Yesterday we were contacted by the Youtube user jhidekim, who put together the following video. I saw it a couple months ago and thought it was sadly hilarious. It’s the inspiration for my latest Meth Minute 39 cartoon, in which I recast it with dogs.

I still can’t tell if these guys are real or not. Some of them seem very hammy like overracting comedians… and others are so subdued and devoid of shtick that they must be regular men. I guess now that we’ve been contacted by the editor we can find out the truth. For those of you who haven’t seen my spoof, here it is:

-Dan Meth

From Eric: “We should see some of the cards’ backs. People loved those, and every time I showed them to someone, I’d always be asked, ‘Do they make a puzzle?’ ”

They’re in the same album on RAW, but here’s one as a teaser.

When I first got to Hanna-Barbera in 1992 the studio was nine years past it’s last big success (The Smurfs) and Ted Turner was on the verge of closing the place (producer David Kirschner [Pagemaster, Cats Don’t Dance] convinced Ted to keep the doors open, primarily to save production of his ultimately doomed features). I had absolutely no idea how to turn the studio around –I wasn’t even a novice when it came to making cartoons– but I certainly knew how to resurrect the image of the place. We’d start the turnaround there.

                                                         1979


1969                                              1974

I wasn’t too crazy about the now-classic 70s HB logo (I know a lot of you disagree) because I felt the studio had turned its back on the powerful heritage they had making cartoons (I was insulted by the way that the prior regime had continued producing junk-for-revenue like Yo! Yogi and numerous pale Flintstones specials). I much preferred the graphic vibe of the 50s and I was determined to reclaim it. I turned to my pals Tom Corey and Scott Nash who had developed the Nickelodeon logo and gave them my rap. I also handed them Iraj Paran’s re-drawing of the vintage HB script. Tom and Scott agreed with my basic philosophy that contemporary trademarks should be kinetic in conception and presented dozens of logos that incorporated the classic characters (and not only the usual suspects, but Muttley, Barney, Secret Squirrel, Jonny Quest, and others) and Iraj’s script, and they added in the elemental shapes of ovals, circles, squares, and rectangles. I’m not sure we caught the exact spirit I was looking for (that would have to wait until Craig Kellman’s reclaiming of The Flinstones art authenticity) but I felt like we were ready to rock.

When it came to business cards (I’ve posted autographed versions from our founders Joe Barbera & Bill Hanna), I was still smarting from 12 years of purchasing bureaucrats at MTV Networks who’d constantly thwarted my efforts to make dozens of simultaneous business cards from dozens of variations of MTV and Nickelodeon logos. I thought it would be fun and make the brands sing, the company thought it would be wasteful. So, now I was in charge of a company, and multiple, collectible business cards were the order of the day; in fact, my ‘President’ cards were actually printed with the legend “Collect all 8″. The only person who was skeptical was by partner Jed Simmons because he loved making notes on the backs of his cards, and printing the character pictures frustrated his efforts. He got over it.

They were a big hit; when we were at business functions we all quickly ran out of cards. Soon, lots of companies in the entertainment business followed suit with fun collections of business cards (even MTV and Nickelodeon).

If only we could figure out how to make hit cartoons.

The backs of the 1990’s Hanna-Barbera business cards

Dan’s episode 5 of the Meth Minute 39, Mike Tyson’s Brunchout, is a pure TKO on Myspace, gathering 52,615 views and climbing!
Check it out, HERE: Mike Tyson’s Brunch Out
If you want to be one of the first to view it before we unleash the fury of Mike Tyson tomorrow at it’s regular scheduled time, go there immediately!
Thanks Myspace for showing us love, and extra special love goes out to the Myspace community for showing us their support through laughter and comments.
And if you aren’t pals with us on Myspace Already, y’all should add Channel Frederator.
(And ALL OF US too.)
I picked a few of my favorite comments, thus far.
I’m sure there will be many, many more by the time tomorrow rolls around.

-Jeaux Janovsky, Four Eyes of the Tiger

I got a call tonight from our loyal friend and colleague Floyd Bishop telling me he and his family had been evacuated from their home in San Diego in this week’s tragic California fires. Yesterday, producer Rita Street told me the same thing.

Our prayers are with all of you and your neighbors.

Illustration by Wes Bedrosian
     

I really like Steve Heller. He’s been really nice to me, but much more importantly he’s a true inspiration to thousands of people. World class Pentagram designer Paula Scher says “Steven Heller has been graphic design’s biggest fan,” and as usual Paula’s got it right. Aside from a 40+ year career as an awesome art director himself (he would inaccurately and self deprecatingly tell you that he didn’t have the talent, couldn’t teach gym, so he became an art director), and the co-chair of SVA’s graduate program in graphic design, he’s the author of more books about graphic design than anyone in history, over 100 at last count.

His home away from home, New York’s School of Visual Arts, hosted the opening of his Masters Series Exhibition last night. I was honored to be there.

Joe Schiappa is a comedy writer who likes cartoons. He came by my New York office today to say hello and introduce himself and his work. Hi Joe!

Greetings Gentle Ghouls and Ghostly Girls! We’ve been carving up pumpkins with our lazer eyes in anticipation of Halloween!
In fact, we couldn’t wait til the “actual” Halloween… so we created our own 9 days early, which I’ve dubbed Fred-O-Ween!

(Insert Maniacal Laughter HERE)

(a Thunder clap sound effect would add a nice touch if you also imagined that happening too.)

—Mina and the Count in “The Ghoul’s Tribunal”, submitted by Rob Renzetti
Mina and everyone’s favorite sucker (of blood), the Count, star in another great Oh Yeah! Frederator Era Cartoon by My Life as a Teenage Robot creator Rob “Candy Corn” Renzetti, and it is spooky awesome.

—Happy Pumpkin, submitted by Floyd Bishop
Floyd “BOO Boy” Bishop carves us up a cute and very happy pumpkin. He is gosh darn cute. Turn up your volume on this one.

—Slaughterween, submitted by Rory Cooke
Slaughterween by “Gory” Rory Cooke tells the tale of a lonely and misunderstood schoolboy who wants to set out to make a very cool, yet rather disturbing, Halloween costume to impress his classmates. This one is a tad bloody, ye be warned mateys.

—Camp Fear, submitted by Mukpuddy Animation
Our favorite gang of troublemaking lads from across the pond o’er at “Murky” Mukpuddy Animation, present us with their Award Winning Animated Horror Short, Camp Fear!
Did I mention that it’s really good and that they made it in 48 hours? They did.
Scary eh?

Btw, we love candy here at Frederator, so feel free to send us some. You know, if you have a few extra pieces to spare.
Just don’t go sending us those caramel apples you can shave with.

-“Jittery” Jeaux Janovsky, Vampire Hunter

Well they just announced the winners of the Best In The SW Festival!!. Ace & Aqua took 1st place in the Best Of Show: High School and I’m especially proud of 3rd place in Best Animated short because my film was considered a professional entry for that place! I’m so excited!! Big thanks to everone for their (your) support and congratulations to all the other winners!

Best,
SL

Here’s Super Sam and Spot chasing after the Big Apple’s wackiest super villains. As you know, cats have no fear of heights but I don’t think Sam is so lucky.
Chances are they’re trying to figure out where to get their next cup of coffee.