#33. A Conversation with Tom Sito

JA: So let's start with your work as an assistant animator on the 1977 animated feature, Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure; how did you become involved in this production with director Richard Williams, who you would later work with again, and what are your memories of being involved on this film?

TS: I was completing my degree at the School of Visual Arts in NYC, but then this opportunity arose- Dick Williams, Academy Award winning director in New York, with all the money of IT&T, and using some of the greatest animators outside of Disney! It was too good to pass up. I took a sabbatical and started as night shift ink & paint. Raggedy Ann & Andy were painted with bold polka dots and plaids- red, white, and blue colors. Every night going home on the subway, I could still see the colored polka dots dancing around the inside of my eyes while I tried to sleep. I rose to inbetweener, then assistant. First in a room called The Taffy Pit, that focused on Emery Hawkins Greedy Monster, then on other sections of Andy Song and the Captain. For us young artists it was like going to Willie Wonka’s with a gold ticket! We had animation lessons and advice from all the top pros. Here I was at age 19, assisting a Grim Natwick scene, he was 87 then! The man who taught Chuck Jones and Marc Davis how to animate. I was in heaven!

JA: You also worked in television animation as a storyboard artist on shows like He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids, and Ghostbusters- in fact, you directed seven episodes of Ghostbusters. Tell me about your time spent in television animation, and what cartoons did you love as a child that inspired you to become an artist?

TS: In 1983, Hollywood animation had suffered a strike, a recession and high profile disappointments like The Black Cauldron. But the TV end was booming with syndication and toy tie-in shows. I segued into storyboards to do He-Man and Ghostbusters. I had learned to work fast on a deadline while doing commercials. There is a certain art to learn about how to make a show on a budget be entertaining. How to re-use old scenes and use cutting to make up for the lack of animation. I had one show about a circus coming to Eternia, so I took this stock scene of He Man, hands on hips, throwing his head back in laughter. I reused and reused it to the point of being obnoxious! There’s a certain perverse delight in making junk food that you know everyone will love anyway.

When I was a child I grew up in front of the TV. A classic tube-child the sociologists all warned us about. I loved Quick Draw McGraw, Auggie Doggie, Snooper & Blabb, and of course, all the Looney Tunes on TV. Yet, to the dismay of Child Psychologists and parents pressure groups, I still grew up to enjoy good books, grand opera, and can quote some Latin and Shakespeare. So, to all those children’s censorship advocates- KAABONNGGG!

JA: In 1988 you went to work as an animator for Richard Williams once again, this time for Who Framed Roger Rabbit; tell me about the work you did for this picture, what it was like being involved in the production as an animator, and what you thought about the final result of the film.

TS: Like Ann, Roger Rabbit was another time when all the wandering clans of animation gypsies gathered for what we see was a momentous project. This time it was in London, and the crew was like the Foreign Legion- Italians, Irish, Canadians, French mixed in with the British and Hollywood animators. Folks liked my New York accent because I sounded like Kojack, who was very popular on European TV then. We all became very close and hung out in the neighborhood pubs in our crew jackets, like some rival gang. We all worked extremely hard, even key animators like Andreas Deja and Simon Wells would not be above grabbing other people’s inbetween work to finish. We all wanted to see it be a hit, and we felt pride when it became the box office sensation of that year.

JA: You would animate yet another Roger Rabbit short, this time under the direction of Rob Minkoff, for Tummy Trouble in 1989; what was it like working for Rob Minkoff, and also, do you have a favorite animated short of all time?

TS: It was a chance to do some Roger Rabbit again. We always hoped we could do more with the character, he was so much fun to draw. Mark Kausler and Joe Ranft providing gags, and Rob himself was a very good animator. On Mermaid he had done some key early Ursula scenes before becoming a director. It was a great experience.

JA: You became a character animator for The Little Mermaid in 1989, under the direction of Ron Clements and John Musker; this was a big time for animation, especially at Disney- what was it like to be in the studio as an animator during this time, and what work did you do for this film?

TS: It was very exciting. Legend has it, that somewhere in the bowels of the Disney archives there was a yellow memo from Walt listing the stories that they should never make into films. Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast top the list.

Some of the more traditionally-mined Disney artists were still trying to figure out the "Jeffrey Katzenberg" regime and all the Broadway stage production people he brought in to fill out staff ranks. We wondered if there were rehearsal halls back on 52nd & 10th Ave. with confused dancers not knowing their schedules, because all their production people were in Burbank. But the Roy Disney, Wells, Eisner, Katzenberg team breathed a new dynamism into Feature Animation. Getting the team of Ashman & Menken to write the songs was inspired. Howard Ashman had a beautiful writing style to lyrics that didn’t stop the flow of the plot, yet remained poetic. And Duncan, Andreas, Mark Henn and Glen turned out such great work. No offense to the cleanup department, but I enjoyed the rough animation almost more than the finished look. It was fun to go to dailys.

JA: After animating The Prince and the Pauper, you are credited with character animator for Beast on the 1991 film, Beauty and the Beast; tell me about your work for this picture, and the responsibilities of being involved in bringing a main character to life for the big screen.

TS: I was on Beauty & the Beast with the early crew assembling research in France and London with Richard Perdum, then as an animator under Glen on the Beast. I remember watching Glen go through various designs, mingling man and animal. He just didn’t want a man with a dog nose, as had been done in some earlier live action versions. He tried a boar, buffalo, mandrill, wolf, then slowly started to blend elements of them together. He wanted the Beast's legs to be that of the hind legs of a quadruped, so again it could not possibly be a human in a mask. One of Glen’s animators, Bruce Johnson, used prosthetic legs since childhood. So for Halloween that year he had a set of Beasts legs made of high-grade aluminum in an aircraft machine shop. That Halloween he went as the Beast! Amazing looking.

Also there was a lot of preliminary characters done who didn’t make the final- at one time Belle had a cat, an evil stepmother, and a kid sister named Clarice. There was the music box that answered your questions with pop tunes, and footstool that acted like a dog. They remained in a bunch of scenes, meanwhile Chip emerged from the back ground to become a major character. It’s the reason why good animated films take years to develop, then months to create. The montage of Belle and the Beast learning to love one another (Something There), was a particular challenge.

JA: You would again work on a main character for another Disney animated film, 1992's Aladdin; you are credited with animating the Genie, tell me about the challenges you faced bringing a character like this one to life, and also about your thoughts on Disney's animation, and process, during this period.

TS: After Beast, I helped Eric Goldberg, my old friend from Raggedy Days, to animate the Genie. Eric and Duncan Marjoribanks had some very strong ideas about the film not being as the other Disney musicals had been, but this one would be more broad, based on Al Hirshfeld’s flowing design sense. Some purists sniffed that it was more like a Warner Cartoon than a Disney one, but the success speaks to it’s wisdom. Howard Ashman had died young, and had completed two or three songs in the film. Sir Tim Rice came in to do the rest with Alan Menken.
You see, from the outside, everyone saw Disney cranking out one hit after another, like they were effortless. But on the inside we were always worried, “how long will this streak of successes last? Will the next film be our Heaven’s Gate?” Was Roger a one-shot phenomenon? Belle seemed not as sympathetic as Ariel, will audiences like her? Aladdin seemed more broad comedy than a love story, will audiences come in the same numbers? But the hits just kept happening until after Tarzan, and by then I was at Dreamworks.

Many take credit for that streak, I think it was a happy collection of the right people at the right time, and an accepting audience. The Beauty and the Beast crew was one of the best I ever worked with. The NY Times in 1994 called animation the Noah’s Ark of the American Musical Theatre Tradition. Except for British imports like Les Mis, Broadway was in a slump. And no one had seen a Hollywood movie musical since Lost Horizons. But Animation had the right blend of escapist surrealism, so you could accept dramatic characters bursting into big song and dance numbers. And the feature animation boom made LA a vacuum, sucking the world’s most talented artists to our sun baked shores.

JA: A film that doesn't receive the attention it fully deserves is yet another you worked on with director Richard Williams, 1993's The Thief and the Cobbler.

TS: I actually didn’t work on it, although I see I am credited in some places.

JA: You have worked on too many films to mention in one interview, from Pocahontas to Dinosaur, The Prince of Egypt to Antz, and from Shrek to Osmosis Jones; let's jump to your work on the film Looney Tunes: Back in Action. What was it like to work for director Joe Dante, and also as an animator, for a film that attempted to revive the classic Warner Bros. characters- also, what are your thoughts on the final film, and do you have a favorite original Warner Bros. cartoon short?

TS: Getting the chance to draw Bugs and Daffy and work on live action shoots was great fun. Eric had me as a kind of Animation Liaison to be at the live action shoots, to make sure they allowed enough space for the animator's characters. Joe Dante is a great collaborator and a great student of cinema. In Back In Action’s sci-fi section we called Area 51, he had a chance to bring in a horde of classic sci-fi icons like Robby the Robot, The Brain from Planet Aurous, a Dalleck from Dr. Who and more.

I storyboarded a shot of Daffy emerging from Marvin the Martian’s crashed spaceship in the desert that was a play on the climatic scene from Kaufmann’s The Right Stuff, when Chuck Yeager emerged from his crashed aircraft. Imagine my surprise when I was on a location set, 50 miles from Las Vegas in 120 degree desert heat, shooting the live action plates for the scene, with eighty people managing propane tanks and Panavision cameras.

I have many favorite Warner Bros shorts. Among them The Great Piggybank Robbery, Hare Tonic, The Draft Horse and Back Alley Oproar. I recall walking past two young animators arguing over a test scene on Back in Action. I told them:” Dudes, just step back for a minute. You are in Hollywood, you are Warner Bros animators, animating Bugs Bunny for a movie audience. Does it get better than this? Savor this moment, because who knows when you will get another one like it again?”

JA: Your work has continued all the way up to 2008, working with Jerry Beck on Hornswiggle, which premiered on Nickelodeon's Random! Cartoons; what is next for you in your career, and what has been your fondest memory so far of working in the entertainment industry?

TS: I’ve written a history book Drawing the Line-The Untold Story of the Animation Unions from Bosko to Bart Simpson (univ press of Kentucky 2006), that’s been well received. I’ve caught the bug and I’m writing two more.

I have many good memories, The first time Chuck Jones called me by my first name, when Dick Williams laughed at seeing one of my scenes. One of my favorite recollections is when I animated a scene of the Beast eating his morning porridge, he horrifies Belle by gulping it up with his face in the bowl like a dog. The following year, a tour of kindergarten children were being shown through the studio. I was asked to speak to them about what an animator does. I asked them: Have you seen Beauty & the Beast? All their tiny hands shot up. Then I asked. Do you remember when the Beast was eating his oatmeal with Belle in the morning? And they didn’t say a word, but they all held their hands up to their faces and mimed his action of gulping his oatmeal. I teared up.

That’s what an animator does.

#32. A Conversation with Lisa Henson

The Fulle Interview with Lisa Henson

(click below to play)

Follow The Jim Henson Company on Twitter: @HensonCompany

#31. A Conversation with Cory Edwards

JA: So you have done a lot of different things with your professional career, ranging from stand-up comedian to production designer and producer; you are now writing the screenplay for your new film at The Jim Henson Company, Fraggle Rock: The Movie. Let's start at the beginning, when did you first realize you wanted to become involved in the entertainment industry?

CE: Since I could walk! Okay, a little after that. My brother and sister and I have always been creative, putting on plays and puppet shows and making a very big deal out of our Halloween costumes. And that segued into making radio shows on our tape recorder, and experimenting with our church's video camera. At about ten years old, I became very, very fascinated with how every art form imaginable comes together to make one art form: a movie.

I'm going to be a bit cliche here, but I remember a very crystalizing moment when I walked into the movie Star Wars: A New Hope. Up until then, I had really only seen Disney comedies and a few light family films. I was the perfect age to receive it at nine years old, and Star Wars was my introduction into bold, mainstream movie making. It blew the doors off my imagination and my concept of what a movie could be. The world just got bigger. I believe it was that summer that I checked out every book in the library about filmmaking and started making my own movies. My entire life from that point has been a constant quest to do what I do now. My wife tells me that this is rare: to stick to the one thing that gave you joy as a child and to make it a career. So I feel blessed every day.

JA: Tell me about your involvement with the 1999 film Chillicothe.

CE: That was a film written and directed by my brother, Todd Edwards. Todd and I started a production company called Blue Yonder Films (which continues to make films today), and this was the project that we poured all of our contacts, resources and efforts into. Thematically, it's ironic, because the plot is about some guys who have no drive or goals after college (or have forgotten them) and have to find a passion for their lives again. For all of us in Blue Yonder, Chillicothe became that passion for a couple years. I was a producer on the film, which means I was on the phone a lot raising money. We raised the budget ourselves and shot the whole thing independently in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I was also an actor in it. The film was the first feature-length project we had ever worked on, and it was accepted into Sundance. That was a thrilling time for us, and we met a lot of people and finally started getting hooked into the Hollywood community.

Chillicothe is a labor of love that I will always look back on fondly... and it celebrates its ten year anniversary this month. Go check it out!

JA: In 2005 you would write and direct your first major motion picture, Hoodwinked!, which would also be The Weinstein Company's first fully-animated feature; this was also mentioned by Todd Edwards to be the first fully independently-funded computer-animated feature film. Tell me about bringing this story to life, from the earliest stages of development to post-production.

CE: It all began when we were courting an investor in San Francisco on a number of other live action projects. When he expressed an interest in animated films, we prepared a brand new story to pitch to him, and that was Hoodwinked. I remember the day that Todd called me up and pitched me the concept: Red Riding Hood's story as a crime story, told from four different perspectives! To this day, I don't think I've seen another kid's film told like this: non-linear, with four stories crossing paths. I think that's the "steam" that got me going and kept me working on it for three years. It was such a unique concept. Hoodwinked began as a completely independent project, and for three years, we had no idea if it would be distributed. Todd and I wrote the first drafts in a coffee shop. Then Tony Leech came on to edit the story reel on his Mac while I sketched the storyboards and Todd wrote the songs. This phase was all happening in Tony's apartment! Then our producer, Sue Bea Montgomery, would come over and meet with us and kept talking to our investor. The project began with very humble aspirations; as a DVD release for young kids that might pay our bills for a while.

Thankfully, Weinsteins came in at the eleventh hour and helped vault it to a major release. They also helped us get some bigger names in the cast. Weinstein Company's involvement also inspired the investor to spring for better technology and a better sound mix -- at Skywalker Sound, no less! All of that happened very fast and then the brilliant marketing campaign from Weinstein Company (which also had to happen very fast) created this wave of audience awareness for the film just weeks before it came out. We missed the number one box office spot that weekend by only $50 grand!

And I realize that there were other independently-funded projects being done at the same time, but yes, we were the first... the first kind of a new model and a new way of making an animated film. It was made with no studio money, overseas, then picked up by a major distributor. A few other animated films have followed this path, but not to the level of success that Hoodwinked was able to achieve. I know Veggie Tales had a movie come out earlier that year, but that was with a struck deal and brand recognition. Hoodwinked was this freak of nature that was made completely outside of the studio system and, thankfully, worked. I rarely toot my own horn, but these are facts that never get mentioned and I am really proud of what our little film did. Hoodwinked was made for under $8 Million, and has grossed over $150 Million worldwide. That easily makes it the most profitable animated film of its time.

JA: What inspired you to become involved in animation?

CE: I grew up drawing cartoons, and was a professional illustrator and animator for a few years after college. I have always had an affection for the art form. I love watching it and learning about it as a filmmaking tool. During my summers in college, I worked for a commercial animation company in Columbus, Ohio as an "in-betweener," sketching the rough animation between key poses from the lead animator. That was extremely educational and taught me a lot about the fine points of movement and expression in animation. Then years later, I got to direct some animated DVD product for my friend Benjy Gaither and his animation company, Live Bait Entertainment (Benjy also ended up voicing Japeth the goat in Hoodwinked.). So all of these experiences led me to be in a unique position of being confident enough to directing an animated film as my first feature. I never would have dreamed that's how things would play out in my career.

JA: What are your thoughts on the final film, and what are some of your favorite memories while working on it?

CE: I just watched it again recently at a screening for some college students. It's my favorite kind of audience; the audience we really wrote it for. While there will always be clunky scenes that I have regrets about, I still enjoy watching most of it. I think we got about 80% of what was in my head onto the screen. And considering our resources, I'd say that's pretty good! There are still jokes that I laugh at... weird jokes, like when the Wolf says he was "raised by wolves," we top that joke by going to a "Ken Burns documentary" shot of his family with sad piano music. I can't believe we got away with that stuff. But it made us laugh.

Fond memories from the film would include the camaraderie that we were able to achieve in the Philippines as we carved out a tiny animation studio. My partners and I got very familiar with all of the malls around Manila. We would always look forward to going out at the end of a long, long day and having some comfort food at the westernized restaurants ("Hey, they have an Outback Steakhouse!"). I will also never forget driving onto Skywalker Ranch to mix the sound for my movie. It's as heavenly there as you might imagine.

JA: There is currently a sequel in the works, Hoodwinked 2: Hood vs. Evil; you are not directing this time, but are credited with writing the screenplay. What made you decide against directing the film, which is now being directed by established animator Mike Disa.

CE: While Tony, Todd and I enjoyed revisiting those characters (and protecting them) by writing the script, there are many reasons I was very firmly against directing the sequel.

First off, I felt like if my second film was a sequel to my first film, that would be a very lateral creative move for me. It's not exactly a career-stretching way to cash in the "currency" I had earned with "Hoodwinked." Another reason was that I wanted desperately to get into live action films, and was very concerned about being pigeon-holed as an animation director (since I have never seen myself as that in the first place). But one of the biggest reasons I didn't want to direct Hoodwinked 2 was because I did not have a good experience with some key people on the first film. To put it lightly, I was not treated well. I don't have any interest in working with people like that again. Life's too short.

And on the positive side, I think Mike Disa is doing a great job as director. He's a lot smarter in the world of animation than I am, and he is taking the "Hoodwinked" world to a new level. I look forward to the film he's going to create with our screenplay.

JA: In 2006 you lent your voice talents to the film Doogal, how did you get involved with that production?

CE: That whole thing started as a rewrite assignment. Todd and Tony and I did the rewrite as we were finishing Hoodwinked, and it was a tough assignment. The film was basically finished and purchased as a foreign film, and we were asked to rewrite the whole thing while fitting new jokes and new dialogue into the existing lip sync of the characters. And by that I mean we completely changed the plot and even re-edited the movie as we wrote, all the while knowing that we could never change a frame of the animation. So the film was a bit of a "Frankenstien's Monster," to say the least.

Then, to really sell our take on the movie, and to make sure the jokes were actually fitting with the lip sync, the three of us overdubbed all the character voices in a rough cut and showed it to the Weinsteins. They liked it so much that they asked me to come in and do some voices here and there. I defy you to tell which lines are mine... I don't think I can remember myself! A skeleton here, a tiny creature there... and I even doubled for Bill Hader's character in a few scenes. It was fun to be in the booth, but also a little stressful, since none of us really knew where the project was going. To this day, you can say the word "Doogal" to me and I feel like I'm going to break out in a rash.

JA: You are also writing the screenplay for Escape from Planet Earth, which is being directed by Tony Leech, who you also worked with on Hoodwinked!; what can you tell me about this film?

CE: Tony's had this great concept: "In Area 51, alien prisoners stage a jail break." The aliens are all from different planets, with different abilities and faults. The humans are mysterious "monsters" to them; the villains, if you will.

The film is still in production up in Vancouver, and the last I heard, they are in the "story reel" phase, which is a version of the film that is simply storyboards edited together with temp audio. We have done a lot of rewrites on this script, and it has been a long process of figuring out what the studio wants and balancing that with what we, the writers, want. Truthfully, I have not written on the film for almost a year, and I know that Tony is moving ahead with some minor rewrites on his own. The artwork I have seen is unbelievable... fantastic, "Incredibles" caliber stuff. They are just scrutinizing the finer story points at this point. I anticipate that they will be moving into casting very soon.

The script always makes me laugh out loud in many, many parts, and it's going to have some amazing action scenes in it. Look forward to hearing more about it in a year or so.

JA: Fraggle Rock: The Movie will be released in 2011, and I know that everything about this movie is being kept top secret, so let's talk about what you have been doing to get into the mindset of making this film; you wrote on your site that you have been re-watching every Muppet film. What are some of your favorite Muppet moments?

CE: I am hopeful that the film will release sometime in 2010, but we are currently awaiting a production green light. The script is in great shape, but a production budget and schedule are not in place yet. I'm really excited about the Fraggle Rock movie and hopefully it will exceed expectations. I'm shooting high with this one, trying to say some big things about humanity in the way that WALL-E did, but at the same time, make a really cool adventure film.

Favorite Muppet moments would have to be:

1. Kermit Rides a Bike, The Muppet Movie.
To this day, there is a magic in that stunt that every other Muppet stunt has to match. I love films that were made pre-CGI effects, because when you see a moment like this one, you know it's REALLY happening on the set.

2. Kermit and Fozzie Drive and Sing "Movin' Right Along", The Muppet Movie.
The Muppets drive a real car! That blew my mind. To see these characters leave the TV studio environment we had always seen them in and take off into the real world was very exciting. And I can still sing every word of this song.

3. Rats Working in the Kitchen, The Muppets Take Manhattan.
There are so many crazy puppet stunts in this that it amazes me. These little rats are skating on real butter pads, unicycling with egg beaters, and swimming in soup pots. All with real puppets, each rigged for that specific gag. While Frank Oz directed the film, Jim Henson directed this sequence. It's a real testament to his love of these kinds of "magic tricks," and his commitment to building a different puppet for each single gag.

4. Miss Piggy and Kermit Get Married (or do they?), The Muppets Take Manhattan.
Every Muppet character seemed to be there in the chapel, even the Sesame Street gang. It really felt like one of those monumental "This Is Your Life" moments for the characters. And I still don't know if the union is legal or not.

5. "Happiness Hotel" song, The Great Muppet Caper.
Just a happy, chaotic song that encapsulates that Muppet energy: they all live together in a condemned, cheap hotel, full of hijinks and calamity, and they love it! The song is so catchy and makes me wish I could live there too.

6. The Rainbow Ending of The Muppet Movie.
It doesn't really make much sense what happens here... all the Hollywood sets fall down and suddenly there are a hundred Muppets singing. It's kind of a "dream sequence" moment. But those lyrics about "the lovers, the dreamers and you" get me every time.

I have to stop there. I'm sure there are more, but these rose to the surface!

JA: How did you become involved with the Jim Henson Company for this project, and what has it been like so far working so closely with the Henson family?

CE: I first met Lisa Henson and Jason Lust from the company at the San Diego Comic Con, through some mutual contacts. Then they told me that they had seen "Hoodwinked" and loved the tone of it. I've always thought that Hoodwinked had a significant "Muppet" vibe to it. Then they asked me to work on a rewrite of the Dark Crystal sequel. That was an exciting prospect, but the deal never came together and the film has changed hands in several ways since then. But that got me into several conversations with the studio that led to Fraggle Rock. For a long time I was resistant, since Fraggle Rock was not a series I was familiar with, and I wasn't sure if that was the right move for my second film. But the more I thought about Jim Henson's original vision for the Fraggles and that it was a chance to say something very significant to the world, the more I got really invested in the idea. After I had a story in my head I wanted to tell, the deal came together very quickly.

Working with the Jim Henson Company has been the best situation I could imagine. They are all very smart people over there, who care very much about their properties and characters. But they are also incredibly collaborative and want to pave the way for new creatives to do their own thing. It's been a very open place to throw around ideas and argue for the best movie. Lisa and Jason have been extremely supportive of what I want to do, and Brian Henson has also become a good mentor to the project. He's always giving me tips and advice on how to shoot puppets, or sharing a war story that will help me down the road. I couldn't be happier to work with this group; the people who forged most of my childhood influences!

JA: Where do you see yourself in ten years?

CE: I sincerely hope that I will be able to carve out a niche in this business where I am a "brand name" director. By that I mean, when an audience sees my name, they anticipate something good... and when a studio thinks of me, they are eager to make a "Cory Edwards film." That kind of branding can take several years and several movies to create, but that is why I am so careful with my choices for the next few projects. I hope in ten years I have had the chance to explore a number of genres. You look at the careers of Spielberg, Zemekis, Ridley Scott, David Fincher, Ron Howard... these guys began as the go-to guys in specific genres, but the public has allowed them to "grow up" and venture into all kinds of material. I want to keep surprising people, but still keep my name synonymous with quality. And right now in the present, if people want to see me as the family film/comedic guy, well that ain't all bad either.

You can follow Cory's progress on Fraggle Rock: The Movie on his blog; www.coryscuriosities.blogspot.com

#30. A Conversation with Katie Waissel

Jason Anders: So let's talk cartoons; do you have an all-time favorite piece of animation?

Katie Waissel: Wow, now that's a hard one! I had to spend a lot of time thinking about this! I would definitely have to go with the Betty Boop shorts. She was known as the first, and one of the most famous, iconic sex symbols on the animated screen, and is a reminder to all of the carefree days of the Jazz Age Flappers! I adored her cameo in Who Framed Roger Rabbit!

JA: Which cartoons did you grow up watching, and how do you think they compare with what is being made today?

KW: I grew up watching The Clangers, Rhubarb and Custard and Fraggle Rock; these shows are so old school, but such classics! My mum would put the tapes on, and I would be addicted to the music and sound effects, I just loved the simpleness of them!

JA: Who is your favorite animated character?

KW: As well as Betty Boop, of course, I just love Jessica Rabbit! Her famous 'Peek-A-Boo' hairstyle is just fabulous, and her curvaceous look should be promoted more! I think we should have more Jessica Rabbits than stick men! One of her famous quotes that always makes me giggle is when she claims to Eddie Valiant, "Im not bad, I'm just drawn that way."

JA: If you had to make a list of three animated films that everyone should see, which ones would they be?

KW: Again, there are just so many that I could say. I love all of the Disney animations, from Dumbo to Fantasia, The Little Mermaid, and Beauty and the Beast. I'm a sucker for a love story, especially when it's animated, it makes it that much more special! If we are talking more recently, I absolutely loved Finding Nemo, Monsters Inc and Ice Age. It is just fantastic how these films are created, made, and produced. It takes a lot of talent to be able to create films such as these, and it's so wonderful that their creativity can inspire so many people!

JA: Do you have a favorite artist?

KW: I must say that Disney's legendary 'Nine Old Men' are the top of my list! From Les Clarke, who specialized in animating Mickey Mouse through the decades, and drawing such classics as The Sorcerer's Apprentice in Fantasia, to Ward Kimball, who combined his love of music and animation for the acclaimed The Firehouse Five Plus Two, and for the crows in Dumbo.

JA: Do you remember what first inspired you to start writing songs and performing?

KW: Wow, this story goes quite a while back! My Grandpa, Jimmy Vogel, had a huge influence on me when I was little. We used to stay up for hours and listen to all sorts of music, he would sing to me, I would sing back. He loved listening to jazz, and Louis Armstrong was our favourite! My mum bought me my first Casio keyboard when I was just five, and my grandpa sent me song lyrics such as the famous song K-K-K-Katy, and we would make up our own version too! I carried on my passion for the piano and music all through school, and started composing around the age of fourteen. You see, my grandpa passed away when i was just ten, which was heartbreaking. I made a promise to him that i would carry on singing and playing, and that one day our name will be in lights! He has been my drive, my determination, and my rock ever since.

JA: Your music is inspired by 1940's, 50's, and 60's swing and jazz; who are your favorite music artists from those periods that have influenced your style?

KW: Well Louis Armstrong, for sure! I grew up on his wonderful sachmo voice and incredible talent, and just adored his lyrics. One of my favorite songs by him is A Kiss To Build A Dream On. Ella Fitzgerald captured my heart with Someone to Watch Over Me, and Etta James raspy soul voice is so powerful that I couldn't help but listen to what she had to say! I had a big record collection growing up, thanks to my dad, which consisted of The Ronettes, The Supremes, Sinatra, and Louis Jordan. There were just so many, so they all play such a huge part when it comes to me writing my songs.

JA: You have been playing piano since the age of five, and have since performed from New York to London, including The Royal Albert Hall and The Shepherds Bush Empire; what is it like to see your career unfolding in such a big way at the age of 22?

KW: To be honest, it's breathtaking. I have put such hard work into my music and have never given up. I have worked three jobs at a time to put myself through vocal coaching school, cried a thousand tears through my songs, and smiled so brightly when playing them live. It has been a huge challenge which will ever continue, and I can guarantee there will be even more ups and downs to come. For now, I can say I've reached my goals so far by never giving up, and will always love what I do.

JA: You have written material with Glen Matlock of The Sex Pistols, Chaz Jankel of Ian Dury and The Blockheads, and Grammy Award winning Gordon Commissioner Williams; Glen Matlock has even been quoted as saying, "Along with her raw talent, Katie brings a breath of fresh air to the industry." What is it like to have the support of so many established artists so early in your career?

KW: It is amazing! I never expected the support i have been given and i am just so grateful for it! they are all such wonderful talented people and i feel honoured to have the opportunity to work with them!

JA: If you had to sum up the feeling of your music in one word, what would it be?

KW: Animated! (Hehe, do you like what I did there?)

A Conversation with Joe Dante

Jason Anders: What is it that got you interesting in filmmaking in the first place?

Joe Dante: I had originally planned to become a cartoonist; it was only during art school that I came to realize I was more inclined toward filmmaking. This was the mid-'60s when the idea of "film school" was pretty new - my class at the Philadelphia College of Art consisted of forty students and two black and white silent 16mm cameras. I didn't really learn much about making films, but I did spend as much time as I could at the local grindhouses where I caught up with old movies from the '30s on, most of which I could never have seen elsewhere. When it came time to try actual movie directing, I found I had a wellspring of images and ideas in my head to draw on.

JA: What was it like to finally bring those ideas and images to life in 1978 with Piranha?

JD: Piranha was a Jaws ripoff I made for Roger Corman three years after the original was released. It was made in Texas for about $600,000, which was twice the usual New World budget since United Artists was co-producer and had foreign distribution. It was made in a rush and was quite ambitious for the time and budget. I was so convinced it would be a disaster that I never left the Moviola. I ate and slept in the editing room. I didn't even attend my own wrap party! But it turned out okay in the end and made a lot of money, particularly in places like South America.

JA: What were your favorite movies as a kid?

JD: The sadly vanished tradition of the kiddie matinee guaranteed me ten cartoons and a double feature every Saturday and (except for part of 1954 when I had polio) I was always at the movies. I'm afraid I was pretty undiscriminating as a child, I just loved movies. Period. Westerns, Disney movies, pirate movies, monster movies... I loved them all, except romance movies. Phooey.

We would look at the opening credits, count the female names, and figure out how many trips to the popcorn machine they added up to. Like most kids, I gave hardly any thought to who made the movies, or even who was in them, except to realize that I liked Audie Murphy better than Gene Autry. The Howling was fun for me because I loved the old Universal horror pictures and, once again, the movie was surprisingly successful.

JA: What was it like re-creating It's a Good Life with actor Bill Mumy from the original Twilight Zone episode in 1983's Twilight Zone: The Movie, and what are your thoughts looking back at it today?

JD:  I got the job simply because I was around developing Gremlins when Landis and Spielberg were looking for someone to direct the third story of what was then a three-story omnibus (George Miller came in later). I thought adapting old episodes was a dumb idea, as so many relied on twist endings that the audience already knew, but that was a given. I chose the episode I did (one of the best) because I'd read the Jerome Bixby short story it was based on. I thought if I could disguise it well enough that they might not catch on right away that it was a remake. The movie turned out unevenly, as multi-story pictures tend to do, but George and I got a lot of street cred out of it.

JA: Do you have a favorite episode of The Twilight Zone?

JD: My favorite Twilight Zone episode is "Walking Distance", the second one filmed, and I think the best of the lot.

JA: In 1984 you directed Gremlins; looking back, how does the film compare to what you originally had in mind, and what challenges did you face on this picture?

JD: I certainly don't miss anything we cut out; that was just the usual process you go through. The challenge here was inventing the technology as we went along. No one had done a puppet film on this scale before, and it didn't help that a few weeks before shooting, Steven Spielberg decided that Gizmo should stick around for the whole picture instead of disappearing in Reel 3. So somehow that little bucket of bolts had to be ambulatory, express emotion, and essentially carry the picture like Lassie! It also didn't help that the studio regarded the project with guarded amusement as something like "Spielberg's folly." If he wanted to make it, they'd comply to keep him happy, but they really didn't "get it" while we were in production. It was only after a phenomenal preview screening which brought down the house that it dawned on them this might be something special, but even then they never really understood it.

JA: How did you get Chuck Jones involved in your films?

JD: I had given Chuck a cameo in Gremlins as himself, and we were friends. He spent the whole day on Innerspace drawing pictures for the crew. Innerspace was probably the best time I'd had on a movie because the cast was so much fun and Jeff Boam's script was go good. People loved it at the preview. The picture tanked, though.

JA: What do you feel are the most important aspects of directing a comedy like your 1989 film, The 'Burbs, and who inspires you as a director?

JD: The 'Burbs was made during a writers' strike, so I decided we should shoot in sequence in case the actors' ad-libs added to the story. Behaviorally it's a very funny movie, although none of the three endings we shot really worked.

My favorite comedy directors are Ernst Lubitsch and Frank Tashlin, which is pretty eclectic, but there are many different kinds of comedy. It seems to me that a loose, informal set is the best environment for comedy, but others have gotten good results from great discipline. I think it really comes down to the ensemble. Every movie is different and there's no hard and fast rule for how to get the best out of the cast and crew.

JA: How did your experience in directing 1990's Gremlins 2: The New Batch compare to the first in the series?

JD: As advertised, they really did leave me completely alone, plus we had three times the budget of the first one -which was good, since we naturally had to amp up the Gremlin capabilities to include walking, running, and talking. There were almost no opticals in the first one, but this one had lots of complex shots. The first film was almost breakdown-inducing in its intensity, but this one was a comparative dream. Among the ideas that didn't make it to the camera were Hoyt Axton returning at the end, having invented a foolproof raincoat for Gizmo, an appearance by a Sgt. Rock-like commando to save the day (I was glad to see that one go), and Christopher Lee morphing into numerous other characters including Einstein. I like the movie better than the original; it's more my personality. But a last-minute switch in release dates killed it at the box office.

JA: 1993's Matinee is another of my all-time favorite films. Was John Goodman based directly upon the filmmaker William Castle?

JD: Well, not directly - Castle never made the kind of giant insect movie Woolsey does, and in any case nobody was making those by 1962. It's more an amalgam of people like Castle, Corman, Jack Arnold and Ray Steckler. This turned out to be another more personal project. My little brother and I were the same ages as the kids in the movie during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and a lot of the set dressing in their room is my own, including the old monster magazines. No "bigger than life" showmen ever came to my neighborhood in New Jersey, more's the pity. This was essentially an indie film that got made by Universal, which really didn't know what to do with it. We shot in Florida at stages adjacent to the theme park, and at lunch time the script supervisor and I would high-tail it over to Back to the Future: The Ride.

JA: Let's jump to Looney Tunes: Back In Action in 2003 - what are your favorite Looney Tunes shorts?

JD: The Clampett, Jones and Freleng shorts are best, in my opinion, and each director has his own unique approach. As for the movie, the less said the better. It was a nightmarish year and a half of my life that I'll never get back, and if I had it to do over, I wouldn't. I did it for Chuck, who had just passed away and hated Space Jam.

The final release version of Looney Tunes: Back In Action has a different beginning, middle and end than the one I signed on to do. Every day was another battle with people who would never have walked across the street to see the movie. At least it's better than Space Jam.

JA: Tell me about your next picture, The Hole.

JD: It's a family horror film, if there is such a thing, kind of a throwback to '80s movies. It's in digital 3-D, but it's not a toss-rocks-at-the-camera movie. The 3-D is meant to be more immersive and draw you in to the characters and their dilemmas. The hard part is it's set in the summer, and it's being made in Canada in the winter!

JA: Do you have a fondest memory so far in your career?

JD: Hard to say. I'm just so lucky to be doing this at all! But maybe the moment I felt I had really arrived was in 1982, on the set of Twilight Zone, Stage 14 at Warner Bros. I was standing at the top of the set looking down over the sound stage, which had a huge pit beneath it for water. The Sea Hawk had been shot there. And this old grip turned to me and said, "Ya see that corner over there, kid? Errol Flynn pissed in that corner!" And I thought, "Wow. I'm in Show Business!"

#28. A Conversation with Linda Simensky

Jason Anders: Let's start with where you began your career, a nine-year tenure at Nickelodeon, where you helped build the studio's animation department, and have also been credited for launching Doug and Rugrats; tell me how you became involved with Nickelodeon, and also what it was like to be involved in the original Nicktoons.

Linda Simensky: My goal had been to work in kids' television and animation. I lived in the New York area, and had a summer job at Nickelodeon in 1984. I was eager to go back there after I graduated. It was a fun place to work and I liked the shows there much more than I liked Saturday morning cartoons. Nick was pretty small back then, so I didn't get a job there right away. I worked at Showtime for a year in programming, and then was able to get a job in the Nickelodeon programming department, where I handled the scheduling for Nickelodeon, 6 a.m. to 8 p.m., to be exact.

Nickelodeon in the '80s was an amazing place to work. A list of my colleagues at the time reads like a who's who in kids TV now. We had a lot of freedom and were expected to be creative, even with things like the schedule. My interest had always been animation, and I guess I talked about it all the time. I was asked if I wanted to be in the animation department that was starting up, and of course I did. It was a great time, and we experimented quite a bit. When I was in the midst of it, all I could think of was how exciting it was and what a great opportunity it was to do some really interesting shows and impact the animation industry in a positive way.
Of course, when I look back now with 20 years of hindsight, I think about how little we really knew about how to make shows, but how much passion and excitement we brought to our jobs. I guess we were lucky that things turned out as well as they did. We worked with a lot of talented people, many who did have experience. I think everyone knew what an amazing opportunity it was to have that much freedom, and people worked hard to make sure things worked out.

JA: You were also supervising producer on Rocko's Modern Life; tell me about your time on that show before being appointed Director of Programming of Cartoon Network.

LS: My job at Nickelodeon was overseeing animation development. Rocko, which was created by Joe Murray, was one of the shows I had developed, and the head of the department at the time, Mary Harrington, wanted me to get some production experience, which was a very wise idea. I did understand development much better after working more hands on with a series. So on Rocko, I was the supervising producer for the network, which meant that I was reading scripts and boards and giving comments. It was a team effort, so I was really more part of a strong group of people reviewing the series at Nick.

Rocko was an interesting show, in that it brought together a lot of people who got to experiment and then went off to make their own shows; Steve Hillenburg, Dan Povenmire and Swampy Marsh, Tim Bjorklund, to name a few. Rocko was made in the shadow of Ren and Stimpy, so all the artists felt this pressure to push the envelope constantly, which always seemed like the wrong direction for Rocko, which I always felt was much more of a Looney Tunes meets the NFB kind of show, not a Ren and Stimpy kind of show. Once everyone had gotten that out of their systems, they could move on. I have often felt that there would not have been a Spongebob had there not been a Rocko. Steve can tell me if that's not the case.

By the mid-1990s, what I really wanted to focus on was funny cartoons, and I was excited by cartoons like Dexter's Laboratory at Cartoon Network. The cartoons were made with the outline-to-board production process, and I was interested in working that way, as I thought it made for funnier cartoons. I was intrigued by the potential that I felt Cartoon Network had at the time (early/mid-90s) and when I met Mike Lazzo, I knew that I wanted to work there.

JA: In 1997 you were promoted to Vice President of Original Animation, and then became Senior Vice President of Original Animation in 2001; what was your time like at Cartoon Network, overseeing such shows as Dexter's Laboratory and Samurai Jack?

LS: I recall 1996-2000 as a perfect period in many ways, everything seemed right, the people, the shows, the management. Cartoon Network was an amazing place to work at that time. The leadership at Turner was supportive and not risk-averse. The network was still adding cable systems, so ratings were related mostly to this rapid growth. There was pressure to make good shows, for sure. But Dexter and Johnny Bravo paved the way and a lot of what got developed for series during that time -- Powerpuff Girls, Ed, Edd 'n' Eddy, Courage the Cowardly Dog, Samurai Jack, seemed to work. That of course was because of the creators. Genndy Tartakvosky, Craig McCracken, and Danny Antonucci and their teams all could have worked anywhere at that time and they stayed at CN, because it was a supportive environment and they knew they were valued at the network. So they worked really hard and that showed on the screen.

There were challenges then, such as how to work with Warner Bros. and the WB, and with the international Cartoon Networks, who all seemed to have different needs and goals. Our biggest challenge was running the shows, which were mostly in LA, but also in NY and Vancouver, from our offices in Atlanta. I pushed for a studio in LA where we could oversee our own shows and could produce the shorts more easily, and by 2000, we had pulled together the studio in Burbank. Besides the shows, the creation of the Cartoon Network Studio is one of the things I am proudest of.

When AOL took over in 2001 and installed new management, it was a completely different environment, and you can imagine the enthusiasm and energy they brought to Cartoon Network. Just kidding, it was horrible after that and I got out. I should note that there are still good people in management there, and Rob Sorcher is running things now, so all is not lost.

JA: You studied Media Ecology at New York University where you earned your MA; tell me about life before your career, did you always want to be involved in the entertainment industry?

LS: Life and career happened at the same time. After I finished college, I started grad school at NYU right around the time I started working at Nick. I went to school at night, which was the only way I could work full time and still get my MA. As an undergrad at the University of Pennsylvania, I had heard Neil Postman speak, and I was captivated. I had decided that no matter where I ended up working, I would go to grad school at NYU for Neil's program, which was called Media Ecology, based on the Marshall McLuhan term. Media Ecology was a program that focused on the impact of each communications medium throughout history, and it looked at the positive impact as well as the unintended consequences of each advancement. Such as how the invention of the printing press impacted the concept of memory. It certainly influenced the way I approach problem solving at work. Somehow I was able to write a lot of papers on animation and made it all job-related.

As for my career, yes, I had announced at age thirteen that I wanted to write for Bugs Bunny. Upon finding out that it was no longer in production, I decided that I still wanted to work in television programming. I was always interested in animation, but I had assumed that one had to be trained as an animator to work in animation.

JA: In 2003 you were named Senior Director of Children's Programming for PBS, where you manage programming blocks, work with producers, co-production partners and distributors throughout development, production, post-production and broadcast; tell me about the challenges you face in this career, and what you find most rewarding about it.

LS: When I went to PBS, I think it surprised a lot of people. Perhaps that was because I had never shown any interest in educational television in all my years at Nick and CN. But two things were happening in my life at the point where I left CN. One was that my son had turned two and was watching TV, and I started understanding how it all influenced him. I started thinking about the kinds of shows that I wanted him to watch; educational shows that were really funny and cool, kind of like the way I remembered the Electric Company being. The other was that my frustrations at CN led to a midlife crisis, which sounds like a cliché, but I really did start to question what I was doing and if it was meaningful. Rather than buying a red sports car, I dragged my family to Alexandria, Virginia, so I could take a job where I felt that I could have impact.

I was warned by various colleagues that PBS was very political, in all senses, that they were very strict about what went on the air, and that it was hard to get anything done there. But I have found it exactly the opposite; there is a definite premium on innovation, management is astoundingly supportive, and the people I work with are team players who can also go off on their own to solve problems or come up with ideas. Of course, there is not the same kind of money you might find at a cable channel, but I happen to like the creative approach we're allowed to take here. It's one that is mission-based, meaning that we do have an overall goal that we need to stick to, serving the American public, and in my case, kids 2-8. But to be honest, it's more fun being creative when you have specific goals.

I've also been able to work with some of the people I'd admired most in kids TV, people like Carol Greenwald, Lisa Henson, Angela Santomero, Mitchell Kriegman, Karen Fowler, and the other producers at Sesame Workshop, Soup 2 Nuts, WGBH, to name a few.

JA: Do you remember your favorite television programs as a child?

LS: I was a huge fan of Bugs Bunny and all Looney Tunes, The Flintstones and the Electric Company. I also recall liking The Pink Panther and The Jetsons. I watched Saturday morning TV with great enthusiasm. I remember liking reruns of The Mickey Mouse Club. As for live action, I liked the Brady Bunch in early elementary school and then as I got older, I liked The Odd Couple and The Carol Burnett Show. And then The Muppet Show and Saturday Night Live came along, and those completely shaped my sense of humor.

JA: What advice do you feel is important for those out there trying to break into the industry as working professionals?

LS: I find that frequently, people want to break into the industry as the creator of a series. I think it's crucial for would-be creators to get experience in both leadership and creative management and to see how other people run series. I often tell people, particularly those who want to work on the network side of kids TV, to see their first jobs as paid grad school. You have to use those first few jobs to learn as much as possible to become truly valuable to an organization. Animation requires both the ability to have leadership and vision, but also to be part of a team and to value the work of others. It takes a certain amount of experience and maturity to get to that point.

JA: In 2000 you were honored with the June Foray Award, which is given to individuals who have made a significant and benevolent or charitable impact on the art and industry of animation, such as Leonard Maltin, Dave Master, and Jerry Beck; tell me how it felt to be presented with that award, and what series or programming have you been most proud to say you were involved in?

LS: It was a huge honor, especially since I did get to meet June Foray, and I was very surprised and excited. I was surprised that I had done enough to be noticed along with people like Jerry Beck and Leonard Maltin. But the part of the award's description I took very seriously was "benevolent impact." As an executive, my goal was always to represent the needs of the network, but always be there for the artists. I had worked hard to support artists and their creative ideas and maybe this was what the award was acknowledging.

As for what I am proud to say I was involved in, there were shows at each job where I felt that I was making the shows for myself as an eight year old, and for any kids like me. I've liked many of the shows, and certainly it was a privilege to work on the earliest Nicktoons, Doug, Rugrats and Ren & Stimpy. I am proud that I fought for The Powerpuff Girls to go to series. I am proud of Samurai Jack, as I always thought it was a ground-breaking series. At PBS, I am proud of WordGirl, which is definitely the show I would have loved as an eight-year-old. And it's a huge thrill working on the next incarnation of The Electric Company, which will debut this January.

JA: Having already accomplished so much, where do you see yourself in ten years?

LS: Thanks, although I believe that the most interesting things that I'll work on are still to come. In ten years, I think the TV industry will be different in that we'll all be working on content, not TV. Perhaps I'll be working on content for some platform that doesn't exist yet. I'd like to be in a position to make sure that there is high quality animation and a good way to view it, no matter what platform we're viewing it on.

JA: Thank you for interviewing with me! To close this out, do you have a favorite cartoon of all time?

LS: That's like asking which of my children I like best... I love Bugs Bunny and The Simpsons. These answers change frequently. But this week, I am going to say Rabbit Seasoning and the Poochie episode of The Simpsons. I also like Cordell Barker's The Cat Came Back. And Totoro. This is the hardest question here. I'll have to stop now.