That New Show Smell

This morning I was fortunate enough to meet John Reynolds, cartoon wunderkind, who happens to be the youngest creator Frederator has ever had (he was 12 when he created “Terry and Chris!” for Oh Yeah! Cartoons Season 3). This short was directed by Butch Hartman, who has been a very encouraging presence in John’s career as an artist.

Now a whopping 19 years old, John is going to the Art Institute of Los Angeles, Santa Monica Campus, and continues to come up with original ideas to pitch to the likes of Frederator. I thought his art on this panel of his board was particularly outstanding.

Thanks so much for stopping by, John! Looking forward to seeing you soon.

Yesterday, the newly named Random Cartoons welcomed Pat Ventura into the mix. He ran us through his board, “The Dangerous Duck Brothers”, which is about a couple of ducks out to do their family proud and break the record for speed in their rocket ship. Yeah. There’s a lot of hurt involved.

Pat is no stranger to being a short film creator. He has created two shorts for the past season of “Oh Yeah! Cartoons”. One called Jamal the Funny Frog and the other called The Semprini Triplets. He has also directed and storyboarded for Chalk Zone co-created by Random Cartoons Executive Producer Larry Huber, and Dr.Froyd’s Bill Burnett.

Welcome aboard Pat!

It’s time to welcome the uber-talented Eric Robles on to the scene here at Oh Yeah! Cartoons. He is starting production on his short “Fan Boy”. Fan Boy, (pictured to the right of Eric), and his pal Chum Chum (left) go on the ultimate quest for a Fan Man Freezie Frosty Freeze, and wind up in a battle with the Ice Monster who challenges them to an ultimate duel which I will keep secret for now.

That was a long sentence for a short.

You may not recognize Eric from his picture, but I’m sure you will recognize some of the characters he’s designed for such shows as Nickelodeon’s “The X’s”, and Cartoon Newtork’s “The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy”.

From what I hear, Eric’s also done a ton of great work with Disney and Mike Young, as well as work with our very own Jeff Degrandis.

Eric’s no stranger to Nickelodeon, but [Read more…]

This afternoon marked the first official day of Pen Ward’s new short, “The Bravest Warriors”. Part fast-paced action adventure, part heartfelt emotional journey with a Tickle Monster, “The Bravest Warriors” will make you laugh, make you cry, and have you gettin’ in touch with your feelings, all in a matter of minutes. 7 minutes to be exact. His director, Randy Myers, has quite the impressive resume, and sat in on Pen’s re-pitch this afternoon.

For those of you new to the blog, Pen is a recent Cal Arts graduate, and his first “Oh Yeah!” short, “Adventure Time”, is overseas getting animated as I type.

We’re all looking forward to seeing what’s next! Pen will no doubt wow us again in Round 2.

This week, Bill Burnett and Jaime Diaz start production on their Oh Yeah! short called, “Dr. Freud’s Funny Farm”. Bill Burnett, the writer and co-creator for “Dr. Freud”, was also the co-creator of the hit Nickelodeon series, “Chalk Zone” (which had it’s beginnings as an Oh Yeah! Cartoon.) Bill is also writing music for the short. Jaime Diaz has had a long career in animation, directing Chalk Zone, The Fairly OddParents, and Duckman, and also working on countless other animated series.

Congratulations guys! We’re looking forward to seeing all of this come together.

This afternoon, Creator Jennifer Muro (Editor on Diego), pitched us her short called “The Tiki Show” about a mischievous Tiki God, and his watchful friend, Chameleon. Jay Shultz (BG/Layout on Diego) was the uber-talented artist who boarded Jennifer’s script, and who is also hankering to direct it.

Great job, you two!

We saw a ton of great pitches when Fred Seibert was in town this week, and I wanted to share a few of them with you.

First up, “Too Hairless Friends”, pitched by Oh Yeah! Cartoon’s Executive Producer Larry Huber, and created by a Korean director named Youngtaek Choi. (Artwork by David Feiss.)

[Read more…]

So–how long is a 7 minute short? Well, truthfully, it’s 6 minutes and 40 seconds (we need time for title cards and credits!) Fred Seibert is flexible on many many things when it comes to the production of an Oh Yeah! short, but the length of the cartoon is something he will not bend on! If we get a pitch board that takes up all four walls of our room, and takes 30 minutes to pitch, chances are it’s longer than 7 minutes. The trick to knowing if your board is to length? Time the dialogue. If you were to stopwatch only the lines of your characters, it should time out to no more than 5 minutes. This leaves room for action, expressions, etc.

The past couple of days we have seen a few production board re-pitches from “Handycat”, “Mind the Kitty”, Teapot, and “Hero Heights”. After the short has been greenlit, and [Read more…]

It’s official:

Mike Gray

and Erik Knutson are up and running.
[Read more…]

Welcome Adam Henry! Again! Adam has greenlit his second Oh Yeah! short called Tiffany about a brash doll named Tiffany and her human sidekick, Peggy. We are thrilled to have him back, for nothing other than his wife’s fabulous cheesecake and the “Quote of the Day” sheet he keeps the door of his office.

In case you’re a stranger to the world that is Adam Henry, he has just wrapped up his first short, “Krunch and the Kid”, for this season of Oh Yeah. Terrific work. It’s great to have you around again!