fredalan

[fredalan]

The 10th Anniversary Johnny Cash Christmas Special December 10, 1985 

Alan: Ushering in a new era of television meant more than just coming up with a new vocabulary, audacious ways of editing, and a re-focus on sound as an important element of communication. We weren’t just adding. We were replacing the old ways.

Our early interactions with CBS were a perfect example of what an imperfect marriage that was turning out to be. 

In the early 1980s, the legacy TV hierarchy had no idea how to deal with a changing audience. For the most part, homes still had just one TV set in the house. The premium channels brought movies and late night nudity into the living room, but basic cable hadn’t yet become a creator and distributor of significant original content. Most U.S. TV viewers chose from a maximum of three networks —ABC, CBS, and NBC— when they gathered around the set at night. 

So in an attempt to keep younger viewers in the fold, the Big Three tried (ineptly) to incorporate elements they thought were the essence of youth culture into their existing series and formats. The results were things like putting MTV VJ Nina Blackwood on “Circus of the Stars,” or dressing up stars in spangly Vegas-style outfits to bash their way through music chart-toppers.

An early advocate of ours was a guy named Fred Rappaport, at the time the Vice President of Specials for CBS. Whether he actually knew what we did for a living, or just knew we were “the MTV guys,” Fred offered again and again to shoehorn us into projects he thought might benefit from the “new thing,” whatever that was. He hoped we could enliven a special called “How To Be A Man” by the creators of the TV classic “Free to Be You And Me.” It had already become a cluster hump when the network forced Bob Keeshan —TV’s “Captain Kangaroo”— into the show as host and co-producer. 

There isn’t much evidence anywhere that special existed, and that’s probably a good thing. We couldn’t, and didn’t, do much of anything on it. We were more involved with “The Johnny Cash 10th Anniversary Christmas Special.” And that brought us into contact with Joe Cates. 

Joe and his brother Gil were legendary New York-based producers and directors, with decades behind them. In 1949, Joe was an associate producer of the Dumont network program “Cavalcade of Stars” and introduced Art Carney —then a sidekick of Morey Amsterdam’s— to Jackie Gleason. He also designed the set for “The Honeymooners,” and alone or with his brother, produced more than 1000 television specials. That listincluded all of the Johnny Cash specials,as well as the TV movies he made withCash, Kris Kristofferson, Willie Nelson,and other country stars. 

So this was it. We were in the big time. And boy, what a let down. 

Our assignment was to create some musicvideo-style montages from the previousnine specials, and a snappy opening.I worked out what the budget wouldbe, using a lot of our favorite MTV andNickelodeon animators, and brought that to Cates. “You can have half,” hetold me. I started sputtering. I was using independents who slashed their prices already to get into the game, I told him. These were trusted suppliers. “You don’t understand,” I said. “No, you don’t understand,” he said. “You’re not going to get me one viewer. By the time anyone sees your first frame of animation, they’ll be there already. The only value you bring is, if someone at the building [CBS] pops in the tape, maybe I’ll get another special out of it.”  

I was speechless. He wasabsolutely right. It was the first of manylessons I learned from him, some intentional,some not-so-intentional. TVis about viewers. Nothing else. I don’t think three months have gone by since that meeting in 1985 when I haven’t told that story. 

Later, I learned how haphazardly TV was made in an era when most viewers still had limited choices and were content, if not thrilled, to watch whatever was on. On the day the performanceswere to be shot at Opryland, I flew to Nashville and ran into Cates in the hotellobby as I was checking in. (I wouldmake trips that day to the Country MusicHall of Fame and Cash’s private museumand archive to gather materials forthe montage sequences). He greeted meand I asked him how things were going,imagining that with the stage heating upand the taping just hours away, that theOpryland stage must be buzzing withexcitement. “I don’t know. I haven’t beenthere yet. I’ve been too busy scouting locations for my next movie,” he told me.I wondered if I would ever grow comfortable enough as a producer to leave something entirely in someone else’s hands (eventually, I did), and couldn’t grasp how he could be so nonchalant. 

After my scavenger hunt for Cash material we could animate, I drove to the theater in the afternoon in time to see Cash throw out the script and sit down to write jokes himself. “It’s funnierthan the crap you guys are turning out,”he said to the writers. Keep in mind it’s 2:00 pm and cameras were to roll, with alive audience in attendance, in about five hours.   

That evening, I was tucked into the control room alongside Rappaport, our backs to the wall as we watched brother Gil directing a sequence. One feature the show promised was a tribute tothe legendary Million Dollar Quartet, which began and ended in 1956 as a jam session at Sun Records in Memphis with Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and Elvis Presley. Presley was obviously unavailable on account of being dead, and Carl Perkins wasn’t interested. Jerry Lee showed up, and the reunion didn’tsoften decades of animosity between the men. He didn’t say one word to Cashat rehearsal or at any time during thetaping. To fill out the roster on what was essentially a family special (all the Cash and Carter Cash relatives performed), Johnny turned to his 15-year-old son John Carter Cash. He has had his own career in music, but at the time he was the runt of the litter. And there he was alongside his father and Jerry Lee, with legendary Nashville studio guys banging out a barely tolerable version of “JohnnyB. Goode.”   

As the music played and Gil tried his best to call the camera cuts (he wasn’t really a music editor), Rappaport leaned over and whispered to me, “This is like a bad Bar Mitzvah.” I almost lost it.  

A little later, with cameras still rolling, Joe grabbed me by the arm to walk down the hall with him and get a cup of coffee. “You know, years ago when I was with NBC producing spectaculars —we called them ‘spectaculars’ in those days, not specials...” I was again, non-plussed.What the hell was going on? We were in the middle of taping an expensive holiday special for a major network and this guy wanted to reminisce?  

In the end, our friend Joey Ahlbum merged every filmed version of “I Walk the Line” I could get my hands on, as well as newspaper articles and photos that had never been widely circulated, into a lovely animated sequence that possessed none of the charm and personalityJoey was known for. I did somemontages of guest performances fromprevious specials that I made in the editingstudio with John Tierney, a brillianteditor who saved countless sessions withus inexperienced producers through hisingenuity and talent. 

What was the result? Joe did not get another special out of it. The show did nothing to bring MTV’s brashness and exuberance to network television. And I got some indelible lessons on why this era was ending, and ours was beginning. The days when three networks could cram anything down your throat was coming to an end. An era where targeting, specialization, and unlimited choices that would inspire better quality was on its way in.

[fredalan]

Most of the Fred/Alan book is available right here at FredAlan.org, but we thought you might want to read the two introductions. Here’s Alan’s. 

...

Introduction by Alan Goodman 

August 1970. I arrived at Columbia University as an experienced newspaper reporter and joined the college paper staff, getting my first assignment almost immediately. I was disillusioned just as quickly when I saw my article in print with virtually every word rewritten. That had never happened to me in two summers of working at my award-winning hometown paper. 

Maybe radio, I thought. I rang the bell at WKCR-FM, and Fred Seibert answered the door. He’s been opening doors for me ever since.

I’ve been telling that story for years. It’s shown up in print a time or two. Recently I admitted to Fred I’m not entirely certain it’s accurate. It happened more than 50 years ago. It might have been Lou Venech, who was at the station every minute he wasn’t in a classroom, keeping a pot of coffee hot next to the porcelain frog “piggy bank” where you were supposed to drop a quarter-per-cup. When I say it may not be true, I mean the first part. The second part, where opportunity after opportunity became available to me in my career and life, that was all Fred for sure.

I know this book is about our company, Fred/Alan. But my relationship with Fred is deeper and longer than that and so much of who we were as a company was rooted in who and what Fred is as a human. Like anyone, I struggle to put into words how Fred’s massive intelligence, superior instinct, personal charisma, consistent point of view, and powers of persuasion were like an iceboat through a frozen corporate sea of immobility, copycat decision-making, blaming and shaming, and general inaction. It was amazing to see in person as co-workers, rivals, clients, and supervisors fell into line as Fred led any charge.

Those traits were on display early. 

I remember a time at the radio station when we were in the midst of one of our trademark marathons celebrating a musician’s birthday. This one happened to be a three-day event honoring Charles Mingus. At some point around mid-way through the special we started playing Mingus’ music chronologically. I believe it had been scheduled. When it was Fred’s turn to take the mic, he said “I thought we’d take a break from playing Mingus’ music chronologically and for the next few hours focus on the music that made us all fall in love with him as a bass player and composer.” He programmed his own three-hour shift. I stood there thinking, any one of us could have done that. Who cares about the schedule? It was college radio. Aren’t you supposed to be a renegade? But none of us was, only Fred.

(People always said that at Fred/Alan we broke all the rules. Not true. We obeyed lots of rules. We only broke the stupid ones.)  

After school we went off into the world, Fred into radio and I into film school, then advertising at CBS Records. We were in touch all the time. For a while I would call his new station in L.A., ask for Fred Seibert, and be corrected by the receptionist. “Sei-BERG,” she would tell me as she quickly put me on hold before I could tell her I actually knew the guy.

In radio he became a protégé of Dale Pon, who in a few years Fred would hire as the advertising agency for MTV. Dale taught Fred, and later me, things like the inextricable link between media and creative, the value of numbers, the importance of making and backing up a claim, and how to build audiences. In following Dale, Fred wound up back to New York, where he was able to resume his side hustle in freelance record production. He was doing a date in the city once and called me to come sit with him in the control room. He had just had an offer from Bob Pittman, head of The Movie Channel, one of the new premium subscription channels springing up to take on HBO. Bob had gotten a recommendation from Dale for Fred to run promotion for the network (Bob and Dale knew each other from their days at NBC Radio). Fred was struggling with the decision. I looked at the musicians on the other side of the glass. One or two of them were drunk, I think there was an argument in progress, no one was sure what was happening, and it was unclear that anything worthwhile was going to get recorded that evening. “Do it,” I told him.

It wasn’t long before I was by his side producing animation for the network and within days, working with him to plan MTV. 

One of Fred’s great innovations in on-air promotion was bringing The Movie Channel subscribers to New York for two days of sightseeing, dining, and promo recording. He believed in the value of unscripted opinions from real people, a strategy we later employed at Nickelodeon with real kids. One commercial for The Movie Channel has stayed with me all these years. “There are only three things in my town that are 24 hours,” the man told our camera. “The hospital, the diner, and The Movie Channel.” I’ve never written anything that good.

“24 hours a day” was an example of a promotable promise for The Movie Channel that we also used for MTV, in an era when it was typical for us to develop a list of five or six promises for the networks we were promoting. 

Again, Fred’s idea, borne out of his radio experience where the DJs had a set of “liners” they’d use in breaks to call out the station’s attributes.

Anyone who ever worked with us knows about our affection for promises. We objected to slogans – slogans wear out and get replaced. Also, we insisted on devoting a LOT of time to promotion, which would have hastened that burn-out. With the right promises, you could execute endlessly and never run out of ways to creatively tell each story. I could probably rattle off all the promises, to this day. It’s a system that wouldn’t work in today’s era where everything is streamed, content is king, and brands are less valued. But for years I would run into generations of promo producers who learned from Fred and me, and would tell me about their promises, long after that strategy ceased being useful.

Another of our innovations was producing TV “audio first.” As MTV began building its staff and Fred started hiring producers, he found he couldn’t afford seasoned pros and none existed in TV who understood music the way we did. We had spent years doing segues and mixes and montages in college radio. Sound, we believed, mattered more than picture. If something doesn’t sound right, it’s grating as hell. If a second-long image isn’t right, what difference does it make? People are barely watching anyway. So we worked with newbies and sent them all to Clack Studios, a recording studio where I had worked in the music business, owned by the best audio engineer in New York. Audio studio time was $50 an hour. Video hours at video studios were $300 an hour, before they started adding all the extras like special effects processors, title generators, and dubs. Better to have novices crapping around at a lower rate than what the video joints charged. Like many things with Fred, there was a practical reason, but the aesthetic reason was there as well. 

Later, as we built Fred/Alan, I was often in a position where young staff members were asking me to interpret Fred for them. “I brought him an ad to see,” they’d tell me, “and he wrote a note on it, but I don’t really know what he wants.”

I would try to explain Fred to them. “Look, Fred is at heart a jazz musician,” I’d tell them. “You brought him something, and based on what you showed him he started improvising. He started riffing. I guess he wants to see something different, because if he were in love with what you showed him he would have told you. But don’t worry too much about what he told you. It was just a riff. He doesn’t necessarily want to see that exact thing, and probably won’t even remember it. He wants you to think. He wants something that works. Go away and do some more work. Don’t bring him one idea, because I can tell you he doesn’t want to see one idea. Don’t come back and tell him his idea doesn’t work either. But if you come back and show him, ‘I tried this direction, and then I tried this, and then I tried this third one, and then I thought about this, and this seemed like the best way for us to go,’ he may still not like what you have but he will totally respect your process of development and believe you did what he wants you to do.”

Other times I’d tell them, “Yeah, I can’t read his writing either.”

While we could often finish each other’s sentences, we weren’t the same person.

An important thing to say about Fred is how he is the world’s greatest champion of great ideas. A myth abounds that he only likes his own stuff. Nothing could be further from the truth. I have never seen anyone discard his own work faster in favor of someone else’s when it was clear the other person had a better idea. It was a great lesson to me. There can be great satisfaction in recognizing the contributions of others.

I think of all the things we did at Fred/Alan I am most pleased about the careers we launched. Not the work. The work was great. I still have some of it hanging on the wall because I love looking at it. But nothing matches the joy I feel knowing I pulled people out of the team to tell them, “You’re a writer. You don’t know it yet, but you’re a writer.” And now those people are writers. Or the junior art director who was supposed to accompany me to a shoot I was directing who I told at the last moment, “I’m not going. You’re directing.” It was his first of many. He just needed the push. Fred/Alan was a wonderful nest, but how thrilling when we could push someone out of the comfort and safety into the wider world.

At Fred/Alan we filled extra offices with colleagues who needed space because we wanted those brains around us. I once hired a comedy writer to write ads for us because he made me laugh. (Later he hired me to run his sitcom.) We made account executives out of people who had never been account executives before. We boosted voiceover artists into being producers. We convinced East Village artists to do advertising for MTV, getting them to take commercial work for the first time in their lives because we promised them they could do whatever they wanted – we wouldn’t change a line in their drawings. (R. Crumb, the legendary underground comic book artist, did a full-page ad for MTV that was basically about how much he hated MTV. It’s a brilliant drawing.)

In today’s corporate world HR departments write job descriptions, then go looking for people who fit those descriptions. It’s an impossible assignment, because no one will ever match your dream applicant. Our attitude was, let’s surround ourselves with smart people we like being with, and we’ll figure out what they’re good at. Our business cards never had titles on them. That wasn’t the part we cared about. Instead, we gave people shots and we were loyal. I still work with suppliers who were Fred/Alan people 40 years ago.

It was also a great place for personal experimentation, craft building, and innovating. I would never have gotten the breaks I got without Fred’s cheerleading for me. When we were younger, he hired me to write liner notes for his records. He hired me to produce animation at The Movie Channel when all I had done to earn the job was attend one class in animation at film school before dropping the class. It’s not common for advertising agency vice presidents to direct commercials, but I loved doing it and Fred was absolutely determined that I should do things that I loved, so I was often our director. When Nickelodeon was getting ready to produce its first sitcom, he told them the reason the pilot to “Hey Dude” sucked was that they needed a story editor like Alan to supervise the writing. I had never done that job before. But I wrote a new pilot and we went on to do five seasons and suddenly my career as a writer/producer was launched.

Our Fred/Alan people were wonderful. But let me say this about the work. The work was frikken unbelievable. We did more work, and more great work, than seems possible to me now. Part of that comes from the fact that Fred and I love to work. A guy who was a big-deal consultant to MTV pointed this out to me early in our agency’s life. He had sold his direct mail company to American Express and didn’t have to do anything anymore. “I’ve never seen anything like you guys before,” he told me. “You really seem to still love doing the work.”

I don’t know about Fred, but I don’t think I’ll ever retire. What would I do? Neither one of us plays golf. We don’t really have any interests. We’re not great at small talk. Travel is okay, but it’s sort of an exhausting pain in the butt. What’s more fun than working, and talking about work? 

We’ll always be checking up with each other, too, if only to take each other’s temperature on some issue or another. I can usually count on him to fill in gaps in my memory or fact base. In 50 years I’ve never heard Fred express an opinion that wasn’t apparently well-reasoned, deeply considered, poked and prodded for holes and flaws, and ultimately decided in a way that would allow him to have a ready answer if called upon to respond to a question on that subject. I say “apparently” because no one could possibly have that many opinions all sorted and filed away. He has to be making it up as he goes, but always in a manner that makes you believe you’re not the first person to ask.

I can’t imagine what my life would have been if I hadn’t met Fred Seibert more than 50 years ago and fallen under his spell of creativity, inspiration, and delight in making things. I still measure a lot of what I decide based on “what would Fred do.” 

So much of the joy I’ve experienced in life I really owe to Fred’s moral, courageous, generous, and spirited example. I love him more than I could ever say. 

Or maybe I owe it all to Lou Venech. I guess we’ll never really know.

...

Photograph of Alan Goodman & Fred Seibert by Elena Seibert 1984

[fredalan]

Most of the Fred/Alan book is available right here at FredAlan.org, but we thought you might want to read the two introductions. Here’s Fred’s. 

...

Introduction by Fred Seibert

Fred/Alan was a hoot. Great colleagues and special, creative work. Great clients too. Until they weren’t.

Who we were –and are– was set at our first meeting at WKCR-FM, the college radio station at Columbia University in New York. We  became fast friends, learning about all sorts of music and audio production. We went on to work together in various places on various projects. We became brothers-in-law and uncles to our kids. And, we kept on working together, whether we were employed or not. We got each other jobs, and the more professional we became the deeper our affection. Friendship, understanding and some work here and there has continued for more than 50 years. 

But, the most intense professional period was the 10+ years we had at MTV and Fred/Alan.

I really wanted to be in the record business. In our generation, pop music was the thing and records were the force multiplier. Being in rock bands throughout high school and college was great, but over time I found myself wanting to help get music out there. Based in New York City, it should have been easy, but my biggest success was getting some of my friends gigs at the world class Columbia Records. Alan worked there, and try as he might, as he once said, “Fred didn’t get hired in every department at CBS Records,” Columbia’s parent company. But I found my way into commercial radio, then became one of the early employees in the new technology of the time, cable television, at the company that was to become MTV Networks.

In a short while, Alan joined me, and together we hooked up with my childhood friend, artist Frank Olinsky, and he and his partners designed the innovative MTV logo for us. Alan and I produced the video that introduced music television to the cable industry. Frank led the charge into the unique logos with which we surprised the world –we tried to use animation to keep up with the graphic revolution of rock and jazz album covers– and I put together the video promotion group. It’s fair to say that our work is what’s most remembered about MTV.

Having spent my childhood working at my parents' Mom and Pop pharmacy, I was an anxious, and ultimately, unhappy employee. It must have been a shock to Alan that, after all the accolades and promotions our MTV work brought us, I marched into his office one day after a confrontation in the executive suite and announced that “we” were quitting. The two of us had already joked, when we were disgusted with the mediocre work of one the MTV ad agencies, that it would be fun to have a company called Fred/Alan, because none of our young friends would have a clue about America’s most popular radio comedian, Fred Allen. Maybe the oldsters who controlled budgets would hire us?

It took a year to figure out what we were going to do. We found our  office through the friendship of Buzz Potamkin, a leading MTV animation producer, in Jackie Gleason’s former “Honeymooners” production headquarters at the top of the Park Central Hotel on 7th Avenue. We’d left with thoughts of making TV shows. (It took us a few years, but we eventually got there.) MTV networks hired us right back as their major creative consultants. 

For years, I’ve said that we were the first company to codify  media “branding,” an easy enough translation from the radio business we’d both been in, along with boss Bob Pittman. But really, no one else did it, at least to the degree that we were up to. Alan and I were the first people in television to execute on the notion that a “brand” could be applied to media rather than only boxed consumer products. (And of course, that virus has spread far and wide to apply to individuals and politicians wondering about their personal “brand”.)  Along with the rest of my MTV Program Services team we’d succeeded with it beyond anyone’s wildest dreams, and when we left that led to the company suggesting that Fred/Alan  might be able to fix what was ailing Nickelodeon.

Forty years later it’s hard to imagine, but in the early '80s, the all-kids-all-the-time TV channel was the first of its kind, and they were failing at execution. No one watched. Nickelodeon was the lowest rated cable channel in America.

We went to work, I even moved into their offices, and with the then-unheard of “brand” strategy, we helped the Nick employees understand that they were the leaders of a club of millions of kids who were hungry for a television channel that understood them. Our clients knew a lot about kids, we knew a little bit about how to use TV to talk to them, and within six months they’d gone from worst to first in the ratings, where they stayed for 25 years, following the path we’d cleared for them. Soon, cable channels across the country wanted a piece of what we had. Longtime, lucrative gigs for Showtime, Lifetime, HBO and The Movie Channel followed. We even helped some of our friends who were leading the world revolution in jazz record reissues. It was a heady time.

And after launching the company with a short lived series for The Playboy Channel, it took us four years, and the addition of our college buddy Albie Hecht to our band of misfits, to restart our TV show ambitions, spinning off Chauncey Street Productions (the street in Bensonhurst that Jackie Gleason “lived” as Ralph Kramden in The Honeymooners. Natch!) with Albie, Alan and me producing. A few music videos led to a Gilbert Gottfried comedy special for HBO’s Cinemax. Our friends at Nickelodeon liked our idea for a “Kid’s Court” series, MTV thought our quiz show might just work (it didn’t), and HA! (the Comedy Central predecessor) gave the greenlight to a set of half hour specials featuring several up and coming performance artists. We even did our one and only network TV comedy pilot for CBS. 

Let’s be real, Alan and I had no idea what we were doing. We were both DIY before DIY was a thing. Maybe Alan got a little guidance in the advertising department at CBS Records. I’d read an advertising memoir (which, ironically, made me sure to stay away from ad agencies) and got some basic training from my mentor Dale Pon when we worked together in country music radio. But, of course, our lack of training made sure our solutions to problems were based on our personal experiences with media rather than the tried, true and cookie cutter. And, not for nothing, it caused us to hire co-workers who had no “experience” either, other than street smarts, and often, their skills. 

Over time, things started to go a little sideways. The stress of supporting  50 employees and their families melded into our scrappy clients becoming responsible corporate executives, searching for financial growth rather than creative escalation. To this day, I don’t think Alan and I ever had a disagreement. That is, until our Fred/Alan underlings would start to argue and we both felt the need to defend whomever we were responsible for. After a while, it all got to be too much and we each decided that making money couldn’t be what it was all about.

Like I said, Fred/Alan was a hoot. I can only speak for myself, but I’m sure Alan would agree, we never really looked at our colleagues and creative partners around the world as “employees,” just other friends with whom we could get into good trouble, trying to change the world. We took our work seriously, but never ourselves. We’d try anything, and if one thing didn’t work we were positive the next thing would. 

Most of all, it was the special chemistry that Alan and I have always had. A lack of creative fear was constantly fueled by the excitement of giving new talent a chance to leap up to world class. We were sure that if we came to work to have some fun, make some money, and be surrounded by people we liked, it would result in something special. And, sure enough, something extraordinary happened day after day, month after month, year after year.

The two of us share a vision that has stayed remarkably in sync for 50 years. The decade we worked side by side was exceptional. The decades since have been deep. Deep friendship, deep respect, deep love. 

Thanks buddy. You’ve made a life worthwhile. 

Photograph of Alan Goodman & Fred Seibert by Elena Seibert 1984

[fredalan]

Hail! Hail! Rock’n’Roll [trailer] 1987 

Chuck Berry Universal Pictures

Alan: On paper, it made perfect sense for us to do the movie trailer for the Chuck Berry concert documentary, “Hail Hail Rock and Roll,” directed by Taylor Hackford. It was 1987. We were the “music” guys. The “music-with-video” guys. The innovators and experts in establishing a new visual language for communicating with, and marketing to, young audiences. And if there’s anything the film industry wants more than anything, it’s innovation, right? 

That’s the problem with match-ups on paper. Sometimes it never looks better than the initial idea. We did the job. It was fine. It wasn’t anything better than fine. It certainly didn’t possess those qualities you’d expect from a Fred/Alan project. And what we learned from it was that the film industry had rules, formats, and standard operating procedures within which everyone must operate that leave very little room for change. They call it the movie industry, and like many industries, its products are made in factories. 

There’s a sequence in the film where Berry takes the camera on a tour of his classic cars. He names each one and the price the dealers wanted to give to him to buy them used. As he gets to the final car, he grins devilishly at the camera and says he’ll keep them and later sell them to “you” (he points to the audience through the camera) for $50,000. I wanted that to be the whole trailer, with a small montage at the end. It was seductive. It drew you in. It told another story besides the “here’s what happened” story. I figured that everyone knew the music. This would be an unprecedented look into the mind of the man.  

Universal wanted a far more typical montage of interviews and music. Can you guess where we ended up? 

If your guess was “a cross between the two,” you’d be right.  

The trailer is on YouTube. [And above.] There are remnants of the “look at my cars” scene, interspersed with interviews, rehearsals, and performance footage. Since we just did the off-line edit and Universal finished it up, there’s a typical “movie announcer” guy that we would never have chosen to voice the spot. It’s not compelling in any way. 

My most vivid memory of the job was working through the day with our ace editor Jon Kane, then calling the courier to ship the rough edit overnight to LA so the executives could look at it in the morning. They’d call us with notes, and we’d go to work on another version, which would ship out that night for the next morning’s screening. This went on for weeks — daily re-edits, daily courier runs, daily sets of notes and re-edits. 

There was no streaming video, no site we could use to upload our work for viewing, no zoom link to review the notes. There were courier pouches, car service deliveries, airplanes, and telephones. It was phenomenally inefficient and ridiculously expensive. 

We had other encounters with the movie moguls. Remember the movie “Modern Girls” from 1986 starring Cynthia Gibb, Daphne Zuniga, and Virginia Madsen, about the adventures of three girls who work, go home to sleep a couple hours, then party all night at music clubs? Of course you don’t. Neither does anyone else. But with a soundtrack by Depeche Mode, we got the call to work on the trailer. The studio flew me to LA to screen it, and flew me straight home after it was over. I couldn’t imagine what I could do to help it. The story was not fun. And director Jerry Kramer — primarily a music video and music film producer, not experienced at the time in feature story telling — had shot the entire thing in medium shots, so there was nothing to do with it that would have been visually interesting. Fortunately someone else got the job.

We also did the poster for the Jeff Goldblum Miramax movie, “The Tall Guy.” It was fine. It looked like a movie poster.

 I had a similar “we’ll use a piece of this and a piece of that” experience with Hollywood years after Fred/Alan, when I was hired to consult on the launch of the (long gone) network UPN (which later merged with the WB to become The CW). My presentation at Paramount was the same day the UPN execs were seeing presentations from ad agencies. We were all sitting together in the waiting room. I was called in first. “I’m the only person here today who will tell you the truth,” I told them, “because everyone else in that room wants an assignment. My job ends today.” It was a great meeting. They loved my stuff. They kept me an extra hour over my time to discuss it. My branding line was the first thing viewers heard the day the network launched. That was the last time those words were used. The rest was typical ad agency stuff. 

Looking back, we never fully succeeded with typical clients in typical fields who wanted us to fit in with their typical methods and solutions. They’d hire us because we were known for coming up with outlandish solutions that were successful, but then they’d tell us how they wanted us to do it. We were almost certainly partially to blame. We were spoiled rotten. We wanted to compete with the big guys. We wanted to play in that league. But in the end we were never enthusiastic about doing that work or working with those people. The people who worked that way were the people who used to serve us when we were clients, the people we went into business to replace. We found that clients willing to roll the dice and trust us were few and far between.

...

Hail! Hail! Rock’n’Roll [trailer] 1987 Producer: Alan Goodman Editor: Jon Kane Client: Universal Pictures/David Sameth

The Tall Guy [poster] 1989 Account supervisor: Ed Levine Client: Miramax Pictures

[fredalan]

There’s nothing like a book.

Hopefully, this website will live on for a long time, that’s what the internet is all about, yes? But, there’s nothing like a book, so we decided to cut down a few trees and put these stories (and images) on paper. Introducing “Fred/Alan: A Decade in Media History 1983-1992, Annotated & Illustrated.”

Of course, The Fred/Alan Archive is the only place you can actually see and hear some of the video we produced. So, please keep visiting as we, hopefully, remember more and more. 

Oh yes, the book is available in hard cover and paperback here, and you can preview it below and download a PDF here. 

Fred/Alan- A Decade in Media History 1983-1992- Annotated & Illustrated [1st edition 2025] by Fred Seibert

[fredalan]

The Tonight Show with Jay Leno 1992 

Fred: 

Hollywood, baby! 

Our very last client popped up just as we'd announced that Fred/Alan was shutting its doors. A prominent New York movie producer introduced us to Jay Leno's manager, Helen Kushnick. She thought that our approach to MTV's creative was just what the still-secret takeover of Johnny Carson's Tonight Show needed for its packaging bumpers. Who were we to argue? 

We'd loved working with photographer Chip Simons over the years, especially on the Comedy Central network IDs (they had a similar, but definitely not the same, concept) so when Helen gave a list of the hundreds of comedy club Jay had played over the years, we suggested that Chip photograph across the country with his distinctive styling at as many of those cities and states as possible. 

Fred/Alan's producer/director Chris  Koch volunteered for this hardship duty, and soon enough the crew started the road trip. 

The sad ending to the saga was that everyone at NBC and the Tonight Show was driven batshit crazy by Helen. Four months as the executive producer she was let go. As was all the work that she produced. Including what Fred/Alan produced. Except for the logo design. Sigh. 

Chris Koch: 

Steve McCarron and I pitched a multi-curtain opening idea inspired by Get Smart.Then Steve designed the Tonight Show logo which took him about 5 minutes.

We hired commercial director Steven Hulen who was a pioneer in the world of HD video which was quite new at the time and shot the whole thing in Hoboken. 24 curtains on a giant green screen with Helen Kushnick herself by our side. 

I loved working with Helen.  She was intense, funny, and wasn’tshy about voicing her dislike of the NBC execs.  But she was really sweet to us and very loyal to Jay (who would later throw her underthe bus). 

3 weeks after our bumper roadtrip (which ended in the middle of theLA riots on May 1) Steve and I flew back to LA to help integrate our opening into the show for opening night, May 22. 

The day of the show, we hung out during rehearsal and watched Jay work thru his routines.That evening we were in the control room which was a blast. We also caught Carson’s second to last show and afterwords we snuck into his set. I sat at Carson’s desk and Steve took my picture.Then he lost the film.  Something I never forgave him for.  

... Produced by Chris Koch  Photography: Chip Simons  Logo design: Steve McCarron  Client: Helen Kushnick/NBC/The Tonight Show

[fredalan]

Playboy’s Hot Rocks 1983 

Our first TV show production. 

We started Fred/Alan with a contract to produce –with our friend Buzz Potamkin– our first television series. For the Playboy Channel. 

Music videos were the rage, we were the only MTV "stars" in the open market, and we knew there were many pop artists –like David Bowie, Duran Duran, like that– who were making videos that were being censored for nudity. Perfect for Playboy. 

But, they weren't nude enough for Playboy, and without our permission they edited the videos in inappropriate ways. We dropped out after a couple of episodes, but they'd breached our contract. 

The payout funded our first year in business. 

Illustration & design by Candy Kugel, Buzzco, New York. 

[fredalan]

Amy goes pop!  

Fred/Alan didn't really want to make music videos. Too much work for too little money. Besides, MTV had already given us an amazing, music based, creative reputation. But, it was always tempting. After all, video music was the creative "edge" of the '80s. So, when Richard Frankel, our former WASEC/MTV co-worker, went over to A&M Records and asked us to work with him on “Find A Way,” Amy Grant's first post-Christian pop single... well, we took a shot. 

Through Buzz Potamkin, we'd worked a bit with director Tommy Schlamme on the original "I Want My MTV!" commercials, tried to get a movie going with him and enjoyed his forward thinking approach and genial manner, perfect for working with a musical artist like Amy (and not for nothing, Tommy’s first music video). And, lucky for us, Amy's management was new enough to mainstream video that our MTV reputations made them comfortable enough to work with first time producers. 

By 1985, the Quantel Paintbox video graphics tool was just starting to become "the look of TV in the '80s" –The Cars had just won the first MTV VMA for their Paintbox'd "You Might Think," courtesy of Jeff Stein & Charlex, and Alan's former co-worker and Fred's wife to be, Robin Sloane– and interestingly, both our music video excursions used it extensively, though in radically different ways.  

Tommy took just the right approach to working with Amy, and to the modern world of production design. The video did its job and launched what became an amazing mainstream career for Amy Grant, making it into the Top 40 for her maiden voyage. 

.....

Directed by Thomas Schlamme  Produced by Linda Schaffer & Albie Hecht  Executive producers: Alan Goodman & Fred Seibert Client: Richard Frankel/A&M Records

[fredalan]

The 2nd and 3rd photo (from the top) are of producer Elliot Krowe and promoter Venkat Vardhan

Europe in India. 

We made television not rock concerts. 

Well, no one at our shop had ever produced any rock concerts. Except Elliot Krowe. Who led into the most unusual project in Fred/Alan's history. 

Elliot, a college radio buddy of ours, was on our team. He'd spent his early days (and his post-Fred/Alan career) running the lighting operations of dozens of giant concerts, having started with 70s stalwarts Blue Öyster Cult. 

Alan's apartment landlord at the South Street Seaport introduced us to Venkat Vardhan, an Indian acquaintance who wanted to promote the first ever rock concert in India. Venkat knew what he wanted the result to be, but other than that, he didn't even know what he didn't know. There was no band booked, a vague idea of the location, and... well, not much else. 

Elliot put the entire thing together. Which, trust us, was not a simple affair. He figured out how to book an appropriate act –Europe, a Swedish hard rock band that had recently had a breakout with their album "The Final Countdown"– along with the complicated logistics between North America, the European continent and the Asian continent. To give you an idea what was necessary, to get the sound and lighting support into a country that had never done the kind of show that the group  required, meant flying literal tons of equipment across the frickin' North Pole! 

After the reconnaissance trips, when the actual concert was booked –coinciding with the 1988 American Thanksgiving holiday– Alan and his girlfriend, and a Chauncey Street documentary crew*, tagged along. Here are some of Elliot's and Alan's recollections. 

.....

Elliot: In September or October 1986, Venkat Vardhan contacted Fred/Alan for help organizing an outdoor rock concert in India. Venkat’s brother Shreepad, studying in Oklahoma, knew Alan’s landlord, who figured our MTV connection might be useful. 

In November 1986, I brought Fred/Alan’s Mark Tomizawa and a small recon team to visit Bombay (now Mumbai) to scout locations and hold meetings. Over the next 18 months, multiple site surveys were conducted, with communication mainly through telex and phone. The initial plan was to hold the concert at the Cricket Club of India, a downtown stadium ideal for the event. Pride India, a charity for housing and healthcare, sponsored the concert, making government approvals easier to secure. 

Negotiating for artists was challenging. India had no prior concerts of this scale, and promoters had a poor reputation for production value and payment issues. After numerous possibilities, confirmations, and cancellations, the band Europe headlined, with Nazareth as the second act and local band Rock Machine as the opener. 

Originally scheduled for October 1988, the show was delayed to November 26 due to issues with Reserve Bank permissions. Scheduling conflicts forced a venue change to a “new” soccer stadium on Bombay’s outskirts. Once all funds were transferred and production equipment flown in, our team arrived two weeks early. 

Wait! What? The venue was disastrous. The stadium was 75% built and abandoned. Grass had been burned down days before, homeless families occupied dressing rooms, and utilities were off. In two frantic weeks, we cleaned the site, turned on water and electricity, and built a bamboo stage, fencing, and barricades.

Coordinating utilities, law enforcement, and concert infrastructure was exhausting with inexperienced local staff. The event was also a crash course in modern concert production and security for everyone involved. 

.....

Alan: My memories of our Fred/Alan trip to bring rock and roll to what is now Mumbai are mostly personal. My presence was largely ceremonial and my duties minimal — to shake hands at a welcoming meeting, and to watch the concert at the rustic, unfinished stadium. 

I remember it was already evening on the day we arrived when we got the idea to go see the field where the concert would be staged. We arrived after dark, and since there were no lights, we saw only an endless expanse of blackness. Somewhere in the distance was the sound of a loud motor. We couldn’t see what it was. As the sound got closer, a tiny red dot became visible. It seemed to just hover in the sky. It wasn’t until it was quite close that we could see it was the glowing end of a cigarette, in the mouth of a man mowing the field in total darkness in the middle of the night.

Our friends at MTV had tossed some money in the till to shoot a promo spot with Europe’s lead singer, so I wrote something and we shot it days later before the concert. All I remember was that he was at a payphone. I don’t think it was very good. I don’t think it ever aired.

I was often startled as we traveled through the city to see no signs of the culture we knew outside of India. Very distant places in the world still have Coca Cola and Levis Jeans. Not what was then Bombay. At least, not on billboards or ads at the newspaper stands. Another sign that to be doing what we were doing with a rock band that had global recognition was extremely noteworthy. 

Without familiar touchstones, we immersed ourselves in the Indian way of life. With a few days off between our project kick-off and the concert, my girlfriend and I had time to explore Jaipur and Udaipur, cities in the Rajasthan with ancient roots. We had made flight and hotel reservations back in the U.S. and everything was set, but we were completely unable to book a flight back from Udaipur to arrive before the concert. We wrote it off as something we’d solve when we were on the ground. 

The flight to Jaipur was hours and hours delayed, and we arrived sometime after 2:00 A.M. A row of taxis were waiting. We snagged one, and our very cheerful driver started on his way. We had heard our trip coincided with the annual Puskar camel fair, and we asked him the best way to the event. He told us it was two-and-a-half hours away, and the best way to get there was for him to drive us. We told him we wanted to see the city first, and he suggested that the best way to do that would be for him to drive us. It seemed that whatever we wanted to do, the best way to do it was for him to drive us. 

The next morning, despite the late check-in, we were down early for breakfast at our hotel, a former palace. We looked across the lawn and there was our driver standing proudly by the car. When we had eaten, he brought us on his personal tour of the city, including stops at some particularly special jewelry and fabric merchants. I’m rather certain one of the ways they were special was that they maintained a special relationship with our driver. 

When we had had our fill of touring, we started on the road to Pushkar. It was a startlingly desolate route. Mostly what we saw was barren earth. Occasionally we would pass a man with his camel. I remember only one establishment where we stopped to eat, and possibly for fuel. I remember our driver wanted no food. 

The camel fair was a feast for the eyes. An annual event, it draws thousands who trade livestock, sell their colorful rugs and other goods, and participate in sporting events. What we didn’t fully understand was that it is also an important pilgrimage site, and that the fair marked the week when religious rituals are observed. Everywhere we looked we saw something new and extraordinary, and when we had seen enough, we found our driver, standing by his car and smiling at us. It was another two-and-a-half hour excursion back, of course. He was cheerful the entire way. 

We had an early flight out to Udaipur. Guess what the best way was to the airport?

The following morning at the airport we paid our driver, tipping him enormously. The entire bill including tip was $60. Funny what you remember. 

Our trip to Udaipur was even more eye-popping. The Lake Palace Hotel was built in 1743 as a summer palace for the Maharana and is cleverly designed to appear as though it rises straight out of the water in the middle of Lake Pichola. It’s easy to describe what you see as you approach by boat, but almost impossible to describe the effect. It is a stunning monument to wealth and opulence. We booked an incredible suite that may have been 4000 square feet. It was on multiple levels. It had wrap-around terraces that seemed the size of basketball courts. The bedroom featured a cloistered bed nook with a ceiling just a few inches above our heads, utterly festooned with erotic paintings. We had definitely gotten on a plane and gone somewhere.

But there was still the pesky issue of getting back. We learned that flights were scarce because of the pilgrimages. This was peak travel season in India. Even our attentive hotel clerk had been unable to secure flight reservations, and recommended getting on the boat and going to the airline office in town where we might have more success.

The airline office was little more than a single room on an upper floor in an office building. We went inside and saw a long line that snaked around and around until it reached a single man at a small desk, an open ledger in front of him and a pencil in his hand. It took quite a while to pull up at the desk but by now we were used to long lines everywhere in India. We told him what we wanted, and he wrote our names and ages in pencil into his ledger. I’ve never understood why they needed our ages. When he was done, he smiled up at us. “Okay,” he said. “You are on the waiting list. Number 43 and 44.” It took a moment for the information to sink in. “This plane has 19 seats, correct?” I asked. Yes, he said. “And we’re number 43 and 44 on the waiting list?” I asked. Yes, he said. ‘So there’s no chance we’re getting on this flight, is there?” “No,” he answered, smiling, “no chance.” 

Back at the hotel, our sympathetic clerk told us the only option was the train from Ahmedabad to Bombay. Ahmedabad was close to four-and-a-half hours away. 

We were on the road early the next day, and at the station spent hours and hours trying to get train tickets. We went from counter to counter. Our names went on list after list. My girlfriend was still suffering from some food poisoning contracted earlier in the week and was not looking well. Finally, the only nice man in the station said to me, “Tell me... are you a Christian man?” I wasn’t sure what the right answer was, so I tentatively answered “Y-y-y-es?” He had spotted the manager of the station and walked us across the floor to meet him. I’m not sure what the clerk told him, but the man whipped out a pencil and without a word signed a form. Suddenly there were train tickets for the all-night train back to Bombay. 

We hadn’t eaten. Nothing at the stalls looked particularly safe. That same nice clerk told us we could buy a meal at the employee cafeteria, so we found that room and ordered. Mine was the curried cauliflower. I remember it because at some point while we were eating, it dawned on me that it was Thanksgiving back home. This was one of the most appreciated Thanksgiving feasts of my life. 

23 years later, I was at Housing Works Bookstore for our twice a year street fair [Alan volunteers there weekly] and this kid Keith -- a financial analyst -- was there through the morning moving stuff out to the street. He finished up and asked me if we had show tunes that hadn't come out yet. So I brought him to the sub basement where we always have plenty of show tunes.

He was in heaven grabbing West Side Story and Evita and everything else - maybe 25 albums. Sketches of Spain and some other jazz. He's telling me about listening to music with his father, who traveled a lot and brought home albums.

I asked where in India, and he said Bombay. I told him I was there when we produced the first rock concert in Bombay. He asked, "Which one?" "Europe," I told him. "oh my god," he tells me. "I was there!!!". He was in seventh grade. He was crying, he told me, because it was the first time in his life his very strict mother let him do anything.

There's 1.2 billion people in India. I met one we touched.

.....

The documentary footage we shot at the show –never edited, never finished– was posted on YouTube in 2024. There's a new comment posted on the videos at least every week. 35 years later!

Elliot: 

On November 28, 1988, the concert went surprisingly well. Of course, there were last-minute fixes, but 45,000 attendees enjoyed a great music presentation in a safe, entertaining environment.

*Documentary footage was shot with a team led by cinematogapher John Hazard, some rough edits made, but never finished. The photos here are some funky screenshots from the original VHS tape dubs. 

[fredalan]

“How to Nickelodeon” by Scott Webb

How to Nickelodeon [1992]

The key to this video (dubbed from a 1992 VHS) is at the bottom of this post. 

In 1992, as Fred/Alan was in the process of shutting its doors, our friend (and client) Scott Webb, by then the worldwide creative director of Nickelodeon, was getting overwhelmed. Nickelodeon had exploded from being an American cable network, to a worldwide business encompassing toys, apparel, home videos, books... the works. Both he and the company needed a way to help all the various branches of the operation stay “on brand,” as they say. Hence, the ‘How to Nickelodeon’ booklet and video.  

[Note: details on the video embedded here, ripped from the original VHS, are below Scott’s essay. It’s clear to me that Alan didn’t write the instructions. –Fred]

We reached out to Scott in January 2025 to tell us a bit about the project. 

...

In the early days, Nickelodeon was like a religion because it was built on a set of ideas. The channel had a spirit, an attitude and a methodology that grew out of the work in the on-air promotion department.  

‘How to Nickelodeon’ was created years later at a time when Nick was growing rapidly—branching into new businesses, partnerships, and global markets. It wasn’t just a cable channel anymore; it was becoming a brand that touched every part of kids’ lives. But as the business grew, we needed a way to keep the original energy intact.

It was exciting for me to see Nickelodeon evolve from a cable channel into a kids business with endless possibilities – but it became exhausting for me personally.

(For a time, my job became to go to lots of meetings and explain Nick’s personality and methodology, but eventually I burned out on doing that and proposed to Gerry [Laybourne] the idea of putting it all in a handy dandy tool kit).

That’s what ‘How to Nickelodeon’ was for: not just a style guide, but a toolkit of ideas for endless possibilities. It wasn’t supposed to be about enforcing rules [emphasis added by Fred], it was about giving people the secret sauce to make anything Nickelodeon flavored.

Even then, most companies were used to traditional style guides and rulebooks. Invention, after all, is hard and risky and expensive. So while ‘How to Nick’ started as a toolkit of ideas, over time it became more of a rulebook. Eventually, it became outdated as Nick evolved into a business defined by hit properties like SpongeBob SquarePants and Blue’s Clues. At a certain point, a billion-dollar enterprise doesn’t need a toolkit to keep its energy intact; the energy comes from the properties themselves. That’s the natural evolution of success, but I can’t help feeling a little sad that Nick couldn’t hold on to the religion.

Fred and Alan, you taught me that Nick was not a brand, it was a relationship. You helped me understand in all those early writers’ meetings how to make it relational.

There were many people who contributed to that early process of building Nickelodeon, but Fred, you were our fearless leader who kept on moving us in the right direction. You envisioned something no one else could, and your leadership laid the foundation for what made Nickelodeon so unique - not just as a channel but as a culture.

So even though ‘How to Nickelodeon’ was created years later, the toolkit is really Fred/Alan in a Box.

My goal was to capture the lessons you taught me and share them with anyone who needed to know. Like a religion, ‘How to Nickelodeon’ was about preserving the spirit that made Nickelodeon special and giving others the tools to carry it forward.

–Scott Webb, January 2025 

[transcription: it’s obvious to me that Alan didn’t write these instructions.–Fred}

This videotape will provide you with examples of the ideas we have discussed in the text. The numbers listed here correspond with the number you will see in the bottom left hand corner of each piece. Use these numbers as a guide to let you know where you are in the tape or to fast forward to a specific section. If you have any questions, refer back to the page listed. Enjoy! 

This videotape will provide you with examples of the ideas we have discussed in the text. The numbers listed here correspond with the number you will see in the bottom left hand corner of each piece. Use these numbers as a guide to let you know where you are in the tape or to fast forward to a specific section. If you have any questions, refer back to the page listed. Enjoy!

THE NICKELODEON BRAND -Page 7 1) Nickelodeon Family Commercial, 2) Yogi Bear Show Open, 3) Looney Tunes Opera, 4) Calling All Dogs, 5) Life's Tough, 6) What's New On Nickelodeon

THE BIG IDEA - US VS. THEM -Page 6 7) Revolution, 8) Don't Just Sit There!, 9) Double Dare For Kids Only, 10) Dennis - Do, Do, Dum!, 11) Wrong Place Pops!

THE EARLY DAYS OF NICKELODEON -Page 4 The "Green Vegetable" Days - Before Nick had a brand identity 12) Where's the Fun?, 13) You Can't Do That On Television Promotion, 14) Going Great Promotion

THE LAUNCH OF THE NEW NICKELODEON -Page 5 15) We the People, 16) Honest Abe, 17) The Thing, 18) Only One Network for You KIDS ... -Page 10 19) Being A Kid, 20) Bubble Basics, 21) Word Up!, 22) Kids Speak Out, 23) Hand Puppets, 24) Mom Says ... , 25) Beach Sing

THE LOGO -Page 12 26) The Logo Hot Mix - Illustrating various ways the logo is used on-air.

WE PROMISE: NICKELODEON IS THE FIRST KIDS' NETWORK -Page 21 27) The July Fourth Promise, 28) Kid Firsts, 29) First Pimple, 30) Space Promise

WE PROMISE: NICKELODEON IS THE ONLY NET­WORK FOR YOU -Page 21 31) Nick Blues, 32) Hey Bob!, 33) Kid Impersonator, 34) Nigel

WE PROMISE: NICKELODEON IS WHAT YOU WANT -Page 21 35) Bach/ Rock, 36) What Do You Want?, 37) You Want What?!

WE PROMISE: NICKELODEON IS THE PLACE WHERE ONLY KIDS WIN -Page 21 38) Be A Winner, 39) Nickelodeon Slime Time Contest Wrap, 40) Nickabilly Shindig

WE PROMISE: NICKELODEON IS EVERY DAY -Page 21 41) Everyday Grown-up, 42) Satellite Promise, 43) Everyday Hero

WE PROMISE: NICKELODEON IS KIDS -Page 21 44) We Take You Seriously, 45) Fill in the Blanks, 46) Nick Hits the Beach, 47) Double Dutch

AND THEN THERE'S MESS -Page 22 48) A Celebration of Green Slime - Including the very first slime seen on You Can't Do That On Television 49) The Obstacle Course - Super Sloppy Double Dare

A SHORT STANDARDS AND PRACTICES QUIZ -Page 26 50) This quiz tests your knowledge of the Standards and Practices guidelines. Each clip contains questionable material from a Nickelodeon program. It's up to you to figure out whether or not you think a guideline has been violated. Answers follow each clip. Additional notes: 1 - Eureeka's Castle. Here Batley is acting as an unsafe and danger­ous role model. The young Nick Jr. audience may view this as imitat­able behavior. This portion was edited for air. 2 - What Would You Do? Not only is this a good example of gratu­itous grossness, it also depicts food waste. This portion was edited for air. 3 - Salute Your Shorts. The camera lingers on the Reebok label for too long. We should have been more conscious of Reebok's exposure. 4 - Fifteen. Here and throughout the series, Matt's drinking problem is handled in a responsible way.

FOR EXAMPLE: COPYWRITING -Page 30 51) Fifteen Premiere, 52) Detention, 53) Excerpt from Clarissa Explains It All, 54) A.I.D.S. ZAP!, 55) Pete and Pete - "Mom's Plate," 56) Inside Out Boy #1

FOR EXAMPLE: GRAPHICS -Page 33 57) The Video Post Rap, 58) A Graphics Compilation - Highlighting Nick's multitude of graphic styles.

FOR EXAMPLE: PRODUCTS -Page 36 59) Nickelodeon Slumber Bag Commercial by Coleman, 60) Pizza Hut Nickelodeon Cup Promotion

FOR EXAMPLE: SPECIAL EVENTS -Page 42 61) Double Dare Roadshow Promotion, 62) Nick Takes Over Your School '90 Wrap, 63) Kids' Choice Highlights, 64) Super Toy Run '90 Wrap

NICK JR. -Page 48 65) The Nick Jr. Launch (Before the Nick Jr. logo was created), 66) Elephants, 67) Nick Jr. Sing-a-long, 68) Eureeka's Castle Old McDonald Rap, 69) Tall Story, 70) The Mobile

NICK AT NITE -Page 49 71) Nick at Nile Launch, 72) Suburbia, 73) Come Home to TV Land, 74) Director of Reruns, 75) Donna Reed's Subliminal Messages, 76) Looney Tunes Acme Ill, 77) The My Three Sons Sing-a-long, 78) The Secrets of Mr. Ed, 79) Trogolodyte, 80) Just the Facts, 81) Green Acres Rap, 82) Don't Adjust the Set!

Length 55:40

...

[fredalan]

Our failed logo presentation for MCA Records

MCA Records logo, 1985 

Of course, not every project worked. 

Our former MTV colleague and Swatch client Nancy Kadner Feingold introduced us to MCA Records' Larry Solters, the new executive vice president and right hand of CEO Irving Azoff. He had Fred/Alan create a few TV spots for their artists Joan Jett and The Fixx. But Irving and Larry wanted to give MCA a complete facelift, since it was a bit of an also ran in the hipster record business. Enter Fred/Alan, developers of the most famous music logo of the 80s. 

Our first take was, in our humble opinion, shot down immediately. MCA's original parent was the Music Corporation of America, and according to their 1950s  logo they controlled the world! Perfect, and they already owned it. It would only require a contemporary graphic execution. 

     Logo: Music Corporation of America 1956 

Nope. That's old. We're new! Next. 

One of our favorite design groups, Corey & Co. in Boston had a instinctive attraction to our notion of a constantly morphing logo (see Nickelodeon), and we asked them to work with us on MCA. 

They delivered, you can see their logo  presentation on the opposite page. 

We loved it. MCA didn't. What was their solution? Absolute genius! 

     Logo: MCA Records 1990

.....

MCA Records logo designed by Tom Corey & Scott Nash; Corey & Co., Boston Creative directors: Alan Goodman & Fred Seibert

[fredalan]

Michael Cuscuna by Jimmy Katz

Michael Cuscuna R.I.P. 1948-2024

Our fantastic friend, then client, Michael Cuscuna, record producer/historian extraordinaire and co-founder of Mosaic Records, passed away on April 19, 2024. Both of us –Alan and Fred– wrote remembrances that we’re reposting here.

.....

Michael Cuscuna by Thomas Staudter

I knew the voice of Michael Cuscuna before I ever met the man. Growing up in an area of New Jersey where we could pull in both New York and Philadelphia stations, I would listen to him DJ at WMMR out of Philly. He had a quintessential FM DJ voice — soft-spoken, intimate, gravelly, authoritative. He didn’t yammer on, but I remember he was clever and his sense of humor was dry as a bone. He played a mix of progressive rock and some things that clung to the precipice of musical genres.  

Years later our paths merged. I started seeing his name on the backs of albums I’d play on my college jazz radio show — now I was the DJ, and he had become a prolific producer, supervising dates for a diverse list of artists, including many dedicated to the avant garde. He also produced for Bonnie Raitt and other groundbreaking musicians. I am searching my memory in vain to recall how we became connected, but he was also creating a monthly promo disk sent to radio stations by Crawdaddy Magazine and I became his producer, using the free facilities of the college station to record and edit. He would collect the interview tapes from the magazine’s feature writers, I would edit them into a coherent radio show, then he would come in and record his host segments. Out of that association, I started writing reviews for Crawdaddy of new jazz releases. He was as wickedly funny in person as I remembered him on the radio. I was a little in awe of his extraordinary knowledge of music — an artist’s historical significance, how a musician’s style linked that person to the artists that came before and after, and why certain artists deserved more recognition than they had received by the public. He turned me onto a lot of music. I think we did the show for a couple of years.   

More time passed, and Michael came into my life again through my partner at our media advertising agency, Fred/Alan. By now, Michael had established himself as an important compiler of jazz reissues that went above and beyond what was typical at the time. Starting with Blue Note Records, but ultimately including the libraries of other labels, he’d go into the vaults and unearth the unreleased sides and alternate takes and place them alongside the more well-known songs. His two-fer series for Blue Note was particularly noteworthy. On the back of that success, he and a former Blue Note executive named Charlie Lourie created Mosaic Records. Their concept was to do numbered, limited editions in luxurious box sets aimed at the collector market. Initially vinyl only, they switched to CDs when that was the prevailing release format. The boxes were gorgeous, each with a booklet filled with photos, an essay by a prominent jazz historian, and absolutely accurate discographical information. They specialized in “complete” collections depending on the frame they decided was relevant. That frame might have been the three-day recording binge from 1957 by organist Jimmy Smith that resulted in enough material for three CDs, the unreleased complete recordings of Charlie Parker’s live solos recorded by Dean Benedetti, or the complete Capitol recordings of the Nat King Cole trio, a box that weighed-in at 18 CDs. They were sold only through the mail, direct to consumers. But they weren’t reaching the market and needed help. In an earlier era, my partner Fred Seibert had attached himself to Michael to learn as much as he could about producing records. Knowing the two of us, Michael asked if we could come up with a direct marketing campaign. In our typically arrogant belief that we knew how to do almost anything or could figure it out, we said yes. 

We began producing a catalog that was mailed out to jazz enthusiasts, slowing building a list of devoted listeners and buyers. My job was to write that catalog. We dissolved the advertising agency in 1992, and mailed catalogs gave way to internet promotion, but I continued writing the sales copy for each release, save one or two that I didn’t do for reasons lost to time. I just wrote one last month for an upcoming set featuring vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson.  

I developed a format for my essays. I started with some thesis about why that artist deserved more recognition, or why the music from that era was crucially important — in other words, why you absolutely had to own that collection. I segued into a couple paragraphs of biography, followed by a few paragraphs where I singled-out important tracks or tried to convey in words the feeling, the sound, the artistry of the musician. I wrapped it up with more “don’t delay” language. In all those years, each and every time I approached a new assignment I had two thoughts crowding my mind — will Michael agree with my thesis? Will Michael take issue with the way I chose to describe the music? Each package gave me an opportunity to do a deep dive into the music, but I knew I didn’t have Michael’s personal connection to many of the artists, or his historian’s perspective on the music. And by the way, he was himself a damn good writer. It never stopped thrilling me when he’d send back an email merely correcting a calendar date, or the number of unreleased tracks, with a message that he thought it was otherwise perfect. More than anything I wanted to impress and satisfy Michael. I was alway so happy that I could.  

I think they had done four releases when we got involved in 1984. The company is closing in on 200 box sets. I can’t believe it’s been a 40-year association. 

We lost Charlie more than 20 years ago. This weekend, Michael passed after a long illness. I will miss his husky laugh, his personal stories about the musicians we both obsessed over, and the gratitude he expressed each time I turned in an assignment. 

To many, his name was a name on the back of an album jacket. To those of us who knew him, we know him as someone who single-handedly rescued the Blue Note archive and other treasures from oblivion, who introduced us to overlooked artists such as saxophonist Tina Brooks, and who demanded we take a second look at music that was significant and mind-blowing. As a colleague, as a client, but mostly as a music lover, I am forever in his debt. My sympathies to the family of this enormously important figure in music. RIP Michael Cuscuna. 

–Alan Goodman (repost from Facebook) 

..... 

Michael Cuscuna, photograph by Jimmy Katz

Michael Cuscuna

Michael Cuscuna, one of my great inspirations and sometime collaborator, passed away this weekend (April 19, 2024) from cancer. Being a cancer survivor  last year myself, when someone I’ve known and worked with for over 50 years it hit particularly hard.

Blue Cuscuna: 1999 promotional sampler from Toshiba-EMI [Japan]

Michael has been the most consequential jazz record producer of the past half century, a man who had not only a passion, but the relentlessness necessary to will the entire history of the music into being. Don’t believe it? Check out the more than 2600 (!) of his credits on Discogs. Substantial and meaningful he might have been, but to me, he was a slightly older friend who was always there with a helping hand. Hopefully, I was able to hand something back on occasion. 

As I said when he answered “7 Questions” eight years ago: “I first encountered Michael as a college listener to his “freeform,” major station, radio show in New York, and was fanboy’d out when a mutual friend introduced us at [an] open rehearsal for [Carla Bley’s and Michael Mantler’s] Jazz Composer’s Orchestra at The Public Theater (MC has a photographic memory: “It was Roswell [Rudd]’s piece or Grachan [Moncur III]’s. You were darting nervously around the chairs with your uniform of the time – denim jean jacket, forgettable shirt and jeans.”) By 1972 or 73, he’d joined Atlantic Records as a producer, and since that was my career aspiration, I’d give him a call every once in awhile. He’d patiently always make time for my rambling and inane questions, and I never forgot his kindness to a drifting, unfocused, fellow traveler. 

“...patiently always make time for my rambling and inane questions...” says a lot about Michael. His raspy voice could sometimes seem brusque, but ask anyone and they will tell you that he always made time to talk. Especially about jazz. 

I desperately wanted to be a record producer and Michael was one of the first professionals I encountered. He had already produced my favorite Bonnie Raitt LP when somehow or other I bullied my way into his Atlantic Records office, where he was a mentee of the legendary Joel Dorn. Over the next few years, Michael was often amused at some of the creative decisions I made, but he was always supportive and even would sometimes ask me to make a gig when he couldn’t. When I spent a year living in LA, he invited me over to the studio while he was mining the history of Blue Note Records that would define his life for the next half century. I completely failed to understand what the great service to American culture he was about to unleash. Along with Blue Note executive Charlie Lourie, Michael’s research resulted in a series of double albums (”two-fers” in 70s speak), but little did the world know what was on Michael’s and Charlie’s minds.

The Cuscuna/Lourie Blue Note “Two-Fers” that ignited Mosaic Records

“I don’t think it’s generally understood just how imperiled the musical and visual archives of Blue Note Records were at one point, and just how heroically Michael stepped in to make sure this unparalleled American music survived for future generations. If you like jazz, you owe the man.” –Evan Haga 

(Joe Maita does a great interview about Michael's career here.) 

Fast forward a few years. The air went out of my record producing tires, I became the first creative director of MTV, I quit MTV and along with my partner Alan Goodman started the world’s first media “branding” agency. Leafing through DownBeat one day I saw an ad that started a new relationship with Michael that would last, on one level or another, for the rest of his life: the “mail order” jazz reissue label Mosaic Records. 

Charlie Lourie & Michael Cuscuna at Mt. Fuji Jazz Festival, Japan 1987. Photograph by Gary Vercelli / CapRadio Music

Long story short, in 1982 Michael returned my check for the first two Mosaic  releases with a note asking for some help. Initially, Mosaic wasn’t the sure fire, instant success Michael and Charlie had hoped for, did I have any ideas? I did, but no time to do anything other than make suggestions, we were busy trying to get our own shop off the ground. This cycle repeated itself for another couple of years when this time when Michael called he said Mosaic was on death’s door. Fred/Alan was in better shape, so Alan and I, on our summer vacation, came up with the first Mosaic “brochure,” convinced the guys we knew what we were doing (I’d read a few paragraphs in a direct mail book in a bookstore) and, with nothing to lose, Charlie and Michael took the plunge with us. Success! 42 years later, the former Fred/Alan and Frederator CFO at the helm, Alan and I always answer any call from Mosaic.

The first Mosaic Record box set 1983

There aren’t many people in the world like Michael Cuscuna. The world’s culture will miss him. I will miss him. Most of all, of course, his wife and children will miss him. 

[fredalan]

R.I.P. Eli Noyes 1942-2024

The world lost a wonderful man and a unique talent when friend and pioneering filmmaker Eli Noyes passed away this week.

Eli was one of the early independent animators we were lucky enough to work with at the dawn of MTV, and when he partnered with another innovator, Kit Laybourne, we were able to enjoy the two of them for the next decade at The Playboy Channel, Nickelodeon and Nick-at-Nite. 

Cartoon Brew will give you a fantastic overview of Eli’s groundbreaking films on their obituary, and there are some word about our collaborations below.

Alan wrote a loving remembrance of Eli on Facebook that’s re-posted here: 

In the early days of my TV career I became successful at playing the part of an expert, which was handy considering I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. Honestly, none of us did. Thanks to the cable explosion the TV universe was expanding faster than the talent base, and we were all thrust into jobs that never existed and for which no pros could be located to fill. Tasked with managing the visual identity of MTV and then Nickelodeon, my creative partner Fred Seibert and I relied heavily on a handful of creators who weren't mired in the ideas and the rules of the legacy business, and were eager to go on a journey with us as we looked to invent a new way of connecting with audiences that made our networks infectious.

One of those creators was Eli Noyes, at the time a renowned independent animator who is largely credited with establishing new heights and achievements for stop motion animation. Somehow we got introduced to his work and saw his reel, and as rule breakers and nonsense makers we were instantly attracted to his work. (Go online and look for a stop-motion piece he did where he makes and devours a couple dozen peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and you'll get some sense of what we loved about his spirit.) We contracted with him to do a few pieces for MTV. I don't know that he ever did any commercial work before our assignment, but that was typical of our approach. Our creative brief was always extremely open. "We are hiring you because we love your work. We don't need to see pitches first. You have the job. Now blow us away." Not everyone responds well to that kind of freedom, but Eli was a gamer. 

I think he had done one or two pieces for us when he called me up to do a field trip to New York Institute of Technology on Long Island, where there was a lab that was doing some of the very first digital animation. We drove out to have a look in case there was something there we wanted to tap. I remember being impressed by their ability to use tablets instead of pencils, but confused when they told us, "Look, we can make it look just like traditional animation." When we left, Eli perfectly voiced my unease. "Why would you want to?" he asked. 

And that was Eli. Always thinking about what's next. What can we explore? Where can we go that no one's gone? 

The real flower of his creative potential was unleashed at Nickeloden, when he had teamed with the brilliant animator, author, professor, and thinker Kit Laybourne. My former partner Fred is going to repost some of their work so you can see what these demented dudes did for us. As much as I loved the work, I loved the creative meetings just as much. Eli and Kit were like animated characters themselves. They didn't just describe the piece they wanted to make, they bounced around the room acting it out. Their commitment and devotion to nonsense and playfulness was infectious and impossible to ignore. No two pieces were alike, perfectly fulfilling our dream of introducing and perfecting a more fluid and dynamic look for an audience that was itself evolving, growing, changing, and... becoming. 

We lost Eli Noyes on Saturday and I am absolutely stricken with grief. It's been decades since we've spoken, but he is so much a part of my life and my development as a creative executive. Along with being phenomenally talented, he was sweet, soft-spoken, generous and kind, with the most mischievous eyes that widened when he heard something that could be the germ of a new approach. He never lost his hunger to invent. I've never met an adult whose spirit was closer to Peter Pan's.  

I can't say this strongly enough. My ex-partner and I get a lot of credit for introducing a new way of communicating identity to audiences thanks to the hundreds of animated pieces we produced in the early years of our networks. We would have been nothing without Eli Noyes and four or five more who enthusiastically embraced our direction and fulfilled it beyond anything we could have envisioned. 

I loved him and I will miss him. He is in my heart forever. RIP Eli Noyes.

#####

It might have been Gerry Laybourne who first put Eli’s reel on our desks when we were getting MTV’s identity together. Having already shown our distaste for the typical commercial houses we had already started luring indies into our fold. And, in many ways, Eli was the king of the East Coast filmmaking indies. Soon enough, Alan was producing –and learning!– from Eli, who was a relentless and kind forward thinker.

Three years later, we’d started Fred/Alan and, lucky again, we got the assignment to start working with what was to become the “new” Nickelodeon under Gerry’s guidance. Eli had already hooked up with Kit Laybourne with the last of our MTV collabs, and now they were on fire with ideas for us at Nick. Clay (Eli’s sweet spot), video (then new to animaton), whatever. In the haze of the years, it’s hard to remember who suggested how to reuse animation for budget stretching and happy surprises (we all loved “Hey Rocky! Watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat!”) but, it worked like crazy for Nickelodeon.

In the late 80s, after we’d successfully shown Nickelodeon that 1) branding and promotion, properly and creatively managed, could pull a rating rabbit out of a hat, and 2) that Nick-at-Nite “reruns” could be financial and cultural gold, some genius (shhhh, it was the sales department) decided that reruns were a loser and that Nick-at-Nite needed to be “comedy!” Which required a re-thinking of the network’s presentation. How to hold on to our already established identity, but maybe be a little “comedic” too? Eli and Kit (and Rocky and Bullwinkle!) to the rescue, along with our go-to Fred/Alan producer and in-house audio wizard, Tom Pomposello. Roping in Nick’s and Fred/Alan’s staff of stand-in actors, Noyes & Laybourne were able to create dozens (and dozens) of network identifiers to keep folks amused, so that that when the sales group came to their senses, the NAN audience would still be there.

Thank you Eli. We’ll never forget you.

.....

MTV spots 1981-82 Director: Eli Noyes and Eli Noyes & Kit Laybourne Producer: Alan Goodman Creative Director: Fred Seibert

Nickelodeon 10-second network identifications 1984-87 Created & Directed by Eli Noyes and Kit Laybourne, Noyes & Laybourne, New York

Nick-at-Nite 10-second network identifications 1987-90 Directed by Eli Noyes and Kit Laybourne, Noyes & Laybourne, New York Sound design/music: Tom Pomposello and Tom Clack Fred/Alan producer: Tom Pomposello

[fredalan]

Set him on fire.

Five years after Fred/Alan was founded, we'd become a bona fide, full service advertising agency. The distance between being founding employees of MTV and being under the thumb of channel marketing executives was becoming really annoying.

Each person at MTV had evolved a different set of standards to describe the place. Anyone who didn't agree, even their own co-workers, was derided as someone who didn't "get it." And as the people who led the effort to develop the original "hymn sheet," we decided we needed to do something about it.

Alan wrote the first official "positioning" paper for MTV. Logically argued, well written and vetted from top to bottom at MTV, there was one section that wrapped their ethos up perfectly.

"Watching TV is predictable.

"Watching MTV is reliable, not predictable.

"It's Normal TV vs. MTV."

Or, as a future programming head would put it when deciding whether or not to greenlight an MTV show:

"Does it have that 'fuck you?'"

With this positioning, not only could we have a yardstick that everyone could agree on, but could guide our future advertising efforts.

The so-called "Burning Man" campaign followed this strategy perfectly.

The core phrase of print, outdoor and TV advertising paraphrased directly from Alan's paper:

"TV? or MTV!"

The featured players? Rock stars –like Jon Bon Jovi, John Mellencamp, The Bangles, Cindy Lauper, Cher– natch. And... the Burning Man.

MTV had been such an influence on all of television that hosts started shedding their stiff formalities, including everything from hair styling to costuming. We thought that MTV's reaction to "normal TV" trying to cop its informalities would be to put our spokesperson in a suit and tie. But how did a well dressed man represent MTV's rebellion?

Set him on fire.

Of course. The challenge in those pre-computer graphics days was that we had to actually set the guy on fire. (Watching the outtakes was harrowing, as Alan and Ed Levine had horrified faces when it looked like his hair might have flamed up too.)

The ads were shot as 10 second segments which were then mixed and matched into a dozen different spots that could make watching them, over time, always fresh. Oh, and don’t forget to add in some great MTV logo animations from Marv Newland at International Rocketship in Vancouver.

[fredalan]

1991 Fred/Alan holiday party invitation. Illustrated and designed by Tom Godici.

The last Fred/Alan holiday party! 1991

As we’ve posted before, we never really understood the “standard” protocols of running a successful agency, wining and dining clients with expensive dinners, golfing outings (you’ve got to kidding!) and annual holiday gifts. Our version was killer holiday parties.

Things really hit a peak in 1987, when former Ed Levine, account executive and former music promoter/producer/now food writer, suggested we book Dr. John* for our soiree. Creative director Noel Frankel illustrated an amazing invitation (with Wite-Out®!), and we booked a belly dancing school studio on 8th Avenue. Sylvia’s catered the soul food, the doctor’s band came on their night off and blew the ceiling off the place. What a night!

1987 Fred/Alan holiday party invitation. Illustrated and designed by Noel Frankel.

1989 Fred/Alan-Chauncey Street holiday party invitation. Designed by Noel Frankel. 

Afterwards, we wondered if the parties could get any better, but from that year on we tried pretty hard to top ourselves. By our last party we just might have done it.

We didn’t know it was our last hurrah. We’d just moved into a new space that we’d designed for ourselves, we were celebrating. For the December 1991 party the entertainment booked was the Calypso Kind of the World, Mighty Sparrow, known to getting entire Caribbean stadiums on their feet to dance. By the end of his contracted second set in a downtown restaurant, Sparrow’s shirt had come off, the crowd was sweating as much as he was, and he assured us he wasn’t done yet and came back for another couple of hours!

For some reason, Art Director Tom Godici thought it would be worth his time to burn the edges of all 500 holiday  poster invitations by hand. We weren’t arguing, Tom always made sure his work was up to his personal creative standards. He lived them.

*Ed and Dr. John/MacRebennack had done a couple of wonderful records together, and Ed later suggested him for a fantastic campaign we did for TV Heaven.

[fredalan]

777-FILM Moviefone

1990

“Hello! And welcome to Moviefone!” -Russ Leatherman, ‘Mr. Moviefone’

[In-movie theater commercial] 

Sound effect: telephone busy signal   

 Announcer:   There one phone number for movie       showtime information that’s never busy.   Find out where and when it’s playing.   Call 777-FILM.   When all that matters is the movie.

Before there was a consumer internet, getting to the movies was a pain. Even figuring out whether a particular movie was playing in a given week at what theater required a logistic enterprise. It usually involved getting a local newspaper and sifting through columns of “listings” to figure out what showtimes were. You couldn’t be sure if there were tickets available and whether or not there were a few next to each other. Or whether they were in the front or back rows, and squeezed you in the middle of a long row. Heaven forbid, if you lived in a city with dozens of movie houses.

Enter entrepreneur, innovator and filmmaker Andrew Jarecki. Partnering with the original conceptualizer Russ Leatherman, they founded Moviefone to solve the problem. Just dial 777-FILM and life got easier. Now you could immediately know what movies were playing where, at what time, and whether there were ticket available. Voilà!

We met Andrew through our friends at Charlex and signed on as Moviefone’s first agency. Together, we quickly came up with several spots that would play in their partnered theaters and starting running them in New York and Los Angeles.  

Lo and behold! Moviefone was ringing off the hook, maximizing theater –and Moviefone!– profits. Soon, Andrew had figured out how to use call volume to predict ticket demand, which allowed  film producers to target their advertising to optimum effect, and of course, more success for all!

The company was acquired by AOL at the height of the first internet craze. Andrew went on to become an Academy Award nomimated filmmaker (“Capturing the Friedmans”) and produce and direct “The Jinx” for HBO and “Catfish” for MTV. ….. Actors: Albie Hecht & Paula Brinkman Director: Albie Hecht Producer: Chris Strand Production: Chauncey Street Productions Agency: Fred/Alan

[fredalan]

The Talent Pool HA! TV Comedy Network 1990

"Performance Artist" was the term of art in the late 80s. As producer Christine Ecklund remembers co-creator Albie Hecht's definition, "...longer form material, no joke tellers. A downtown feel."

Monologist Spalding Gray had a hipster success with his performance piece (and eventual film) "Swimming to Cambodia." His recitation of his travel, writing and acting experiences, mixed pathos and humor to engaged audiences for several years in New York theater.  

When MTV Networks launched HA! in 1990 we pitched channel head Debby Beece that among Gray's contemporaries were humorists with the goods that would hone the network's reputation with up and coming talent.

"The Talent Pool", an anthology of performance artists, set up shop in midtown Manhattan's Lamb's Theatre, site of a beautiful gospel brunch, and started casting. Between Chauncey Street and the network we settled on a pretty stellar bunch (pictured above from the top):  

• John Leguizamo is a writer and actor who went on to win four Tony Awards, appear in over 100 films, and whose Columbian/Latino roots and community are always up front.

• Lewis Black, who's angry rants about history, politics, religion, and cultural trends eventually gave him a regular perch on "The Daily Show."

• Jim Turner became a star when MTV presented him as his creation ‘Randee of the Redwoods’, and later acted in movies and TV. 

• Frank Maya was one of the first openly gay performers to gain a foothold in mainstream stand-up comedy, who sadly passed away from AIDS in 1995.

• Danitra Vance was a comedian and actress who came to great attention in the 1985 season of "Saturday Night Live." She was on The Talent Pool during her diagnosis and eventual death from breast cancer. She was awarded with an Obie and NAACP Image Award. 

• Chucklehead was a troupe whose comedy addressed fears of the Cold War, entropy, mortality, and the likelihood not enough tickets would be sold at their shows.

• Julie Hayden was a delightful writer and actress who was later in Ben Stiller's "The Cable Guy" with Jim Carrey, She was finding her way in the TV pilot season when she died of cancer in 1997. 

• Jeffrey Essman (not pictured) is often referred to as avant-garde, but he’s a hilarious writer, an often costumed performer and, a Benedictine monk.

• Barry Yourgrau (not pictured), a South African born writer and performer, has published several books and whose fictions have appeared in the New Yorker, Paris Review, VICE, Bomb, Poetry, Film Comment.

The show wasn't particularly highly rated, but we were completely taken by each of our fantastic cast and heartened when so many of them went on to highly visible and acclaimed careers. ..... Created by Albie Hecht & Alan Goodman Producers: Christine Ecklund, Craig Coffman Directors: Craig Coffman, Dana Calderwood Business Affairs: Elliot Krowe, Jim Arnoff Executive Producers: Alan Goodman, Albie Hecht, Fred Seibert  Chauncey Street Productions, New York