Fred Seibert's Blog

From a Frederator fan:

Were all the CN’s World Premiere Toons and Nickelodeon’s Oh Yeah! Cartoons considered to be pilots for series or are some made to be one-shot stuff?

Andrés, from Chile.

Good question Andrés, and one we get fairly often, even from some of our potential creators.

Of course, the answer is “Yes and No.”

Ultimately, the purpose of doing all our shorts (not only World Premiere/What A Cartoon! and Oh Yeah!, but also the latest set of Random! Cartoons) is looking for filmmakers and characters that are strong enough to sustain lots of great cartoons. Not unlike it was back in the day when Felix, or Betty Boop, or Mickey or Bugs launched with one short that led to another and another and another. The optimistic hope we always have is developing the kinds of relationships we have had with creators over the last 15 years that lead to wonderful series of films.

However, when we call for ideas to come in, one of the first things we always say is that we’re not really looking for “pilots,” but great stand alone cartoons that have memorable characters at their center. A pilot” often tries to solve all the problems and answer all the questions that might arise in the future of a series. Frequently, there’s an attempt to introduce all the main characters and plot points. I think that’s a mistake, because the pilot episode then becames pedantic and sometimes pretty boring.

Our hope in a short is, not to put too fine a point on it, great. A tall order to be sure. But the way I figure it is that a fantastically funny short without all its questions answered has a better chance to be a wonderful series, than an only OK short. And yes, I understand that it’s not so darn easy to make a great cartoon. Look at all the talented creators we’ve worked with over the years, and how seldom their films become hit series.

In the end, the reality is no matter how hard we try to find cartoons with rich, memorable characters we have a lot of shorts that are just fun one-offs. We’ll be running one on Channel Frederator in a couple of weeks, Harvey Kurtzman’s Hey Look!. It’s based on an early newspaper strip of Harvey’s, sublimely adapted and directed by Vincent Waller, and we tried like the dickens to make the characters funny and indelible. Are they? You’ll tell us, but to my mind, it’s a great one-shot.

Ah well, that’s the way the cartoons animate.