That New Show Smell

There’s something about the fresh smell of original animated shorts that makes me want to put them all on a little cardboard pine tree and hang them on my car mirror.

My name is Melissa Wolfe, and I’m writing to you from Frederator’s Development Department in bee-you-tee-full Burbank, CA.

What I hope to do in this blog is give everyone a little insight into the Oh Yeah! development process here. It’s a bit different than you might imagine. We are very creator-focused. This means that our ultimate goal is to find talented people (like your cousin Freddy) and help him to make the seven minute short he wants to make.

Which brings me to step one in the process. The pitch. An initial pitch is rarely a “yes or no” answer for us. After each pitch we sit down with the creator and go over points we feel need clarification. We encourage him or her to rework their board and bring it in as many times as they can handle (ask some of our creators who pitched us their shows five or six times before getting a thumbs up!)

I realize I can’t be candid about everything that goes on behind the scenes. What I will do is take you through as many interesting show developments (pun intended) as I can. As each short goes from boards to mega hit TV series, get ready to see what happens. Happy Pitching!