Original Cartoon Shorts: From Frederator Studios: Selected Postcards 1998-2015

Selected Postcards 1998-2015 1
Original Cartoon Shorts

From Frederator Studios
Selected Postcards 1998 - 2015
©2015, Frederator Networks, Inc.
All rights reserved, including the right to

reproduce this book or portions thereof in
any form whatsoever.
ChalkZone, The Fairly Oddparents, Fanboy & Chum Chum, My Life as a Teenage Robot,
Oh Yeah! Cartoons, Nickelodeon, Random! Cartoons, TM & ©2014, Viacom Intl., Inc.
All rights reserved. Used with kind permission.
Wow! Wow! Wubbzy!, TM & ©2014, Bolder Media, Inc. and Starz.
All rights reserved. Used with kind permission.
Adventure Time with Finn and Jake, What A Cartoon!, TM & ©2014, Cartoon Network.
A Time Warner Company. Used by kind permission.
Ape Escape Cartoons, Bee & PuppyCat, Bravest Warriors, Cartoon Hangover, Channel Frederator,
The Meth Minute 39, Nite Fite, SuperF*ckers, and Too Cool! Cartoons,
©2014, Frederator Networks, Inc. All rights reserved. Used with kind permission.
ISBN-13: 978-1-62726-091-6
First edition, 2015, Frederator Books

Foreword
By Eric Homan
Vice President, Development & Creative Affairs
Frederator Studios
May 2015
How great is it that Frederator is making short cartoons for the internet? Pretty terrific,
indeed. And fun, too. In the course of producing films for this newest medium for about
eight years now, we’ve noticed how one thing has changed, while another is thankfully
the same.
For more than two decades, Fred and Frederator Studios have been involved in the
production of a lot of short cartoons, far too many too count (somewhere south of 250,
let’s say). Until 2007’s launch of Dan Meth’s The Meth Minute 39 (with a music video
entitled, prophetically, “Internet People”), those productions were made for American-
based cable television—namely, Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon—and with the often
tacit understanding each would serve as a springboard into its own series, again for cable
television.
It’s been nearly ten years since Frederator has produced its stock-in-trade –the stand-
4 Original Cartoon Shorts from Frederator Studios
alone comedy cartoon– for one of those large cable TV networks. Instead, we’ve been focus-
ing on the new, independent, and global distribution opportunities presented us in the new
millennium by the internet. Without necessarily having to think about series, the studio’s
cartoons these days are often even more singular and personal. That's good. Very good.
One thing remaining the same, though, is Frederator’s dedication to talent. As always,
even more than looking for tomorrow’s hit series, we’re constantly looking to fashion the
circumstances for burgeoning talent to create and oversee the making of their singular
and personal films. In doing so, we do our best to allow creators a (sometimes danger-
ously) wide berth in order to execute her or his vision. This point of view of Fred’s was
preposterous among cartoon studio presidents in the early 1990s; today, most animation
studios would say it’s standard procedure.
Frederator remains steadfastly optimistic about the future of short cartoons, for
whatever format. Whether crafted by the industry's elite at a major Hollywood studio, or
just blasted out by a teenager in his parents' basement in Boise, these films are our life's
animated appetizers, lead-off singles, and madcap foreplay. Thanks to everyone who's
ever gone down that short cartoon path with us.
Introduction
By Fred Seibert
CEO/Founder
Frederator Studios
May 2015
Short cartoons have been the lifeblood of animation for almost 100 years, and the talent
that creates them have been Frederator’s vital spark for over two decades. There's no
way there could even be a Frederator Studios without these artists.
Compact, animated films began in the silent era, thrived when sound
was added, and exploded when movies turned into television. And in
the internet age... well, it's hard to grasp the tens of millions of shorts
that are out in the world today.
Unquestionably, the innovative work of these creators has seen a

tremendous influence on the industry we toil in, but the effect in the
pop culture at large has probably been even greater. For 20 years, their
Frederator Postcard Series 1.1
films have been seen, enjoyed, and absorbed by millions of people
Illustrated by Tim Biskup across the world. The next generations of filmmakers –both animated
and live action– will be thanking these creators in their own acknowledgements as their
careers take over the global society that's coming our way.
It occurred to me a few years ago that I made my living by being a professional fan,
searching for wonderful collaborators to support. These folks have an extraordinary gift,
able to take a blank sheet of paper or an empty digital file, and actually create the future
that we mere mortals can love for the rest of our lives.
This book has been edited from over almost 500

postcards Frederator Studios has released since 1998.
From our very beginnings, we've wanted to highlight
the individual works our creators have brought into
the world. Our cards are a small shout out, but, we
hope, a sincere one.
Everyone at Frederator does more than tip our hat to

these astonishing filmmakers. We thank them for our
very existence.
A collection of 354 Frederator limited edition postcards
from artist and animator J.J. Sedelmaier
Frederator short cartoon creators and show runners, from 1998 through 2014:
Raul Aguirre, Natasha Allegri, Robert Alvarez, Amy Anderson, Tex Avery.
Ralph Bakshi, Joe Barbera, Charlie Bean, Jerry Beck, Mike Bell, Tim Biskup, Bob Boyle,
Chris Brandt, Eric Bryan, Michelle Bryan, David Burd, Bill Burnett, Breehn Burns.
Jaime Diaz, Angelo di Nallo.
Kyle A. Carrozza, Tony Cervone.
Ric Delcarmen, Jeff DeGrandis, Andre Dickman, John R. Dilworth, Davis Doi.
Greg Eagles, Jerry Eisenberg, Greg Emison, John Eng.
Jun Falkenstein, David Feiss, Eddie Fitzgerald, John Fountain.
Manny Galán, Dana Galin, James Giordano, Alan Goodman, Tom Gran, Mike Gray,
Antoine Guilbaud.
Bill Hanna, Meinert Hansen, Russ Harris, Butch Hartman, Andy Helms, Adam Henry,
Bill Ho, Larry Huber.
George Johnson, Don Jurwich.
Kang yo-kong, Ken Kessel, Jiwook Kim, Alex Kirwan, Erik Knutson,
Dahveed Kolodny-Nagy, Diane Kredensor, Harvey Kurtzman.
Seth MacFarlane, Steve Marmel, Miss Kelly Martin, Eugene Mattos, Craig McCracken,
Jon McClenahan, John McIntyre, Harry McLaughlin, Dan Meth, Mike Milo,
Zac Moncrief, Russell Mooney, Jesse Moynihan, Justin Moynihan, Adam Muto.
Andre Nieves.
Jeret Ochi, Joe Orrantia, Victor Ortado.
Paul Parducci, Van Partible, Lincoln Peirce, Jason Plapp, Polygon Pictures,
Bill Plympton.
Carlos Ramos, Michael Rann, Russ Reiley, Christopher Reineman, Rob Renzetti,
G. Brian Reynolds, John Reynolds, John Rice, Bill Riling, Mel Roach, Eric Robles,
Mike Rosenthal, Jason Butler Rote, Jim Ryan.
Fred Seibert, Seo jun-kyo, Don Shank, Achiu So, Hamish Steele, Elizabeth Stonecypher.
Genndy Tartakovsky, Doug TenNapel, Aliki Theofilopoulos, Miles Thompson,

Karl Toerge.
Guy Vasilovich, Byron Vaughn, Pat Ventura.
Anne Walker, Vincent Waller, Pendleton Ward, Dave Wasson, Mike Wellins,
Melissa Wolfe, Martin Woolley, Jim Wyatt.
Niki Yang, Carey Yost.

The Eric Homan Interview

By Michael Goldman
2010
If he were a cartoon character in a Frederator Studios’ cartoon, it might be tempting to

portray Eric Homan as Fred Seibert’s sidekick. In truth, however, he’s far more than that,
and crucial to all that Seibert and his chums at Frederator have accomplished in recent
years. Homan’s work has also greatly impacted millions of kids and adults who enjoy the
cartoons broadcast by Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network every day that Homan helped
nurture into reality.
Seibert, of course, started Frederator in the late 1990’s after first resuscitating, and
then exiting, Hanna-Barbera—the broadcast world’s most legendary cartoon factory.
Hanna-Barbera, of course, had been swallowed up by the corporate behemoth at long
last, and it was time to go. But not before Seibert and his colleagues restored the origi-
nal spirit and intent of the place with the “What a Cartoon” shorts’ program. “What a
Cartoon!,” of course, gave the world a new generation of short cartoons to enjoy, some of
which (“Dexter’s Laboratory” and “Powerpuff Girls,” to name just two) went on to carve
out prominent places of their own in the world of animated broadcast television.
That philosophy was rapidly ported over to Frederator, and revolves around the no-
tion that the art of the short cartoon is not only something to be fondly celebrated as a
reminder of a gentler era—it’s also a hell of a good way to find the world’s finest, and
funniest, creative talent and then put them to work making commercially viable (well,
sometimes anyway) cartoons for children of all ages to enjoy on television.
Thus, Frederator’s Oh Yeah! Cartoons and, now, Random! Cartoons, were born to
follow in the footsteps of What a Cartoon! Long ensconced at the center of the madness
that followed in the form of shows like The Fairly OddParents, My Life as a Teenage
Robot, ChalkZone, Fanboy and Chum Chum, Wow! Wow! Wubbzy!, Adventure Time
with Finn and Jake, and many more is Homan—Frederator’s VP of Development. He’s a
former English teacher, radio reporter, and more importantly, Homan is Seibert’s co-con-
spirator in promoting the antiquated notion that talent first, talent unfettered, talent
encouraged, and talent unleashed is the best way to not only have fun making cartoons,
but to engage responsibly (or, at least semi-responsibly), occasionally even successfully,
in the cartoon business.
I recently sat down with Eric to discuss this philosophy and how, and why, it works at
Frederator, even on a radically evolving economic, social, and technological landscape.
Eric warned me he “is not used to interviews,” but did concede he knew a few things
about the cartoon business, and so, with some coaxing, I got him to impart some of that
wisdom here. He agreed this book was a good home for our discussion since, after all, he
is particularly fond of both postcards and cartoons.
Michael Goldman: How and why did you get together with Fred Seibert and decide to
spend your career dwelling in the world of short cartoons, of all things?
Eric Homan: I met Fred when we happened to start at Hanna-Barbera Studios about
the same time in 1992. Of course, he was the president of the studio, and I was a cel
cleaner in the animation art department, so we were at complete opposite ends of the
employee spectrum. But that’s where I met him, and except for maybe a year and a half
break in the late 1990s, I’ve been with him for the past seventeen-plus years.
At the point when Warner Bros. bought Turner Entertainment at the end of 1996, Fred
left Hanna-Barbera, became an independent producer, and went back to working with
Nickelodeon [a network Seibert first worked with in its early years after helping to pio-
neer the branding of its then fledgling sister network, MTV]. I stayed with Warner Bros.
for about a year and a half, working for their studio stores, managing the production of
Hanna-Barbera collectibles sold in those stores back in the previous century.
But less than two years later, I was back with Fred. By that time, Oh Yeah! Cartoons was
up and running with a couple of shorts already in production. He had just bought an in-
dependent comic book company [the former Kitchen Sink Press] and wanted some help
developing some of those properties for TV and movies, so I went back in the summer
of 1998. I was glad to be indoctrinated in Fred’s development strategy, the same one we
have today.
Michael Goldman: And what is that strategy exactly?
Eric Homan: It’s the same short-show strategy Fred sells every few years. At Han-
na-Barbera, it was called What a Cartoon! It’s where Dexter’s Laboratory, Powerpuff
Girls, and a bunch of other shows for Cartoon Network got their start. Then, around
1997, he went back to Nick and produced the same kind of program, naming it Oh
Yeah! Cartoons. That’s where The Fairly OddParents, My Life as a Teenage Robot, and
ChalkZone came from.
There was a bit of a break after that and then, in 2005, we went into production on
what’s now called Random! Cartoons. We did the same basic thing and it’s already given
us the series Fanboy and Chum Chum and Adventure Time with Finn and Jake. Hope-
fully there will be a few others.
The philosophy of any of these shorts programs is we can find great new talents, and we
can get them experienced making films by the time any of them have an opportunity to
showrun a series. In the case of Butch Hartman, he had already made ten Fairly Odd-
Parents shorts as part of Oh Yeah! by the time Nickelodeon picked it up as a series. That
really proved Butch had what it takes to be a creator, run a production, and get the job
done.
Michael Goldman: And you have other Butch Hartmans coming out of the Random!
program right now?
Eric Homan: I’ll give you two examples. The Nickelodeon show, Fanboy and Chum
Chum, was created by Eric Robles. He had been all over the industry and was in his
early 30s when we met him. He had worked at almost every major studio in a variety of
capacities, from design to development, and he was pitching things around town. Fred
and I were big believers in Eric when Random! Cartoons came up, and we invited him
to pitch. And Eric’s not a guy to miss an opportunity. He showed so much talent with his
pitch board. Once we gave it the greenlight, he just took off with it.
It’s a perfect example—on paper, his idea for Fanboy and Chum Chum didn’t set the
world on fire, just the idea about two crazy kids who are in love with being kids. It was
hard to get excited just about the log line. However, after his compelling pitch, and then
his execution of the seven-minute short, you saw how funny it was, and how developed
the characters were, so we were able to use that film to sell the series. It was easy to
believe in Eric and I’m glad we got to help him get the show across the finish line, but
it was his talent and passion and creativity that made the whole thing work. In the end,
that’s what we try to do—be a talent-driven studio.
The other example is Pendleton Ward. In his case, you couldn’t not fall in love with his
student films at CalArts, so I encouraged him to pitch for Random! Cartoons, which he
did. Because the shorts program was made up of an order of thirty-nine cartoons, we
were allowed to take bigger risks than, say, if the order was for just six. That allowed us
to give Pen that opportunity without a great expectation about what might come out of
it. In fact, his pitch was very distinctive, very creative, but it sure didn’t seem too com-
mercial. But it was so different, we knew we had to give Pen the chance to make his film.
It was special and we wanted to see what would happen, but we didn’t entertain a lot of
hopes about whether it might become a series. But he did a great job with his short, and
Cartoon Network decided we should put it into production, and that’s how Adventure
Time with Finn and Jake came about.
MIchael Goldman: So, for you guys, what’s the deal on how to balance business with
creative freedom? In this economy, I can’t imagine you have resources to develop every
funny thing that passes across your desk.
Eric Homan: That’s true, but keep in mind these are short, independent films to start.
Frederator runs the shorts program, but it’s the filmmakers who come in and make
them. They’re ultimately responsible for all the creative decisions. The creators will get
the network’s standards and practices notes and we’ll give them our two cents; whether
or not they act on those suggestions is up to them. So, we give them enough rope to hang
themselves creatively. We are trying to see what they will do with the opportunity. It’s re-
ally more about finding special filmmakers than their particular shows. We are investing
in the talent more than the projects. We are looking more for hit-makers than hits, if that
makes sense.
One of the things about doing a large volume of cartoons is we know up front that
we’re not going to get thirty-nine series out of them. When we produce thirty-nine shorts,
if we get four series—about ten percent—that’s a great success. So it pays to have this
program up and running—to find that talent that can make up that ten percent.
And, I should add, just because a short doesn’t go to series doesn’t mean it wasn’t great,
or the people who made it weren’t great. Yes, the networks trust us to deliver them hits,
but even if we get misses from extremely talented filmmakers, we know we’ll have an
opportunity to try again with them later.
The other thing to keep in mind is that, with these shorts, development work is done by
the filmmakers. They develop it and then pitch it to us. If we like it, we help get it made,
and then, once it is made, that’s when we really get to work with the filmmakers to help
them try to sell and then develop their property as series. But developing the property
initially as a short is not what we’re about; that’s what the filmmakers do themselves.
It’s not like we’re cartoon creators. We do our best to recognize talent and potential, and
people willing to work really hard to succeed. We are doing that both with our TV and
feature film properties.
Michael Goldman: So, what has changed then in the years between Oh Yeah! and
Random! in terms of finding new talent and properties?
Eric Homan: I’m not so sure that finding properties has changed much at all. As inde-
pendent producers, we have to find them, and then we have to sell them. Finding proper-
ties is the same just because there are always people out there with good ideas and great
talent. But selling their work has become more difficult because of the economy and
the nature of changes within the industry. We are lucky–we have a first-look deal with
Nickelodeon and they have great respect for new talent and for what we do. But that’s
the difficulty.
As far as talent goes, though, we’ve always brought in ace talent that has gone on to do
terrific things at Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, and elsewhere—talent that entered
those studios through Fred’s shorts programs. For example, Seth McFarlane’s first pro-
fessional film was an early version of Family Guy back at Hanna-Barbera for What a
Cartoon! The original What a Cartoon! program had cartoonists including Genndy Tar-
takovsky (Dexter’s Laboratory, Samurai Jack), Butch Hartman (The Fairly OddParents,
Danny Phantom), and Craig McCracken (The Powerpuff Girls, Foster’s Home for Imag-
inary Friends) come in, and at that point, their original shorts were about showcasing
them. I’m biased, of course, but to me, Cartoon Network was built (in the early 1990’s)
on the backs of the work done by Genndy and Craig and the shows that came out of that
original shorts program.
But the way we find them hasn’t changed much. Obviously, when I started development
work with Fred, I wasn’t yet going online to find independent filmmakers. But you still
go to film festivals and student film nights at animation schools. Plus, of course, we have
a wide open door for anybody with an idea for any kind of cartoon—they can always
come in and pitch us.
Michael Goldman: Speaking of websites, what role has the Internet played in how you
develop, make, or distribute cartoons? I notice a wide range of shorts are available at
www.frederator.com and elsewhere across the web—how has that impacted your tradi-
tional approach?
Eric Homan: Actually, more than helping find a hit, the Internet has helped us sell
a hit. A big reason Adventure Time became a series was because we put the original
pilot short online. It was, at the time, a very different type of cartoon that you didn’t
see on television. We put it on YouTube and it was an instant success—about two-hun-
dred-thousand views in the first weekend alone, up to several million views eventually.
A huge Internet buzz followed and it became a success. But that also coincided with a
time in which Cartoon Network wanted to go, programming wise, in a bit of a different
direction and this cartoon worked really well with that.
Michael Goldman: You mentioned feature films earlier. Frederator, of course, is best
known as an independent production company for broadcast. Can you bring us up to
speed on the feature film initiative and where you see that heading?
Eric Homan: We’ve recently signed a first-look deal with Sony Pictures Animation, so
Fred and I, along with Kevin Kolde and Carrie Miller, who make up the other half of
Frederator, are searching for filmmakers with feature projects to take in, just like we’re
searching for talent in the shorts program. Like with the shorts, we want our films to be
very creator driven, so we’re now investing in filmmakers we believe in. We’re optimistic
we’ll have a couple of films in production shortly, with more to come.
My guess is that many of our feature projects will involve filmmakers we’ve worked with
before in the TV business. There has traditionally been a pretty strict line in animation
between the broadcast people and the feature people. In TV, it’s not uncommon for
artists to be journeymen and go from studio to studio, and project to project, but not as
much crossing that great divide between TV and features. But, hopefully, we’ll be pre-
senting a lot of fantastic television talent to the feature world.
I should also mention we’re putting together financing and distribution for super-low
budget features, too. Much more niche-oriented, but still creator-driven. I’m really excit-
ed about these.
Michael Goldman: So what’s your advice then for all those cartoon geeks out there,
talented but with no direction on how to create a story, pitch it, and pursue their cartoon
dreams?
Eric Homan: In the commercial world? Be passionate about what you’re creating;
though you’ll ultimately need to please your audience, don’t create just for the sake of
selling. I also think it’s vital to learn as much as you can about the animation process.
Clearly, the creators behind most of the successful cartoons are artists or cartoonists at
one level or another. If you look at your favorite cartoons from the past twenty or so
years, you’ll find the creators—from Mike Judge to John Kricfalusi to Genndy Tarta-
kovsky to Butch Hartman, or Matt Groening or Seth McFarlane—all of them are car-
toonists. I can’t think of too many successful cartoons created by people who couldn’t be
part of the animation process.
That’s not to say you’re automatically discounted if you can’t draw. I remember, for
ChalkZone, (co-creator) Bill Burnett came in to us as a writer. He had a stack of ideas
and Fred introduced him to a bunch of directors. Bill went off and partnered with maybe
five different directors to do a variety of cartoons, and it just so happens the one he devel-
oped with Larry Huber, who is a longtime animator, was ChalkZone, and that one got to
the finish line and became a series at Nickelodeon. But, even in that case, it wasn’t until
Larry Huber came on board to develop it as a cartoonist, and brought that cartoonist’s
mindset, that it moved to that next level.
Also, especially for television, focus on strong characters. Audiences want to fall in love
with characters. The coolest idea in the world won’t mean much week after week if your
audience doesn’t care about your characters. This may not be the best analogy, but you’d
rather hang out doing nothing with your best friend rather than spend time with some
dullard doing something that’d otherwise be interesting, right?
Finally, the odds against you selling a show are enormous. If I were out there trying to
sell my own show, I’d research how those who did get their shows made and learn lessons
from them. But still, it’s tough. Only get into it if you really enjoy it—but then, I guess
that’s true of any field, right?
Michael Goldman is a longtime entertainment industry journalist who has interviewed

most of the world’s leading filmmakers, and covered animation, visual effects, cinema-
tography, editing, and film and broadcast production and post-production for a number
of major publications in print and online. He’s a former editor at Variety, the former
longtime Senior Editor at Millimeter Magazine, and the author of four books, with anoth-
er one on the way. He lives in Los Angeles with his gorgeous wife, Bari, and two car-
toon-obsessed sons, Jake and Nathan. You can keep track of Michael’s adventures at his
web site, www.hollywood-scribe.com.
The Fred Seibert Interview

Joe Strike reveals how Fred Seibert came to revive television animation in
the 1990s, helping Hanna-Barbera and Nickelodeon give birth to a slew of
original hits.
By Joe Strike
AWN.com
July 15, 2003 and August 15, 2003
If one man can be credited with resuscitating American commercial animation from its
near-death experience in the ‘80s and ‘90s, the credit would have to go to Fred Seibert.
After putting the then-new MTV on the map with a series of unforgettable, no-two-alike
animated ID spots, he took over the creatively exhausted Hanna-Barbera studio and en-
gineered a turnaround that brought some of the country’s most innovative young anima-
tors to its doors. Their creations helped make another newborn cable network more than
a place where old cartoons went to die. Moving onto an association with Nickelodeon,
Fred proved his success was no fluke by midwifing a second batch of groundbreaking,
creator-driven cartoons that helped cement Nick’s dominance of the children’s television
market.
Fred will often praise an associate or collaborator as being “an awesome judge of tal-
ent”- a description he more than deserves himself. With an eye toward the main chance
that others have overlooked, and an instinctive understanding of both the creative and
commercial potential of animated cartoons, Fred has a knack for making himself the
right man at the right time. In late March and early April 2003, I had the pleasure of
sitting down with Fred Seibert in his Fifth Avenue office where he heads Frederator, the
animation company he started in 1997. I discovered that he is not shy about taking - or
sharing - credit for his successes, or accepting blame for his failures. I also learned why
he prefers cartoons over animation.
Fred Seibert: I had been a consultant to Nickelodeon for many years before going to
Hanna-Barbera. In 1989, the Nickelodeon programming and business team came to me
and said we really need to get into the original production] cartoon business - how do we
do it?
I had never really done anything in cartoons. I was really just a neophyte, an interested
media person, but I knew about the way Looney Tunes, theatrical cartoons had been
made. I said, it seems to me that what they did was make a seven-minute cartoon, run it
before a movie and, if people liked it, they made another one [featuring the same charac-
ter.] If they didn’t like it they stopped making it.
I suggested a system that I thought made some kind of sense, but I had no idea how to
execute it, because I knew nothing about cartoons. As usual when you’re a consultant,
they took pieces of my idea and threw out the rest. The piece that they took, that turned
out to be valuable for a couple of years at Nickelodeon, was that they made pilots, which
was radically different from the way that Hollywood made cartoons for kids. And that’s
when you got Ren & Stimpy.
Joe Strike: That led to What A Cartoon!?
Fred Seibert: When I got to Hanna-Barbera, I knew [Nickelodeon] hadn’t done the
system the way I wanted to do it because I didn’t think pilots were the thing.
To me, pilots are things that you’ll never show anybody and they’re messy, they’re all
over the place, they’re not disciplined.
My model for everything I’ve done successfully in the media business, no matter what
medium I’ve been in, whether I was a record producer or in radio was Berry Gordy’s
Motown. I loved the idea that they were all in a house and the recording studio was here,
and the writing studios were here and the promotion department was here, and quality
control - Berry Gordy’s office - was up here, and when they needed an extra singer they
went to the receptionist and said, do you sing - I love that.
I always loved the idea of a factory system where the goal of the factory was unique
creative work; where you could discipline the execution process so that it didn’t get out of
control. I always thought you could get more good, interesting work out of that kind of
creative system. My love of going to Hanna-Barbera was I always had the sense they had
that system in the old days – and they had lost sight of it.
So I arrive knowing I want to make these short cartoons like Looney Tunes used to do.
I knew Hanna-Barbera was not a place that talented people felt they belonged. Han-
na-Barbera was a place for three kinds of people - people getting their first job, people on
their last job or filling in between jobs, and people who really had a tough time getting
jobs elsewhere.
So here I am, I know that no first-level creative person would ever come to Hanna-Bar-
bera, and I knew I needed system to attract them, and where I could try out as many
people as possible - and figure out who had the goods and who didn’t.
[And we] had a sister company that was starting a cartoon network. We’re a new net-
work, and advertisers and cable operators respect original programming, they don’t
respect library. If we’re going to get distributors and advertisers we’ve got to do new stuff.
….
I said ‘I have an idea how we can get publicity for 48 weeks. Let’s make a new show
every other week - and I can do it for 10 million. Let’s make it like Looney Tunes.’
I had had my tutorial from John, I had spent a long time talking to Bill and Joe, not
about Hanna-Barbera, but about Tom and Jerry and how they produced cartoons. I
talked to Friz Freleng and a bunch of other people and they taught me how they made
those shorts.
So I said ‘we’ll make a short cartoon every week. It’ll be a new character every week, and
you’ll run it at your most popular time: primetime Sunday evenings just before a cartoon
movie. We’ll do it just like the old days, and every other week for two years you’ll be able
to get some publicity out of it. All of a sudden people will think [you] must be doing a lot
of stuff.”
Lo and behold, Cartoon Network bought it.

…
The first place I went into was Hanna-Barbera [itself] and then I really started scanning
the world. We just started putting our tentacles out, we called Ralph Bakshi out of
nowhere and said Ralph, do you want to get back to your roots and he did. He’s a
character, but he was a very great character for us, he’s larger than life.
Joe Strike: Why shouldn’t people who make cartoon characters...
Fred Seibert: …be characters, exactly. At the time, if you think about, there were
only a couple of well-known animation people and he was one of them. That was a
great feather in our cap that looked to people like it was all beginners, to have a couple
of well known veterans like Ralph in the mix.
…
What A Cartoon! gave us Dexter’s Laboratory [created by Genndy Tartakovsky], The
Powerpuff Girls [Craig McCracken], Cow and Chicken [David Feiss], Johnny Bravo
[Van Partible], Courage the Cowardly Dog [John R. Dilworth] – which, by the way,
gave Hanna-Barbera its first Oscar nomination in the studio’s history – the Cow and
Chicken spin-off I.M. Weasel, and we had a compilation of the shorts themselves, the
What A Cartoon! Show. So we had seven series, any one of which earned enough mon-
ey for the company to pay for the whole program.
Joe Strike: Basically a research and development program.

Fred Seibert: Then on top of it [we] reinvigorated the who comes in the studio
equation. Now talented people wanted to show up. Some 5,000 people pitched us car-
toons from all over the world. We got into business with Ralph Bakshi, with Bruno Boz-
etto, we got into business with a broad range of people who never would’ve given Han-
na-Barbera a passing chance. We worked with people who were 70 years old, who were
20 years old. We turned on its head the perception the people in the community had of
us. And by the way, we made almost a billion dollars worth of value for the company.
…
Joe Strike: What successes came out of Oh Yeah! [Cartoons]?
Fred Seibert: We made 51 shorts, 51 original Oh Yeah!s, plus another 49 or 50 sequels

of the best ones.
Someone would come in, Larry Huber [and Bill Burnett] would come in with Chalk-
Zone, and once we saw the film, we said why don’t we make six more. Or a guy named
Dave Wasson - who went on to do Time Squad for Cartoon Network - would come in
and make The Goose Lady, which was basically like a Fractured Fairy Tale, and we said,
‘Why don’t you make three more.’
So far –and I don’t think we’re anywhere near the end of this process– Fairly
OddParents and ChalkZone began as Oh Yeah! shorts. The ChalkZone series launched
with the highest debut ratings in Nickelodeon history. Rob Renzetti’s My Life as a Teen-
age Robot was an Oh Yeah! short. We made seven or eight Super Santa shorts. That
project has skipped animation for the time being, and is being developed as a live-action
feature with its creator Mike Bell.
I think there’s more to come. We’re talking Nickelodeon into taking a second look at a
few others, because if that’s four out of 51, you still have 47 to look at closely. We started
in January of 97 and here we are in March of 2003 and we’ve only gotten four into se-
ries. We created more original characters for air in three years than almost everyone else
combined in a five-year period. It takes a while to absorb that. We’re not producing any
new character shorts at the moment, which I’m fine with.
…
Joe Strike: You’ve made a distinction several times now between cartoons and anima-
tion. I sort of get the idea, but how would you define it?
Fred Seibert: Animation is a production technique. It does not define creatively or

emotionally anything. It defines a very wide range of things. Minority Report had anima-
tion in it, the Vin Diesel movies have animation in them, Star Wars has animation. What
the hell is it - it’s a technique. It’s like saying film.
Cartoons define for me a couple of key things... they’re funny, they tend to be short, they
tend to be character-driven, not story-driven; there’s a design factor to it. And to me, the
most subtle, but maybe one of the most important is they use music as a character, rather
than as a support mechanism.
I think you’ll agree when you hear a great cartoon score – and, by the way, I don’t just
define a score as being by Carl Stallings, it can be Hoyt Curtin at Hanna-Barbera – you
can actually read characters and action by just hearing the score. So score has a radically
different role in cartoons than it does in almost any other kind of filmmaking.
I also define it as lots of physical humor. In my very narrow definition, the words fill in
the gaps between the pictures rather than vice-versa; seven minutes long – that’s cartoon-
ing.
When I’m talking with my development group about these animation features I want
to do, the family ones, and they walk in with the Sleeping Beautys of the world or some
such - I say, I don’t do that. My natural space in life is cartooning. The talent that I’ve
developed over a 10-year period consists of cartoonists, not animators. I want creative
projects that take advantage of where my natural understanding is and where my talent
goes.
Joe Strike is a New York City-based writer/producer with a lifelong interest in animation.
This interview is excerpted. The entire text was published online on AWN.com,
Animation World Magazine, on July 15, 2003, and August 15, 2003. Reprinted with the
kind permission of the Animation World Network. Special thanks to Sarah Baisley,
Ron Diamond, Joe Strike, Heather Kenyon, Dan Sarto, and Joe Strike.

Original Cartoon Shorts: From Frederator Studios: Selected Postcards 1998-2015

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Original Cartoon Shorts

©2015, Frederator Networks, Inc.

All rights reserved, including the right to

First edition, 2015, Frederator Books

Unquestionably, the innovative work of these creators has seen a

This book has been edited from over almost 500

Everyone at Frederator does more than tip our hat to

Jaime Diaz, Angelo di Nallo.

Kyle A. Carrozza, Tony Cervone.

Greg Eagles, Jerry Eisenberg, Greg Emison, John Eng.

Jun Falkenstein, David Feiss, Eddie Fitzgerald, John Fountain.

George Johnson, Don Jurwich.

Jeret Ochi, Joe Orrantia, Victor Ortado.

Genndy Tartakovsky, Doug TenNapel, Aliki Theofilopoulos, Miles Thompson,

Guy Vasilovich, Byron Vaughn, Pat Ventura.

Niki Yang, Carey Yost.

The Eric Homan Interview

If he were a cartoon character in a Frederator Studios’ cartoon, it might be tempting to

Michael Goldman: And what is that strategy exactly?

Michael Goldman is a longtime entertainment industry journalist who has interviewed

The Fred Seibert Interview

Joe Strike: That led to What A Cartoon!?

went to the receptionist and said, do you sing - I love that.

Lo and behold, Cartoon Network bought it.

Joe Strike: Why shouldn’t people who make cartoon characters...

Joe Strike: Basically a research and development program.

Fred Seibert: We made 51 shorts, 51 original Oh Yeah!s, plus another 49 or 50 sequels

Fred Seibert: Animation is a production technique. It does not define creatively or

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