Fred Seibert's Blog

Blog History of Frederator’s original short cartoons.
Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4. Part 5. Part 6.
Part 7.

When we last left off our story (before yesterday’s philisophical diversion), in 1989 Nickelodeon had decided that our idea of doing 1940s styled short cartoons was mostly wrong, but kind of right. Instead, against current TV tradition, using our advice they were going to pilot animated series with off-the-beaten-track, alternative animation studios. They offered my company, Fred/Alan, one of the first pilots.

Nickelodeon’s programming executive sent over their deal memo as promised. I took a look at it and called him back.

“So I see there are ten deal points.”

“Yes,” the network executive said.

“And the first is that if you’re unhappy with our work –our work on our original cartoon– you can fire us at any time and replace us with a producer of your choice. On our cartoon.”

“Yes.”

Now, I was used to the fact that the world had changed when it came to the business of cable television. In traditional broadcasting (CBS, NBC, & ABC), because of a bunch of arcane legal mumbo jumbo, it was common practice that a network could not own any part of a program, the producer owned it all. Cable was not bound by any ownership restrictions, and it was already common practice that the network could own everything, the producer nothing, and if you wanted your show on the air that was the deal. We didn’t particularly like it, but we had accepted it as the way business was done. But, we didn’t much like the idea that a punk executive like the one we were dealing with enjoyed rubbing it our faces so much. I mean, OK you own it all you control it all you can tell us what to do and you can fire us at any time. But, gimme a break; at least make it point 7 of 10. Don’t humiliate us with your power right up top.

With the permission of my partners Alan Goodman and Albie Hecht I asked, “Have you ever heard the sound of paper ripping over the telephone?”

Our career in cartoons was over before it began.

(More next time.)

Blog History of Frederator’s original short cartoons.
Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4. Part 5. Part 6.
Part 7.