they are already writing and have a contract for the new series. Much of the work will be moved out of Montreal this next time.

DL:Inhouse at Utah right?

GB:No that wouldn't happen. They don't have the people in Utah to do a show that is difficult or perhaps any series. Sphere is mostly in the province of Ontario, so I expect it will happen in Toronto and Ottawa most likely. A lot of people work at home anyway so maybe it isn't as important as it once was to have people in one place.

DL:The Tuttle Twins show is being done in Utah. https://youtu.be/Kt-QIflZTik?si=OU62-NKNn2BT-VSQ

I show him the first episode of the Tuttle Twins animated series, When Laws Give You Lemons

Crowded funded too! So, Utah is capable of producing animation inside America with outsourcing.

GB:wow I never saw it before. Well that's great. And they said they made it without tax dollars. What is the animation company called? Well maybe they could animate it there instead of Sphere though I think they announced it was starting again soon over there.

DL:Angel Studios, they make their stuff using crowdfunded money, they also made the hit Jesus show, The Chosen. Which is on every streaming service and also broadcasting on the CW!

GB:I haven't seen the Jesus show or the Chosen show. They both sound kind of Christian oriented but it is a Utah company.

DL:So, have you done anything since Saving Me?

GB:After Saving Me I did the job at Bento Box on Housebroken but I haven't done anything big since then. I started teaching a few years ago starting in 2019. It's just about a month a year all together and I do it in Tianjin,China.

DL:Oooh! So how's China?

GB:It's big and there are a lot of people there. I am just sort of scratching the surface a little there. I had previously been in Nanjing for Arthur for a few weeks and I've been in Hong Kong back in the 80's but I seem to just work all the time when I go to teach. It's really fun teaching at TUT university. The classes are huge . Around 75 students in the class. The students are really kind to me. Maybe too nice sometimes. They bring me cakes and candies and other small gifts a lot.

DL:Weird? You think it's because they like you or you're what they think of as an American?

GB:I think it's a gift giving culture so they like to keep me happy and it gives them a chance to speak to me directly and even practise some English. Someone gave me a really cute hairbrush last year but that's just because my hair is always kind of unruly. One time someone said I looked tired and should take care of my health more and not work all night. It's really the jet leg killing me. They say they like me on the teacher reports that I asked to see last year. I imagine they are reluctant to say anything too horrible though unless I really mess with someone. I don't do that anyway.

DL:So how was the city you were teaching?Did it look nice?

GB:Tianjin is fairly generic looking of a city I find. It has really big roads everywhere and everyone lives in high rises. There are very few 2 story buildings. It doesn't look old at all. There are a few ancient temples or buildings that are historic but not much. It's flat and not very interesting looking. My boss at the school here joked that it's a smallish city in China . There are only 15 million people there. It was less than an hour away from Beijing so you can go there and back in a day. I visited The Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square one time. The course is kind of difficult for the students. I teach story development and story boarding courses. They have to design and write and come up with a 1 minute film with dialog and timed out as an animatic all in 2 weeks. Then we screen the film on the last day.

DL:So, how were the films your students submitted?

GB:Pretty good in many cases. It's hard to get students to do films that make sense for one thing and it's even harder to get something that is fresh and not just something we've seen before. I am supposed to push this aspect and I;m pretty well qualified to do that after directing maybe 6 or 700 shows in the past. A lot of the time they don't make sense when they first show me or it doesn't end logically. I don't allow the standard story like a guy gets sucked into his computer screen and fights a bad guy in a video game and then his mother calls him for dinner. The first year I saw a lot of variations on that. But what I'm trying to teach is how to come up with an interesting story. Generally my background is in comedy but it's funny in school that I get a lot of really sad tragic kinds of stories. Like 2 little girls growing up and they make little origami figures and one girl gets cancer and dies and the other one makes her an origami swan in her memory. Really sad stuff. I think I had 3 stories with someone dying in a hospital from some horrible event or disease. It's great but I was kind of surprised by it.

DL:Yeah, because Magna and Anime is kinda big in China. So you have to tell them to do something else.

GB:I don't mind manga and anime as long as it isn't just the same old story all the time and they add some kind of twist at the end and it's not entirely predictable or we've had that story before. Like we don't make Little Red Hood and it's just the usual Grimms fairly tale version. It has to have something new to it. In China it's common to do a story about a princess in olden times that wears a kimono and she has some kind of sword duel at some point. It's local folklore but it doesn't make a really interesting modern looking film and doesn't really interest anyone outside of that culture. I would like something more universal if possible.The drawing style is often very anime style so I have to make sure the hands are not too small and don't give the characters little mouths or eyes that are too small to read well on film. Or don't do too much insane detail on the character. Those ones always come out too stiff because you can't keep it moving when you need to draw all that detail. Anyway yeah there are a lot of things that need to be taught each year. It's maybe too much to teach with the short time I have. I try to go with things that show modern film style techniques and even the old standard things like montage and flashback and stuff that helps move the story faster. Most initial stories have too much story to fit in one minute. The same thing happens here though.I am also teaching them how to use Toonboom Storyboard pro so that we can make an animatic at length and with dialog. They've never used it before and so I do a few basic tutorials like how to add sound and do the pans and zooms and transitions. It all takes time and we usually have some technical difficulties

DL:Did you like the food there? I assume you already eat Chinese food.

GB:Yeah the food is great and plentiful. I always need to slim down when I get back. I eat at the hotel each morning and they have a huge buffet and at lunch my teaching assistant takes me to one of the student cafeterias. That's kind of hit or miss but always interesting to see what you will end up getting. But it's always more than anyone can eat. They throw away a lot of food in China at the end of meals. Like enormous garbage bins that are totally full of uneaten food at the end of lunch hour. We were laughing last year about how our mothers would always say to eat your supper because kids go without food in China. We try to go out for some good meals at night but usually the jet lag has taken over by then and all I want to do is sleep. Then you wake up at 1 in the morning and are wide awake until the sun comes up.

DL:That Jet lag is Crazy man! Like how's the flight to China?

GB:Deadly. At best it's around 24 hours. On my way home last year it was like 32 hours with a big layover in LA but at a bad time of day. I was really happy at first last year because I had a row with only 2 people for 3 seats for the long segment of the flight. However the woman beside me coughed constantly the whole way. I don't know if she was dying or had covid or what but that was horrible. I should do a layover half way for a day or 2 next time. I am not really able to do that long flight anymore. The other thing is I have a 3 hour car ride at the end of the flight to get from Beijing to Tianjin.Now you are scaring me off of going. I try to block it out of my memory because it is the most unpleasant experience there is.

DL:Oh sorry.

GB:That's what I should be doing now actually. I have started some and never finished them. For 4 years about 10 years ago we would make films for a festival here called the M60. My wife and I would make a combination of live action with animation or whatever we could hack out in 4 weeks we had to do them. It had to be exactly one minute long and we usually had the best film in the group of 100 entrants for the festival. The organizers would stage a big party and screening at a fancy theater and do a screening. The usually sold out big venue for 3 or 4 nights to run the films. I'll send you a link for one of them that I have on YouTube. They are pretty crude but fun. Long ago I made a short for Unicef for the subject or Children and Land Mines that got screened when countries signed the Montreal land mine Treaty. Unfortunately things haven't worked out so well on that front.

DL:Ah, so where did you get your name for your company, Iron Aardvark Productions from?

GB:I set up my company back in 2011 and I was going from being on staff at Cookie Jar to being freelance at 9 Story. Hence the aardvark and the iron was just to show some strength and perseverance. It was a rip on Iron Giant. I made a logo with a giant aardvark made with iron for my signature and printed cards.

DL:Can I see your logo?

GB:sorry just trying to locate. a file I can load. just a minute, all I found was this rough for the design I made. The final one wasn't this messy. I tried a few variations like one that looked more like a Godzilla and such but I never really liked them much. Usually I use a cartoony running dog like character gif for my email signature and such.

He finally sends me the logo, which depicts an aardvark drawn over with metal wire connecting a bridge on the aardvark’s back.

DL:Wow! you can do Photoshop!

GB:I have this dog that is an animated gif that I use with my company email. I try not to use it all the time because it looks like each email has an attachment. Yeah on the aardvark I had traced that drawing and simplified some lines to make it line art. There was no photo underneath in the final line art. I just can't find a good clean version of that image. I do have it somewhere and I used it on a business card when people actually used business cards.

He then sends me the finally logo for his company, which features a more cartoony designed Aardvark inspired by the Popeye cartoon character, Eugene the Jeep.

DL:You like Popeye right?That looks like that Jaguar thing Popeye had with him.Jeep that's what it's called!

GB:Funny yeah I must have been channeling that from my subconscious. I was going to say his name was like Jeep or Cheap Jeep or something.

DL:So, do you think about making your own show? like selling it to a network?

GB:Yes I have and I have tried a number of ideas. I was close during Covid on a pitch for a series about Covid but it didn't happen and I didn't keep pushing it. They said I was shortlisted on getting it produced and they said I should try to sell it directly to the network but I must have got busy again with something. I have other ideas that I've written up and designed a set of characters for. I'm good at coming up with something interesting at the start and then losing my drive to finish something. I'm not great at promoting myself or selling so that scares me a lot. Currently I also have a writing pitch to do for a radio show type of audio story book. I just need to finalize the series outline I have started and send it to the publisher. I have writer's block on the moment but I should do that because it's not like a big tv series pitch. It also doesn't appear to pay very much.

DL:So, it's strange because you have 43+ years of experience and you haven't made or sold a show on your own.I thought Canada was open to all those animation ideas because of Canadian Content laws.

GB:Yeah I guess I am more of a soldier for other peoples armies.

DL:Question, what do you think about the Canadian animation industry now from the last 24+ years with the rise of Teletoon?

GB:That's an interesting point about Canadian content. Most of the companies here are relying on making money in the service industry doing shows for the US companies. When they do make a home grown show they are very generic as far as where the show is set or if it is even Canadian. Live action is a little different and there are shows that are definitely about a person in Toronto or Montreal but in animation not so much. Sometimes do a real cliche kind of thing about moose and beavers that I think are just an American view of what a Canadian should be so those are really disappointing.

DL:I mean how do you feel about Flash being the norm for animation in Canada replacing Hand Drawn animations? As that's what everyone thinks of Canada, Cheap Flash cartoons.

GB:I haven't watched Teletoon for a while. It was all looking like the same show in each series. I guess it has the problem I just described above. I would love to do a show that is Canadian and about Canadian interests or has some history or just Canadian perspective but I never see that. I did Arthur for years and we had what seemed like every nationality and religion in the world but WGBH was entirely against ever having a character that could have been French Canadian or a reference to Canada in any way. The show was popular here and we would slip in a few visual things that Canadians would pick up on like the Canada Post mailboxes or some well known buildings, but it had to be done under the radar . Considering the money the companies and government here put into the series it's kind of sad that we promoted only American culture and history to kids in Canada. TVO and CBC were major broadcasters for the series for most of the years the show ran. I feel like I spent my career making kids here know more about the neighboring country than their own. I don't see that Teletoon is changing that at all. It would be nice if they did make that happen. Realistically though it won't happen with them. If you just make a show for Teletoon the money is not enough to be significant and clearly if you made a show that was too specifically Canadian it may be hard to sell outside of Canada. I only see very few shows on Netflix that the story takes place in Canada or is about Canada. The only ones I can think of are acquisitions from CBC programs like Working Moms. However I do see a lot of shows set in Korea or Norway.I think the flash or more correctly the 2D digital shows since most are made in ToonBoom now, are happening here because of the US companies coming here to get the tax credit and the companies here relying on service work like that. There are a few exceptions but mostly there are a lot of low end 2D shows being made in Canada that come from the US. There are a few exceptions that are like hand drawn animation but are made in Harmony. I guess the term is Cut Out style animation which is the current flavour of Canadian made shows. WB made a show in Montreal at Tonic DNA that was a more traditional style of animation as opposed to cutout. It is funny that Arthur was just lovely in traditional animation and yet WGBH was really pushing to switch to Cut out because they liked Martha Speaks and could not see any difference. Eventually they won out in the push. I'm not sure you would find enough animators now if you wanted to do a traditional animated series in Canada or even in the States. But it could done over 5 years .

DL:Even though My Little Pony, Kid VS Kat, Jimmy Two Shoes and 6teen have excellent animation while using Flash, everyone thinks you guys do Total Drama and Johnny Test and stuff like that.Simply,Ugly, looking shows.

GB:Those are all cut out styles aren't they? So some are good and some bad. I liked F is For Family which was cutout. A proper story and dialog still makes a good show.

DL:Most stuff is being done now with CGI, with preschool and action series being the norm.You'll see these shows on like Netflix and Nick Jr or in Canada, CBC or TVO.

GB:The problem with cutouts is that it gets boring to look at because by its nature you are always looking at the exact same drawing. I think unconsciously the difference in even a close up face drawn traditionally is the same character but the slight difference makes it original. The brain picks up the difference even though it is not a huge difference. A cut out is a stamp and the brain recognizes it.Maybe the thing in Canada that is not great is that we are doing all the preschool stuff here. Most of it is terrible. The budgets are low and Canada has the capacity now to crank those out. The prime time shows are rarely done here and they have better budgets and higher expectations. The writing on the preschool shows is generally dreadful and unoriginal. AI will write those things soon I'm sure. 3D CGI is definitely taking over I would say. I also think the software for CGI is poised to really improve over the next few years in ways that 2D digital will not just because the software companies like Unity in 3D are investing much more than ToonBoom will ever be able to invest. There are too few 2D software companies compared to 3D. My wife was working at Unity until recently and a huge wave of improvement is coming in CGI. Are AI animation tools to improve animation even in the works at ToonBoom?

DL:idk. But don't forget the action shows made in Vancouver, written by Americans by Nerdcorp, DHX and Mainframe. Those shows always have higher budgets.

GB:CGI though right?

DL:Yeah, Netflix has to be thanks to the boom with Canadian CGI. Every CGI show on Netflix is done in Vancouver or Toronto.

GB:Was Carol and the End of the World CGI other than the vehicles? I remember wondering about if they were using Cutout for some of it or just making it look that way with CGI. It was another good show but adult fair and good writing and acting.

DL:It was Digital Cut Out too.

GB:Yes I thought it was a good mix of techniques.

DL:So, yeah in general animation in Canada is in a middle state, I just wish they do Hand Drawn once in a while.

GB:Toronto got really heavily into Flash back in the day and Vancouver went CGI. Montreal is almost all CGI, if you want hand drawn you have to watch NFB or ONF films. Though you could check out the series I mentioned from Tonic DNA. It was a Looney Tunes kind of thing. I was very active over animated hand drawn style.Maybe the new show I should keep developing should be hand drawn then. Except they will just write it off because I'm old. I'll find a 20 something to come and pitch it with me.

DL:Always get a new guy to come develop your projects, it works,Look at Chalkzone.

GB:Exactly!I learned something when we did the last seasons of hand drawn Arthur . It was in Nanjing. Hand drawn animation had been dying off quickly. We had trouble getting assistant animators. There are still old timer animators around in China but no asst. When I spoke to them over there it made sense. You can come out of school and do digital and you start as an animator . Traditionally you need to work 5 years as an assistant on average before you Exactly!

DL:Also Tumblr is a good way of finding talent.Lots of good artists are on there.

GB:I didn't know. I can try that. Maybe someone would like to work with me on something .

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Tooning In. 22 Ken Mitcherony part 2 of 4 (maybe, or alternatively about a half of Ken)

DL:So you went to Pixar in 1997, how was the studio?

KM:Rag tag bunch of creatives in a little warehouse in Pt Richmond. Perfect place for me.

DL:So did you meet John Lasseter, the man who made pixar? What was he like?

KM:I did. We worked together many times. He's a big creative kid like me so we got along.

DL:Many people say that he is kinda too touchy towards people,as he's known to be a hugger.Did he ever give you a hug?

KM:Hahaha. We were all huggers.I don't remember him being super touchy feely though.

DL:Ah, that's strange.

KM:Why's that?

DL:Well, he got fired in 2018 for that.Like Disney just gave him the boot.

KM:I guess they wanted to find a way to get him out of there. I've had people cut me when I got in the way. It's sad. I like John very much.

DL:I know, but he works at Skydance now. He made that new film, Luck. You saw that?

KM:I don't watch animation as a rule.

DL:Wait, you're saying you don't watch cartoons.....while you work on them?

KM:Yeah. It's like going to work. You can't shut it off.Constantly trying to fix it during and days after the movie.

DL:Going back a while in 1994, you worked for New World Animation on Fantastic Four and Iron Man as a storyboard artist?

KM:Yup. Just a few quick boards to keep the lights on. Like the Gargoyles gig.Most of the boards I did back then were bread and butter jobs.Just something between or during Ninja Turtle comic assignments.

DL:Fun Fact, You boarded the infamous Mole Man episode from Fantastic Four.

KM:HA! Infamous,whoops

DL:

Human Torch Song

www.youtube.com › watch

you boarded this sequence right?

KM:We split one script into two storyboard assignments so I'm not sure.I do remember working on the one where they were dressed as Roman shipboards. Ironman was a blur as was the FF. Get it in, get it done quick and get it out.Welcome to TV in the 90's!

DL:Well,how was it drawing realistic people for a change for these shows?

KM:It's fine. I always loved the comics and still do and as most artists do, had basic anatomy and figure drawing early on. Just another blade in my Swiss army knife of skills.

DL:So, Timon and Pumbaa for Disney?How was that?

KM:Great fun.Working with Jeff DeGrandis is always a fun ride and we are the noisiest kids in the room.He let me do whatever the heck I wanted and he knew he would get a well done and fun show at deadline.

DL:Wow! You met Jeff again on the Max and the Midknights project for nickelodeon right?

KM:Kamp Koral.

DL:oh, I didn't know he worked on that too!

KM:Yeah. He was on Spongebob before he retired.

DL:I didn't know that! By the way, I found the video from Fantastic Four.

I send Ken the Flame On sequence from the Fantastic Four episode “Mole Man”

KM:Nope. Not my part of the board. Sorry about that. Not infamous. Hahaha!

DL:Ah, must be another guy then.Ok, so back to Pixar, You were a character designer for Toy story 2.

KM:Early Head of story, Sr Story artist, designer and lots of other things. Back then, you did not sit around. They put you on everything.

DL:Wore many hats, did you!

KM:yup!

DL:So you designed Jessie, Bullseye and Stinky Pete right?

KM:Working on the design teams for these guys, Jill Colton came up with the final design for Jessie, Ash Brannon on Bullseye and Stinky Pete and Zurg was all mine.We all did a lot of drawing of these characters and the final designs picked were by them.

DL:That must be tiresome. As you're Drawing different versions of Characters and you know most of them won't be picked up!

KM:It's called evolution. All artwork in this business is disposable. If you come in and can't deal with that you need to stay out of it.

DL:Yeah, according to Disney animator Tom Bancroft, he said you shouldn't be too attached to a certain design that you get distraught when it gets rejected by executives.

KM:Truth.

DL:Have you ever had that happen to you?

KM:Not really. By the time I got into Animation I was well aware that my work was going to be creative toilet paper.

DL:All right, so at Pixar, did you work on the computer there?

KM:We have them in our cubes but we worked with Sharpie on pads of paper. The Joe Ranft way.But Steve Jobs kept us in new apple computers.

DL:Ah, so you were a computer animator?

KM:Nope.I was in the story department.

DL:oh just the story guy and freelance artist.

KM:Go back a few lines where I listed what I did.

DL:Hey, does story artist mean storyboarder the same way that Cartoon Network shows nowadays do as you write while you draw or is it just a fancy name for storyboarder in the animated feature film industry?

KM:That's about right.TV shows who have the story artist write as they draw is called a Story Driven show.Story Artist is for features.TV directors are now called Storyboard Supervisors.

DL:That's strange?

KM:It's the business.

DL:Man! The industry is changing!

KM:Every year since I got into it. Adapt or die.

DL:Haha! That's so True! (laughter is dry) So, you were a storyboard artist for A Bug's Life.What was that experience?

KM:I helped out very little.

DL:Only a few scenes here and there?

KM:Just some last minute storyboard work and coloring of boards. The Disney executives could not tell who was who so we had to help color the boards at the last minute for a screening.

DL:Wait,you color STORYBOARDS! I never knew that!

KM:Magic Markers and colored pencils back then, yeah.But only when something stupid like this happens.

DL:Yeah, That made no sense.Waynehead for Warner Brothers/Nelvana. You were a "story artist" for that series, as that was before you went to Pixar.

KM:Yeah. Another contract job.I think I worked on the Pink Panther around then too.After a while they all blended together.My pal Floyd Norman had the same thing to say in his documentary. Hilarious.

DL:Also, You're not Canadian as Waynehead was a Canadian series and it's against the law in Canada to have a large number of foreigners working on a Canadian production.As the show was co-produced by Canadian studio, Nelvana Limited.

KM:I was freelance and working out of my studio in Florida. So they could get around that.

DL:Ah, well that's strange. Did you get a check from Nelvana from your work that contained Canadian dollars?

KM:Warners. They contracted out the boards and Nelvana did the animation I believe.

DL:Oh, Makes sense. I almost got scared.I Am Weasel for Hanna Barbera, you were a storyboard artist.

KM:I was. Did that for my pals Dave Fiess and Richard Purcell. Great fun working with them.

DL:They were on Ren and Stimpy!Did you work on that show?

KM:I was offered the Job by John K but turned it down and went back to Florida to open my own studio. Richard and I started on Tiny Toons together and last worked together on Mighty Magiswords.

DL:Richard works on Spongebob now.

KM:And Dave and I last worked together on the movie Free Birds.

DL:John worked on Free Birds also.

KM:He's finished up at nick and has been teaching overseas.I think Richard’s back now though.

DL:Ok, The Lionhearts for MGM, you were storyboard clean up. How was the series and your thoughts on the idea of Leo the Lion raising a family?

KM:Oh man. All I did was fix a broken storyboard for my buddy Byron Vaughns on that one. I have no real connection or comment on the series.Another TV contract job.

[dalt20]

Tooning In. 21 Greg Bailey part 8 of 10

DL:So, you directed the controversial episode of Arthur, Mr. Ratburn and the Special Someone. Where Mr Ratburn marries a chocolatier. Many fans and parental/religious groups were upset at the episode and stated that Ratburn wasn't gay but an effeminate man (I.e. Metrosexual). What are your thoughts? And the process of creating the episode?

GB:Ratburn is most definitely gay and now he is married. There was always some discussion in the fan groups wondering if he was gay and we never addressed it one way or another. You remember we did that episode Sugar Time in the Postcards from Buster series where the kid being visited Buster lived with his 2 moms. Same sex marriage was already legal in Canada by that time so it was not really an issue here but that episode really blew up in the US. It cost the head of PBS kids her job. There were interviews all over the place in the Us about that show . I did an interview here with CBC news about it and at the end of the interview the reporter turned off the camera and said to me "It really isn't any kid of news issue here but we are covering the story because it was a big deal in the US." It was actually a local story since it was coming from Vermont and Montreal is kind of the local big city for that part of Vermont. Anyway 10 later and we were having the story meeting for the last season of Arthur. My main interest at that meeting was to try to wrap up all the questions that fans had and other loose ends that we had in the series after all those years. One of the things was that some people I know had suggested to me that Ratburn was gay. At the meeting I tossed out that idea of doing a show about Ratburn coming out and getting married. I really did not think the idea would get even the least amount of traction and it was almost a joke considering all the trouble we had been in for the Sugartime episode. Everyone kind of laughed when I pitched it but the producer Carol Greenwald immediately said " Sure we could maybe do that now if we were pretty careful with how it is handled/ " I think Peter Hirsch nearly fell off his chair when she said that. It was just agreed that time had changed even in the US by that point. I think that non gay parents and people that claim they are involved with a church need to get out more and see the real world. I mean there are an awful lot of kids out there that live with gay parents and up until then we never really gave them a nod even though we covered so many other social and health issues that kids are living with. We had a lot of positive feedback on that show from kids and parents. The kids still love their parents and television never really gives them examples of other kids living the same life they are totally familiar with. Everyone really liked working on the show including Arthur Holden who we worried might be bothered by it since he voiced that character all those years and he was never supposed to gay. But Arthur was immediately on board with it because he is quite open minded and saw it as big development for the character.

DL:How do you feel about the backlash from Alabama Public Television, who refused to air that episode alongside that Postcards from Buster episode, Sugartime?

GB:Well nobody in Alabama is gay. So I guess it's fine in that case. On the other hand I've heard Alabama is the gay capital of America.

DL:The irony there is amazing! How was 2018, When the series was ending? I heard that in 2019, you guys had a wrapup party celebrating the end of the show. How did you feel that the series was ending?

GB:For a lot of years I had heard that the show was going to end that season. Normally shows ended at 65 episodes when we started Arthur but we were winning Emmy's and a Peabody around that point. But I think every year after that the production company that was doing the show was pretty sure it would end that year. So finally Carol told me would end the show in that 25 season before we had our story meeting at the start of the season. Like I said I wanted to sew up the loose ends. I don't know why I was so concerned about that now but when your identity is so tied to your creative body of work like that series you get kind of obsessed with it. I probably should have quit before the end and gone onto something else because it was not as sharp as it once was and it never really looked the same once we went digital and each season brought one more thing that made it less good. Between changing production companies and animation methods and having less budget and schedule each year it was less interesting. Anyway, I didn't feel like I could leave the show before the bitter end because I wouldn't have directed every episode and special. I wished it had gone on a few more seasons but that is purely personal preference so I could finish up my career with it rather than trying to move on to something else. I realized that would be hard to do after directing such a well known show for so long. We did do a big wrap party at the end of the series. WE were still working on the last few shows at the time. It was a nice big party. Some of the people who worked on the show for a lot of seasons showed up so it was fun.

DL:So, How was the last episode, All Grown Up? Was it bitter sweet for you?

GB:It was funny that all through the season I kept saying that this was the last season and some of the older hands on the show would say that we said every year. So sometimes it was hard to get people to believe it. That last show was kind of sad to do for sure. We wanted to do something that was really big to actually end the series with a twist or a real cliff hanger. I keep thinking of the Bob Newhart series set in Vermont where he wakes up in bed and it was all a dream. The last episode was great though. Peter did a terrific job writing that last episode. Gerry Capelle, my main storyboard artist all those seasons did the storyboard and it was great as well. We still did the 2 specials tagged onto the end of the series and those were kind of drudgery when I think of them. It seemed like the crew was all leaving before they finished their job so I had to fill in a lot of missing pieces myself. We had missing designs and stuff. Some stuff was tedious though I guess I quickly learned how tedious some of the production had become and some of it was a good learning experience for using ToonBoom Harmony.

DL:Also how was bringing back the first voice of Arthur, Michael Yamurish to come back to play adult Arthur?

GB:That was fun. I had used Michael on some other parts over the years. Slink I believe. So I still spoke to him occasionally. When Peter wrote that ending with the kids being older I suggested we get Michael to do the role. It fit quite well there and made an interesting twist. It would have been great getting Michal Caloz to do DW but we had lost track of him after he moved to California about the same year he quit doing DW.

DL:So how was Marc Brown during this, What were his thoughts on the show ending? Did he say anything to you while directing or doing voicework in the booth?

GB:I imagine Marc was about the same as me though Arthur for him still continues after the series ends because he can keep making more books. I don't remember the voice session with him. Maybe he was recorded in NY or Boston. I forgot that he had a few lines of dialog in that show but it's true that he must have been in a booth somewhere. We often spoke during the course of the season about various things. He was also up at the wrap party at the end so we had some time to reminisce then. WE usually did the start of season story meetings at Marc's house or studio over the years. So we would touch base at various points. I even remember taking a quick swim in the ocean at his house at Martha's Vineyard one year. I didn't grow up near the ocean so I can never pass up a chance to do that even if it is a token swim.

DL:So, did you direct the Arthur PSAs that tackled Racism after the death of George Floyd in 2020?

GB:No I didn't.

DL:So that was done by a different person.

GB: It's the first time I heard of it.

DL:Which is strange because I thought you directed everything Arthur related

I show Greg the Arthur Short : Talk,listen and Act, which was not directed by him.

GB:Yeah I guess they found someone else. I see from what you just uploaded that all the characters are cross eyed. I just watched what you uploaded and it makes me kind of angry to watch it. The lip sync is terrible and the eyebrows are upside down a lot and they keep holding up their hands and pointing to the sky with their finger when making a point. WE even had a name for holding your hand up in the air like that . We called it "weighing air." It’s just a bad habit a lot of storyboard artists have that don't know how to make the characters act. If you watch most low end tv animation they do this all the time because they don't know even the basics of acting. We did our best to avoid the weighing air and pointing to the sky all those years. It looks really badly boarded and animated. It must have been done at Oasis from someone that doesn't know the show very well. They used the rigs from the series and reused some old back grounds. The cross eyed eyes drive me crazy just looking at the still image from YouTube. One other thing I did not direct was the 3D CGI Arthur movie. It was made back around 2001. It was also terrible. It was called, My Missing Pal or something like that.

DL:That was called Arthur's Missing Pal and ended up being done funnily enough in Vancouver at Mainframe Entertainment, the same guys who did ReBoot! You know Mainframe?

GB:That's right. We pitched to do that but it was pretty clear that it was only a token that they let us pitch even though they were going to put it through Mainframe. Even when pitched the producer Lion's Gate in Vancouver was part of the project. So they just put the job in their own production company. I think there was also something about the production being from the US, because a few of the actors violated the union rules and worked on the show without authorization from the union. The director I believe was from the US. We were working on a way to do the show using mocap which would have been really suitable I think . Pal obviously could not be mo cap. About that same time we did this bizarre thing called You are Arthur. You could send a photo of your kid to this company and they would put your kind on the body of an animated character so it would be in the cartoon. It was really weird looking and I believe they didn't pay the bill in the end. We did the animation part of it and the character had a cross hair of the cursor to position the photo head onto the character. It was not a highlight of my career.I remember watching ReBoot. It was the first CGI tv series I recall. I knew some animators that I went to school with that worked there.

DL:A lot of VAs except for Arthur,DW and Buster in the film were replaced by Anime voice actors from Naruto and Cowboy Bebop from the US. It was directed by the Director of the Beavis and Butthead movie and storyboarded by Dan Haskett, Larry Leker, Lenord Robinson and Rich Arons!Like some very big names were in this film!

GB:I liked the B&B Movie. I don't know why they made such a cheap Arthur movie. It looked really cheap. It was shocking. I don't know those storyboard artists. Again they could have just used the storyboard artists that already worked on the series. They are all freelance and would have been available if it was off season or maybe even have done it if the pay was good. If they had such good talent why did it come out so incredibly bad? I don't think it's just me. I showed it to other people not connected with the show and they said it was unwatchable. Something must have been happening behind the scenes for them to produce that. Did you think it was ok?

DL: boring plus I felt that it was disconnected from the show. Also those Storyboarders were from Disney and Warner Bros. Dan Haskett animated Ariel and Belle from The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast for crying out loud!

GB:It's funny about the feature. When we won the first Emmy I remember sitting with Ron Weinburg and saying that we should make a feature. It didn't even need to be fancy but we had all the ducks in a row at that point. Joe Fallon was still working on the show and we were animating at Akom and we had an incredibly large fan base. He wasn't really well connected to find funding for a feature but if we had just made a large size tv episode at that point it would have been amazing and really true to the series.It's funny about the feature. When we won the first Emmy I remember sitting with Ron Weinburg and saying that we should make a feature. It didn't even need to be fancy but we had all the ducks in a row at that point. Joe Fallon was still working on the show and we were animating at Akom and we had an incredibly large fan base. He wasn't really well connected to find funding for a feature but if we had just made a large size tv episode at that point it would have been amazing and really true to the series.An animator from Disney does not necessarily make a good storyboard artist. It may look pretty with nice drawings but its really a different thing. Sometimes a person coming from one part of production like animation makes a bad storyboard guy because they draw scenes that are fun or cool to animate and they avoid other things that are hard but that doesn't make a good film. It's like a good layout artist does not always make a good BG designer. It's hard to stop trying to make the job easy for the layout team. That's why often the storyboard artists come from illustrators and comic book artists. Does that make sense?

DL:How was winning that Daytime Emmy back in 1999? Were you up on stage getting the trophy or was it Ron or Michelle? Also were they with you?

GB:Definitely I was up on stage. It was incredible when we won that first year. I don't think Micheline came. I remember I was so excited that I ran down the aisle with my arms up over my head screaming. The next year on the Emmy commercial they showed that clip of me looking like a crazy guy. I even got a mention in IMDB for that little 2 second long shot of me in that commercial. WE really didn't think we would win. The fans loved us but we weren't from LA and shows from there always won before that. We also didn't have such an amazing budget as the other finalists. I remember watching the little clips they show when the names of the finalists and our clip looked so boring compared to these big music extravaganzas that the other shows had from WB and Disney. I think that was the year we also won the Peabody and got the award on the same weekend. The Emmys were fun in those days when you were with all the soap opera stars walking down the cordoned off street in NY on the way to the gala. Later years they just put the kid's shows in with the craft category awards, such as the best hairdresser or nail technician in a talk show. One year we had to eat dinner in a back room at Madison Square gardens and it absolutely stunk because the circus was just in town and they used that room as the barn for the elephants. I don't know if you ever smelled an elephant but it's pretty pungent.

DL:You got the clip? Because I need to see it.

GB:Not sure. I think I once had it on a vhs at best. I tries finding the clip online once, but with no luck

DL:Ah ok, so you were a supervising director for HouseBroken for FOX and Bento Box.How was communicating from Montreal to Los Angeles?

GB:That's a bit a jump in my timeline but I loved working at Bento Box. Unfortunately I wasn't the supervising director. I was an animation timing director. It was during the covid days so I think most everyone was working from home at that time. At least the department was all working online.Sorry I'm all over the place. I just found the daytime Emmy award clip from 2000.

Greg shows me a promo for the 2000 daytime Emmy’s on ABC. Greg is the man throwing his hands up at 0:14.

Yes that’s him!

I guess I exaggerated. It's more like 20 frames long, not 2 seconds.

DL:Were you the guy in the crowd? No wait, are you the guy who's throwing his hands up?

GB:Yeah I'm that handsome guy putting his hands up coming down the aisle.

DL:You musta felt great like you won the Super Bowl!

GB:Yeah I looked pretty crazy there. Everyone else in all those clips look so well behaved and composed but I think for me it really was a surprise. I felt like none of the others in our group could believe it and no one was moving even though the time restraint of getting up there for the award is really tight. Everyone just seemed frozen so I jumped up and raised my arms hoping to get energized enough to get up on stage and get it over with. The next year I did the acceptance speech and that's another highly embarrassing moment. I was so incredibly nervous and it showed a lot. I could hardly speak and I remember looking out at the crowd and a woman was gesturing upwards. I thought she meant to speak louder but she really meant that I didn't need to lean over and put my mouth beside the mic. I think if she hadn't distracted me I probably would have passed out instead.

DL:Can you describe to me what an animation timer is? What does it mean?

GB:Remember I mentioned working in Tokyo when I was young working on sheet direction and dialog. Anyway the animation timing director indicated frame by frame on the x-sheet how long the animation for each movement takes. So everything from walking footsteps to the length of a turn how many frames for a blink or whatever moves. Effects or characters or when the pans or zooms happen. So on Housebroken the big thing was that they always had a million characters on screen at once. It was the trademark of the series. So each character is timed in a separate column and if the characters interact then they need to be coordinated. The shows are pretty closely timed out by that stage so you cut the scene to the right length and time each scene. In the old days of traditional animation all series had to do timing and also lip sync because the work went to Asia. Now it is only some high end shows for primetime that still do animation timing. And lip sync is only provided for shows that are animated by non native English speakers. The big difference now from when I didn’t this earlier is that the timing on House Broken was done using Harmony so you could add or change the drawings in the panels on the storyboard. which was a nice addition of control for the timing director. It also makes it harder to find someone to do the job.

DL:Also, What did you think about the show?Did you like the concept of a dog running a therapy group with pets?

GB:I really loved that series. For one thing it was an adult (as compared to children's) and it was prime time. So the quality was really good and it was a really good change for me after a lot of years of doing kids TV. The writing was super and the acting was quite amazing. Lisa Kudrow is one of my favorite TV actors ever since that episode of Kimmy Schmidt where she played Kimmy's delinquent mother. The animation was painful because of all the crowd scenes but if you just accept that on day one it's fine. It was the thing they were going for. I liked the humor because it wasn't just sophomoric style of humor like most current adult shows. The platonic relationship, (because they are neutered pets), between Honey and Chief made for a really interesting buddy type relationship. It was funny to hear the pets all speaking in English and describing all their neurotic issues and it made a lot of sense considering the weird life that house pets need to live. It's a pretty unnatural way for these animals to live with people that expect so much from them. You knew something was going to be kind of messed up when Lisa Kudrow was playing the part of group therapy leader. She always acts like she is one step away from the loonie bin herself and to be the advisor to the group was pretty funny in itself. It was a really good show and had a lot of good comedians.

DL:I like that show because I thought the animation was good and that the character designs were cute and appealing. Compared to other series like Family Guy and Rick and Morty which every adult animated series based their style on nowadays.

GB:Agreed! Though I just saw an article from 11 days ago saying Fox has canceled the show. Not too surprising because it's been shut down for a few years now. It stopped at the start of the writers strike which was the end of the production season by coincidence. Too bad. I liked it because it was better humor than just everything being too fast and constantly gross jokes. There aren't many shows like that for adults. Like I said, most stuff is very sophomoric.

DL:Weird because I remember that there was a hiatus in like 2022 and season 2 was coming out in 2023.Guess they backtrack on that then.

GB:My work ended on Nov 1 2022. They would have still been animating for a few more months after that. So it must have wrapped somewhere around Feb 2023. I hope I have my years right. The numbering was confusing to me. Season one had already aired when I started and they were almost at the middle of this combined season 2/3 when I started. There was no break between 2 and 3 for production but I thought they were going to roll out a season 3 by separating those shows. I'm not really sure and would not be the person in the know for that.

[dalt20]

Tooning In. 20 Greg Bailey part 7 of 10

DL:So, I guess after Cookie Jar got attacked and shanghai-ed by DHX media, you made a little escape boat to 9 Story Entertainment.

GB:I was already gone before DHX took over Cookie Jar. I thought it was just a sale to DHX after some unsuccessful business moves. I never thought that CJ was attacked. It was quite small by the time I left to 9 Story.

DL:So, I learned that DHX media doesn't own the CiNAR/Cookie Jar episodes of Arthur but they own the spinoff series Postcards from Buster. Why was that? Did Cookie Jar sell the distribution rights to WGBH in boston?

GB:I have no idea. They just sold off everything they possibly could over the few years that CJ existed. They did that with everything else. It was a long way from the start of Arthur when Cinar owned a good part of the rights of Arthur and we had the distribution in 110 countries. Cinar had distribution everywhere in the world except the US. They may have sold off the Arthur rights to WGBH just before they gave up the show. That would be in the period after they bought DIC and the Strawberry Shortcake fiasco. So any cash would have been welcome at CJ.Postcards from Buster was a dumb move for Cinar (pre CJ era) to get involved with. It was a good enough series but there was no market for a show that was so specifically about the US . WGBH had the rights for US distribution and Cinar had the rest of the world. But the series was not able to sell anywhere other than the US> It was made in the post 9/11 and Iraq war period. There must have been a dozen scenes in each episode that featured American flags and with the war in Iraq we entered a strong period of anti American sentiment around the world. The show only sold in the US and Israel. All the other customers passed on it. It was referred to as the series that could not be sold by the sales teams that tried pushing it.

DL:So, how was the move to 9 Story?

GB:That was very fast. CJ gave up the show in August and 9 Story was starting production by October. We had been doing the pre-production at Oasis in Montreal the years that Cookie Jar existed. So all the digitized models and files we had were destroyed by Oasis when they found out that the show wouldn't be done at Oasis anymore. They should have turned over those models because CJ owned them, not Oasis. At the same time Cookie Jar had destroyed the well organized vault of the old paper material in Montreal . The storage building was being abandoned and all the material that was catalogued and filed properly by the librarian was lying in a huge jumble of boxes just thrown into the room awaiting the shredding of the paper. The pile of boxes was over 10 feet high and 100 feet long and everything there was a horrible jumble. It was literally heaved up into a big pile of boxes that were spilled open. I had to go through the boxes and try to find some old paper model sheets in order to base our new models at 9 Story on. So we had a lot of work to do at 9Story to get up and running in the short time we had. We also started doing the animation in Flash that year so it was a big conversion job at the same time we were trying to organize the files of reuse. Which is like all the backgrounds designs and the character and prop designs from episode 1 to around 125. 9 Story did a great job and people were enthusiastic about doing the show but it was a big undertaking considering the time we had to do it.

DL:So, how did you adapt to flash? Was it an easy process to adjust

GB:It was really difficult. If it was a new series it wouldn't have been a problem but in this case we had to get something that sort of matched what we had already done as traditional animation for 125 episodes. We had established a style of show that used a lot of dramatic angles and exaggeration of drawings and also we would often break off into new styles of drawing for a fantasy sequence or even a whole show. Like we did on Tale Spins or The Contest. In digital it is really slow to rig a new character and only using it for one sequence is not efficient. There were also some things like the jiggly line broken line style and the thin line that was problematic in Flash. And just so many things that just kept coming as they started rigging that became a problem that I never anticipated. Just small things like they first the pupils in the eyes were too large. So those large pupils got used in a bunch of main models and by the time we started getting animation those big eyes were put into many versions of the character rigs like Muffy in Winter clothes and Muffy in baseball uniform. So we started calling revisions on the first episode for the eyes then we had 5 more episodes already in production with those crazy eyes. That sounds picky and insignificant now but it seemed like it would never end for a while. It was nice that the animation was back in Canada so it was something I could see before the shows were completed and shipped from overseas. It was more hands on.Many of our background designs that we used since episode one were upshot or downshot angles and that isn't very good for digital animation because the rig is only one angle, eye level. So that made for some hard scenes in animation.

DL:Many people have commented on the designs of the animation as they said that it's robotic, stiff and lifeless. As the characters have this floaty like feel to them whenever they walk or run.Your comment on that?

GB:It was my feeling a few years earlier when tested a bunch of companies with the idea of changing to digital. I found that when we did tests one company Animation Services did the test traditionally and even though they weren't the strongest animation company around the characters looked like they breathed or were alive. Digital animation is very still when it stops and the face is exactly the same drawing in every scene. When it is hand drawn there is some mild nuance to the drawing because each scene and each inbetween is a different original drawing. I think it has some subconscious effect on the viewer even if the animators in digital animation would put more bounce in the walk . Even in a walk the traditional walks are all drawing each time they have a walk. So even if it is off model like you said some people thought Akom was like, then at least each walk was new and unique. When you draw you can squash things a little and when a hand turns over there are a bunch of inbetweens that are all different. In digital it basically pops from one hand to another hand when it turns over. A good animator can kind of distort or bend the hand but basically it just pops. There was a lot of the art of animation lost in the sort of digital cutout style of animation . For me the worst thing is that a 3/4 head of Arthur in one scene is exactly the same drawing as a 3/4 head in every other scene. Wgbh was very happy with it because everything was on model all the time. Or at least it was the same model. But they were never able to notice that the animation was stiff or the walk was exactly the same each time.I always felt that 3D animation was the worst for floaty movements though. The feet never seem to actually touch the ground. I think a good 2 D digital animator does a pretty good job with that if they have time and budget.

DL:So, did you move to Toronto to work with 9 story?

GB:No, I commuted once a week and I worked online the rest of the week. I guess I was in training for Covid.

DL:Ha! So, I wanted to talk about the Guest Star designs because I remember someone saying that the designs like Art Garfunkel, Mr. Rogers and Backstreet Boys designs look good but the Matt Damon or John Lewis ones.....

Matt Damon guest stars in the season 11, sixth episode, The Making of Arthur.

John Lewis guests stars in critically acclaimed episode, Arthur Takes a Stand from season 21, episode 4

What was up with those? It's like the character designer gave up and just traced a photo for these people. Compared to these!

Art Garfunkel guests stars as the narrator of the first episode of season 3, the ballad of Buster Bunny which marks the return of Buster Baxter and his voice actor, Daniel Bronchu. Who had took a sabbatical to Australia in 1997 during season two.

Mr Rogers makes an appearance as himself in the epic crossover, Arthur meets Mr.Rogers (season 2, episode 1)

The Backstreet Boys starred as themselves in the Arthur special, It’s Only Rock N’ Roll. Arthur in the center.

GB:I did the initial sketch on Matt during the live recording we did in Florida when he came in in his sweats after coming in off his run. He is even wearing the same shirt with some political message on it with the Congress. I remember him being hard to design because everyone had a different movie in mind for what he should look like. He is also a bit hard to do because he's so handsome. Marc Brown did a nice sketch of Art Garfunkel and Mr. Rogers models. The BSB’s were kind of a mix of a few artists. John was done by a designer in Oasis. It's a little touchy doing visible minorities if you have a room full of white designers and a director. But we had a great character designer who is black so he knew that design would be coming his way. Over time we probably made the characters less like animals and more like human faces. It might be a mistake but political correctness was starting to weigh in over the years. So we had to be more cautious on some characters like John Lewis.

DL:Most of the characters were bears. It's like Bears was your default character model when drawing characters.

GB:I would say that it was actually mostly rabbits. The WGBH people thought it was their duty to ask the guest stars which animal they wanted to be. They would always say rabbit. Who wants to be a dog or a monkey right? I would say most guest stars were rabbits. Yo Yo Ma, Lance Armstrong if I recall correctly were rabbits. One show that featured a music troupe named Bang on a Can there was a woman whose last name is Wolfe. When they were asked which animal they wanted to be she said rabbit. It was the one time I had to convince someone that she should really not be a rabbit. funny that she would have chosen anything other than a wolf. Maybe it isn't her maiden name though. I don't think anyone ever picked monkey.

DL:And when I saw her I thought that she was the only good looking Arthur Guest star in the later seasons.

GB:Ha ha! Yeah, she was more extremely animal looking. She was brave for a woman to imagine herself with a big long nose though. Neil Gamon was the lone cat character that I recall. I wonder if he chose cat when he did that show.

DL:Also Michelle Kwan was a bear even though I was hoping because of her last name she would be a swan.

GB:We didn't have a bird option though. We never did many birds in the series. She was a bear I saw and so was Marc's friend Jack Prelutsky. So maybe you are right that most are bears. It seemed like everyone picked rabbit when we would ask so I was pretty sure they were mostly rabbits. People that wore hats were problematic if they wanted to be a rabbit. Bears are the most generic looking of the choices.

DL:And also my statement on guest stars weirdly goes to pets too because Alan Cumming played a poodle who was Killer's rival in one episode and

Alan Cummings guest stars as Sebastian, Killer’s rival in the first episode of season 17,Show off

Someone got a picture again but then again " they wouldn't know if it was Alan Cumming! We gotta make it look like him!"

GB:That's right I forgot that show with Alan. It was amazing that he went along with us on that. What a strange ideal to make a male character a poodle now that I think about it. Andy Warhol was a warthog but that was because the script writer wanted the name and he was a guest star either. We didn’t do many warthogs or reptiles or birds in the show. Joan Rivers was a monkey but she was related to Francine and she had a brutal sense of humor and would not have protested about being a monkey I'm sure. BJ Novaks was a rabbit.

DL:Also It's a popular accusation in the Black community of people saying characters like Arthur were black even though Brain was confirmed to be black.Comment on that?

GB:That is true. There was always a strong suspicion of that. Which is fine. There is no reason Arthur had to be a white kid. That got played up more in the last special we made where they go to the ancestral farm in Ohio. Arthur's relatives were black in that show. When we started Francine was supposed to be a black character. It changed over the years once they made her Polish in one show and then Jewish on the Christmas special. We were even casting for a black actress for Francine when we did season one . Jodie Resther has been with the show as Francine's voice since she was a kid.Brain didn't start off as being black or not black. It was only the Christmas show that we had to define some nationalities or ethnic qualities on the characters. We added a Martin Luther King poster in his room. In the special Brain would celebrate Kwanzaa and Francine became Jewish. Arthur was some kind of Christian Protestant , George became Swedish, and Buster remained non aligned to any ethnic group or religion.

DL:Also Brain in that special was played by a young right wing commentator Steven Crowder.This guy.

Steven Crowder for those who don’t know was the voice of Brain in the fourth season of Arthur but more baffling, Arthur’s Perfect Christmas

GB:Wow he got bigger. Does he have issues with minorities as a right wing commentator or is he just politically right wing? I haven't heard his commentator stuff.

DL:Yes he has said racist and Homophobic stuff on his YouTube channel.

GB:Ok well that is kind of a nasty thing about S Crowder in that case. I guess the Arthur show didn't have any lasting impression on him.For a while everyone was saying John Legend looks like Arthur but he wouldn't come on the show unfortunately.

DL:Yeah, surprisingly.So back on track. The Arthur show then moved to Oasis Animation back in Montreal in 2016.What was the reason behind that?

GB:The owner at WGBH pulled the show out of 9Story in a dispute. He felt he owned a piece of them because he had a show there, and when 9Story started pitching new series to PBS WGBH thought they should have a say in that since they would be competing with them. 9 Story understandably didn't want to stop producing their own shows that would own rights on, so the contract was cancelled. I would have been happy staying with 9 Story another season because we were starting to make some big headway in the production and they were always nice to me there. I never heard the story from 9Story point of view. 9 Story would have just seen me as part of the enemy in the dispute at that point. WGBH was always doing battle with the partners over the years. It was like that with Ron and Micheline and with Michael Hirsch and then with Vince at 9Story. They were always pushing for more and cutting the money being contributed to the show each season. It wasn't ever a warm and cuddly relationship between the co producers.

DL:So, How was the move to Oasis Animation?

GB:I was able to hire a few of my previous designers from years earlier. Not as many as I had hoped but we had a few people come back. We threw away all the material from 9 Story because they now wanted to do the show in Toon Boom Harmony. So the rigs needed to be rebuilt. They did trace them off or something to save some work but they didn't rig all the extra poses we had made in Flash. So it was again a new learning experience. The animation artists were all doing the show for the first time again so it starts off difficult and gradually improves over time. We set up the crew structure more like I was used to when we did the show at Cinar/Cookie Jar. With regular designing crews for characters and props and designers for background design and color design. So I was more used to that structure than the way 9Story operated.

DL:To tell you the truth I didn't see a difference when Oasis took over.I thought you used the same models!

GB:Since it ended up going on a few years it was probably better by the end than if we had stayed at 9 Story. Toonboom Harmony is just so much better and more versatile than Flash which was being phased out quickly at that time. The design on the shows improved a lot. We went from one designer doing a few rough characters and Background designs to a crew of 3 people doing characters and 3 doing background design.

DL:Also I found out that Glen Kennedy was doing the boards for Arthur while at Oasis! You got him to do boards?

Glen Kennedy infamous for his work on Tiny Toon Adventures was a storyboard artist on the three Arthur Specials, the Rhythm and Roots of Arthur, An Arthur Thanksgiving, and Arthur’s First Day.

GB:Yeah he was in Vancouver freelancing. I had people from Toronto, Ottawa , Vancouver and Montreal doing storyboards. My main people that were doing the storyboards over the years including at Oasis were Gerry Capelle, Al Jefferies and Jeremy O'Neil , Elie Klimos and Cilbur Rocha. Glen came in on the last season or 2.I had some of the same storyboard people since season 1. Specifically Gerry Capelle and Al Jeffries. It was one of the constants of the series. Gerry did most of the opening storyboard even.

DL: I talk about him because he is famous in the Youtube poop community, As his animation is way more off model than AKOM's ! As none of his animation has weight and would squash and stretch all the time! https://youtu.be/KCIFNCO1ic4?si=764AdwiJaViotfyX

Glen Kennedy’s Animation Reel.

GB:I've never seen that. Is that his animation reel or did he storyboard it? It's a lot of animation. Great animation for sure.

DL:His animation Reel.But it caused him a lot of jobs.

GB:Wow! great work.Kennedy Cartoons was an annoying company. It is probably not Glen personally doing all that animation, it would have been his company. He had that company with his brother in Toronto. I remember we tried sending layouts for R. Scarry or maybe even Arthur there at one point. It didn't last long.

DL:Wait, Kennedy Cartoons was going to be doing Richard scarry or Arthur!

GB:Yeah I recall sending out some freelance layouts at one time. I don't think it lasted more than a few shows. Ever since then I keep running into people that tell me they used to work on Arthur doing layouts in Toronto or Ottawa and I don't know them and wonder how they got layouts.

DL:What you just told me was extraordinary!

[dalt20]

Tooning In 19. Ken Mitcherony part 1 of 4 (maybe, or alternatively about a half of Ken)

DL:So I ask you, who are you,what do you do, and what you're best known for?

KM:Ken Mitchroney, Carbon based unit. I do a lot of things but let's boil it down too, animation studio swiss army knife and comic book artist. Best known for Teenage Mutant ninja Turtles Adventures comic books and numerous animated features and TV shows. None of my skills include proof reading as we will see here.😄

DL:Lol! So growing up, how was your childhood?

KM: Middle class, Florida upbringing. No complaints.

DL:So, what were your favorite cartoons growing up?

KM:Warner Brothers and Tom and Jerry cartoons mostly. Some of the Hanna Barbera tv cartoons as well.

DL:So when did you decide you wanted to become an animator?

KM:Once I found out what they were.I think I was like, ten?

DL:So did you practice drawing? Like trying to draw the characters you see on Tv? Like how do they work?

KM:Constantly. And comic books and comic strips. Just trying to crack the code back then. It's how you learn.

DL:Yeah, kinda me too! It's just so hard. Until I found a book called How to Draw Animated Cartoons. That book taught me how to draw cartoons and design them.

KM:Yeah. Preston Blair's book on animation was the turning point. Found it in an art supply store in Lake Worth and it changed everything.That and getting a 16mm camera and learning how film works and is put together.

DL:I know, he just made everything look so easy! Especially character construction!

KM:The building blocks.

DL:Yeah! So,how was high school?

KM: had a different kind of high school experience than most. A friend of my fathers, Archie Di Bacco started a private school that had its own way of teaching and also focusing heavily on the arts. Being that I'm highly dyslexic, I was struggling in regular school because no one catered to this back then, so my folks sent me to Di Bacco School.I flourished there being a visual thinker.I learned film making, animation ,photography, broadcasting art and art theory and a ton of other skills. What a great place.Saved my life and loaded my gun for the careers I had coming.I was also in communication with Bob Clampett, Tex Avery, Mel Blanc and Friz Freling by this time. Great mentors 3000 miles away.And they were very kind with their time on the rare times I would come out.

DL:So how did you enter the industry after school? Was it hard? Because you didnt work in animation until 1988.

KM:Yeah, It was frustrating. Friz offered me a job at DFE but, I told him I wanted to finish my last year of high school and I would be back. The industry changed from cartoons to more realistic superhero shows and my portfolio didn't reflect the change so, even though I knew people, I could not get hired so I went back home, Licked my wounds and started to work in Comics and film until something broke.And it did. I was at comic con in San Diego promoting my book, Space Ark and Jerry Beck came by my table. " Sody Clampett has been trying to get a hold of you. They are doing a new Beany and Cecil television show and the family wants you to come in and Interview." My wife flew back to Florida. I took the train to Burbank and got the job. God bless Bob Clampett and the family.From then on it was animation, comic books and live action film.

DL:So,I want to ask you something.

KM:Why I'm here😄

DL:So are you a furry? According to your WikiFur page?

KM:Actually no. Space Ark was the first real funny animal comic book out there in the early 80's. I was not aware of the furry movement then but it was embraced by them and I think that's where all this came from. I have some friends who were into all that and I was happy to drop a few Space Ark drawings in fanzines as favors but that was about it. Guilt by association.

DL:Like Mike Kazaleh and Marc Schrimster?They were your colleagues right?'

KM:And friends, yeah. Good guys and very talented artists.

DL:I know! I have one of Mike's Captain Jack books!

KM:Yeah. Mike's books came after Cutie Bunny and Space Ark hit the stands. I wish more people remembered what we did back then. That self publishing time back in the early 80's was something else. A lot of talented guys and gals followed us and they and their books are sadly forgotten now.

DL:Yeah, I mean the most known funny animal comic now is Cerbus the Aardvark!

KM:I got a very nice write up in one of the Cerbus editorials back then when we all met up for the Comic Book Creator Rights Conference in North Hampton that my old pals Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird put on.Talking about how funny animal comic book artist are the Rodney Dangerfield of the industry.😄 But I digress.

DL:Haha! So back on track, Beany and Cecil for DiC, Bob Clampett Productions and ABC.

KM:Yup!

DL:How was working on it as a layout artist?

KM:It was fine. John.K was very demanding about what he needed and kept us all on our toes. I learned a lot about TV production, schedules and studio politics and made friends with guys who would ask me to go on to be life long trench buddies in the business. It was a shame it ended so quickly.

DL:From an interview from DiC vice president Robby London, said it was a nightmare in production. especially John K, as he would draw stuff in the episode nobody would see.

KM:Being a mindless production drone at the time, we didn't really hear about that until the day we all got cut.So I went back to Florida again and then got the call to come back out and work on Tiny Toons so, it all worked out.

DL:So who called you? Tom Ruegger?

KM:Eddie Fitzgerald. He wanted to get the old Beany band back together again.So we all just migrated back there. And Mike Kazaleh graciously let me sleep on the couch in his living room.

DL:What a nice guy!

KM:Indeed.

DL:So what is a layout artist? Is he the guy who draws the poses for the in-betweener to draw, creating motion?

KM:You do key pose drawings for the overseas animators based on the storyboard. A lot like what an animation director would do back in the old days. This also included background keys from time to time. I was also doing storyboard revision and clean up by this time.

DL:Ah, so what did you think of doing a Muppet Babies version of the Looney Tunes?

KM:They were their own thing so I didn't have a problem with it at all. The fact we got to draw the real Loony Tunes guys from time to time was a real treat.And we got to work with some of the old WB mid timers. What an education. For me anyway.

DL:cool! Were you a caricature in Tiny Toons?

This is a splash page of all of the crew who worked on tiny toons circa 1990. Notice the guy with the derp stare and big forehead on the right, yeah that’s Bruce Timm, creator of Batman: the Animated Series.

This was all the crew on the show.

KM:Bruce Time taught himself how to do caricatures and he went nuts during production. Funny stuff. I'm right in front of Jeff Pidgeon in this one.

DL:Yeah, you were so tiny in that one!Did Bruce Timm really have a big forehead?

KM:Yeah. Both of us did in his drawings.😄

DL:Ah ok.

KM:Some amazingly talented folks in that one.

DL:I thought he wore glasses?This was a caricature of himself in Batman.

This is the character Ted Dymer, the main antagonist of the Batman:TAS episode, Beware the Grey Ghost. Who is also modeled after and voiced by Bruce Timm. notice the glasses and blonde hair?

Did he wear glasses later?

KM:We all did. Thanks animation.

DL:Yeah. So Taz Mania for FOX as a layout artist?

KM:I was a story artist by that time and was doing development with Jeff Pidgeon on Taz Mania. Jeff left to work on the Simpsons and then a little commercial house up north called Pixar. I went back home to Florida and got called back to do story on Taz once it got greenlit.

DL:So how was working there? with Bill Kopp and Mike Milo and some guy who's first name is Art

KM:Same old same old.Bill and I are certifiable and should not be left unsupervised. Hahaha!!!

DL:Lol!So you left WB in 1991, why did you?

KM:They would not let me move up to director so I followed Art Leonardi over to Universal to get their animation studio up and running. Being that I was a live action guy and understood his film language, Steven had me come back and re-board the mine chase in the Tiny Toons summer vacation special. I never received credit for that one but hey, it was for Steven and I love that guy's work. But yeah. I did a lot of development pitch art and storyboards for things like The Munsters and Oswald the Magical Rabbit. We also did work for Shelly Duvall's Bedtime Stories and whatever needed bandaids over there.

DL:Can you tell me what was the Oswald reboot?This was pre Disney/Walter Lantz ownership of the character.

KM:They found out they owned it and wanted to see if there was anything to it. Five boards of concept art and an outline was all it got.

DL:Oh ok. So that's what it was.

KM:Yeah. It just died.

DL:Sadly nobody uses Oswald after 1952, he wasn't brung back until 2006 with Epic Mickey, the video game.What was the Munsters cartoon?

KM:The Munsters was great fun and all mine to develop. I was in heaven because I loved the show so much. The studio shut down just before our pitch. It would have been great fun.The only thing that came of the whole Universal Animation studio effort was Stunt Dawgs for Hal Needham. Once Universal pulled the plug on its animation effort, that was sent over to DIC. I did all the character designs but didn't get the gig working on the show. That's Hollywood.

DL:Who is Hal Needham?

KM:Hal Needhan was king of the stuntmen and a very popular movie director at the time.

DL:Ah. You also worked on Back to the Future:the Animated Series?

KM:One of the great take aways from working at Universal. It's also the show where I met John Stevenson who went on to direct Kung Fu Panda when I was at Dreamworks and years later, he and I were working on and just finished Max and the Midknights at Nickelodeon.

DL:Wow! Friends to the end,eh?

KM:Yes sir!

DL:So you opened an independent studio with Mike Kazaleh in 1992 right in orlando?

KM:In Deland Florida, yeah. I was not getting what I wanted out of Hollywood and was sick of being away from your wife eight months of the year, sleeping on floors and couches all over the valley so I left. My last interview was with John K to come work with the old gang on Ren and Stimpy. I had a feeling it was going to be a train wreck so I thanked John, waved bye to all my pals over at Spumco and went home to start my own studio. Everyone said I was nuts but I was able to keep it going for seven years. We did a lot of productions for Hollywood, local commercials, comic books and anything that came through our doors. Bob Ross came by and had us develop a show for him before he died. Happy trees. Happy animated trees. Hahaha!!!

DL:Wow! So do you remember any projects you did back then at your studio?

KM:We did more Back to the Future and boarded a lot of stuff. The Ninja Turtle thing was hitting then so I did a lot of art and comics for Mirage and Archie. I'm so glad I did because all that is hot again and it's saving my neck between productions nowadays. Cowabunga!Then Jeff Pidgeon contacted me about a story gig at Pixar and the world changed again.

DL:What was Santa's Magic Book?

KM:Our last production. Yeah.

DL:I was baffled by that, and I had to ask.

KM:Yeah. Some local businessmen wanted to do a show.

DL:Go on?

KM:And that was it. Just another thing to keep the studio lights on- barely.

DL:And did it air on local TV?

KM:I guess? We delivered it, I shut down the studio and moved to the bay area by then.

DL:Ok. And you said goodbye to Orlando?

KM:Deland, Florida actuality. We still have our property there but yeah, I love the bay area. And always have.

[dalt20]

Tooning in 18 Greg Bailey part 6 of 10

DL:So, on Arthur did AKOM do anything off model? Because the studio had a reputation for being off model or lacking in their animation.

GB:I can't remember any series where someone wasn't complaining about a character being off-model from time to time to time. I'm not even sure what that means anymore. In the end, I preferred that something might be off-model a little instead of looking like a cutout of the same model sheet in every frame. At least that gives some character and exaggeration. Generally, I felt Akom was fairly on model though. Though in the 15 years they did the show I'm sure there are lots of off-model freeze frames out on the web. Mostly Akom was great because they moved the character and it wasn't all traceback stuff all the time. When things switched to digital 2D like Flash or Toon Boom it became on model but it looks really dead compared to hand-drawn animation. You are literally looking at the same model sheet position on every frame so it definitely creates significant deadness in the animation compared to hand-drawn where the character seems to almost breathe in comparison.

DL:Ah, ok. So AKOM brung their A game I guess.

GB:I really appreciated the work we got in those early seasons from Akom. Nelson had some respect for the show and he made sure the studio did a good job on the show. We weren't exactly the highest-paying studio that was sending work there but Nelson and also Frank Shinn would put more into the shows that had some integrity to them. If the series was just some generic series they might not have been so attentive. We did a really complete and tight pre production work to send over to Korea so I think they saw that and realized we meant to do a better show than the rest of stuff out there.

DL:So, About the CiNAR scandal, did the feds storm in like The Wolf of Wall Street? With everyone destroying documents and everyone being rounded up?

GB:It's more slo-mo than that, but I guess it wouldn't have made a very exciting movie for things to unravel as slowly as it did. It was so slow that basically, the media was doing all the prosecuting faster than the police. It was more of a legal assault like from the different agencies like Telefilm that were looking to get their funding money back or the archives getting a refund for one reason or another. But yes the RCMP did interview people like writers and regular staff to see if the names matched the documents they had about who did what. I don't remember a lot of destroying documents but I was on the wrong floor to see that, and there wasn't a round-up of the usual suspects where they marched a bunch of people out to a paddy wagon. I don't think anyone got taken out in handcuffs because I would have heard the rumours of that. It was strange to see the media assault and what the public was accusing them of because it wasn't what was happening or what the issue was. There was a very strange perception of it in the public. Even now everyone just says the Cinar scandal but they don't know what it was all about.

DL:So, Did you work on any other projects other than Arthur in the early 2000s post scandal, like Creepschool, Potatoes and Dragons, Treasure, The Baskervilles? Before Michael Hirsh came to CiNAR?

GB:did because I was the supervising director. I supervised the other directors. I didn't have much to do on Creepschool, or Baskervilles. Potatoes and Dragons was all done in France before it came in and it was more of an acquisition for us. I had a great model sheet with like 100 cute characters on it. I did at one point try to re-edit all those shows into a different show so they made more sense and weren't so slow. It looked very cute but it wasn't easy to sell the show. Even on Treasure, I was only brought in occasionally to look at how the show was going or meet with the terrific clients from the UK who created the series. Francois Perrault directed the show. I did start up Postcards From Buster at that time before handing off the series to Nick Vallinakis after a few episodes. During that time I was working on the development of all new series and so I designed the style or look of the show and animation style. We developed a lot of shows. The one that stands out the most was developing Mona the Vampire which Graham Fault did the initial design work on while we were in development. I think Graham did that just before creating the Untalkative Bunny in Ottawa. That was the period of Animal Crackers development and probably even Caillou. A lot of shows that I worked on in development actually made it into a series during that period. A lot of others were involved in it but hopefully, I made some meaningful contribution to it. I am probably mixing up my years there but usually, I was developing a show a few years before it hit the small screen and it was also a really insane time in the studio. After the scandal hit in fact there was not really any more development. We were still finishing off the shows that were developed earlier. Postcards from Buster was

the only series that got developed and greenlit after the scandal and before Michael Hirsch. Postcards was the one series that began under Stuart Snyder (or any of the other interim CEO's) thus fulfilling one of the major terms of Stuart's contract that allowed him to receive his bonus of tens of millions of dollars before he stepped aside.

DL:So, What's your thoughts on the studio who co-produced Animal Crackers, Alphaim? They replaced France Animation as the main co-producers in 1998.

GB:I didn't have much interaction with them. I was founded Christian Davin. I met Christian a few times and he seemed like a nice guy. Gaumont bought them out after that time. The thing that makes it hard for me to answer is that in these co-productions with France there were 2 types of shows. One that the majority partner was in Canada and the other series that the majority partner was in France. So Animal Crackers was a show that we had the lead and we did most of the work. And something like Potatoes and Dragons had the majority in France. So on the ones with majority in France we often only did the post production or maybe some of the production-like layouts. If it was our majority we did most of the work in Canada. It seemed to get more and more like that over time. So I think it is really more of a financing issue or question that you would ask to an executive producer rather than looking for a creative perspective. It wasn't on my radar very much once I knew what the work split was.

PS. Christian Davin was involved with the Robinson Sucro copyright infringement.

DL:Ah, so Thoughts on Wang Film Productions, They animated on season one on the Little Lulu Show.

GB:You mean Cuckoos Nest owned by James Wang. They did a nice job on the animation on season one. We started putting a lot of work into Cuckoo's nest at one point. Like City Mouse Country Mouse was also there. That was the really crazy period at Cinar when we just had so many series going through that studio and the place was growing like crazy. Lulu was a hard show for animation because of that super thick line was all done in traditional animation. But the look of the show was great, especially the first few shows. One thing that is not well known is that initially that show was going to be 5 specials on HBO. Tracy Ullman was doing the voice of Lulu. It was the only time I went to the pitch session that we did in NY at HBO. I only directed those first 5 episodes then supervised the director Louis Piche when the show went into a full series. To be more on topic, I had visited Cuckoo's Nest back in 1986 or so when I was at DIC Tokyo. The Japanese studio was going to visit the studio in Taiwan and they very nicely brought along the foreign staff as well.When they did City Mouse Country Mouse it wasn't so beautiful but I remember they were contracted by Cinar to churn out one episode per week through the animation department. It was usually one episode every 2 weeks at that time. But I don't think the show was well funded and we just needed to make a lot of shows quickly probably to impress the shareholders. So it was an ugly show but I can't blame Cuckoos Nest for that.Wang Productions also did the Richard Scarry series after episode 26. It was far less good than what we had been getting from Hanho on the first 26 shows.

DL:So, The Arthur episode, The Contest. How did you animated the episode in the Three styles of the segments parodying South Park, Beavis and Butthead, Dexter's Laboratory and Hulk Hogan?

GB:And Little Lulu and Richard Scarry but that was more of an in-joke. It's interesting how that episode came together. I think it was one of the best shows overall. The weirdest one at least.The South Park section was actually done under an old Oxberry film camera and shot on film. Peter Huggan who was the layout supervisor at the time made all the models out of felt. He was kind of doing the felt characters in his spare time while checking layouts. Then we rented the one last Oxberry in Montreal and we shot the sequence under the camera. It was just the way we made the films when I was a student at Sheridan College.Beavis and Butthead was just a different drawing style so it took a lot of new design . I really liked how the AC /DC logo on Beavis' shirt made a good change into AB/CD on the Arthurized version. Dexter’s lab again was just a lot of new design. We could not reuse anything from the regular series and that one had a thick line. Also the color design was new and we had lots of references from the real show.The Hulk Hogan was just styled on the many 1980's series I worked on at DIC. In fact I worked a few shows of Hulk Hogan when I first went to Tokyo for DIC.We also did a spoof of Richard Scarry and we had Lowly Huckle were bats hanging upside down. I even got Sonia Ball to do the voice of the bat in the voice she used to do Huckle. There was a Lulu parody there as well using that thick line. I used to worry about getting fired at Cinar for using R. Scarry and Lulu styles in that Arthur show. But I was just banking on that the producers never really watch the shows they are producing. I lost a lot of sleep over that idea but never heard anything from the producers at Cinar. But in general, when we would parody a different style, like we did on that Ulysses episode, it took a lot of new design and being extra careful with the storyboard, and most of all, it was traditional animation so there was no problem with changing style because we didn't have to do rigging in order to animate. The ideas for what to parody just came from suggestions I could make to Joe Fallon and Ken Scarborough about which styles we could do to give us a different look for each sequence. I loved doing all those special style things in various Arthur shows. It was something really nice about the series that we could do parodies. Usually Canadian animation companies do not do parodies in their shows. But because the scripts were produced by WGBH we would do it once their lawyers would sign off. We also based one segment on Dr Katz Psychiatrist but I don't think our squiggle vision animation was very recognizable. That was a cool episode. When Peter was making all the South Park figures no one knew what he was doing and his crew thought he was making dolls on company time like he was losing his marbles.

DL:That's so Funny! 😄

GB:yeah.

DL:So, at Cookie Jar did you work on Gerald McBoingBoing, Johnny Test, Kung Fu Dino Posse, Busytown Mysteries, World of Quest, Will and Dewitt, etc?

GB:No I didn't. Actually I helped out for a very short time on Busytown Mysteries but the other shows I had nothing to do with. That was after they closed down the Montreal studio and opened up in Toronto. I didn't move.

DL:So, I couldn't find anything on the move to Toronto when Michael bought CiNAR can you tell me what time period that was?

GB:It went in stages. In 2005 Michael and Toper and the bank bought Cinar. Renamed it Cookie Jar of all things after Huck Scarry suggested the name. They started closing up the Montreal studio that year by consolidating the 3 floors of office space onto one floor. I developed a few shows then like Bronco Teddy and that Santa Clause special. Then just a small animation crew and 2 producers moved to a new but small building in downtown Montreal . I think it was an old Canada Cement company building from the sign embossed over the front door. It had a lot of marble and brass on the main floor and an ancient elevator. Anyway we were there for a year before they shut down entirely in Montreal, and they opened up a Toronto office in that time. We did Arthur out of that new office in downtown Montreal. So by 2006 or early 2007 they were set up in Toronto on King Street. I remained on the Cookie payroll but no one else from Cinar remained after 2007. In fact I worked at Cinar/Cookie Jar full time from 1991 to 2011. I was the longest running employee of that company.

DL:Wow! So, you were demoted to the Arthur guy at that point?

GB:Yeah pretty much. They would try to keep me busy with stuff during the off-season. I developed a few shows but nothing really stuck and I would get busy again with Arthur so they would take it away from me and give it to another director. Like I was starting on a remake of Caillou and then that happened. Someone else took over the series. Or I helped out a director on Busytown for a few months. I even tried getting the director position on a series with Disney near the end of my time there but I purposely blew my application so I could go elsewhere to do Arthur. The Disney show was very preschool and the producers at Disney were in disarray. It looked like it would be really unpleasant. But yeah I guess all I really did of any significance was Arthur. We did Arthur out of Oasis Animation company in Montreal. They hired some of my old crew from Cinar while I remained on the Cookie Jar payroll. So at one point, I did some work setting up the studio to do the Arthur series.

DL:So, how was the downfall of Cookie Jar/ the DHX media purchase went for you in 2012?

GB:I was there for the downfall like when they laid off all the animation staff and pretty much everyone else. I wasn't there when DHX actually bought them. I was there when CJ bought DIC and that terrible purchase of Strawberry Shortcake. It seemed ironic to me when they bought DIC because I was there when they fell apart 20+ years earlier.The big layoff was very sudden and shocking for the people in Toronto. I don't know why they seemed so surprised. The shows were terrible. They blew a ton of money buying DIC which was even more in debt than after DIC broke up with Charlopin. They said they bought DIC to get the Saturday morning hours that DIC owned. But Saturday morning doesn't mean anything like it did when I was a kid or when I worked at Hanna Barbera. No one gets up to watch animation on Saturday morning anymore. The Strawberry Shortcake scandal was going on at that time but I wasn't paying attention to it. You probably know more than I do. But my view was - who would want to watch anything to do with Strawberry Shortcake. It was the most ugly and trite property when it came out in the 80's and it was even more horrible in the 2000's. But that was CJ's corporate culture. From the top down the company management spewed marketing jargon when they spoke about anything including creative things like animation. They would never make a great new show because they were not trying to make a show that people would want to watch. They were basing decisions on values like branding and marketing. They never spoke of things that drive other producers that try to make something kids enjoy or benefit from in some meaningful way. I understand the sense of trying to capitalize as much as possible on everything in the world, but in a creative field like animation, it's disappointing to see people only equate a good show with good merchandising. They could be happily selling stickers or really tacky toys like Strawberry Shortcake or Elf on the Shelf. They are not patient enough to make a good show first and then sell stuff because the show is popular like SpongeBob. They only want the show made in order to sell the toy.

DL:Well Michael tried to create that workspace mentality from Nelvana. Remember when we talked about the program slate from Nelvana from 1995-1996?

GB:Yes! Nelvana was also a 3 way partnership. Clive Smith was coming from animation production in the UK before they started Nelvana. So there was more push in the direction of the art at one time at Nelvana. This time his partner Toper Taylor was a marketing person. When he speaks it's a lot of marketing jargon.I shouldn't really say that Clive did this or that at Nelvana. I was never working at that studio and I've only met him briefly. Michael has been a great businessman there is no doubt about that.

DL:Yeah, I saw that the only thing that was making money at the studio was Arthur, the Doodlebops and Johnny Test. Everything else was a co-production at the company.At Cookie Jar , that is.

GB:They made a horrible mess out of Richard Scarry and the Caillou properties that had generated a lot of money at Cinar. But the versions they made at CJ were terrible. They were so commercially exploitative looking. It's true that you don't make money just selling the show to broadcasters. At least it's not a big part of the income in TV animation. I'm not sure Arthur was making much money for them either. Eventually, they quit doing it because they either had to make a totally horrible different-looking show or lose money making it. Like there was no toy licensing or books or anything to make money on with Arthur. The Arthur series never had a really high budget compared to other big animated series like WB or Disney or Nickelodeon shows and the amount coming in for production kept getting smaller year by year.

[dalt20]

Tooning In 17 Douglas Booth part 2 of 7

DL:Yeah! So can you tell me a little bit about Glenn Leopard like you did with Jeffrey Scott?

DB:Leopard? Hahaha! Leopold! We had fun writing scripts together - I'd never worked with a writing partner before, but we would just tell each other stories and do our bad voice-actor impressions of the characters - and keep going - telling each other which ideas we liked and which we thought were terrible, trying to make each other laugh - and then writing it down - taking turns with that - and coming up with what we would usually feel was a brilliant script! Glenn had been a rock 'n roller prior to coming to H-B - his band was called "Gun Hill Road" (after a street in the Bronx) - and they had a nice run before he moved over to cartoons! He was very quick with ideas, jokes, and irrelevant asides, and we both got very good at throwing pushpins across the length of the office, to stick in our bulletin board - which may have been our most notable achievement!

DL:Leopard,I was thinking of Leopold! With his last name, who can't make a mistake like that?

DB:But of course! Leopold the Leopard - could have been an H-B cartoon!

DL:Haha! i know right! He was pure HB material as he stayed with the company until 2001! A true company man he was.

DB:Absolutely! His wife, as I remember, was the head of the ink and paint department, as well.

DL:Wow! Really?

DB:Yup! Nice lady!

DL:Any stories on the two?

DB:Not that I remember, though I'm sure there are many!

DL:Well after he left Hanna Barbera, he started to write for a German company called BKN, you probably worked with them right? P.S. they're also known by Bohbot Entertainment.

DB:Hmmm... not sure. I believe I worked on shows that Allen Bohbot, the founder, was involved with, maybe through DIC (?) - but, in terms of the European spin-off, when I just googled all that, none of the shows they produced looked familiar - though I would have loved to have worked on a new version of Zorro!

DL:Yeah Glenn worked on it, you could’ve too!

DB:All they had to do was ask!

DL:If you were around in 2006. Besides, Glenn was one of your friends.

DB:Who knows? There are probably thousands of shows that "slipped through my fingers" - but I certainly enjoyed working on the ones that didn't!

DL:Yeah well back to your career, The Flintstones Comedy Show for NBC. You were the story editor.

DB:As I remember, I story-edited episodes of "The Bedrock Cops", which was one element of that show.

DL:Explain to me the concept of the segment.

DB:Hahaha! Fred and Barney were cops - sort of "Car 54, Where Are You" goofy law enforcement officials, only in prehistoric Bedrock - with fun and silly adventures - nothing approaching "real crime", but lots of slapstick comedy and fun.

DL:oh, well when i think of Fred and Barney I don't really think cops but ok.

DB:No - but it was essentially the two buddies having the kind of funny adventures you'd imagine they'd have... that is, if they were, in fact, good-natured cops!

DL:Oh so why in 1980, did you Hanna Barbera the first time?

DB:? I think you missed a word or two…

DL:Why and left.

DB:At the end of 1980, I took my two week vacation and flew to Cusco, Peru - then took the train to "Kilometer 88" which was the jumping off point for a 5 day backpacking hike in the mountains, ending up at Mac. oops - Machu Picchu - which was really, really fun! However, when I got back to the U.S., I only then found out that Andy Heyward and I were both "budget cuts" in the writing department - and were thus free to pursue our diverse destinies! I guess things were slow and they decided they needed to economize!

DL:Wow! So they favor Glenn and Jeff over you two,huh?

DB:Can you imagine? No accounting for taste! 🙂

DL:I can, so how was finding work while Andy was on his own odyssey in 1981

DB:I got to broaden my horizons! I gained a lot of experience and knowledge from my time at HB and got to reach out to other studios, etc. As I remember, my next major gig was at Filmation, working on HeMan and the Masters of the Universe, as well as doing some development work for them that never quite made it to the air.

DL:well on IMDb after The Flintstones Comedy Show, you worked on Spider Man for Marvel Productions and NBC.

DB:Right - not sure of the timing for all this. I did write an episode of one of the versions of Spider-Man (and, years later, for another version of that show) - this first one was the version that Dennis Marks story-edited, and was, I think, my only professional encounter with Stan Lee. As well as the plate glass coffee table in their lobby that I always managed to bang into when I was walking past!

DL:Lol, that's awesome. Can you tell me about that encounter with the "business man" Lee?

DB:All I remember is that he was very friendly and nice - I think Dennis was mainly running the meeting, but I did think it was cool that Stan was sitting in on it, "supervising"!

DL:Lol! Wait Dennis is from Hanna Barbera too!

DB:Yes - that's where I knew him from.

DL:Any stories on him?

DB:Not that I can think of. At HB I knew him as a comedy writer, so it was a surprise to find him running the Spider-Man show - but I think he and Stan really hit it off and collaborated on a number of projects (none of which I know anything about - lol)!

DL:He stayed at Marvel, until 1986 when he returned to the studio.

DB:Ah!

DL:so, if you can remember, would you like to talk about an episode of the 1981 Spider man series?

DB:Well - not much that I remember. Believe I wrote one episode, called "The Vulture has Landed" - featuring a superhero named... you guessed it - "The Vulture". Apart from being happy to be working on Spider-Man, that's about all I can remember! That and the plate glass coffee table banging my shins every time I went into the studio!

(Actually the comic book character, The Vulture is a villain not a superhero.)

DL:That gotta hurt!

DB:That's why I remember it so well!

DL:Your return to Hanna Barbera in 1982?

DB:I worked as a freelancer on a few different shows - not on staff.

DL:Oh! understand. How did it feel sending scripts to your former co-workers?

DB:Fine! That's pretty much the same way it worked in-house - the only difference is that my office was off-premises (with better access to a refrigerator)! We're all pretty much co-workers, as writers, with people changing roles and studios, but, many times, working with a familiar array of "the usual suspects".

DL:Oh! Wow!

DB:Although, of course, a lot more time needs to be spent "hustling" when one is working freelance!

DL:So about Spider Man, how do you write the web crawler?

DB:Well, we all know what he's like and what he does - at that point, from the comics - so the idea would be to start imagining oneself as Spidey and working to craft an adventure that would work for him, and then see how he would respond!

DL:Yeah, I mean everyone knows Spider Man right? So, you wrote an episode of The Little Rascals animated series. Rascal’s Revenge, process for the episode?

DB:Hahaha! I know I did - and I did like the original Little Rascals, back when I was a "little rascal" myself - but I don't remember anything about that episode at the moment!

DL:Oh ok, so did you watch the original shorts on television?

DB:Yes!

DL:You wrote the episode with Tedd Anatsi and Patsy Cameron. Who are those two?

DB:Hmmm. They were a writing team - maybe husband and wife? And... maybe they were the story-editors?

DL:Ah ok, do you have any memory of writing with them?

DB:No, I don't believe we co-wrote it - but, er, who knows? If that's what it says on IMDB, well, I believe it's incorrect - unless, say, either they had written the story and I was asked to write the script - or vice versa?

DL:Yeah probably fixed your script as story editors. Yeah probably fixed your script as story editors.

DB:Makes sense - though "fixed" depends upon the eye of the beholder - hahahaha!

DL:Haha! How was trying to make old 30s comedy shorts to appeal to 80s kids?

DB:Well, they certainly appealed to "50's kids" - so not too hard! A fun gang comedy - and the new version would have come with a bible, which would have done most of the heavy lifting for the transposition from the 30's to the 80's - so that's where the foundation would come from - and, from there - it would be "just like any other show" - where you read the bible and any scripts that are available, as well as remembering the feeling of fun from the originals - all of which would then allow you to start to "think like a Little Rascal" and start brainstorming stories and character action, while hanging out with "the gang" in your imagination and seeing what popped up!

DL:Very interesting! So The Smurfs for NBC and SEPP International.

DB:I think IMDB gave me too much credit for that show - as I remember, I wrote an episode for Smurfs and several for Johann and Peewee - which featured the Smurfs. I think Len Janson and Chuck Menville were the story-editors for The Smurfs, and Glenn Leopold was story-editor for Johann and Peewee, which I think were based on illustrated books by Peyo, the original creator.

DL:IMDb said that you wrote 39 episodes of the show in 1982!

DB:Whoa! Yeah, simply not true! Gasp - you mean IMDB isn't infallible? Oh well - mostly they're pretty good!

DL:Yeah, I know! Okay! So Monchichis for ABC, what was that?

DB:Hmmm. Bryce Malek and Dick Robbins were the story-editors. Fun, woodland fantasy creatures - I suspect there was a major comedic villain who wanted to do terrible things to them - and they had to figure out fun and imaginative ways to foil these nefarious plots! I know I wrote two episodes - and enjoyed doing it. One was called "Sky City'' - I think - which seems self-explanatory - but which is also a sort of a nod to the Native American city of Acoma (in New Mexico) - which also goes by the nickname of "Sky City", and is a cool place I've visited on several occasions. Bryce had been the guy in the accounting department at HB who used to walk around and give us our checks, but he was also a writer, and, as he was writing spec scripts, I seem to remember that Glenn and I used to give him notes! And then, he partnered with Dick Robbins, who was a veteran writer - and they became a great team - and, of course, went on to become the story-editors of the first couple of seasons of Transformers! Apart from all that, sorry, I don't remember much more about Monchichis - just that it was a good-natured and light-hearted fantasy/action/comedy that was fun to write.

DL:Ok. Well time for He Man! and you are working for Filmation.

DB:Right!

DL:He Man for Filmation and Syndication/Group W

DB:I was on staff there for a bit - my office was actually the coffee room - so I got to see most of the people on the floor!

DL:How was Lou Scheimer? The head honcho?

DB:I didn't have much contact with him - just "hi, how are you?" - the person who was in charge of the writers was Arthur Nadel.

DL:Tell me about Arthur Nadel. Robby London said he was a great guy.

DB:Yes, he was! Deadpan, but funny. He had a series of initials he'd use, to make comments on your script - like NSG (not so good) - DB (do better) - not sure what other ones, but there were a good many! The best moment I had in his office was when he was raking me over the coals for an outline which he thought was terrible - not letting me get a word in edgewise - until he was finished, and I (grinning broadly) - told him that I was not the writer of that episode! He thought that was pretty funny, as well!

DL:Once I remember he gave Robby London an A, and Robby thought it was a grade and Arthur had to break it to him saying it was just his signature. That he wrote that A to show that he read it.

DBThat's hilarious - and sounds totally in character!

[dalt20]

Tooning In 16. Craig Clark part 3 of 7

DL: In 1983, you worked at a Company called Tigerfly.

What was that?

CC: That was and is Arnie Wong's company. I met him at Duck Soup in 1974. Arnie now lives in Hawaii. Tigerfly was in Santa Monica. We did commercials, development on a Möbius feature, Internal Transfer, Automan VFX etc. Superman director Peter Ramsey worked theirs as well as Disney FX sup. Marlon West. Also surf artist Rick Griffin.

DL: how was the environment at the studio?

CC: Creative , hip, funky , family of westside surf artists

He sends me a teaser of an project which ultimately never got made which was the collaboration with French comic artist Moebius, Internal Transfer, which he worked as an animator

Also some Sunkist and G.I. Joe commercials he sends me, also worked on as an animator. I’m surprised the latter one wasn’t done by Sunbow.

DL: You were on The

Philadelphia Experiment as a special effects animator, how was that?

CC: Cool, that was at New World in Venice at Roger Corman Studio......later became Digital Domain. hand drawn electro fx. There was a lot of work west of Sepulveda at the time. The guy on the bed with the electro fx https://youtu.be/WAmpXDi53YQ?si=vrhhlmW1wD0-u5n9

He sends me a trailer for The Philadelphia Experiment (1984)

DL: What was My Science Project, as you were

Special effects animator.

CC: My Science project was done at Namebrand FX in Santa Monica off the lot. John Scheele produced the FX, we shot the elements at his studio. The T rex at the end was my shot sequence.... https://youtu.be/nB2ToxVtoc4?si=21cPOJqje2orJAuX

He sends me a trailer for My Science Project (1985).

A bunch of electro fx not pictured there. Boy that was some cheesy 80's synth music on there lol!

DL: Well I guess you’re the electricity guy who drew the electric on paper than scan them into the film.

CC: Exactly. I would do the same over at Boss Film on Poltiergiest 2, Big Trouble in Little China, and SolarBabies. But it was all 70mm. Huge 22 field paper, later hand inked.

DL: You were special effects director for the TV series, Misfits of Science for NBC. And How did you felt being moved to

VFX director and what role does

he or she does.

CC: That was a Namebrand again, that was my day job, the night job was at Boss film from 6pm to 1am. Universal trusted me since I did a good job on Automan. So much so I was on call for other Universal shows like Miami Vice. The fx producer were David Garber and John Green. David Garber was famous for Battlestar Galactica so he was in good standing at Universal. I still love that show. Misfits was part of the Universal power line up on Friday Nights. we got good numbers but Knight Rider was already 3 seasons in and was closer to Syndication so we lasted one season. We did some cool stuff like slitcan stretching high speed fx with the characters. When ever my hand drawn electricity came on the the ratings went up, so they called for more of it. The Producer was James Parriot who later did Grey's Anatomy, It was also Courtney Cox's first show before Friends.

He sends me a compilation of the series where one of the main characters uses his electric powers.

DL: Ah, thought it was Mac and Me but I remember that was Jennifer Aniston!

I send him a laugh out loud emoji 😂

DL: You Worked as FX Assistant Animator for Boss Film company, did you felt like that was a downgrade from your previous Title?

CC: Yeah, but it was a feature with some IlM guys so that was cool. I met Wes Takahaski who helped me get into ILM later in 1994. Boss had just finished Ghostbusters at the time.

DL: How was the environment of Boss Film company?

CC: Fun, like an fx nightclub. Music playing, free popcorn. The day crew was more serious I think, but we just had a good time and did great work. Some Disney guys were there too like Scott Santoro, who I later worked with at Amblimation in London on Fievel Goes West.

DL: That's awesome!

CC: We were nominated for a VFX Oscar on Poltergeist 2. https://youtu.be/mjhr8EdGyD0?si=RldZcwzw_9-rMM0V

He sends me the trailer for Poltergeist 2 (1986)

DL: You was assistant special effects animator for Poltergeist 2.

CC: Yes, Following up of Mauro Maresa who later worked with me on Bill and Teds Excellent Adventure.

Sends me a clip from the film featuring all the times the characters use the iconic phone booth.

I did fx on it, phone booth.

DL: You were an

Special effects animator on Big

Trouble in Little China. How was that?

CC: Yeah , I think we already went over the Boss film stuff, part of the night crew when I was working on Misfits of Science during the day. Mauro Maressa, Scott Santaro, Kevin Cachaver, Ed Coffee, Wes Takahashi all on the show. There were Ghostbusters fx model sheets sitting around ....

He sends me the climax to Big Trouble in Little China (1986)

DL: So as we talk about previously, how worked

at Dream quest Images.How was

the enviroment at the studlo before the

company got bought by Disney in 1997?

CC: Dream Quest was a small but active studio stated by 5 UCLA students in Culver City. They did Vistavision work as well as 35mm work. They got all the fx shots that Boss Film could not do since they were all 70 mm.  The first Predictor movie was done there as well as Nightmare 3. I animation directed a few commericials, Taco Ball ,Golden Grahams, etc. https://youtu.be/aFwKhPnBs3Y?si=OtpjisO0bot3et6_

He sends me a commercial for Golden Grahams which he animated on.

DL: Is that supposed to be sonny? The Golden Grahams mascot?

CC: he didn't have a name....just called him dollop. I animated it solo. no assistants.

DL: Wow! That’s impressive!

CC: Thanks. I think I was 26 with a few credits so they gave me a shot.

DL: So, personal thoughts, I

Wanna spill on you that I find it strange that Disney would go on to buy Lucasfilm, which owns ILM, which you worked for later in 1994. Why did Disney bought the studio only to shut it down and buy Lucasfilm? (That’s a question for you, I forgot to mention.)

CC: Disney is a corporation looking for quarterly profits for their shareholders. It is no longer a company run by their family as you know.

DL: Yeah, I mean they own ILM now, so they own all the great special effects in the world! But anyway, you worked on Nightmare of Elm street 3 as a special effects animator, an upgrade from storyboard artist. How was the experience?

CC: Good, hears the shot do your stuff. This time we finished the plasma animation using watered down inks that were shot and comped. We went over that as well.

DL: What’s your thoughts on the Elm Street franchise ?

CC: Surprised it lasted. I've outgrown it but my kids love it. The horror genre has exploded over the years. There was a crew fan based  meeting at Notre Dame high school in the Valley in the 90's. Kids asked questions to the old crew. I forget most of it.

DL: You worked on My Demon Lover as a special effects animator, what was that about?

CC: That was through Chris Cassady's Roto FX of America studio. Quick fx job, I remember some faces or masks exploding. I did the animation over at Chris' studio, he shot the elements over at his place. I think he sent it our for opticals some were else. The studio was a Saward in Hollywood behind the old Bob Clampett building where we did the first Simpsons series. There were lots of Film labs there , CFI, Glenn Glenn sound. Old Republic Pictures and the Columbia Cartoon studio was there a long time ago. Historical street for film. Seward st.

DL: Your claim to fame, Bill Melendez Productions, how was the environment of the studio?

CC: Wow I'm famous for that? I'd like to work on the new ones in Canada... I worked directly under Bill Melendez for a week in studio. Then I just worked at home animating four Peanuts specials for him, as well as Cathy and Frosty Returns. And later another Peantuts one in the 2000's.

DL: What was the studio like? Was it magical?

CC: It was like a little house, actually two houses together. Folks were very nice. I love working there.

DL: Ah, so I think it was the only studio besides filmation who were doing TV animation in the US. And I believe the last.

CC: maybe so, but a few months later I started working on the first season of the Simpsons down the street in totally in house. 1989. Melendez was 1988 during the last bad writers strike.

DL: Ah, did you met Bill or Lee? The other guy who owns the studio. Lee Mendelson?

CC: Never saw Lee, just Bill. Shep Menkin also did voices but I did not know it at the time. (Forgive and Forget movie 1968)

DL: Ah, ok, so your friend was also on Peanuts.

CC: This is America Charlie Brown,yes.

DL: Did he did the adults? The “waa waa” voice?

CC:no?

[dalt20]

Tooning In 15 Greg Bailey part 5 of 10

DL:Yes, please! So let's talk about your crowning achievement, Arthur for PBS and WGBH Boston.So what was the story behind the transition from book to world famous TV show?

GB:In what way do you mean?

DL:As how Arthur became a TV cartoon.

GB:Marc Brown had about 10 books out in the market based on Arthur. The character designs of the characters like Arthur and Binky and Buster were in the books but they looked extremely different in each book and on every page even. Anyway Mark lived in Hingston MA near Boston and Carol Greenwald worked at WGBH Boston. When Carol got the go ahead to produce a new kids show she liked the books and got in touch with Marc Brown. This was the first animated show that was going to be made for PBS so it had no precedent. Once Marc and WGBH had an understanding they had to find an animation company that could produce animation. So they scouted around North America including Canada as far as Toronto and Montreal at least. They had gone to Nelvana because they were a big well known company in Canada. Then they came to Cinar in Montreal. We were a smaller company but we allowed more input from the rights holders on our shows and we had developed a good track record on spinning books into successful animated shows. We were riding high on the success of The Busy World of Richard Scarry. I would say that the series was very true to the look and sensibility of the books even though the work was very painstaking.Anyway I took Marc and Carol on tour through the animation studio when I saw them getting off the elevator looking lost. I gave them a 25 cent tour showing them how we were putting together R, Scarry and Little Lulu and that kind of blew them away because I doubt they really saw such a large and functioning animation company by that time. Marc always claims that I was very nice to them and he liked my attitude. I was not scheduled to direct Arthur when they came in but I was doing Little Lulu and I was the supervisor of all the directors in Cinar at the time. So I was involved with meeting them for the meeting that day. We had another director lined up at the meeting to do the series Arthur. On the other hand Nelvana just kind of brushed them off and said to basically send the money and they would do the show the way they did every other show. I think for both Marc and Carol they felt like that was giving up any control or connection to the series. That was the Nelvana way of operating and I don't think things have really changed in that way since then.I think we just offered a more human touch and approach than the competition so it put them at ease. I mean it was their baby for both Carol and Marc. So it makes a lot of sense looking back.

DL:Yeah Nelvana after Rock and Rule was kinda like DiC during that time either as a outsourcer or rights holder to make animated series off of books, video games, movies,comics, etc like during this time they worked on Little Bear, Gargoyles, The Neverending Story cartoon, The Free Willy cartoon, The Magic School Bus, and a Ace Ventura cartoon. The only original property they made at this time was Stickin Around for YTV and FOX.

GB:Nelvana characters in their shows have possibly forever lacked some kind of personality or soul. Their shows always looked really modern and slick but the characters were very generic and you never felt like you knew them. Like they were not really your friends that you hang out with every day. I would say at least on R Scarry and Arthur that the shows looked like they were made by humans and they had fingerprints on them and the characters had some warmth or personality that you never saw in Nelvana. At best Nelvana had some nasty characters that would insult other characters and they were good at the bad boy characters but they were never anyone you would want to hang out with. They had a very different approach and I am not running them down. I always thought their shows looked so much better than ours technically but after one episode there was no need to watch a second episode. It was not going to be different or go to another level. Stickin’ Around is a good example of what I mean. I loved that show. I thought the technique was brilliant and the show looked great. The crew and director that pulled that off were amazing. The characters were unbearable though. They screamed everything they said so it was completely one emotion. The specific line of dialog could come out of any of the characters because they were the same personality. The emotion in each show was the same- Hyper. If you saw the first show you can be guaranteed the emotional journey on the second show will be exactly the same. If you think of a really great live-action series like Mad Men you can watch that series and watch the emotional roller coaster and twists in the understanding of the characters, develop from show to show and year to year. You don't know what will happen by the end of the episode when you are halfway through each show.

DL: I mean and Nelvana's animation started to get stiff during the 90s, as I think because of budget or was it from Canadian Content law?

GB:The studios in Canada got really big during the 90s and it was hard to find talent because animation artists needed to draw in the period just before Flash style animation. The budgets and the bigger talent pool were fairly adequate and that is why American producers were all coming to Canada to produce the shows in Canada. Nelvana may have been putting more money in the pockets of the producers instead of spending it on the shows. I had a great relationship with Nelson Shinn at Akom and with Hanho when we did R. Scarry and Arthur traditionally in Korea. The overseas work in the best studios made a big difference in the lack of stiffness. Nelson was doing The Simpsons and he was doing Arthur and those shows were really mopping up the competition in America in those days. Nelvana was trying to dump some lame shows in Akom and not paying for the higher level of show. Mostly the show just wasn't very interesting in the first place. Nelson liked The Simpsons and he liked Arthur, and because he was still just a big kid animator running a company like an art studio instead of a factory he would get good results on those shows. If the show wasn't as good he would let you know.

DL:So back to Arthur, so what did you think about the character designs Marc gave you to work off of?

GB:It was the other way around. We had the 10 books he had published. The characters never looked the same from picture to picture so we had to find a good average and establish some guidelines. A character in animation has to turn and exist in 3 dimensions but in illustration it can just be different in the side of the front view for example. so maybe in the front view the nose is higher or he has whites in his eyes and in profile the nose drops down and you don't have white in the eyes just because it looks better. Or maybe he has 5 hairs in 3/4 view and 3 in profile in illustration. But in animation the character turns or moves into the new position so things can't just pop off or on. It gets annoying if you see that a lot. So we would do a design and make a rotation of the character. Things like his glasses had to be drawn with a double line so we could add the brown color. In illustration it might have just been a brown line when the character is small.Anyway, we did the rotations of each main character and then sent them out every week or 2 when we had enough characters done. Marc would ask to change things in one view or another and that meant changing all the views in some cases if he tried doing something like lowering the glasses in side view. For us we couldn't have the glasses suddenly slip down when he turned each time. In animation, we are also looking at the character as a 3D figure so everything has to line up in all views. Marc was really great at doing new characters or guest characters because he was so comfortable with his style that he could whip off a really great rough design of someone like Arthur Garfunkle. We generally limited the characters to a finite number of animals. Cat, dogs, Aardvark, rats, bear, monkey, and rabbits. These were all from Marc's world. There are a few oddball ones that came out of the design department that stuck around like goats, alligators, and moose. We settled on kind of a nervous and broken line work so it looked more naive and hand drawn. A few things got standardized like everyone always has whites in the eyes. Prunella was an example that we left alone and she never had whites in her eyes unless she got shocked.It took a few months just to do the main pack design and in the end they looked kind of Frankensteinish with all the adjustments. I asked one of the really great designers we had to go over the whole main pack and rotations and action poses and expressions and make the drawing all consistent. His name was Anastasio. I haven't seen him since. I think it was a huge job to do in the short time it took him to do it. But we kept using those main packs for most of the years of production. WE got rid of Muffy's buck teeth after season 1 because Marc decided he didn't like them. and we tweaked Arthur a little because his ears and glasses were out of perspective in some views.

(update from Dom, the Anastasio guy who did the model sheets was Stephane Anastasio, who worked on the series from 1996-1997 as a character designer. He hasn’t worked in Animation before or since the series)

DL:So a question I had for a really long time, is why don't they have tails?

GB:Thank God for that. The characters in R. Scarry had tails that stuck out of little holes in their pants. The dog character's tails looked kind of phallic even. I think the reason is that although Arthur characters are animal-headed they are actually just kids. So they don't have paws or legs like animals or anything. Unless they are actually an animal like Pal or Nemo.

DL:Oh, that makes sense. Many people think that Arthur is just a human who sees everyone as animals. Because in the last episode, Arthur got into drawing animals and in the future he made an autobiographical book with everybody as animals in-universe.Right?

GB:But even in the last episode he still looks like an animal though when he shows his book of the first episode that he illustrated. Now you got me. Why is he studying animals?

DL:Yeah, I don't know. I mean, are they animals or not? Did you talk to Brown about the episode ending?

GB:Of course, we all read the script drafts and approved the character designs, and watched the various versions of the incomplete show. I remember from Marc's comments years ago that he said he wished he had not done the books as animals in the first place because he just wanted them to be kids. It was something he could not undo.I had a different interpretation of the last episode though from the others and I am entitled to my own opinion. I think that none of the time frame from episode 1 until before we dissolved to the Sugarfree Bowl in the last episode existed. The new hipster Arthur is just beginning a fictional book series starting on episode one and he is going to make up all those stories that make up the Arthur TV for the last 25 years. It's not Arthur retelling his past. It's not an autobiography. That doesn't really solve the animal question however. But the end of the last episode is actually the first episode of the series, in that understanding.

DL:Oh, I see, it makes a little sense.

GB:I will have to ask Peter why he didn't ask for the hipster characters at the end to be humans. I will let you know if he had a reason or if he thought they would be.

DL:Another question, why do most animals, like dog and cat characters like Binky and Jenna have human noses?

GB:Jenna has a cat nose. I think because cats often have a nose like a human's. Try to find the Jenna character in the original 10 Arthur books. She looks totally different and not like a cat at all. Binky too is pretty much adapted from the book where he has that big globular nose

He shows me the cover of the first Arthur book, which features a different design than the TV version.

DL:Ah yeah, I remember this is when Arthur was going for a more realistic funny animal style before Marc Brown anthropomorphized them over the years. Imagine if this is what you have to work with if Marc hadn't changed his style.It would've look like Richard Scarry.

GB:He did evolve this more before we started. You would need to look through Arthur's Eyes and Thanksgiving, Arthur's Birthday to see what we had to start with. He only had this super long nose for the first 2 books. They often had hairs drawn on the skin and of course, the clothing changed more often. I was trying to find the old Binky and Sue Ellen picture. I remember a lawyer at Cinar came and asked me which character was in a book. His kid was puzzled. I think it was Sue Ellen but she is very different looking and there was only one design in the books.The books were pretty popular especially amongst educators even before the show came out. They still look pretty good compared to most kids books out there.later on Marc adapted his book illustration more toward what we had in the series and then stuck with it. HIs heads are still a little larger and have nice round furry ears and he is cuter than the TV Arthur, but then again we had to age Arthur up to the 3rd grade for the series. I would say our TV character is more heads high than he is in the current books. He is less wide in the tv series.

DL: Another Question, why did you adapt Arthur's Eyes as the first episode instead of Arthur's Nose? Did you ever adapted Arthur's Nose?

GB: We never did Arthur's Nose. That would have required giving him a nose job or something. Although it would be funny I don't think as many kids would relate to it.

DL: Yeah, Imagine a "Word from Us Kids" segment on that!

GB:Haha! Maybe we could do one more show and do Arthur's Nose but have him change to that big nose like in the first book. All the other kids would be envious and want one like that too.

DL: Yeah, good idea! Lol! So, you were talking about the VAs of the Little Lulu show coming back on Arthur last time. And I wanted to ask how was the recording sessions were on Arthur?

GB: sure go ahead and ask. We primarily had a Montreal cast in the first 10 seasons so we would record in Montreal. Then as time went on we started recording more and more in Toronto but a lot of our main original cast was still in Montreal. Some people were young teens when we started and they had to move away to get on with their lives elsewhere so we would record them remotely in Vancouver or wherever. Some guest stars were recorded in Montreal like Mr. Rogers and Garfunkle and most of the time we had to go to record them where they wanted . It was great in the old days when everyone was together and we could record ensembles. This was really great if we had a big section of Arthur and DW because they would play off each other and we'd get a better performance. Some of the kid characters were adults since the beginning like Bruce Dinsmore who did Binky, Dad and Bailey. And others were old teens like Danny Brochu and Jodi Resther who did Buster and Francine. Then we also had kids like Melissa Altro doing Muffy and the boys that did Brain, Tibbles, Arthur and DW. Those buys kept changing as their voices changed. Initially I insisted we used Michael Caloz as DW even though he is a boy but we had him do the voice of Annie in Little Lulu and I thought he was brilliant. He was the best kid actor I can remember. His voice changed and he moved on in life but we always came back to replacing him with another boy to get that voice quality. I don't know if that answers your question.

DL:Why didn't they record the series in the US if it was an American co-production?

GB:A few reasons come to mind. WGBH was not involved with any production except the writing and the interstitials. Production was all produced or subcontractors were paid by Cinar and so expenses paid in Canada would entitle the production to a tax credit. Secondly, Cinar started as a post-production and recording studio. So we had the facilities and expertise right in-house. Canada at that point already had a reputation for recording animation voice-over. You remember I mentioned that I began working for DIC in Tokyo because I knew someone who owned a recording company in Toronto that recorded voice-over for DIC LA. Even now many animated shows are recorded and post prod is done in Canada for kids shows. If we recorded in the US we would have to send me and a voice director to that city for the recording so it would have been an expense and time spent. Most times the guest stars were recorded in the US.

DL:Ah. So what do you think about the writing on the series and that it was written by Americans, head written by Joe Fallon and Ken Scarabourgh?

GB:I think we had the most amazing writing for any kid's animated series. You also forgot to name Peter Hirsch who was head writer from the time Joe left until the end. We just had the most crazy, most talented and most willing to push the boundaries writers we could have dreamed of. Those guys and even the rest of the writing crew were really fantastic and I loved having the opportunity to work with them. The stories are really what made the series so fantastic and memorable.

DL:Yeah but I remember Joe Fallon left because of something at CINAR.

GB:No nothing to do with Cinar, he left because of a disagreement with Marc Brown. Joe is a fantastically creative and funny writer. His scripts would just be totally insane and you would laugh hard just reading his script. I mean a script isn’t like literature and if you laugh at the script it's rare. Joe would just wind himself up and let go and the story would go through all these crazy places and twists until it came to the end. He is quite brilliant

DL:Yeah and the crazy bus left with him. Seriously, why did that song go?

GB:Yeah that was his crazy bus song. Joe did the demo of that song after he wrote it into the script. Jeff Zahn the music arranger kept Joe's original vocals for the final song and I don't think Joe liked that because he was hoping it would be redone by a singer. Though I guess now he gets the royalties for performing it as well as composing. anyway the song got used a few times in other shows. I think once by Joe and once in another script after Joe left and Joe told us to stop using the song in more shows after he heard that. I don't really know any more of the nitty gritty about that issue. This all kind of heated up about the same time and the fight with Marc and Joe's leaving the show so it was all related in some way.

DL:Ah, so another question is what do you think of AKOM in South Korea and their work on Arthur?

GB:They were excellent. I loved AKOM. It was my favorite studio overseas of the Korean studios. They did such a great job on Arthur. Even sometimes when Simpsons was out of season we would get the animation crew from there on Arthur and the timing and movements were just great in general. Also, the backgrounds were beautiful. They were always on time and I only have praise for them. I miss working with them a lot. I don't even know if AKOM still exists now or if Nelson and his son are still alive.

DL:AKOM is still around but they only do Simpsons now.

GB:Good.

DL:But yeah after Rough Draft opened , they took away many of their clients like Warner, Disney and Universal. to the point of Arthur and Simpsons being their only source of work.

GB: I remember that. I think I was very loyal to them because I always had such great work from them. I first worked with them on Bunch of Munsch and I thought they were good then. So much animation went to China shortly after that point.

DL:Yeah! Your thoughts on the studio, Animation Services? ( I know, it really rolls off the tongue.)

GB:The question should be why did we change to Animation Services who were clearly a less experienced and less talented studio.This was entering the dark days at CINAR. The new owners had taken over and most of the studio had been shut down. The only series was Arthur. Michael Hirsch who was now the president of CINAR had an old dispute with AKOM. He disliked them because he had put a show in AKOM and wanted the best crew on the show but he was not going to pay for the top tier or animation teams. So this old grudge continued later when he controlled CINAR. WGBH also did not get along with Michael Hirsch from a long time ago grudge and they now wanted to cut the budget significantly. At the same time WGBH had it in their heads that we needed to start doing the series in Flash animation because they were doing some other show in Flash and they believed the hype that the show would always be on model and it would be so much cheaper to do. The Flash salesmen had done a good job on them and it stuck in their heads. So we dropped AKOM and started testing companies to do the show in Flash. We tested some good companies in Canada like Mercury and some overseas companies and some pretty inexperienced companies in Canada. We also tested Animation Services. Steven Ching's company. He found a company in Nanjing that could still do traditional animation. At least they still had the key animators but not assistant animators anymore. Anyway, he did the test for the show traditionally on his own decision saying he could do it cheaper than digital. Digital animation was not big yet in China. So out of all the tests we had, I felt that the one from Animation Services still looked the most like the same old Arthur series. The characters seemed to still inhale and breathe compared to digital animation. It wasn't at all as good as AKOM but out of the choices I thought it was going to be less trouble staying in traditional rather than switching to digital and having all those other problems like not having extreme angles and things we were familiar with in Arthur. I got everyone to agree and we managed to do 3 or 4 more seasons traditionally at Animation Services for considerably less money than AKOM. They did try very hard to please us and I know it was hard for them to find the crew that were still able to animate. It was a dying craft at that point in most places. I am glad to be finally able to explain that to someone because it really is the beginning of the end of Arthur. People talk about the drop in quality from one season to the next but this was the reason or how it began.

DL: Yeah, I didn't really like those seasons because the animation was often stiff at times.Why didn't you try Carbunkle Cartoons in Vancouver? They still did traditional and it was run by Bob Jacques who worked with John Kricfalusci.

GB:People complain even more about the seasons done in Flash.Like I said we were not looking to replace AKOM with another traditional animation company, we were testing companies to do it digitally in Flash or ToonBoom. Animation Services just ignored that and did it traditionally for the same price. What we were paying was never very high for Arthur and now we are looking at a drastic reduction in money to do the show. Everyone coming along kept saying it would be the last season anyway.

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Tooning In 14 Greg Bailey Part 4 of 10

DL:So how was the power couple of CiNAR, Ron Weinberg and Michelle Charest?

GB:That's kind of a wide open question. But I can say that they were amazing business people and I got along well with them and enjoyed working with them at least until the scandal that is.

DL:So how did you feel about the couple's goal of nonviolent,educational, children's television?

GB:I think it was merely a sales slogan really. Don't all children's shows need to follow the same old booklet of standards and practices that already forbid violence in kid's shows? I think the educational aspect was a worthy goal and we did always manage to add more content in the shows we did which is a good thing. So many kids' shows are exploitative and really have no point or purpose to them other than to sell toys. If we did do stuff that was not educational then it was a shortfall that I know we were guilty of in a lot of the series we did. It would have been interesting to see what would have happened given more years of Cinar because we had reached a crossroads where more edgy or older audience shows were getting more mainstream. So we were just starting to look at shows that might not have fit the company boilerplate. Ron used to say he would open up a side company called Ranic to do other types of more edgy shows. The name idea was a joke but it was looking like it might soon get in the way of doing other types of shows.

DL:Ah. And so did you work on Robinson Crusoe? For CiNAR and France Animation?

GB:I didn't. I think it was done before I went to Crayon because I don't remember seeing anything in the studio even. Unless it was all at France Animation. What year was it made?

DL:1994.

GB:I was there in 1992 so it should have been just finishing production still when I was there. Perhaps Cinar only did the post-production on it. That was in a different studio at the time and I didn't have much contact with the post-prod people until a few years later. We were only doing Munch and White Fang at the Crayon studio when I started. Favorite Songs were done just before I arrived. I've never spoken to any animation artists that said they worked on Robinson Crusoe so now I am curious where it was done.

DL:Well that got into a big lawsuit in 2009 with CiNAR's successor, Cookie Jar that got sued by the original character over copyright infringement. According to him, he met with the couple in 1985 to pitch the show, but they rejected it. So then in 1995 he saw the program on TV and had a panic attack.

GB:Definitely. And Claude Robinson finally won that case after so many years of fighting for that. It was called Robinson Sucroe. It was great that he finally won that and it's a shame he had to fight so long and hard to get it. In the end, he probably got nothing financially for it.

DL:Oh No, he got a 4 million reward and now receives residuals from the series now.

GB:For the record Cookie Jar was NOT a company that bought Cinar or anything. Cinar was merely renamed as Cookie Jar. So any lawsuits or assets or any business just continued under a new name.The 4 million after 18 years in court would have only covered his expenses. His personal time spent fighting it probably works out to a few dollars per hour if anything. The residuals after 2013 would be pretty small for an old show but I'm glad he got those at least and hopefully he got all the back money from SACD for being the creator instead of all of it landing in the pocket of Christophe Izard and Ron Weinberg.

DL:Who is Christophe Izard?

GB:France Animation president.

DL:Ah ok. Did you interact with him during the co-productions?

GB:No, I never met him. Or maybe said hi on a studio tour or something.

DL:Oh. Thoughts on france animation and their own productions like Code Lyoko, and Spartakus?

GB:Never heard of them. Are they good?

DL:Yes, they're really critically acclaimed.

GB:I will check them out sometime.

DL:I mean thoughts on the studio as a whole from the co-productions with CiNAR.

GB:The only time I had any dealing with them was on the first season of The Busy World of Richard Scarry. They did the middle story blocks of Busy World. I thought it was pretty cheap looking compared to what we were doing in Montreal for the rest of the show. But I have seen reviews that said they liked those sections of the show because of the detective characters. Usually, the companies in France could do good storyboards and designs at that time. It became quite noticeable that France Anim would do great work on the shows that they were a majority holder of,but when they did a part of the show that we were majority holders of it was another story completely.

DL:So, how was the CiNAR scandal? And were you involved?

GB:It was pretty horrible, to say the least. It was a really long slow death. I wasn't involved with it because it was an issue with the executive people in the company, not the animation people or artists. I believe I worked under 5 different CEO's during that period of 6 or 7 years. It was pretty relentless bad news and it was hard enough to direct the shows and then we had that hanging around the workplace 24/7. I lost money on shares I had bought of course.

DL:So thoughts on Ron Weinberg and Michelle Charest after their firing?Do you think they're bad people for starting offshore bank accounts in the Bahamas?

GB:Definitely, it was a bad thing to invest the money that belonged to the shareholders without the knowledge and approval of the board. I don't know that investing in the Bahamas is a great thing for Canada because it is usually done by big companies to avoid taxes. But most companies don't go to court for investing in tax havens. Unfortunately, it's too common but I would never have thought they were bad if they hadn't lost all that money. What was bad was that the money was invested in investments that went bad and then Weinberg was unable to replace the money that was stolen from the Cinar corporation without anyone's knowledge. The con men

John Xanthoudakis of Norshield Financial Group and Lino Matteo of Mount Real Corp. that convinced them to do this are certified bad people because they saw a sucker to take the money from and did it. Ron couldn't resist treating the corporation like it was a personal cookie jar. He definitely deserves jail time because a lot of people lost money they had invested in Cinar because greed was a problem for Weinberg. I don't know that Micheline ever had any involvement in this brilliant idea. The story in the studio was that she was livid when the news came out and had quite a loud dressing down on Ron and Hasanain the CFO in her office. I didn't witness it so that can only be considered as hearsay.

DL:So what you are saying is that you believe that Ron and Michelle were the scapegoats?

GB:Scapegoats no. No definitely Ron knowingly took the money which he knew was not his to play with. He tried to pull a fast one. If he was on the level he would have approached the board of directors before moving the money but then he would have had to share the potential windfall that he was banking on. You can only assume that he was going to pocket any proceeds of his crime. I really agree that he should have received the conviction for securities fraud and deserved substantial jail time. It really destroyed the animation industry in Montreal that was rising up during the time Cinar was making big gains, and the greedy actions of a few individuals destroyed the thing and the livelihood of the animation artists that were feeding them.

DL:Thanks to the downfall of CiNAR, many animators moved to Toronto and Vancouver.

GB:And a lot of animators moved to the gaming industry which took off at the same time. Montreal is now a major hub for gaming companies in the world. Also the major animation software companies Unity and Toonboom are located here.

DL:Like Ubisoft. And a new animation studio opened up called Mikros Image,they worked on The Little Prince,Captain Underpants and the new Ninja Turtle movie, Mutant Mayhem.

GB:Gaming like Ubisoft and Warner Bros. It seemed like a new gaming company opened every month for a few years. There are also a few CGI animation companies like you mentioned, and there are a lot of special EFX companies. Just about every show I see on Netflix now has a Quebec credit at the end for one EFX company or another. At least all the movies and shows with EFX in them which is just about everything now..

DL:Yeah, I know.so any projects at CiNAR that you were involved with that never went into production?

GB:Many. I can only remember a few offhand. Suzie Zoo and I also did a demo and pitch bible for a series called Bronco Teddy which is an old Jim Woodring comic. This was after we became named Cookie Jar. We did a demo to do the Arthur 3D movie that was made and is absolutely horrible. But Marc Brown and WGBH were determined to do the movie without us regardless of what we did.

I guess nothing else was very memorable.

Usually, you forget the ones that don't go anywhere. Mostly because there is no one you can ever talk to about it because no one ever saw it obviously. One time we did a really great demo for an older teenage audience film. It was an action-adventure kind of thing and the animation demo was already done and looked really great. I remember going over to record the actor doing a voice-over for it. I had hired an actor with a very deep gravely tough guy-sounding voice for it. He was giving a great read that built up to a nice crescendo, but at the end of the script it said something like " from the producers of Paramount and ... Cookie Jar>" no matter how he tried to do it we would just crack up when he had to say 'cookie jar'. It sounded so milk toast, and we were trying to promote this really awesome action-animated movie. It was insurmountable.

DL:Well it would've sounded fine if the company was still CiNAR. as if it said "from Paramount Pictures and CiNAR" he would keep a straight face and it would look presentable.

GB:Yeah, exactly! Or Ranic. Yeah it was his joke. Cinar backwards. Oh yeah the last line was "from the writers of Die Hard and produced by,,,,Cookie Jar." They were intending to hire a writer that wrote Die Hard 2. He was a contact from Toper Taylor of Cookie Jar and he was trying to find a spot for him on this new show or feature. I just remember this really great anime kind of animation with lots of Japanese EFX so perhaps it was a show that was already quite developed when it came my way. I wish I had kept a copy of that trailer. It was just great to play it for the humor of it besides having great animation.

DL:Exactly! That was Ron's proposed name for its young adult division.cookie Jar reused that idea and came up with The Jar division.

GB:The Jar. I still have an old coffee mug with that at my cottage.

DL:Steven E Souza? Cookie Jar was working on a show with him called Spyburbia.

GB:Yes, Steven de Souza. We tried doing a few things with him. I think he ended up writing the Santa Clause special that had Willian Shatner doing the voice. I had started directing it very very briefly and then Arthur came back for another season so I was able to avoid that one. Steven could recall every scene from every action movie ever written. His scripts are like a stream of references from different scenes from different movies all strung together into one script.

DL:Yeah. So how were the years at CiNAR from 2000-2004 when Ron and Michelle were kicked out?

GB:Those were probably the worst years there. Everyone was getting laid off and different parts of the company were being dissolved and we had a revolving door of CEOs coming in to save us. Finally, we hit a new low when Stuart Snyder came in to make everything in his vision of pro wrestling and pretend he was some kind of big-time slimy entertainment producer as you see in movies. My memory of the dates is not precise anymore for that time frame, but I am assuming by your question that 2004 was when Cinar found a new owner and was renamed Cookie Jar. So you are talking about just before Michael Hirsch and Toper Taylor came in.

DL:Wait, you had Stuart Synder, the cartoon network guy as CEO?! And yes before Hirsh and Taylor.

GB:It's funny that in the years you mentioned that we were still in the height of the series Arthur. We won Emmys for Outstanding series in 2001 and 2006 and a Bafta in 2002. So even with all that stuff going on it's amazing that we were able to block out all that noise and still do a great show. Yes we did have Stuart before M. Hirsch came into the scene at Cinar. Stuart was the one that made the sale of the company and he had just come from WWF. I always wondered if he was at WWF when Owen Hart the wrestler died in the wrestling stunt that went bad, but I didn't have the nerve to ask him.

DL:Well,he had a good run with the Cartoon Network weirdly when he was president.

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Infrared photos of Delina, Tennessee back in June 2023.

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Tooning In 13. Greg Bailey Part 4 of 10

DL: Well. So how was working with Hanna Barbera again with Young Robin Hood?

GB:It was fine. Kind of like going back to my roots as far as working in animation went. On Robin Hood I was running the timing department and lip sync included. I went pretty smoothly from what I remember. It was a good chance to bring the US Saturday morning standards to a Canadian studio.

DL:The Busy World of Richard Scarry for Paramount/Showtime/The Family Channel and France Animation? How did that come to be and how was working on that show?

GB:It was my first animated series to develop and direct on. It became quite a hit and really put Cinar on the map. France Animation was the minority on the project . The only did the Busy World segment. We did the other 2 story blocks as well as the musical interstitials , the opening, the post production so we really did the bulk of it. The Paramount connection was actually quite peculiar and lucky. The people that worked in a portable in the Paramount lot were actually making trailers and publicity and handling some licensing. They were not the film or tv executives. However they had the rights and connection to Huck Scarry (son of Richard Scarry) and they decided they had the power to put together an animated tv series without going through the regular tv and film sections of Paramount. It was pretty gutsy of them to do that and after the show went out and was a success they ended up having to relinquish some control of it to the proper departments over there. Cinar ended up selling the show in over 100 countries worldwide. I really loved the development we did on the show. The characters all had unique walks and lip sync models and we also kept the scenes really busy with lots of details moving around. We also had used a sort of isometric perspective or down shot for the entire show. We avoided all the trendy dramatic cartoon kinds of angles that were and are still popular in animation. Things that are far away are always higher on the screen. This was something from the Scarry books. We also used a lot of white in the background to achieve that kind of vignette sort of look. It wasn't painted solid side to side like typical Nelvana kind of shows. It was really a cool look and I think the stories all had a nice twist ending. It was an interesting show for young preschool kids because we had a lot of information and details they would never have been exposed to. It was very whimsical looking with the things like the pickle car and the banana car and Lowly Worms apple car. But we showed a lot of stuff like how the inside of a fire station operated and the variety of firetrucks they use. I think we had more time to develop different things on that series than most preschool series even dream about nowadays.

DL:Did you have any interference with the Scarry family?

GB:I don't know that I would call it interference, but I did work with Huck quite regularly. His dad was not in the picture. But we would send the models and scripts and storyboards rough cuts to Huck. It all went out by fax machine in those days. He would often be able to send a sketch the next day if he had a better idea for a model or some details on the model in order to keep it in the Scarry world. But he did go through all the material promptly. It is always a matter of getting non-animation people educated about now backtracking on things at a later stage when they finally notice something they want to change. Like, don't start changing the character or background when we send out the storyboard and you have already been shown the designs a few months earlier. I think Huck got used to those things over the course of the season and wasn't a big problem that I can remember.

DL:Also I believe that Richard Scarry sold the rights to France Animation first because he was living in Switzerland. And France Animation was close by in France and they called CiNAR to co-produce and Showtime/Paramount came to broadcast and finance the series.

GB:I didn't know that! We had already been working with France Animation on other shows before that so I figured CiNAR asked them to partner on it. But I understand what you are saying and it's quite possible. I wouldn't know.I am not surprised that Richard Scarry would sell off his rights in Europe. He moved out of the US a long time ago and always had nasty stuff to say about the US. He was super right leaning and rigid from what I know about him. He was avoiding living in a country where he would have to share his taxed money with poor people. I think it would have been pretty crazy doing the show with Richard Scarry.

DL:I never knew he was anti-American.

GB:He was American himself. I would clarify that and say he was anti -America. He was pretty anti-a lot of things.

DL:The Little Lulu show for HBO and Golden Books.

GB:Little Lulu was a series I developed between seasons of Richard Scarry. This time I wanted to do something with a different and strong graphic style to it. So we had these characters and backgrounds with incredibly thin lines. It was still all drawn in pencil or pen in those days so it could be hard to get the proper line sometimes in production. It looked very beautiful but I admit the format of the show with all those small bits and pieces was hard to watch for a whole episode. The stand up comic bits were not funny and were lame. One of the producers loved Seinfeld and was sure that copying Jerry Seinfeld's standup section would work in a cartoon. But how would you get an animation writer to write a stand up routine? It is something that comics try out and constantly refine by reciting it to a live audience. It was the one series that I actually went to do the pitch and sale at HBO. I did the pitch and Ron Weinberg did the sale that is. The HBO producers owed a favour to Tracey Ulman for something she did for free for them, so they insisted we use her to do the voice-over for Lulu as part of the deal. Again it really hurt the series because she sounded old and gruff. She was totally wrong for the part of Lulu. The initial sale was to do 5 specials. So we used her for those 5 shows only. The show went to a full series of 26 episodes before we even delivered the first special. There was a lot of stuff I liked about the show but it wasn't as much of a hit as Richard Scarry was as far as sales went. Also like I say it had some irritating aspects to the episode because of so many little pieces that were not funny or did not help the flow of the episode. I was introduced to some great voice actors on the show like Michael Caloz that did Annie, and Bruce Dinsmore that did Tubby. These were the best characters in the series and I worked with these actors again later on Arthur because of the Lulu Series. I directed the first 5 episodes then I was a supervising director for the remaining episodes. So I was less hands on at that point.

DL:Well I like Tracey Ullman's voice for Lulu as it fitted the character weirdly and also a youtuber pointed it out too about the Seinfeld bits.

GB:In hindsight, I think the way to write the standups would be to give a theme to a standup comic and have them improvise a 30-second routine on the subject. And record it while they do it. Write it down and give the recording and written script to the voice actor to try to copy the timing and natural speaking rhythm of the standup. Something like that. But to get an animation writer to write and script then expect a voice-over actor to attempt to deliver something with the stand-up comic timing was not a good approach. It is not spontaneous sounding. There was a series about a psychiatrist that used stand up comic routines for his patient sessions. I forget the name of the show now.

DL:Dr Gnudo I believe.It was a segment on The Tracey Ullman show.

GB:I was thinking of Dr Katz.

DL:Papa Beaver's Storytime for France 3 and Nickelodeon?Also, did you watch the original Little Lulu cartoons or read the comics?

GB:I did read Little Lulu comics when I was young and I remember the cartoons as well. When we did the new version I watched a lot of them again. The history of Little Lulu was very long as far as the comic but also as a cartoon. It was made by a lot of different studios over the years. So we were just one more part of the line that makes up the history of it. I have a couple of the old comic books from long ago.

DL:That's cool!

GB:I always called Papa Beaver by the French name Pere Castor because we were the minority partner on the project and that was the name of the project until they dubbed it. I was a co-director. I loved those shows at the time because the stories were based on classic folk stories from around the world. So they had good stories and we copied the visual style of each book we used. No 2 shows looked alike. The beaver and the children beavers at the start of each show were done in France by the main director. So we had a lot of fun on our side doing peculiar and unique-looking small cartoons. Some were really weird stories like a raindrop that falls out of the cloud onto the farm field and eventually goes into a river. The story could be any length we wanted as long as it was under 4 minutes. I have never worked on anything that did not have a fixed length before or after that series. It was a fun show to do until people started calling me Pere Castor. I think we did 26 of those stories.

DL:Well, is it because you're Canadian hence the name?

GB:It just sounded like I was so old. If I was American it could have been worse using your logic. I would have been Papa Bald Eagle

DL:LoL! Legend of White Fang for HBO/The Family Channel?

GB:That was my first job at Cinar/Crayon Animation. I was a posing supervisor. That is the posing department would drawn the key animation poses as well as the camera key for camera work and field so it could be sent overseas for animation. Mostly what I remember is that the studio was very disorganized at that point and it was hard to get enough work from the layout department to keep my really small crew supplied with work. they were on piece work so it mattered to them. I did that show for 3 months or so and then the series Bunch of Munsch started falling behind and I got a chance to direct on 2 of the Munch specials.We had a historian as an advisor on White Fang . It was Pierre Berton who every Canadian knew at the time as a regular on CBC. Anyway, the interesting thing he pointed out in one script is that the people could not have sent a telegram to get help from the Mounties in one of the shows, because telegram service was something that was only available along the rail lines. White Fang takes place in the Klondike gold rush which is in the mountains and a few thousand miles away from the nearest railway line. It all seems pretty obvious but you can see how animation writers left on their own had no problem putting in a story point like that which would seem idiotic to anyone that knew how telegram lines work. I remember we had a scene in White Fang where the little girl was being held in a cage by the bad guys in this remote cabin in the wilderness. It was kind of kinky looking. Anyway one day one of the layout guys left a drawing from a scene with white fang hanging by his leg from a tree in a leg-hold trap. It did look pretty grim. The producers were doing a tour of the studio for some daycare teachers, and they saw the picture which freaked them out. Everyone got a lecture about it the next day even though the artist was just following the scene in the storyboard that he was supposed to follow. So for the little girl in the cage in the log shack, we changed that so the bad guy slept outside in the snow beside the cabin. It looked totally insane and confusing. I believe the bad guy's name was Beauty even though he looked like a big thug. So weird stuff happens in animation and it isn't always the animators doing dirty drawings on the side.

DL:Oh well, so you scared some preschool teachers, I find that actually funny.It's weird and absurd.Caillou for Teletoon and PBS?

GB:Caillou didn't run on PBS in the first season. Cinar had joined with Astral and Nelvanna and created the Teletoon Cable station in that period. If I recall it was 50 Astral and 25% each for Cinar and Nelvana.Caillou was developed from a Quebec book property that was already popular in Quebec in French only. So we were working with a local publisher and artist that illustrated the books. I remember there was a lot of push to put hair on Caillou but it just wasn't the same character anymore and I didn't have much problem with him being bald figuring a lot of little kids don't have much hair at that point. Later on people would send letters thanking us for the show because they had cancer and lost their hair too. They believed we did it because Caillou had cancer. I am always happy to hear these little unintended things have good consequences for some people that can use any good news they can get. The show was more popular than I thought it would ever be and it took off and kind of spread, including to PBS. There was always talk of renaming the show because it was hard for English people to read the name. The kids never had any problem with it but it scared the parents. I guess it was good for having made a new word known to Anglophones because we never changed that nor did we give him hair. The name translates as Pebble so that name was already known from the Flintstones so that didn't catch on. I developed the show from a book series to a TV series and directed the first bunch of shows before I moved to Supervising Director on it. I believe we were doing Arthur by then so likely I had worked Caillou during the off-season on Arthur. Caillou got kind of messed up after a few seasons when they added some live-action parts to the show. I heard that the kids that had been following the show in the earlier years were having traumas and crying because someone turned off Caillou. They were actually crying because a producer or sales executive messed up a perfectly fine show for little kids by adding some marketing idea to the show. The kids finally got their way and they took that crap out on the following seasons. Some parents often complained that Caillou was too whiny and their own kids never whined. I think they never sat in a restaurant behind their own kids, however. They were probably whining because of the live-action scenes in the Caillou show.

DL:Did you supervise the lost grandmother scenes of Caillou?

GB:What do you mean? The storyteller?

DL:Yes it was the opening format for the show in season 1-4 as the caillou segments were stories she read to her grandchildren.And were animated in a different style then Caillou segments.

GB:I remember going to the record session for those parts. It was pretty brutal. The actress was a former grammar school teacher and was very stubborn about the way she was willing to act out the line even when it didn't make sense in the overall context of the scene. I don't think it would make the show worse to remove that section except that kids don't have time to go get a snack before the story begins.

DL:Animal Crackers for Alphaim, Teletoon and Fox Kids.

GB:I didn't have a lot to do with the show in the end. At that time I was head of the visual look of new shows in development. The show almost sold itself because it was well known from the comic strip and the look was popular. It still always needs to be developed for TV but it went through my hands pretty fast before it was sold for a series. I was a Supervising Director on it. but not very hands on. It was a cute show but it didn't run very long.

DL:Paddington Bear for Filmfair/TF1/HBO and ITV?

GB:Paddington Bear. Interesting history on that property. It came about because Cinar bought Filmfair. FlimFair made the original series that ran on PBS as probably their first animated series. It was probably on PBS in one of their first year of being. Anyway we all thought we had fond memories of that old series so we all rushed out to watch old episodes of the show. Wow, was it ever crude. Anyway Filmfair still owned the rights for television. Michael Bond was still alive and he was all excited to do a new series. So I read a book or 2 of his books of short stories. I realized quickly why I never read them to my daughter when she was young. The stories were not even stories and they were trite and sentimental. The stories didn't have an ending; they just waffled away into nothingness. Michael was very involved and kept his nose in the business of the scripts on the series. He did his best to make those nothing endings on the stories so that was a barrier to making a decent show. The illustrations in the book are very scribbly and drawings with no structure so they didn't offer anything we could use to base the characters on. I'm not too happy in the end with the look we got for the characters. They are terribly typical looking characters for a preschool show at the time. It looks very generic like Denise the Menace or any number of shows with no style. Michael Bond thought that every time Paddington would say marmalade that it was just hysterical so it is in every show and it never makes me laugh. It's the trite kind of thing I mentioned. I did visit Paddington station in London the one time I was in London for a few hours. The idea was that Paddington Bear got his name because he was found wandering around in Paddington Station. The station is a really amazing example of 19th century iron work. It was designed by Isambard Brunel the great inventor of iron ships and buildings. There is a cartoon short from the UK about him that is excellent.

DL:I didn't like Paddington either, but I like the live action film. Have you seen the film?

GB:No, I didn't. I'm sure it was better than the series. Does the story have an ending? We should have just let Film Fair make a new stop-motion Paddington. It would have been well received. Paddington had a very extensive licensing franchise. We had these licensing people come from the UK and they explained how the image has been used all over the world and how it goes out of popularity just as it becomes popular somewhere else for some totally unrelated product. Some places in Asia gave free towels in laundry boxes and other places like Holland made cookies with the image. It was really interesting to see how licensing makes money like that.

[dalt20]

Tooning In 12. Greg Bailey part 3 of 10

DL:So it says on your IMDb that you directed 52 episodes of a cartoon from CiNAR called We Are the Dogs in 1985. What was that?

GB:I have no idea! I started working at Cinar in Feb. 1992. I never heard of that dog show.

DL:Oh ok. Somebody musta vandalized your account. Moving on, Starcom the U.S. Space Force for DiC and Coca Cola

GB:I remember Space Force at DIC but never heard of Coca Cola

DL:They were the syndicator of the show.

GB:I didn't know that!

DL:They had a television department called Coca Cola Telecommunications. They had a relationship with DiC during The Real Ghostbusters until the film Ishmel flopped at the box office. Causing DiC to leave the partnership.

GB:Was DIC working on Ishmel? I don't know anything about that. I am not really aware of the property. Why did they leave the work relationship over the film or did Coca Cola close up their department? Sorry I guess I have more questions than useful answers.

DL:No, DiC wasn’t working on Ishmel but yes they left their work relationship over the film.And also I'm glad you ask for answers on my knowledge.

GB:Do you know why they left over the film? It was a live action film wasn't it. I was in Japan in those years so there are a lot of things that I seem to have a lack of knowledge about what was happening on this side of the world in those years. Especially in entertainment. It took me years to see films like Robocop after hearing everyone in the US talk about them all the time.

DL:It was because their deal was soured because Coca Cola was losing money from the film, a big loss. And they sold the film distributor Columbia Pictures to current owner Sony. Plus it was thought that DiC was eying a merger with Coca Cola.

GB:OK, I sort of understand now. I will have to ask around about it to see if anyone knows about it other than the executives. I believe this flop happened around 1987 if I see it correctly on Google in my quick look. DIC really went through a big upheaval at that time so it may be related. Jean Charlopin split up with Andy Heyward about that time. DIC Tokyo went with Charlopin and part of the split said that some work would be sent to DIC Tokyo for a season or 2 before DIC LA went off and did their work elsewhere. There was a lot of activity at the executive level and that ended my gig in Tokyo as well. The whole art department in LA also broke up and people went their own ways.

DL:Yep, that is correct.The ALF cartoons for Alien productions and NBC?

GB:I don't think I saw any Alf shows after they left DIC or did they end at DIC. Also Saban was part of the 3 way ownership at DIC. He bought out the music rights that DIC had and moved his company back to France. DIC really had no library to fall back on and soon had no more shows. Heyward had a lot of debt. 80 million seems to stick in my head right now and it doesn't sound like much now but with no library did it really have any value. Heyward promoted his golfing buddy Mike Moliani from director to an executive position. Mike over the years that I was there directed some pretty bad shows that were also very disorganized and had a lazy kind of pre production work done in LA. That's what I was saying last time that I would jump to do shows by Raynis because his shows were so great even if they were more challenging. The Mike Moliani directed shows were not interesting to work on as an artist and animator. It was ironic, jumping ahead 20 years later, the company I worked at Cookie Jar Toronto also bought out DIC and spent a lot of money for a company that still had no library. But I get ahead of myself.

DL:yeah. Saban bought the foreign rights to the shows only to sell them to C&D, the company of Jean Chalopin. Some jackass move.

GB:I don't know that it is a bad thing to have the rights. That's how animation companies make money. It was just questionable what Andy Heyward had after buying DiC without any rights to the music or any of the shows they made. Anyway, I am not the expert on all the executive dealings at DIC and I'm sure a lot of people have more insight than I do about that. So if Saban bought and sold the film distribution rights just to hold onto the music rights it sounds like he might have made a good financial deal pretty quickly. Sort of like flipping some real estate in a hot market.That must be how Charlopin had the rights to Gadget when they made the live action movie a decade ago.

DL:Yeah. And DiC brought Saban to court fighting with them about selling them to their former shareholder where they duke it out until it was settled in 1991 with Saban owning the rights to the pre 1990 DiC library.Revoking it from Jean Chalopin.

GB:That's funny. I believe Charlopin and Saban were old business partners at DIC France pre-LA days. I never heard that there was any bad blood between them. So I guess Saban just licensed the rights to Charlopin to make the live-action Gadget. I think they made a new animated series as well about that time. I didn't see the movie. One day I was listening to a culture critic talking about movie sequels. He said the worst movies are live-action movies based on animated tv shows. He said the Gadget movie was the worst one of those. So I guess he didn't like the movie much. I remember Bruno Bianchi's and Charlopin's names on the poster. Maybe Saban's name was there too but I didn't pay attention. I never met Saban but I had met Charlopin a few times in Tokyo just to be introduced basically.

DL:Actually they were as Saban would compose the soundtrack to Ulysses 31 and Mysterious Cities of Gold.Saban was not a producer on the film, but Chalopin and Heyward were.So how was the founder of DiC?

GB:What do you mean? "How was the founder"?

DL:Jean Chalopin,like how he was.

GB:Like I say I was only introduced to him briefly. He was kind of a nice-looking and amiable person from my brief meeting. He looked like someone very comfortable in his skin and well-suited to the jet-set lifestyle he was living. He was still quite young then. I would guess in his late 30's/ maybe 40 so he was an early boomer. I saw him last around the time the company was breaking up and he had come to Tokyo I guess to meet with Katayama and Bruno and discuss what the plan was.

DL:C.O.P.S. for Hasbro?How was working on that show?

GB:I think everyone in DIC must have worked on that series. It was another syndicated series of 65 shows so as usual they went through the studio at breakneck speed and the quality of syndicated shows was much lower than network Saturday morning shows. I didn't love the show much because it was kind of macho adolescent stuff with not much story value and no humor. I guess if you like that kind of thing it was fine but I never really liked the natural human-looking animated characters. It just looks like bad life drawing or something and makes me remember my early days animating at Hanna Barbera. I just read a byline when I searched on Google to refresh my memory. "Cops in 2020". So I guess it was a future cop show inspired by Robocop. Part of the pre-production work was done in Canada. In Ottawa I believe, because DIC had started doing some pre-prod work in Canada by that point.

DL:Yes, it was inspired by Robocop.As Andy would try to copy trends at the time.

GB:There was some kind of immoral feeling working on shows that were glorified commercials for toys. It did weigh on you and destroyed your belief that animation should be a good thing for kids, not just something to exploit them or make them bug their parents for more terrible cheap toys.A salesman always proposes a show that was a success last year by someone else. It is counter to shows created in a more creative environment where copying something already done would be at the bottom of your list of what to do. Does that make sense? In later years working in development I would see a lot of ideas or suggestions from the sales team about making a show just like Spongebob, or just like whatever was a success last year. It is really anti-creative. But syndication was just selling toys that Hasbro was making. I guess I helped to sell a lot of toys at DIC.

DL:So how did you feel when you left DiC Entertainment in 1988?

GB:I thought my career would end because it would be hard to replace the job with something as high-paced and rewarding. It was also a matter of leaving a very financially rewarding position because we got paid well. I was going to have to leave Tokyo, which I liked a lot. Although in another way it was time for me to leave because I had put my family through 4 years of living out of a suitcase. It was time for things like school for my daughter and living somewhere that my wife could work and get on with her career. Living in Tokyo was definitely making that impossible. I didn't think I would find another job as interesting as DIC but I had learned a lot of useful skills and information about how to control a production and get more input into the show in a professional manner. A lot of skills that were not known in Canada at the time.

DL:So you worked on The Raccoons,your first Canadian production you worked on.

GB:Yes, the first after coming back from Tokyo. I was living in Ottawa for the first time and Hinton Studios was doing Raccoons. I never became much of an expert on it because my time there was short-lived before I went to Cinegroupe in Montreal. I did some Raccoons and I just started on Ren and Stimpy for a week or 2. I also did part of a storyboard on Where's Waldo in that period I believe. I don't remember how I found that job though.

DL:So at Hinton Studios, were they drawing dirty pictures of the Raccoons characters according to rumors?

GB:What?! Animators never do that.

DL:Well TV tropes said so and i just want to know to clear up rumors,that's all.

GB:I always thought those noses on the bad guys Cedric and Cyril looked kind of obscene all the time. It would be difficult to make them do anything too dirty with those flaccid noses. Come to think of it they all had droopy noses even the Raccoon characters except the females. Must have been from all those dirty scenes they were involved in that never made it onto TV that left their noses limp.

DL:Ah. so you work on the Ren and Stimpy pilot, Big House Blues. Were you working with Bob Jacques?

GB:I think I was supposed to but I only did about 2 weeks and then had to leave.

DL:How was the experience and did you like the program?

GB:Too brief to get much out of it. I was pretty excited about the design and method they were using to work. I loved the show of course and often wished I had had more time on it. The model sheets were really great and the show felt really fresh at the time.

DL:So when did you get to go to Cinegroupe in Montreal?

GB:I left to go there right after I did Ren and Stimpy for a few weeks. I was probably working the next week in Montreal and commuting back and forth to Ottawa on weekends. I had worked at Cinergroupe before going to Tokyo for a few months on Ovid and the Gang as an animator. Anyway, when I left Hinton Studios for Cinegroupe it must have been 1988 or 1989.

DL:So what was Ovide and the Gang?

GB:Ovid was a co-production with Belgium. It was an original series based on a comic book style of characters. I can't even remember what the point of the series was or the relationships between the characters. They were very cute-looking characters though and the studio was animating the whole series with about 5 animators and 5 assistants. When I went there after Hinton they were doing a few series. L'Aventure de L'ecriture a show about French grammar and a series Little Flying Bears which is just exactly as the name implies. Everything was little something or other in those years. The bears had dragonfly wings. These flying bears were saving the environment. But I guess they didn't succeed because it's still a mess. But saving the environment was big in animation in those days.

DL:So by the way, did you have cable in the late 90s early 90s? Because these shows were broadcast on The Family Channel.

GB:I do remember them on TV but don't know if it was Family Channel or CBC. I probably only had basic cable at home. I'm not sure when the series finished. Oddly it was a co-production with Yugoslavia. Unfortunately, a few years into production the Yugoslavian war began and that turned into a bloodbath. I remember before the war everyone was talking about what a fantastic place it was over there with all those people living in harmony. The breakup of the country and the massacres just went on for what seemed like more than a decade. Anyway, the show kept getting held up because the co-producing company was telling us about the tanks sitting out in front of the company and it just got impossible eventually. It's weird how all this bad stuff is going on behind the scenes in these innocent cartoons on TV.

DL:Oh yeah. Well can’t believe that the Yugoslavian war was tied to the production trouble of Little Flying Bears.Also before I go, one more question. How was it when you went to work for CiNAR and Young Robin Hood for Hanna Barbera and France Animation.

GB:I heard once that the producer over there wanted to have Cinegroupe's production money payment sent to him in a location in a neighboring country. But that didn't sit well with Cinegroupe. I don't know if they suspected he would run for it with the money and get the heck out of the way of that approaching war. It seemed like the country was unfolding in slo mo at that point. This was before the war in Kosovo and Serbia. The co-producer was in Zagreb. It was a pretty city that held the international animation festival every second year alternating with Ottawa.

DL:Interesting.

GB:Robin Hood was fine. The first job there was on White Fang. I was an animation posing supervisor. Then I did timing direction on Robin Hood. Robin Hood went by pretty smoothly and it was nice working in a familiar US production method. I was able to bring in some of those timing skills from Tokyo into the job.And then I directed a few specials on Munch. Murmel Murmel and Boy in the drawer.I think that is the correct order of work at Cinar. It was called Crayon Animation in those days but it was owned by Cinar.

DL:Wait CiNAR was called Crayon animation?Also before then CiNAR was a dubbing studio before it started to produce its own productions in 1988.

GB:Yes, the animation part of the company was called Crayon Animation. Cinar existed at a different location downtown. They did the post-prod mixing and sound work and recording at Cinar. And the executive offices of Ron and Micheline were downtown at Cinar. The animation studio Crayon was in an old industrial warehouse space in St Henri in the mid-19th century industrial part of Montreal. If you've seen the movie or read the book The Tin Flute that is where it was. Lots of rail yards and on the old Lachine canal.Yes they did the dubbing and all sound work at Cinar headquarters downtown. They owned the building there, which was originally an old convent. Later on we moved out of the Crayon building and moved to a new office tower around the corner from the Cinar headquarters and sound studio.Ron Weinberg would often talk about how he started Cinar by driving around the US with a trunk full of videotapes of the movie Wicker Man and he would sell this tape everywhere. I don't know how he did that but that was the story. I don't know if I ever saw Wicker Man but at Burning they used to burn wicker furniture in memory of that movie.

[dalt20]

Tooning In! 11 Craig Clark part 2 or 7

DL: So, we’re talking about FilmFair and how the UK division is well know then The American headquarters.

CC: I did not know much about the UK division.

DL: Yeah ok, so back on track, how is the environment of Commercial Animation studios different from Television Animation Studios? As you are more fond of the former.

CC: I liked doing commericials doing full animation. Only drawback was the schedule was only 8 weeks then you had to find something else. TV shows can last up to a year, doing character layout, boards or directing. Little real animation unless you actually get to do the opening tile in house, (Simpsons, Alvin and the Chipmunks...) Yeah it was Art Babbit I saw in the Filmfair ink and paint department animating Richard Williams Thief and the  Cobbler. Old man in the corner all by himself. Later Richard Williams had his own commercial studio up the street on Cahuenga.

DL: Wait, where was Dick getting the money to start a US studio?

CC: From his UK studio I bet

DL: This is way before he worked at Disney to become Director on Roger Rabbit replacing Darrell Van Critters!

CC: Roger Rabbit was the result of his finishing the Thief after 30 years. There was a Roger Rabbit crew at Bear animation on Caheunga as well. As well as the one in Camden Town in London. The first Roger Rabbit tests with the old design was shot at Namebrand studios in Santa Monica.....part of the "off the lot" development team.

DL: Is that the name of the studio, Namebrand?

CC: Yeah, it was run by John Scheele. Early motion control cameras built by Bill Tondreau for Tron. Don Kushner was the main producer, he would bring his projects in there for development

DL: So you were a special effects animator on the 80s television series Automan, can you tell me what was that?

CC: That was a series produced by Glen Larson for Fox TV on ABC, starring Desi Arnaz JR. Desi was cool, we talked drums, lol. I did the electricity animation on the show, and later the same for Misfits of Science for Universal TV on NBC, out of the same Namebrand facility. Dean Martin Jr was on the show as well as Courtney Cox.  (Dino, Desi and Billy) lol!

DL: How does special effects animation work? In contrast with regular animation?

He sends me a video of Desi Arnaz jr on the The Ed Sullivan Show on September 19,1965

CC: Fx is anything done with no characters in it. ....shadows, mattes, smoke, rain, electricity, explosions etc.   live action or cartoon. I got along well with Desi. I invited me along as a storyboard artist for a pitch meeting at Columbia for a Raiders of the Lost art game show he was developing. Didn't go but it was cool! I was like the on call Universal FX guy, shots on Miami Vice, etc. Even did the fuse burning on the Mission Impossible TV reboot title. Then computers came...it all stopped. no more film! There are plug ins to do all this now! AI is next...lol!

DL: I know! Do you draw directly on the film to create the visual effects?

CC: No, we rotoed the live action from film, drawing every frame on paper, then hand drew the animation on a separate piece of paper. We shot the animation on high con film, which was later used as an element in optical printing. We would choose different filters for colors, etc. If we had big budgets we would use black and white photostats of each frame to draw over. (features).

DL: Ah ok, because back then I thought they drew on film to create effects like that!

CC: No, optical printing!

DL: Ah, so you worked at DiC Audiovisual in 1984 right as a storyboarder on Kissyfur and The Real Ghostbusters. At the time DiC Entertainment was called DiC Audiovisual until 1987

CC: Yeah quick freelance, boards and asst animation. It was not in the main DIC building, just a little office.

DL: Ah, I remember Chuck Lorre said in a interview that DiC was originally on top of a Salon. And that they accept walk-in visits. Was that the case while you were at DiC?

CC: Yes. Was small on the top floor near Burbank High school, They later had a giant building across from Warner Bros.

DL: I know, my uncle lived in LA around the mid 2000s and saw the DiC headquarters daily on his way to college or work, I don’t remember.

CC: Nice! I didn't work there too long. I forgot what was next.

DL: So, according to IMDb, you were a storyboard artist for Nightmare on Elm Street in 1984. We’re you?

CC: yup with Bill Kroyer and Chris Bailey, it was a freelance job while we were on the Starchier movie.

DL: Wait! Chris Bailey, the Disney animator was working on that film? I understand Bill cause he’s more of a VFX guy than a animator but Chris!

CC: Bill came out of Disney, started in character, then fx and CG. Chris more of a character guy

DL: I see. Where did you did board work for the film? Was at a particular studio?

CC: We did it at home and during lunch breaks on the Starchier movie. Earlier I assisted Bill on this Superman Hot Chocolate commercial at Spungbuggy... https://youtu.be/WBR7cBFN72w?si=TRK8u9zIjNtyKonH

He shows me a 1983 commercial for Superman hot chocolate mix in which he was assistant animator to Bill Kroyer.

New Line was just starting. For Nightmare.

DL: So a break for Freddy, that Superman cocoa commercial is really fluid, which part did you animated on?

CC: Superman and the hot chocolate at the end.

DL: Also, Captain Cold is a Flash villain.

CC: lol!

DL: But back to Freddy, so I originally thought because this was New Line's first Blockbuster film that they shot everything on the spot. No storyboards. As this was a Low budget B-movie which got money from European investors.

CC: shot by shot storyboards,,,,we followed closely. I'd show you the link but Google took it off.

DL: So did you board that infamous scene where Nancy's mother got pulled by Freddy from the Door window? As they had to use a giant rag doll which when I first saw it at first, I thought it was stop motion animation!

He shows me his storyboards he did, also recognized that Freddy got hair?

CC: We divided the movie up into three parts, Me, Chris, Bill. very small boards.

DL: So by your order, Bill did that scene then?

CC: my section was the fire section.

DL: Why did your Freddy had hair? Fred has no hair, it burned off! LoL!

CC: boards are done before makeup and art direction, dunno. It's all Warner Bros now...lol!

DL: So, did you saw the film when went into theaters?

CC: Yes, I did. I also did FX on Nightmare 3 over at Dream Quest.

DL: Wait That's Disney's VFX studio before they bought Lucasfilm that owned ILM!

CC: yes they were bought by Disney later.

DL: So, Starchaser: The Legend of Orin for Alantic Releasing. You were assistant animator, digital choreographer and computer animation planner

CC: Yes

DL: What was that film, because I have the screenwriter's book, How to Write for Animation.

CC: Starchaser was a feature shot on film.....in stereoscopic 3d.

He then shows me a scene for Nightmare on Elm Street which he did VFX work.

DL: Is that the scene where Freddy attacks Nancy but before does he turns to magic dust?

CC: No the guy in the wheelchair shoots some stuff. I think.

DL: Anyway, but how was the experience on Starchaser?

CC: Starchaser was cool. Got to do very early CG animation on graph paper. 6 coordinates plated on graph paper, later to be number crunched on the motion control camera, then printed out on cel for left eye and right eye Stereo 3d.

[dalt20]

Tooning In 10. Greg Bailey part 2 of 7

DL: So your first DiC credit, M.A.S.K for LBS and Kenner.

GB: The best thing about the show is once they put the masks on then there were no more lip sync issues to deal with.

DL: `Ah everyone said when you hide the mouths, you don't have to animate lip sync!

GB: It makes a lot less cells to draw and paint that's for sure. Also we tend to mostly do retakes for lip sync issues . The way we worked at DIC Tokyo is we made the lip assignments before they went to the studio in Tokyo and when the final show was animated they sent it back to our studio where we had animators like myself as well as a team of editors. They would sync it up and cut the show to length and then we would call retakes directly in Tokyo. There were no further retakes called in LA. Or at least not often unless there was some huge problem. The show we shipped out to LA then had the post prod sound added and it went on air. Sometimes the shows were leaving Tokyo and it was scheduled to be on air that following weekend. There were about 400 episodes that went through our studio in a couple of the years I was there. It was both syndicated shows and Saturday morning network shows.

DL: Dennis the Menace for General Mills and King Features Syndicate?

GB: Another syndicated series. If I recall we did one season with 65 episodes like most syndicated afternoon shows. That was the big thing in those years. Often they were cartoons made for marketing toys. I could be mistaken but I believe Dennis the Menace had some pre production done in Canada at Crawleys or maybe that was a different show. Those shows from Crawleys tended to be really screwed up and cause problems because they weren't very knowledgeable about pre-production for shipping overseas.

DL: Actually, Dennis for season 2 was done at Crawleys. Also C.O.P.S and Teddy Ruxpin.

GB: I do remember roughing out an animation for a Pas de Deux for the head animator . Or it was some typical ballet kind of move they needed for one of the Dennis episodes.

DL: Ok, did you read the comic strip or watch the old sitcom?

GB: I used to like the little comic books when I was a kid and the sitcom was made for my age. I remember walking around with an elastic in my hair to make my hair stick up straight like the kid in the sitcom. I saw it once in reruns about 10 years ago and it is something best left in the past.

DL: Ah great! you know the source material! As I heard that's important when working on an adaptation of a property.

GB:We did a lot of series that were really cranked out for the syndicated market. Dennis came in the second season I was there. We did some other pretty horrible shows besides Dennis like Hulk Hogan's WWF, Popples, Carebears, Dinosaucers, Beverly Hills Teens, Heathcliff, and so many of them all just blend together. But we also did some of the best shows on TV at the time and I still stand by them. Shows like Alf, Alf Tales, Kideo Video, The Real Ghostbusters ( network version) we also did a less good syndicated Ghostbusters. Usually Richard Raynis was creating and directing the better shows we were doing each year. So we really looked forward to working on them. The design and storyboard and the color and the animation were just amazing for back then.

DL: So by say, how was heathcliff?

GB: I can't forget Barbie and LadyLovely Locks in the list of bad syndicated stuff. Maybe I shouldn't have listed Heathcliff in the poor shows, it was actually better than that. There were a few others that had more going for them like Sylvannians, and Cadillac Cats and Gadget which was just finishing up when I first went there. These were kind of different shows that had the French directors doing them from LA or Bruno Bianchi in Tokyo.

DL: Did you read the comic strip or watch the original series from Ruby Spears?

GB: No I didn't. I know it was a series previously done by them. The one we did was Heathcliff and the Cadillac Cats.

DL: So how was the other segment, the Cadillac cats?

GB: It was fine in a peculiar way. It was the first show that the timing was actually done in Tokyo using western animators. Usually the Japanese like to time their own shows in the method they used. Cadialla Cats was the first American show even animated in China. It was done in Shanghai in about 1985. It looked really different but in a good way because the background painters were trained or experienced using watercolor for the backgrounds. So it looked very unlike all the Guache BG's were used in the US or Japan. But they were very experienced and skilled painters. It was strange to adapt a film-board like company that was making author films for China and get them trained to do work or American network TV. We did the timing because we were worried about having some really weird art film kind of timing if we sent that to be done in China. So the timing was quite accurate and controlled. We had also been the first to send work to Korea a few years earlier. A decade later all animation was done in China or Korea.

DL: So in Heathcliff, Riff Raff's girlfriend Cleo was drawn more anime-esque than the other characters. as all the over characters are drawn in an american cartoon style. Do you suppose the reason behind that?

GB: I think because it was directed from Tokyo and like I mentioned earlier Japan had become the center of the universe in the mid 80's. There were starting to be a lot of Japanese references in entertainment by that point.

DL: ah, I see.

GB: That would have been a better question to ask Bruno since he was directing it in Tokyo but he is deceased now. He would have the definitive answer. Bruno had a Japanese girlfriend that he later married at the time.

DL: Wow! Never knew. So why did you like working on the DiC shows directed by Richard Raynis?

GB: His shows were amazing. He was always pushing animation to a new level that I had never seen before. Up until then we always had very much Pablum-like kinds of shows for American TV. The Real Ghostbusters was actually quite shocking and scary for its time and especially for TV. Alf was just bizarre and had such incredible design and weird fun stories. Everything else in those days was like the same standard set of stories that showed up in every series from Hanna Barberra to everything. You know the typical staple of stories like , the baseball episode, the long lost twin arrives in town, the birthday party that they forget to invite one of the kids, .... These are all the same predictable stories in every series but for sure we never see that in a show from Richard Raynis. I still keep a lot of the designs and bg's from his shows because they still look good and I think we were really cutting through some barriers and taking chances on his shows.I would suggest watching Tough Shrimp Don't Dance from Alf if you aren't familiar with the series. It was probably animated at Korumi Studios in Tokyo which was everyone's favorite animation studio at the time. They were really great at animation and special effects. And from Ghostbusters something from season one with the original Slimer and Janine design like Killerwatt.

DL: Wow! I only know him for the Simpsons!

GB: That's right he went there pretty well after the DIC days ended or when things fell apart. So maybe the last time I worked with him was in 1987 or 88 and then Simpsons was going by then. At least on the Tracey Ullman show. I imagine he joined pretty early on.I forget if he did the first season on Alf Tales. That was also a great show. He also did Kidd Video which was just finishing up when I started in DIC. It looked pretty good. He was a producer on King of the Hill but I had lost contact with him long before then. So he had a great track record.

[dalt20]

Tooning In 9. Dev Ross part 5 of 7

DL: so we were taking about disney last time right?

DR: I don't remember, I did tell you about my time there yes. Not sure if that was where we ended up.

DL: well, after jungle cubs how did you feel when you left the house of mouse?

DR: Disappointed that things had become so distant there. Lost the old feeling of comraderie. No real personal relationships. No team work, Very cold and corporate. I was very sad and felt I had lost a big part of my something that had once been so special.

DL: I'm sorry to hear that. Oh,so you wrote for Aladdin the series?

DR: A few eps,that is all.

DL: process for that?

DR: Don't remember a thing. I wasn't on it long enough for it to have made memories for me.

DL: so did you watch the film,before writing for the series or the sequel?

DR: Yes.

DL: thoughts on the first film?

DL: yeah he was great! so did you like any other 90s disney films?

DR: No. It was a pretty predictable Disney film. The best part was the Genie. Robin Williams ability to improv made the film. His stuff was fresh and out of the box.

DL: yeah he was great! so did you like any other 90s disney films?

DR: You'd have to be specific. I don't recall which movies came out when. I left Disney because I felt their still had become too predictable. Their use of iconic characters over and over was troubling to me.

DL: I see.

DR: They insisted on using their cast of characters and only finally reached for new characters long after I left. Meanwhile you had Pixar who was wildly creative and out of the box. Pixar wasn't afraid to find new heroes.

DL: well sadly pixar is now stale.

DR: Yep. It happens. Youth are turning to webtoons and 2D limited animations from Japan and Korea. Also the gaming industry has leaped ahead of narrative stories.

DL: well it's called 'anime' but yeah, that's all the rage! you probably grew up on speed racer and kimba.

DR: I know that it is called anime but what it is artistically is limited 2D animation. I did not watch speed racer or kimba.

DL: Gotcha. back to your career, you worked on adventures of the book of virtues for porchlight and PBS.

DR: Yes.

DL: written the episode, patience. can you explain to me the show and the episode.

DR: William Bennet was the driver of that. He was the a secretary of education under Reagan and very conservative. He believed kids weren't being taught morals and virtues enough so brought this series to life. Give me a clue on the patience episode as I don't recall it.

DL: thanks for giving me a history lesson (this is not sarcasm) the annie and ari are trying to teach other kids things but the other kids can’t do it and they become impatient with them. and also hellen keller.

DR: I actually really loved working in this show! I loved taking the lessons from the book and making them relatable to kids. But neither came easy. I did the play in high school and loved being Helen!

DL: That's awesome! Good for you!

DR: The fact that it showed the incredible resilience of these women was wonderful for me. I love telling these kinds of stories.

DL: Wow! So,how did you write the episode but trying not to make them christian? secular, i mean.

DR: I wrote them to be universal. All religions have common values. I'm not into religion at all but I do recognize intrinsic human values of kindness, compassion and patience. We all could use a giant dose of that today.

DL: Agreed.

DR: sends me a smiley face emoji 😀

DL : you wrote that episode with the creators according to IMdb.

DR : Not sure what you mean. I'm credited as writer on it...

DL : it said on the page for the episode you co wrote it with them.

DR : Hmm. I never co-wrote. I have the only credit on it when you view the opening. Maybe they made changes later. I don't know

DL : oh ok, lets talk about the Land Before Time. your golden ticket to fame!

DR: Yes. Loved writing those films. Great team.

DL: the first film, the great valley adventure. process on that?

DR: They had a script they didn't like and asked me to doctor it. I did a major rewrite of it in two weeks and that sealed the deal for more. I was fast and they liked my take on the characters. I used my own kids for inspiration and that worked! My six year old son was Little Foot and my bossy four year old was Cera.

DL: Oh, wow!

DR : I would see the problems they encountered with friends and used them in my stories. My son was getting picked on so I used his struggle to deal with prejudice kids. My kids would always give me ideas. It was so wonderful to turn their experiences into stories.

DL: That's awesome!

DR: It was very rewarding!

DL: so you read the original script, can you tell me what was from the script?

DR: The beginning with them finding the egg but that's pretty much it. I still had to share credit though.

DL: Ah, I see. so The Time of Great Giving, the process of that film and the story?

DR: That was crazy. They wanted me to create a Thanksgiving theme along with a fire safety message!

DL: wait, WHAT!?

DR: Since there weren't exactly turkeys back then or a Thanksgiving holiday, I had to find a story that gave those values. It was a bit nutty!! I wrote the whole script then was asked to go back and put a fire safety message in there! But the value of giving thanks and being grateful, that was easy to do. If you watch it, you'll see the Valley has a big fire and Littlefoot helps veryone escape safely.

DL: well, ( i dont curse that often but) that must be absolute hell to write!

DR: When you write for kids you are used to putting in subliminal and obvious messages. But, yes, that one challenged me! But I've made my career on taking hard topics and making them entertaining. I'm working on a science and medicdd as l show for kids now and some of the medical stuff is downright boring! But! We are putting it all in space and using aliens for the medical scenes which makes it crazy fun. The ep I'm working on now deals with constipation!!! But I'm showing it by Mr heroes getting stuck inside a giant space creature who is constipated!!

DL: is that Weird Detention?

DR: Sorry for my bad typing.

DL: It's OK.

DR: No, this is for Dr. Theory. Weirf Detention address conflict resolution. Weirddetention.com

It addresses the need for better communication via magical realism. Three kids trapped in school detention with no way out.

DL: oh ok, but we're  gonna talk about that at the near end. your gonna spoil the the project!

I send her a smiley face emoji 😁

DR: Nah...

DL: that was suppose to be the suprise at the end.

DR: Ok. I ruined my own surprise party!

DL: besides your IMdb credits get shorter when time goes on.

DR: Very true! It's called ageism, Hard to get hired when you get passed forty.

DL: I see.

DR: That's why I do mostly my own productions now.

DL: Oh, OK. Stories of My Childhood, what was that? You wrote the elEnglish dub for a episode.

DR: That was hard! I was hired to take old Russian animation and redo the stories in English. I had to fit English in mouths that were animated for the Russian language. I often had to change the stories as they were very old and not great for American kids. So I was stuck with the animation and had to use it to tell a different story.

DL: did you watch The Snow Queen? old soviet animated film from 1957, that had a all star cast like Art Link-letter. if your old enough to know.

DR: It was not easy. Yes, I think another writer redid that one. Maybe Stephanie Mathison or Sindy McKay. It was fun to be in the editing room on it. Working to adjust the character's mouth movements

DL: Did you watched the first "Art link-letter' dub as a kid?

DR: No.

DL: Of The Snow Queen.

DR: No.

DL: Okay. So but how did you feel about the show using old 50s Russian animation to show to 90s kids?

DR: It was oddly fun to try and make the stories more relevant to our audiences. I loved the challenge but it was tedious!

DL: I can only imagine.

DR: Everything had to fit their visuals and we could only stretch or shorten their mouths so much. Very time consuming. But dubbing is often just doing a translation. I was often rewriting the meaning of the show. That was very difficult.

DL: oh, well how do you feel to be a dub writer?

DR: It was challenging. I wouldn't want to do it a lot!

DL: ok so journey through the mists, process for that film?

DR: That was my need to address xenophobia. Fear of the unknown. People being afraid of others who are different. The story tells that by putting the characters in a strange new place full of new creatures. They need to deal with their fear of others while finding important medicine for Littlefoot's grandfather.

DL: you introduce Chomper the Sharptooth in that right?

DR: No. Chomper is in the first one I was hired to rewrite.

DL: oh ok. how did you came up with him?

DR: I inherited him from the other writers.

DL: Okay.

[dalt20]

Tooning in 8. Douglas Booth part 1 of 7

DL : like i say to people who are you and what do you do and is best known for?

DB : "Who are you" is one of those broad life questions, as is "What do you do?"! Well - for the purposes of the blog - I've been an animation screenwriter since I started as an apprentice writer at Hanna-Barbera in 1978. Have been doing it ever since - sometimes more, sometimes less!

DL : so growng up how was your childhood?

DB : Okay - now that I've stopped laughing (another narrowly focused question, right?) - it was good and, of course, challenging, and, seemingly, it worked, because here I am! I grew up in the San Fernando Valley (Los Angeles) - my parents had both worked at a local TV station (KTLA) where they met - my dad was a director, my mom was a writer/producer. All the shows in those days were "live" - so it must have been an exciting place!

DL : Sorry, I mean growing.So how do you feel being the son of Sir Philip Booth who I believe was a duke?

DB : So -for me - I had a lot of fun playing with my buddies on the block - since it was the early 50's - we were all outfitted with WW2 army surplus gear - and were heaving dirt clods at each other, day and night!

DL : Wow! So did you have any favorite television programs growing up?

DB : No - not so high! He was a Baronet (the lowest rank of "inherited titles") - which he didn't do anything with at all. For me, after he died in 1960 - I became the next in line. Again, for me, it was fun and neat, but never really made any difference in anything! Just a fun, secret identity - like Peter Parker/Spider-Man. Well - I used to watch a lot of cartoons! Loved Disney and Popeye - and Warner Brothers stuff. Also = shows like Zorro (a big fav) - loved Sergeant Garcia!

DL : Very interesting! oh so like douglas booth, children's show writer becomes baronet man!

DB : Well, actually, it was the other way around, because, sadly, I became Sir Doug when I was ten.

DL : Oh! Well I guess. So how did you get knighted? As Sir Douglas Allen Booth?

DB : Again, just a technicality, but it was my grandfather, Alfred Allen Booth, who was made a Baronet, back in 1916 - and then, when he died in 1948, it went to my dad, more or less automatically, and then, to me in 1960. But, yes, Sir Douglas Allen Booth, 3rd Baronet

DL : Ok,so let's talk about your career.

DB : Cool!

DL : So how did you start at Hanna Barbera?

DB : Well - going back to the days when we used to play army men on the vacant lot next door - our across-the-street neighbors - June & Ray Patterson, worked for Disney. June in the Ink & Paint Dept. (remember the candlelit procession going up "Bald Mountain" in "Fantasia" - that was her work - and Ray was an animation director - the dancing elephants (not the hippos, though) - were his!

DL : OMG, that's so cool!

DB : We stayed in touch - and then - years later, I was over at their house for a birthday party and Ray - who was then the supervising director at Hanna-Barbara - suggested I come by the studio and check in with Art Scott - who was the creative director.

DL : And so did someone leave and you got the job as a writer?

DB : when I showed up - Art asked me to write some sample outlines for "Captain Caveman" - which I did and turned in. Then, weeks later, as i was working as a gofer and driver for "Super Night at the Super Bowl" (a variety show) - I had to drop off the animation footage they had borrowed from H-B for their own show (Gene Kelly dancing with Tom and Jerry) - and I took the opportunity to say hi to Art. Who remembered me and said - hey, we're starting an apprentice writers session on Monday. Wanna join in? And... as they say, the rest is history!

DL : Ok. Do you know Jeffrey scott? He worked the same time as you.

DB : Yes - there were the three of us apprentices, stuffed into one small office - and - across the hall was Jeff, in his lovely, large office... with a couch!!! But, of course, he was much farther along in the game then we were, so it was fine!

DL : So, I have his book and he is actually a great help. as you would work with for many shows at HB and DiC.

DB : Yes - I have Jeff's book, too! It's a good one, and as someone who was legendary for his heroic script output, it's definitely coming from someone who knows whereof he speaks!

DL : So your first credit from Hanna Barbera, Dinky Dog segments from The All New Popeye Hour. What was that about?

DB : Right! Mostly about the antics of a gigantic, hyper-active sheepdog - and his sorely beset owner, and probably a kid, who would have been Dinky's best friend. The story-editor was Cliff Roberts - a great writer/artist who came out from New York, and smoked cigarettes in a long cigarette holder! A very funny and nice guy!

DL : Any stories on Cliff per say?

DB : Not that I can remember - just his infectious laugh and his equally funny wife, Virginia - who, as I remember, was very New York hip, but very tolerant of us uncouth West Coast buffoons!

DL : Also Dinky was owned by two girls and their uncle.

DB : Oh - thanks! It's not quite fifty years ago - but getting there - so I'm a little shaky on details!

DL : The All New Popeye Hour? For CBS and King Features, how was it writing for your favorite cartoon characters?

DB : Whew! Just found the chat again!

DL : lol!

DB : Okay - so with Popeye - that was wonderful! Best part was that Tom Hatten, who was a local TV host when I was growing up - used to show Popeye cartoons - and draw his squiggles, so that kids from the live audience would collaborate with him, to create cartoony works of art. So - HB got Tom to come in every Tuesday and screen old Popeye cartoons for the writers (just like the old days!) - AND THEN... Jack Mercer, the original voice of Popeye would come by as well - and it was truly wonderful!I only wrote a couple of the actual episodes - but I did write about twenty of the "Public Service Announcements" - where Popeye would tell kids what to do, or not do - for their health and safety - and then give a trademark toot on his pipe - so that was lots of fun, also.

DL : did you have any restrictions on the character, like popeye can't hurt people or he can't smoke out of his pipe?

DB : Right - there was a major issue with the pipe! It couldn't be used for tobacco or smoke or anything - only to toot with. And, maybe, he was allowed to use it as some other kind of a prop - not sure. Also - of course, no one was allowed to punch anyone, like in the bad old days - all the "action" had to be very indirect, and fairly nonaggressive! Challenging!

DL : So the golden boy of hanna barbera, yogi bear!

DB : Right - I think Glenn and I co-wrote Yogi's Space Race together. Glenn Leopold, that is - fellow apprentice writer.

DL : Oh so Glenn was with you and Jeffrey? As the 3 musketeers of Hanna Barbera?

DB : Well - there were three apprentices, initially - me, Glenn, and Steve (forget his last name - he was an artist - and, after a while, he went back to the art department). Jeff was a solo act - as was Andy Heyward - and then there were a bunch of other writers scattered about the building - Duane Poole & Tom Swale, Bob Ogle, Ray Parker, Jack Hanrahan, Tom Daujenais? - and Lars Bourne, Tex Avery, and Chuck Couch - living legends all - and others whose names are hovering on the edges of my memory! Ah - Mark Jones! Dick Robbins and (later) Bryce Malek.

DL : Well wait! Andy was there? Andy was the founder of DiC and also your boss when you wrote for his shows!

DB : Sure thing! His dad, Deke Heyward - now I'm not sure if Deke was, at some point, the creative director of the studio, after Art Scott - or was the head of ABC Childrens, or something like that?

DL : He was the VP of creative affairs, I think his dad was. Also Tom Ruegger was there for a year.

DB : Yes - he was the story-editor of Yogi's Space Race, as I remember, also another show called The Drac Pack, and others - and - incidentally, a classmate of mine at Beverly Hills High, many years before! Right! I think Tom came on board after I'd been tossed overboard!

DL : Yeah but he was there in 1978 as an assistant animator not until 1984 as a writer.

DB : Oh - there you go! I didn't know him back then - because the artists were in a different building, and so we didn't bump into each other all that much!

DL : Oh ok. So you know Jack Harrahn?

DB : Yes! Enjoyed him a lot!

DL : Any stories on him?

DB : Hmmm... he was sort of old school (believe he'd been a Laugh-in writer, along the way) - all I remember was him saying that writing scripts was like loading sacks of rice on a truck - you just heave 'em up and in! Or words to that effect - but, in truth, his sacks of rice always were packed with a lot of laughs, as well!

DL : He first worked on Fantastic Four the 1967 series for Hanna Barbera.

DB : Oh - cool! Before my time!

DL : but he then got depressed in 2004 after his wife died and got kicked out of his house and became homeless. His friend Jack Riley gave him a bus ticket to Cleveland and he died there in 2008. man was a legend, it was so sad.

DB : Wow. I never knew. He was always very welcoming and friendly, funny and supportive. Yikes!

DL : I know it was just sad. Sorry you never knew.

DB : Well - I will definitely "lift a glass" to his spirit!

DL : Oh and also wasn't Cliff Ruby and his wife Elana lesser at the studio? I believe they wrote for Superfriends and Captain Caveman.

DB : They were before my time, I think - because by the time I got there - there was Ruby-Spears. Yes - I'm sure they did, but I didn't know them.

DL : So how was it seeing your name after a Hanna Barbera show in the credits with the long list of names of writers and story writers for the Hanna Barbera shows you wrote?

DB : Really fun - but, because those were the days of gang credits - where they didn't want to give a writer an upfront credit after the show title - you had to look really, really fast, or freeze the video - because at the end of the show, there might be twenty or more writers' names flashed up on the screen for about three seconds! Still very neat, though!

DL : It was irritating was it?

DB : I do prefer the individual credit at the front end of the show!

DL : Ok so, The Fred and Barney show for NBC. How was writing for The Flintstones?

DB : Again - fun getting to write for childhood favorites - like getting to write dialogue for my Uncle Lester, say! Yes, very neat!

DL : My uncle's name is Lester too!

DB : Wow! Probably not the same guy, though! (I hope - I don't think he had a double-life!)

DL : Nah, but so did you watch the original series?

DB : Yes - definitely! But in the evening, as I recall!

DL : Oh, so how do you write for characters like Fred and Barney?

DB : Just imagine that I'm either one, or both - and do the whole "method acting" thing! Only slightly more cartoony!

DL : Oh, I sometimes method act too when writing my characters, Jeffrey also does it too. He said so in his book! (his children loves his Miss Piggy impression)

DB : Hahaha! I can only imagine!

DL : So I would love to ask you..... what is a Shmoo!

DB : Good question! A weird marshmallowy looking creature that, I believe, came from the Li'l Abner comic strip (?). Bothersome and friendly, and prone to getting into mischief, as I recall!

DL : So how was writing for the show? It was paired up with Fred and Barney.

DB : I don't have any specific memories - but - they were probably scripts I co-wrote with Glenn - and we did have a lot of fun, playing out the characters and scenes in our office, with one of us as the designated typist (switching back and forth) - so - no matter the show - we always ended up having fun "living through" the episode and trying to write it down as best we could!

DL : So how was Chuck Menville, the story editor for Shmoo and Fred and Barney?

DB : Oh - Chuck! He was really helpful and terrific! Right - he and Len Jansen were writing partners, right? One of the best people to work with - and - much later, his son, Scott, was a voice actor on one of the shows I was supervising for Sunbow - "Potato Head Kids" - he was a terrific kid actor and, I believe, has gone on to further glory! Was also sad to hear that Chuck passed on - truly an excellent person.

DL : Yes! They were and his son Scott is famous for voicing Robin on Teen Titans and Mai Ti on Captain Planet.

DB : Wow! That's great - he was really good on Potato Head Kids, as well!

DL : Well did you know that Chuck and Len were animators at Disney as they worked on The Jungle Book as assistant animators?

DB : Hahaha! All these secret lives I knew nothing about! No...Or... if I did, certainly don't remember.

DL : As also were stop motion animators making shorts with people on imaginary cars, bikes and horses!

DB : You know - I do remember that! "Vicious Cycles" as I recall - really funny!

DL : Well, some people do say Pixilation is kinda creepy.

DB : It was - but funny, too!

DL : I know, people can't understand people not moving regularly!Godzilla for NBC and Toho writing for the big lizard?

DB : All good! Always fun to write for legendary characters - and especially fun to have to "become" a super-powerful creature like Godzilla!

DL : Agreed! So how did dealing with Godzilla can’t commit property damage or attack others with his breath?

DB : Just one of those things - like Popeye and Bluto not being able to slug it out with each other! Just gotta get a little more creative and figure out fun ways he can "express himself", but not get you in trouble with Standards and Practices!

DL : Oh ok, did you watch the Godzilla films on TV with the fast dubbing and Perry Mason himself, Raymond Burr?

DB : You know, I don't think I did. Although I seem to have trace memories of all this - but it might be from much later, seeing the films on late night TV? And, of course, I knew exactly who Godzilla was!

DL : Yeah who didn't! He was everywhere, especially in the 70s! Drak Pack for CBS and maybe Universal television.

DB : That was something Glenn and I wrote for Andy Heyward, as story-editor. As I recall, Glenn and I worked with Andy to help develop it as well. And... I'm sure we had fun acting out all the different characters.

DL : On Drak Pack, what was that?

DB : Not a lot of memories - but believe Glenn and I helped Andy Heyward develop it - it was a buddy action-comedy with a bunch of formerly scary vampirish monsters - with, I think, Big D as the den master...Anyway, that's what I'm finding in my memory files!

DL : Ah, so did you get the rights from Universal while making the series?

DB : Above my pay grade! Though I'm sure that was the case!

DL : Okay! So did you know that the series was produced by Hanna Barbera's Australian division?

DB : Okay - here's a confession: I had so much fun writing the scripts and saw the action (in my imagination) so brilliantly animated (lol) - perfectly edited and timed and acted, et cetera - that, after a while, it was too jarring to look at the finished product, say, four or six months down the road - so - for many of the shows that I worked on (unless I was also involved in the production, which then made everything totally different) - I mostly didn't watch the finished episodes, preferring to screen my own version, and sticking with that.

DL : Wow! Ok so does that mean you don't like watching your scripts?

DB : Not exactly. Some of the most fun I had was being totally involved in the production (which meant screening, as well as everything else) shows like G.I. Joe, Glo-Friends, Potato Head Kids, & Conan the Adventurer - in which case I was watching everything over and over again, doing my best to help craft those episodes, from my vantage point as a Sunbow producer, same as if I were writing a script. But - say - with some of the other shows I worked on - either they were for European networks - and so, at that time, unavailable for me to watch - or, in the case of the H-B shows, like I said - I had already "screened" the episodes, after which everything was out of my hands. I liked going through the storyboards, whenever I had a chance to do that - but, by then, I'd already experienced the episode, and it was more fun to move on to the next one.

DL : Ah, I see. How did you feel that you created a series for Hanna Barbera?

DB : Well, I don't think I ever got a "created by" credit for anything I did for H-B, but I do love creating/co-creating shows - and doing one for one of my "childhood networks" was, of course, really fun!

DL : Oh, that's great! Now that's the American dream!

DB : One of them, certainly!