Tiny Toons/Freakazoid! Panel

From the left: Rich Arons, Me, Bruce Timm, Sherri Stoner, Jean MacCurdy, Andrea Romano, Paul Dini and Paul Rugg.

Andrea Romano and I

WB Voice Director Andrea Romano and I yesterday

Freakazoid-Tiny Toons Panel 2008

Lots of fun with a nice turn-out. Paul Rugg rocked as MC, the clips were good, and my fellow panelists delightful. Nice to see Andrea Romano, Paul Dini and Sherri Stoner again as well as Bruce Timm and Rich Arons. Paul kept it moving and turned it over to audience questions for the last fifteen minutes.

I owe my Warner years to Sherri Stoner. In late 1990, I was working in improv with her husband, Sweeney, at the Acme Comedy Theatre. Sherri hired me to help develop a Tiny Toons spin-off starring Elmyra. The development was scrubbed and the episode I helped write folded into Tiny Toons proper. A year later, when Animaniacs was ready to crank up, Paul Rugg and I were assigned pilot episodes. (Mine was "Drac-u-lee Drac-u-la.") We were brought on staff and away we went for a long time.

"I'm Here In The Show!"

At Comic Con. For bureaucratic reasons, our stay at the hotel was reduced from four nights to a single night. But the Warner pr gal hustled and got us in to another big downtown hotel. Off to the panel in 90 minutes. More later today.

A Little Taste

Thanks to Keeper for the heads-up. Warners (I think) has uploaded two segments from the Freak DVD:

Rugg and Ruegger Report on Freakazoid DVD

Paul Rugg and Tom Ruegger have viewed the upcoming Freakazoid DVD. (I've yet to visit my mail box.) Many of the more out-there segments we filmed back in January made it in. Clearly, the director, Troy Benjamin, caught the "Hugbees" spirit.

Moon Day

A mere 39 years ago, the U.S. landed on the moon in glorious black & white. (At least at our house. We didn't get color TV until 1972.) That afternoon, I'd hitchhiked out to a Chicago Forest Preserve for a picnic with some high school friends. Holding Old Style long-neck bottles in our sophomore hands, we listened to the radio as lunar module Eagle set down in the Sea of Tranquility.

This awesome moment was soured by a massive drunken senior who began randomly kicking ass. Quickly, the mayhem spread. Big Drunk's chum threw a beer bottle, hitting me in the head. I punched him. Then Big Drunk hit me between the eyes. I went down faster than IndyMac stock. Someone carried me to a car and I was dropped off near home.

By now it was evening. Inside my house, the only light was the glow of the TV. My brother, sister and parents watched the lunar module, waiting for something to happen. I'd arrived just in time. As my bruises blossomed, I saw Neil Armstrong step onto lunar soil. Wow! Someone was up there! A man was on the moon! (It must've been even more astounding to my parents.) That night, it seemed everything I'd ever read in science fiction was possible. What couldn't Mankind do?

Sustain the space program, for one. Three years later, the last manned lunar mission returned to Earth. We'd beaten the Soviets to the moon. Why keep going? Space money was needed to solve poverty and other pressing issues that money alone can't solve. I wish we'd kept going. (The spin-off technology alone would've made it worth while. ) I wish we'd pushed on into space. There is a part of Man that yearns to step across the comfortable threshold of the known and set foot in the beyond.

I think I'll have some Tang.