Fred Seibert's Blog

Elliot Cowan & Rebecca Angelou from fredseibert on Vimeo.

Elliot Cowan stopped by Wednesday with his new wife (congratulations!), artist/designer Rebecca Angelou. I got to see her work for the first time and go over a few projects with Elliot. Elliot’s “Boxhead & Roundhead” was last seen on Channel Frederator in May on Episode #134 oops, in October on Episode #149.

Find more videos like this on Channel Frederator RAW

Bloomberg Television made a terrible mistake and booked me as the first guest on their new show ‘Venture’: The World of Entrepreneurship in October. The host Mike Schneider was much better than I was, and the entire staff (including associate producer Nikole Yinger) was fantastic to work with. It was a great experience; it’s rare for someone like me to be featured in a solid half hour interview, Charlie Rose style. And once again marveled at the power of media when I got emails from around the world after the show aired across the weekend. I know, I know, I’m in the media, but when you get hit with it from an obscure appearance it’s always amazing.

Andy Schwartz at Frederator from Fred Seibert on Vimeo.

I have an incredible life and I’ve met some amazing people. Including Andy Schwartz, a writer who’s a friend of my wife’s who’s met many more amazing people than I have. This afternoon he came by to discuss the photographic estate of the incomparable music photographer David Gahr, who recently passed away at 85. Andy shows a few of David’s photographs in the video above, and together we plotted to build the public Gahr legacy that David was always too modest to do himself.

Roger Maloney at Frederator from Fred Seibert on Vimeo.

Roger Maloney is a Youth development Specialist for the NYC Board of Education who’s a media specialist; he used to work at BET and MTV. Roger saw me on TV recently and stopped by to ask if I’d come and talk to his elementary school in the Bronx about cartoons. Sign me up! I’ll let you all know how it goes towards the end of January.

We all visit Calarts as often as possible since so many people we work with have attended. (The oldest graduate we’ve worked with graduated in 1964, the youngest in 2008). Eric usually makes it to their producers’ shows (I attend whenever it happens during my California trips) and we’ve met some of our favorite folks there.

Two weeks ago I made a long overdue return to Maureen Furniss‘ class. I told them a bit about Frederator Studios and my path into the cartoon business, answered a lot of their quesitons, and played Adventure Time. A good time was had by all. I hope.

Find more videos like this on Channel Frederator RAW

One of the highlights of my gig is visiting with college animation classes, and because I live in New York, I get the opportunity to hang at the School of Visual Arts (SVA) more often than some others. SVA is almost unique among schools because the entire faculty is made of up professionals in their given field, and no real full time teachers-only; they give a perspective that only working folks can have. Last week it was my annual trek to Lisa Goldman’s class, where she helps students prepare projects for selling to producers and networks. And yesterday, I spoke with Jim Arnoff’s senior class on getting ready to enter the professional world, along with Alice Cahn from Cartoon Network and Paula Rosenthal from Disney Playhouse. Thanks Lisa, and thanks Jim. As usual.

At the end of Jim’s class we all decided to have a little fun with my new Flip Video Mino HD, and I asked everyone in class to tape me a message (Arnoff’s the last guy). Check it out up above.

PS: And visiting art schools’ bathrooms is always fun:

My former Next New Networks colleague George Stewart suggested me for an interview on Leonard Lopate’s radio show on New York’s NPR affiliate, WNYC, to discuss “TV on the Internet” with John Gottfreid (Devour.tv) and Geoffrey Drummond (A La Carte Communications). It turned out pretty well, considering the continuing surprise that some folks still have about how popular the medium really is. (Thank you, producer Leslie Dickstein.)

TV On The Web: The Leonard Lopate Show, WNYC-FM

Steve Leeds from fredseibert on Vimeo.

Steve Leeds runs Talent and Industry Affairs over at Sirius Radio and is a professor at William Patterson College in New Jersey, and a colleague of mine from MTV. We had our annual catch up yesterday at the Edison Coffee Shop in Manhattan, and I taped him using the new Flip Video HD camera (a revelation of portable technology).

Steve Tompkins in his Nickelodeon writing office, with The Gashlycrumb Tinies poster

If this gets too complicated, I’m sorry about that…

Last week I was walking by the office of one of Fanboy & Chum Chum’s executive producers, Steve Tomkins*. I noticed his cool poster of Edward Gorey’s The Gashlycrumb Tinies, which he was obviously very proud of and it got me to telling him of my unusual, casual run in with Gorey’s work back in the day.

My soft spot for Gorey comes from a particular circumstance. In 1976, I was working with the composers and musicians Michael Mantler (who I posted about last month) and Carla Bley, when Mike released his LP which used Gorey’s writings as the libretto for his compositions called “The Hapless Child and Other Inscrutable Stories.”

Get your own at Scribd or explore others: Culture Music music poetry

I’d never heard of Gorey (his Amphigorey hadn’t quite crashed into the mainstream), and Mike had always had a taste for interesting authors he liked to compose to (like Harold Pinter or Samuel Beckett.  And Mike’s always unique casting had me quadruply intriqued (Robert Wyatt for the prog-rockers, Mike (on trumpet), Carla, Steve Swallow, & Jack DeJohnette for the jazzbos, and Terje Rypdal all of them). Check out a track, and pick up some MP3s.Michael Mantler > The Sinking Spell

So, while it’s always fun saying hi to Steve*, I got an extra cultural dose of nostalgic inspiration the other day. Thanks bud.

* By the way, in addition to doing a hilarious job on Fanboy & Chum Chum,  I found out about another unsung showbiz story. Who knew that Steve Tompkins created Ari Gold on Entourage?

Mailed out the week of November 10, 2008

This postcard ends Series 6 (which began the week of October 29, 2007). Series 7 begins now.

…..

Frederator Postcards Series 1, 1998
Frederator Postcards Series 2, 1999
Frederator Postcards Series 3, 2000
Frederator Postcards Series 4, 2003
Frederator Postcards Series 5, 2004-2005
Frederator Postcards Series 6, 2007-2008