Focus Group Fun with an Intergalactic Bounty Hunter

 

Lobo at His Most Charming

looper.com

 

What the Children Saw

As I understand it, they were pleased. For more info on the ups and downs of a Lobo animated TV series, check out my 3-part blog post.

 

Lost Hamster Video Surfaces

'Idaho' Found in Box

 In VHS form from 1997. But now Private Idaho is transferred and ready for 2025 viewing. Under the supervision of Grant Moran, writers Wendell Morris and Tom Sheppard and myself were tasked with preparing a pitch video for a new animated show. The premise revolved around a caged hamster and his dreams of high adventure. Here's what we came up with. According to Grant, "Comedy Central ordered six episodes. WB Animation Business Affairs guy insisted on 11 and wouldn't relent. The deal died. And this was when Comedy Central was half owned by WB. Devastating." I concur.

Goodnight Everybody! Podcast and I

Goodnight Everybody! was gracious enough to invite me on last night for a chat about things Animaniacs, Freakazoid! and other topics animated, as well as spirited discussions about plums and the odd yearnings of farm animals. Listen in for more.

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Central Florida ComicCon Invites Old Friends

 RUEGGER, RUGG TO CFCC 

 

As Lakeland, Florida USA gears up for their big comic con, old Warner Bros. chums Tom Ruegger and Paul Rugg prepare to meet their public. 

Come this Saturday, Januray 20th, these animation legends will host a panel entitled (and I quote):

The Ultimate Animaniacs and Freakazoid Panel

Tom Ruegger and Paul Rugg talk about the making of Animaniacs and Freakazoid and take questions from the audience in this panel for the Ultimate Animaniacs and Freakazoid fans!

Don't miss it! (I'll miss it, but then I was there.)

 

A Warner Bros. Merry Christmas v.2

 Ten years ago,  posted the below remarks. All the best today to you and your family.

 Inspired by a Facebook post from friend Josh, and plucked from the blog of Tom Ruegger, here are the Warners Brothers (and sister) as shepherds from "The Little Drummer Warners." Back in the day, we showed the episode to Steven Spielberg who joked that we now owed him a Warner Bros. tribute to a Jewish holiday. Hanukkah and Thanksgiving at the same time would have been perfect, but that kind of calender gold doesn't roll around too often. Plus Animaniacs would've needed to be airing for twenty years like Gunsmoke. So we still owe him.

Cracked Magazine Article on the Rise and Fall of Freakazoid

I should know. I WAS THERE!!!

Thanks to Brian Van Hooker for the terrific article on one of my very favorite TV animation shows ever. Tom Ruegger, Paul Rugg and I are interviewed regarding our recollection of those ancient times. 

Go forth and read at Cracked. 

Making TV Animation Back in the Day

 Astounding and Anti-Informative

A short fun clip from a longer video The Making of Freakazoid, made back in the mists of time. 1996, perhaps.

John P. McCann Channel

I Arrive at Wondercon 2023!

Here's how much the Hilton thinks of me. I'm given TWO bottles of Evian Water FREE. Everyone else, the slugs, the dregs, the nobodies, pay $5 a BOTTLE. Just livin' large in Anaheim, CA.

How Freakazoid Episodes were Made

So THAT'S how they did it.

 There was a formula back then. Follow it and you'd have something to watch . . . something strange and mystical.

John P. McCann Channel

Wondercon '23 Paul Rugg Promo

Coming March 26!!

In Sunny Anaheim, California!

A Freakazoid Panel for the Ages!

It's a Con, but Go Anyway!

John P. McCann Channel

Wedding Bells Have Rung for Paul Rugg's Daughter

L. me and father-of-the-bride.

 

And that's how fast time flies. Away into a new life goes a young lady who once edited a short story of mine. I was quite happy for her and the family. 

Here is a picture of Paul and I at the reception. It appears a large alien craft is landing behind us and we're the last to know.

Ah, well, in the midst of life, interstersteller visitors.

Paul Rugg and I are Hired at Warner Bros. v. 5

And I Have the Memories to Prove It

Today, December 16, marked 27 years since Paul Rugg and I were offered jobs at Warner Brothers TV Animation. We were over at Paul's house watching Zontar: Thing From Venus, drinking coffee, eating chocolate donuts, and smoking. We'd just turned in scripts for some new show called Animaniacs. (Mine was "Draculee, Draculaa.") Paul's wife was off earning money as a social worker, while my future wife was still employed at the magazine I'd quit two months earlier. Rugg and I were performing improv and sketch comedy at the Acme Comedy Theatre. (Along with cast member Adam Carolla.) Money was very tight. The payment for one script would really help out my Christmas. 

Then Kathy Page, Tom Ruegger's assistant, called to offer us staff jobs and the trajectory of our lives veered sharply into an unexplored cosmos.

We were amazed, stunned, numb. Walking outside, we smoked more and talked it over. Should we take the jobs or would they pollute our comedy pureness by turning it commercial? We would accept the work immediately. 

Now it all seems opaque. If it weren't for the Web and talking to Paul Rugg yesterday, I'd swear the whole experience never happened. But I'm glad it did. (Paul, too.)  So thanks to Tom and Sherri Stoner. (And her husband, M.D. Sweeney, our Acme director, who recommended us.)

Note: After thirteen years of blogging, I'm running out of life events to chronicle.

Notes: 2019

A little hyperbole last year. I have plenty of life events and more on the way. Now then, Paul's episode was about a pet shop, I believe. In 1991 I wrote on a Mac Classic. (They look so quaint now, like a fancy radio from 1938.) Jeffrey Dahmer, Silence of the Lambs, Thelma and Louise, the unraveling of the Soviet Union and the number of computers on the newly commercialized Web reached one million.

Not mine, but similar.

Notes: 2020

What a year! (Wednesday will be 29 years, but close enough.) Pandemics, riots, politics. It's like 1968 on crystal meth. What's new? Well. You can now obtain the Top 5 Dating Tips of H.P. Lovecraft. Yes, that weird horror guy. For details, go to this nifty spot. 

Notes: 2021

NOW it's 30 years. After three decades, events merge together into a clot of time. But I'll never forget that day. A life-changer. 

So Long, Ed Asner

 

Behind the Voice Actors

Sergeant Mike Cosgrove (who also used the name Ed Asner) is gone. Freakazoid's pal and law enforcement chum has cashed out his life chips and departed this plane of existence. 

Ed was fun to work with, bummed cigarettes off the crew, and never seemed thrown by the often surreal dialogue he was called upon to read. I wish his family peace in this troubled time. 

Adieu, Ed and may you know eternal rest involving offbeat wholesome fun.

ZuccoloX

Freakazoid Friends at Warner Bros.

L. to R.: Joe Leahy, Jonathan Harris, Paul Rugg, and I

 Rummaging in some old files and scrolled across this photo circa 1997. Note my stylish collarless shirt. I never really thought about moments such as this because I was always looking ahead to the next job. Now I realize my work at Warner Bros. was the most fun I've ever been paid for. Not that my current life isn't fun. But I'm not paid for sitting around—though that is no longer universally true in California. I wonder who took this?