#and in the universe where the scrapped episode pitch is real (which it is to me) he’s bisexual. hope this helps. | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

love-takes-work · 3 years

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Notes on SU Commentary Tracks

I watched the commentary tracks on the Complete Steven Universe DVD Set and I took some nerd notes.

The episodes with commentary tracks are “Reunited,” “Change Your Mind,” and “The Future.”

I’ll bold stuff that was maybe bigger news or more surprising for easier reading. And yes, some of this was already known from podcasts, other Q&As, or interviews, but I listed it if they said it again here.

Read on after the jump to read these and other highlights:

Steven’s original wedding speech

Older ideas on dialogue for Lapis when she came back to the beach

Scrapped concepts for the scene that ultimately included Steven communicating with the others in a mindscape

Discussions of earlier concepts for White Diamond having a power to “freeze” Gems into statues to make them perfect and having a gallery of them on Homeworld

Pink Pearl’s original fate

The translation of the writing on Obsidian’s sword

The origin of Pink Steven’s design

What Rebecca did to pitch the “SHE’S GONE” scene

Earlier plans to include Shep in “Change Your Mind”

An unused concept of how Steven feels about Biggs

The inspiration for the Heaven and Earth Beetles’ healed design

How Volleyball/Pink Pearl was almost a mini-villain

Discussion of how they did not get to share the origin of the Diamonds

Jasper’s scrapped participation in the movie

“Reunited” -

Commentary with Rebecca Sugar, Ben Levin, Matt Burnett, Hilary Florido, Joe Johnston, Ian Jones-Quartey, and Kat Morris.

In 2015, an episode idea called “If You Love Yourself So Much” was discussed but rejected. It included some early ideas that ended up getting incorporated into “Reunited,” most notably Garnet marrying herself and putting rings on both hands.

The idea of the Cluster arm wrestling was planned for a long time. A scrapped idea of Steven banging his fist on a vending machine to get some Chaaaaps was supposed to visually parallel some of that scene, but it was axed.

When they got pushback on the wedding idea, they kept adding more and more “high entertainment value” items like a big musical number so the episode would be absolutely unmissable and appealing to everyone.

The song at the beginning of the episode was meant to check in with the entire cast and sort of remind you they exist and what their state of mind is going into the wedding.

Ian made a comment joking about “All 15 people in Beach City” being in the audience.

Just about everyone on the Crew touched this episode, despite that there are four main storyboarders credited for “Reunited.”

In 2016 Ian Jones-Quartey proposed marriage to Rebecca Sugar. They felt like the characters based on them (Sapphire and Ruby) HAD to get married in the show now because otherwise it wouldn’t be honest. But then their characters got married before they did.

They really love the idea of having characters get married who have known each other for a really long time, versus the fairy tale trope of movies ending with weddings between people who have met very recently.

Steven’s speech as officiator at the wedding used to be longer in its first draft--it was described as being weird and full of jokes, and there would have been a scene with Pearl getting weepy and pulling tissues out of her pearl.

Ian mentions loving a joke Jeff came up with having Greg play one chord to make Steven fall asleep--it’s sort of a “dream” chord you hear in cartoons a lot before a dream sequence.

The Crew discussed what it might be like if someone had never seen the show before and started with this episode.

Ian really wanted Steven’s psychic powers to figure into the episode.

Blue using a sadness wave to attack the Gems was a very old idea they’d planned for a long time. So was Lapis’s arrival.

There was a discussion of having Lisa Hannigan performing her lines as Blue VERY early in the morning.

Ian was happy the sword got broken because it was so momentous but it was just a sword. And later appeared on a shelf in the house as an artifact.

Miki had drawn a torn dress for Garnet at one point so she could be shown fighting and moving around more accurately, and this led to a long discussion of whether Gem clothing can even actually get torn the way human clothes can. They concluded that no, it shouldn’t be torn, so they backed up and gave Garnet an open-front dress from the beginning so the fighting version would make more sense.

Lapis originally might have had a longer speech upon arriving back on the beach. They eventually decided to just have her say “Hey.”

The barn falling on Blue Diamond was an intentional Wizard of Oz reference.

They point out that Steven even once said “drop the barn on the beach” (in a previous episode, “Can’t Go Back,” which was also a Miki episode).

Destroying the house was a big deal, and they always thought they’d end up doing it but backed away from it until “Reunited.” They almost even did it back in “Coach Steven”! But it just ended up with a little damage to the porch.

The Crew thinks Miki is really good at drawing ensemble shots.

Rebecca was always overwhelmed whenever she got to have Patti LuPone record for Yellow.

Originally the giant figures of everyone’s statue bodies in the mindscape were too dark and had to be revamped so they could be seen.

An earlier idea of Steven’s “psychic-ghost-situation” had him as a ghost actually trying to interact with the other characters during fighting action, but it was pulled back to this mindscape so there wouldn’t be as much confusing action to keep track of and more focus on what Steven was doing to encourage his teammates and contact the Diamonds.

Hilary was glad not to have to block out a fight.

Ian mentions loving having Bismuth back in the group.

They originally wanted the “Diamonds sensing Pink’s energy” plot to happen when Steven was in the palace somehow, but everything got moved to this scene--which the Crew all agrees turned out incredible, like how cool it was to have Steven essentially reminding each character why they fight and summing up their whole arc in a sentence.

“Change Your Mind”

Commentary with Rebecca Sugar, Ben Levin, Matt Burnett, Hilary Florido, Joe Johnston, Ian Jones-Quartey, and Kat Morris.

They like to refer to this episode as “The movie before the movie.”

They loved incorporating “princess tropes” into Steven’s time on Homeworld, which is why there were so many references to “mice” (well, Pebbles) making clothes, being locked in a tower, being reminded of his manners, loving animals and freeing imprisoned pets, etc.

Deedee did the voice of the rainbow worm pet. She apparently didn’t find it memorable and was surprised when she was reminded she did the voice.

Rebecca was super excited for the confrontation with Blue.

There was some discussion of how Steven would have died of starvation if he didn’t have someone practical like Connie to remember to bring food.

They love working with the huge scale the Diamonds present.

The Crew always wanted to put someone in Blue’s hair loop. Originally they wanted Blue to tuck Greg in there when she kidnapped him, but they didn’t end up being able to do any hair-loop-carrying until this episode.

The Crew bantered back and forth about what the heck those Pebbles’ names were and how hard it was to track them.

They agreed that Paul draws the best Yellow Diamond, which makes sense since he also drew the first episode with Yellow (and her stink face).

The scene where Yellow asks Blue to stop using her powers on her and then realizing she’s crying on her own was one of Rebecca’s favorite scenes to get to finally.

Steven Sugar thought Gems would spend a lot of time in their own chambers/rooms just not really doing much of anything unless they had to fulfill their purpose.

Some of the Homeworld ideas were based on a Soviet artist’s concepts, Boris Artzybasheff, and also many ideas were inspired by Busby Berkeley regarding how people were objects and furniture.

The mech was an old idea. Once they had the hand ship from “Jailbreak,” they knew there had to be bodies somewhere.

They focused a lot about what could be the coolest and funniest way for something to happen. The concept of the yellow and blue spaceship arms appearing out of the sky to smack the White Diamond mech around was one of those.

Rebecca really wanted things to look more and more cartoony and bizarre as you get deeper into Homeworld.

They spent a very long time trying to decide on characters’ new outfits.

The trash can lid is said to be a reference to “a flying bear cartoon” and they dance around speaking a direct reference because they’re not sure they’re allowed to say its name.

In discussing the powers of the Diamonds, there were debates on what White’s power would be; with Yellow being physicality-based and Blue being emotion-based, they thought White as identity-based made the most sense.

Different ways to express this were played with before settling on the idea that she thinks she’s perfect and others’ colors make them less like her and less perfect. But then she becomes a hostage to her own beliefs about herself because if she does anything that reflects on everyone else, so it’s best to do nothing.

They had some cool earlier ideas of White’s powers making statues out of other Gems and having a gallery full of frozen Gems, frozen by White to make them perfect.

They also weren’t sure what fate befell the original Pink Pearl and discussed whether she might have been destroyed.

Rebecca discussed how creepy it was to have White Pearl speaking in Christine’s voice and not Deedee’s--that we should find it fundamentally disturbing at this point.

Tom Herpich came up with the crack on White Pearl’s face.

In real life, pink diamonds aren’t understood as well as yellows and blues. It’s more known what makes a diamond yellow or blue, and some of those facts Rebecca researched were originally woven into the speech White gave about their “impurities.” But it turned out to be too dry and most of it got cut.

Rebecca loves having Lapis with pants and sandals for easier cosplay.

Ian had to draw the scene where Steven is falling and fusing with inert characters--he wasn’t able to properly explain it to Rebecca so she had him draw it.

They really wanted Rainbow Quartz 2.0 to have a scarf, but they couldn’t figure out how to get that into Pearl’s design. They miss the scarf.

It was really important to have these Fusions display call-forwards of the Gems’ new outfits which we hadn’t yet seen.

Rebecca points out that Sunstone’s design breaks a design rule and she feels like Sunstone should have Garnet’s pant leg colors on their legs, but at the same time she understands the rule of cool and likes it like this.

It’s discussed how none of Steven’s fusion weapons are exclusively offensive weapons either.

Rebecca still really wants a suction cup Sunstone toy.

Sunstone’s ability to transcend reality and break the fourth wall was a joke that exploded in the discussion room among the Crew. As soon as the idea was pitched everyone kept coming up with ideas. Sardonyx’s fourth-wall-breaking is more snarky, but Sunstone’s is helpful.

Rebecca was disappointed that the rule about Steven’s clothes wasn’t always followed with having his clothes appear on Obsidian’s hand, but she was delighted that you could see them in one scene.

They spent a lot of discussion time on making sure Steven-Obsidian was different somehow from Rose-Obsidian. The hair is different.

Old versions of Obsidian were drawn with wrapped-together Twizzlers legs, which sort of is reflected in the present design.

The sword had been planned forever--and it first appeared in “Bubble Buddies.”

Miki worked on the Ninja Turtles show so Rebecca was really excited to see her depictions of Bismuth and Sunstone.

An early plan to have Obsidian draw the sword from their mouth was complicated because fusion weapons should be combinations, so they finally reached the solution of having them combine to make the hilt, then get the blade out of Obsidian’s mouth.

The blade of the sword is thought to say “We’ll always save the day,” but you’d have to ask Steven Sugar.

Another really old idea was climbing into the White Diamond mech eye.

Rebecca was disappointed that some of the merch made of White Diamond did not feature her cape sparkles.

There were many debates early on about where Rose might “actually” be. There were tons of references to this fundamental question throughout the show--introducing Lapis as a Gem trapped in an object, having Pearl ponder pulling Steven’s Gem out as a baby, straight-up wondering what would happen to him in “Bubbled” when Eyeball was trying to take his Gem, etc. They all decided Rose was definitely gone but that the idea of her possibly being inside him should be on his mind a lot, leading to disturbing images like dreaming about coughing up her hair.

Yellow Diamond and Blue Diamond both challenged Steven about things he was very confident about, but White’s question of his identity got to him because he in fact is not confident about that.

The black and white eeriness of the fuzzy background and the other characters having their colors washed out helped make the scene in White Diamond’s head so disturbing and creepy.

The split screen showing Steven’s two perspectives was exciting to Rebecca, and was a pretty old idea. And she points out it sort of “breaks the show.”

The Gem Steven, Pink Steven, was represented by a slightly modified version of his model sheet. Everyone laughed when they saw what was getting used.

They decided that an earlier idea of Pink Steven looking angry should be replaced by an emotionless version of him. All the emotion should be with Organic Steven.

In the pitch meeting for this episode, Rebecca herself screamed “SHE’S GONE!!” and shocked the hell out of everyone. She pointed out how no one expected this of her because she’s pretty quiet, but she just wanted to shock everyone the way Steven would in the show.

They point out this is the first appearance of the geometric shield that got so much use in Future.

The fact that Steven is Steven is the ultimate reveal of the show. Usually in fantasy shows there’s some other kind of revelation, but Steven just being amazingly human and amazingly Gem and amazingly himself is wonderful here.

They like having the pilot reference with “What’s your excuse?”

If Rose had somehow still been alive in him, all of this would have been cheapened.

Ian loves that you can faintly hear Sadie’s concert from way out in space as the camera approaches Earth.

They got a lot more use out of the Beach-A-Palooza stage than they thought they would when it had to be designed for “Steven and the Stevens.” There was a joke about how at one of the conventions a real Beach-A-Palooza stage was constructed and they had a thought about how oh good, it’s getting reused.

Sadie having green hair in the finale was a late change but they liked showing her progression.

They had originally kicked around the idea of Sadie already having her new partner Shep at this point, but decided to develop that in Future instead.

They compare White Diamond’s stepping gingerly into the fountain to skeptically getting into a public pool.

Some silliness they didn’t get to use was that Biggs would be “beloved by everyone” except Steven. They never got to cover it, but originally Steven was just going to not really understand why everyone loves her so much and doesn’t personally much care for her.

The Heaven and Earth Beetles are based on the Mothra Ladies.

The healed Gems’ horns are supposed to be side effects of the corruption that they continue to bear in the present.

Larimar and Orange Spodumene ended up different in the ending scene than they became in Future. Many of the designs were retroactively pulled into this scene after being designed for the movie.

Rebecca wrote “Change Your Mind” as a personal song to express her feelings surrounding her fight for the wedding.

“The Future”

Commentary with Rebecca Sugar, Kat Morris, Alonso Ramirez Ramos, Hilary Florido, Joe Johnston, and Ian Jones-Quartey.

The animatic for this episode ran SO long--they’re supposed to be just over 11 minutes but this one was 17 minutes.

Steven’s calisthenics routine, a callback to “Future Vision,” was on the chopping block to make the episode shorter but Rebecca wouldn’t allow it to be cut because she wanted to show that Steven’s been taking care of himself.

They were very excited to get a chance to cover some of the things in Future that they couldn’t squeeze into the original show, like the unbubbled Rose Quartzes, Volleyball, etc.

The new writers on the show also helped bring forward the idea of Steven finally making some of his OWN mistakes to fix.

This also helped construct the idea of Steven essentially being the “final boss” of his own battle.

Usually stories that involve someone being in a fight and winning don’t explore the effect just being in a fight has on a person, regardless of whether you won.

Rebecca really wanted to play Ocarina of Time after beating it so she could go back to all the places and see how people were doing. She wanted this epilogue series to explore that a little too.

Little Homeschool is sort of a Tiny Toons reference--older cartoons teach younger cartoons how to be cartoons, and this is Gems teaching other Gems how to be Gems on Earth.

Lamar came up with the silly joke about receiving that art set with all the different media types in it--the one artists are always getting from a well-meaning relative at holiday time.

A scrapped plot idea involved Volleyball/Pink Pearl as a sort of “mini-villain,” with a focus on her activating the un-activated Pearls.

There’s discussion of how victimization turns people into villains sometimes. But since showing that happening with Volleyball wouldn’t have served the interests of Steven’s arc, they couldn’t fit it in.

There was also a “very specific” Gem origin and Diamond origin story that’s quasi-religious in nature--it’s very cool and complicated. But they do not tell us what it is.

Ian and Joe both really wanted to have Jasper living alone in the woods and stacking rocks. They’re glad they got this series to do that with her.

There was originally an idea for a B-plot involving Jasper in the movie. They don’t discuss the specifics.

There were many ideas they didn’t get to work on because they would have started new arcs and Future was not about kicking new plots into gear.

“Mr. Universe” was the last episode they wrote/finished.

Miki really wanted to include a kiss between Connie and Steven to show their relationship was okay. Among the Crew everyone knew their relationship was basically eternal but Miki wanted to make sure WE knew that.

Steven driving conveyed momentum for Future; in the original show, we always came back to the laundry hand, back to home, but in Future that’s changed and home isn’t what it was.

They were really excited that a gourd family made it to the crowd scene in Future.

Thanks for reading!

Note: The movie had some commentary tracks too, but the one on this DVD set is the same as the one released on the original standalone movie DVD, so I did not outline it here. Here is my post about the DVD commentary from the movie.

#steven universe #steven universe future #rebecca sugar #crewniverse #my su analysis #myblog

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dannyphantomrpg · 7 years

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Visual Aid: 107 Danny Phantom Facts

So I did this again.

(It’s what keeps me occupied when my husband’s asleep and the tablet pen is charging~)

((This one was barely longer than the 10 Years Later, Part 2, but it took all day for some reason...))

Let’s get this thing started~

Hey everybody, Butch Hartman here. I am so excited today because I'm teaming up with Channel Frederator today to talk about my show, Danny Phantom. Can give you the inside scoop.

You guys remember the fandom? Are you kind of curious about the show? Well, relax, we've got something for everybody here as we talk about the 107 facts about Danny Phantom.

For example, did you know that the 2005 Michael Jackson trial was actually features on Vlad's TV on one episode? It's there.

107 Facts: Danny Phantom.

001 Danny Phantom was created by me, Butch Hartman, after I had previously worked on the Fairly Odd Parents with Nickelodeon.

002 When making the show, I drew a lot of inspiration from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Ghostbusters.

003 The title Danny Phantom was inspired by the titles of 1960's cartoons like Jonny Quest. More specifically, I wanted to create a title with a real first name, followed by a last name that was also kind of an action word. Some of these alternative action words were "Danny Thunder" "Danny Lightning" and "Danny Power". "Danny Phantom" was the name I went with cause I thought it sounded the coolest.

004 Some of the alternative first names I had for our hero included "Billy Phantom", "Kenny Phantom", "Jackie Phantom", and "Davey Phantom". I think you'll agree they don't quite have the same ring as "Danny Phantom" does.

005 I came up with the concept for the show Danny Phantom while driving a moving van from Las Vegas to Los Angeles with my mother. Unfortunately, she was more fascinated by the sight of a desert tortoise, than the birth of a new, awesome Nicktoon.

006 Before settling on a superhero show, one of my first concepts for Danny Phantom was a bit more in the main Ghostbusters. It was called Danny Phantom and the Specter Detectors, and it would have focused on a powerless Danny and his friends hunting down ghosts, using an array of ghostbusters-like gadgets.

007 Danny Phantom was pitched to Nickelodeon executives over dinner. Execs treated me after they ordered more episodes of Fairly Odd Parents, and they happened to ask me if I had any more ideas for TV shows. And, yes, being treated to nice dinners is definitely an appreciated perk.

008 There's some early concept art of Danny showing a surprising design. I originally drew him with the Superman-type body, which was basically a lot of unrealistic buff muscles. I reverted to the slimmer design when I decided it's be more interesting to portray Danny as a fourteen-year-old kid.

009 I decided Danny should be fourteen years old because that age is kind of a bridge between childhood and adulthood. It's more of a period of self-discovery which certainly fits the theme of Danny learning to live and control his ghostly abilities.

010 Danny's skinnier, final design, was the collaborative effort of character designers Steven Silver, Shannon Tyndall, and - surprise - me.

011 Unlike many other cartoon characters, Danny has five fingers. Take that Timmy Turner.

012 You may notice that when Danny goes ghost, only his hair turns white and his eyebrows stay black. They're actually meant to be white as well, but we all thought the white brows made Danny look like an old man so we, uh, kept 'em.

013 Sam and Danny were originally meant to share a psychic connection, so one would know where the other one was at all times. But I scrapped this to keep things simple. Only Danny was finally to have the superpowers.

014 Danny was originally gonna have a pet owl named Spooky that would be able to track ghosts. I scrapped the concept as Harry Potter rapidly gained popularity. I didn't want his series to be constantly compared to the boy wizard.

015 I wanted to give Danny a really cool ghost motorcycle to use as his primary means of transportation, but then I realized that giving a motorcycle was pointless because, you know, he can fly really fast.

016 The father-son duo of Jack and Danny Fenton are a reference to Jack and Danny Torrance from The Shining, which explains why Jack Fenton constantly accuses his children of being ghosts.

017 I gave Danny an older sibling because, unlike Timmy Turner, I felt that Jazz Fenton would make Danny feel less in control at home and give him somebody to contend with. I thought this lack of control would make Danny's experience with his superpowers all the more satisfying for him.

018 Jazz Fenton was named after a character in John Byrne's 1990's comic book Next Men. I always thought the name Jazz was cool.

019 Tucker Foley's name is a combination of actor and comedian Chris Tucker and Eddie Murphy's character from Beverly Hills Cop, Axel Foley.

020 Danny's teacher, Mr. Lancer, is named after a family restaurant in Burbank called, you guessed it, Lancer's.

021 Vlad Masters was originally going to be a vampire, but Nickelodeon execs thought making him a Vampire could lead to some pretty violent territory and I thought that too. So he was changed into a ghost.

022 A remnant of this scrapped concept can be found in his villain name "Vlad Plasmius". Plasma is found in blood which, you know, vampires kind of have a thirst for.

023 I refer to Vlad Masters as Danny Phantom's Lex Luthor. Like Luthor, Vlad uses his wealth to exert his power, or at least some of it. He also has a personal connection to Danny that gives him the upper hand in most scenarios.

024 Danny's love interest, Paulina Sanchez, is a parallel to Superman's love interest, Lois Lane. Both characters have no romantic interest in the protagonist because they have a crush on the protagonist's superhero alter ego. Lois loves Superman, but not Clark Kent, and Paulina loves Danny Phantom, but not Danny Fenton. Paulina: But you still have no shot with me Oh, the cruel irony.

025 Danny's ghost sense is identical to Spiderman's spider sense. Both senses alert their respective heroes whenever danger is nearby.

026 The parallels of Spiderman don't end there. Dash Baxter is a parallel to Peter Parker's football playing bully, Flash Thompson. Not only do Flash and Dash bully the protagonists of their universes, but they idolize the protagonist's superhero alter ego without realizing the hero is actually the person they bully. Their names both words that describe their quick movement and rhyme with each other.

027 The ghosts of Danny Phantom's world aren't the spirits of the deceased as ghosts tend to be in pop culture. Instead, they're monsters from another dimension. We call them ghosts because it's easier to say and it's more appealing than saying monsters from another dimension.

028 Danny's hometown, Amity Park, is a tribute to the settings of a few famous horror stories. Amityville, Long Island is the location of the famous haunted house known as the Amityville Horror. But Amity Park is also named after Amity Island, the location of the book and Steven Spielberg film Jaws.

029 Danny's high school, Casper High, is named after Casper the Friendly Ghost. Hey, if we hadn't added all these paranormal references, you may have forgotten the show is about ghosts.

030 Quite a few key members from the Fairly Odd Parents had a hand in making Danny Phantom, including writer Steve Marmel and art director Bob Boyle.

031 One of the major differences working on the Fairly Odd Parents and Danny Phantom was the latter series' more serial format containing everything from character arcs to recurring story lines. Danny Phantom embraces storytelling angle by making the episodes 22 minutes long as opposed to Fairly Odd Parents whose 22 minute run time consisted of 2 eleven minute episodes.

032 One of the most challenging aspects of creating a superhero show like Danny Phantom, was giving all the superhero tropes a unique and interesting twist. We wanted to keep the series fresh an unique.

033 I originally wanted to cast a fourteen year old boy for the role of Danny, but I couldn't find anybody that sounded heroic enough. That heroic voice I searched for was ultimately provided by David Kaufman. Before playing Danny, Kaufman broke into the realm of voice acting when he played Marty McFly in Back tot he Future: The Animated Series.

034 David Kaufman kept his audition for Danny as a CD in his car that he would listen to towards the beginning of the show whenever he drove to the studio to record. He did this to remember what Danny sounded like in order to immerse himself into the character efficiently.

035 I wasn't the only one Kaufman's performance left a deep impression on. His daughter, Grace, calls him Daddy Phantom.

036 Sam Manson is played by actress Grey Griffin. I basically made an effort to include her in every show I created back then. Thus far, she's played Vicky in the Fairly Odd Parents and Kitty Katswell from T.U.F.F. Puppy.

037 Tucker isn't the first loyal friend Ricky D'Shon Collins has played. Before hunting ghosts with Danny, he helped TJ Detweiler keep balance and order on the playground as Vince LaSalle in Disney's Recess.

038 Maddie Fenton's voice actress, Kath Soucie, has essentially crafted a career out of voicing cartoon mothers. She played Dexter's mom in Dexter's Laboratory, Betty DeVille in Rugrats and Miriam Pataki in Hey Arnold.

039 Danny's father, Jack, is played by legendary voice actor Rob Paulson, who's played iconic roles like Yakko Warner, Pinky, Carl Weiser, Experiment 625, Donatello in the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Raphael in the old one, and way too many more to mention here.

040 Although Mr. Lancer is far from hardcore, his voice actor, Ron Perlman, has played quite a few characters throughout his career that redefined the word, He played Hellboy in the Guillermo del Toro films of the same name and he voices Slade Wilson, also known as Deathstroke, on Teen Titans, as well as the Lich in Adventure Time.

041 Valerie Grey was originally played by Grey DeLisle for the episode My Brother's Keeper before renowned voice actress Cree Summer was chosen to take over the role. If her name doesn't sound familiar, you've probably heard her voice as Penny on Inspector Gadget or maybe even as Susie Carmicheal on Rugrats.

042 Valerie isn't the only one that's had a change in her voice. Dani, that's Dani with an I, was voiced with two different actresses through the series. She was played by AnnaSophia Robb in her debut episode Kindred Spirits. The role was then taken over by Krista Swan in the episode D-Stabilized, which was Dani's second and final speaking appearance.

043 Tara Strong plays two of the show's recurring villains: Ember McLain and Penelope Spectra. This is definitely not the first time I've worked with her. You probably know her best as Timmy Turner in the Fairly Odd Parents, which proves she can effectively play both the hero and the villain.

044 Every celebrity guest in the show was cast as a ghost, similar to how celebrity guests would play villains on the 1960's Batman series starring Adam West and Burt Ward. Some of these celebrities include Particia Heaton from Everybody Loves Raymond as the Lunch Lady, and Matthew St. Patrick from Six Feet Under as Skulker, and Will Arnett from Arrested Development as the Ghost Writer, and Martin Mull as Vlad Plasmius.

045 These celebrity voice actors typically played their ghosts for a limited time before different voice actors took their roles. Sometimes as soon as the ghost's second appearance. Series Kath Soucie took over the role of the Lunch Lady and Kevin Michael Richardson became Skulker.

046 Tucker's dad, Maurice Foley, is voiced by Phil Lamarr who voices Hermes Conrad on Futurama and Samruai Jack on Samurai Jack.

047 Mark Hamill plays Undergrowth. He's, of course, best known for playing Luke Skywalker in Star Wars, but also as countless voice acting credits, including the Joker and Fire Lord Ozai.

048 The ghost child Youngblood was played by actor Taylor Lautner when he was just nine years old. Lautner would later be featured in everybody's favorite love story Twilight. Wait, who wrote that? Do I have to say that?

049 Danny's ultimate enemy, Dark Danny, is played by Oscar-nominated acting legend Eric Roberts. His impressive resume includes everything from the Dark Knight to the Cable Guy.

050 The first recording session for Danny Phantom took place on November 21, 2002, about a year and a half before the show premiered. The first episode to be recorded was also the first episode to air: Mystery Meat.

051 In fact, Danny Phantom premiered on April 3, 2004, right after Nickelodeon's annual Kid's Choice Awards.

052 Unlike many other animated shows, the cast of Danny Phantom recorded their dialogue in the same room together. David Kaufman described the experience as something akin to a stage play.

053 It takes the actors around 3 hours to record dialogue for a single episode. David Kaufman knows that shouting "I'm goin' ghost!" so many times made his voice hoarse by the end of the day.

054 In the episode What You Want, I voiced a football announcer that also looks a lot like me except he's, you know, a cartoon. I mean, he looks a lot more like me than Dr. Bender does. I hope.

055 The theme song we hear today wasn't the only one recorded for the show. An alternate version got so far into production that an alternate opening sequence was storyboarded all the way around it. The alternate song sounds very similar to the final product with different lyrics that focus more on explaining Danny's abilities.

056 The theme song was changed because Nickelodeon wanted it to tell Danny's origin story. This way, new views wouldn't feel alienated when watching the show for the first time no matter what episode they started out with.

057 Luckily, changing the lyrics wasn't an overly complicated, make-10-calls, logistical nightmare since I wrote the lyrics of the theme song. Both of them actually.

058 I based the show's theme song after the song The Invisible Man by Queen, one of my favorite bands.

059 One thing I learned from working on the Danny Phantom theme song is that your first idea isn't always your best idea, and to never stop pushing yourself until you've made something truly awesome. You're welcome for that halfway through burst of inspiration.

060 I also co wrote another fan favorite song Remember, performed by Ember in the episode Fanning the Flames, which also happens to be my third favorite episode. Yes, my third favorite. I am very, very specific.

061 Danny Phantom was the first show to be produced by my very own company, Billionfold Inc. which was co-founded with my wife. Billionfold comes from a biblical term, hundredfold.

062 A single episode of Danny Phantom took approximately 10 months to produce, stretching all the way from pre-production to post.

063 While the pre-production phase took place in Burbank, California, Danny Phantom's animation was done by a Korean animation studio called Rough Draft. Rough Draft's resume includes work done on other animated classics like Futurama, The Simpsons, and SpongeBob SquarePants.

064 The individual villains found within Danny Phantom's rogues gallery was based on ideas that I had. Ember McLane stemmed from a pitch regarding an episode about music fads, and the effects they have on teenagers. The Lunch Lady was generated from my very astute knowledge that students tend to hate school prepared lunched.

065 Vlad is a Green Bay Packers fanatic because Danny Phantom's story write, Steve Marmel is a cheesehead himself. We nearly got sued for this, but luckily Marmel was smart enough to make the team colors of the Danny Phantom Packers gold and green instead of green and gold.

066 One scrapped running gag Marmel wanted to incorporate was that Vlad's home would be blown up after every encounter he had with Danny, but this recurring joke was mainly lost in editing.

067 Had the series gone on, Danielle would have been taken in by the Fentons, effectively becoming the younger sister of Danny and Jazz.

068 Technus was intended to have another upgrade, Technus 3.0, in the episode Identity Crisis. The design was scrapped after we decided the upgrade didn't really fit anywhere in the episode's story.

069 The addition of Danny Phantom's logo later in the series was the suggestion of Nickelodeon executives, who thought he needed a symbol akin to heroes like Batman, Superman, and Spiderman. But perhaps more honest reason was because the execs wanted to make the hero more marketable.

070 Danny officially became 99.99% marketable in the season 2 episode, Memory Blank, in which Sam gives him his D logo.

071 The series score was composed by Guy Moon, who is also responsible for the music heard in the Fairly Odd Parents.

072 When Guy Moon and I met to discuss a soundtrack of an episode, I would usually sing over the episode in progress to give Moon an idea of how I wanted the music to sound. Moon would bring a camera to these sessions and record my, admittedly, unskilled singing to remember my instructions.

073 Not everyone can become a half ghost, half human. If Sam or Tucker had gotten caught int the middle of the Fenton's malfunctioning Ghost Portal, it would have likely killed them.

074 Wulf is fluent in Esperanto, a language created in 1887 by Dr. Ludwik Lejzer Zamenhof, perhaps better known by his pseudonym of Doktoro Esperanto. Esperanto was created in the hope of replacing every language in the world as the one universal language. Judging by the fact that this video is in English, you can probably guess how that plan worked out.

075 The episode titled Shades of Grey is obviously a play on Valerie's last name, but the title could have a much deeper meaning. The term "shades of grey" refers to an unclear position on the scale of good to evil, usually somewhere in between. This certainly applies to Valerie, as she doesn't necessarily fight ghosts for good or evil. but for her own personal reasons.

076 During Shades of Grey, Danny names the ghost dog Cujo. Cujo's also the name of a horror novel by Stephen King about a dog bitten by a rabid bat, which turns the dog into a cold-blooded killer.

077 The green glowing, double bladed melee weapon Maddie uses to slay the legion of Vlad's monsters in Maternal Instincts is practically identical to Darth Maul's double bladed lightsaber in Star Wars Episode One, save for the red color.

078 Because I know everyone loves multiple Episode One references, the the title of the second season's 9th episode The Fenton Menace is obviously a play on the title of everybody's favorite Star Wars film, the Phantom Menace. Yes. Everybody's favorite Star Wars film.

079 To continue the Star Wars nods, the Danny Phantom universe has its own line of popular toys called Space Wars featuring characters that resemble Chewbacca and R2D2.

080 Some of the computers in the Danny Phantom world have pears in the back of them which you probably guess was a nod to Apple computers. Timmy's dad in Fairly Odd Parents has the same symbol on his laptop.

081 Save for the creepy pictures of Maddie, the programs and icons on both Danny and Vlad's computers are exactly the same, in the exact same order.

082 Skulker's hunt for Valerie and Danny in Life Lessons closely resembles the plot of Richard Connell's famous short story "The Most Dangerous Game". Much like the story, Skulker kidnaps two very skilled humans on his property for the sole purpose of hunting what he considers to be the most challenging prey out there, or, the most dangerous game.

083 Mr. Lancer spouts the titles of books in place of shouting swear words. Some of these exclamations include The Great Gatsby, Chicken Soup for the Soul, and Moby Dick, which is about as close as we'll be getting to colorful language on a Nicktoon, except for maybe Ren and Stimpy, or Rocko, or SpongeBob. We're slick here at Nickelodeon.

084 In the episode What You Want, Paulina transforms into a popular anime cat names Sayonara Pussycat, who resembles the character Hello Kitty. But Sayonara is actually a rather dramatic and final sounding word for "goodbye" in Japanese.

085 In Teacher of the Year, all 13 levels that Tucker shows Technus are based on the eight worlds from the 1990 NES classic Super Marion Bros. 3. The level 0 glitch is a reference to the infamous Minus world from the original Super Mario Bros.

086 Before sending Danny into the Ghost Zone in the episode Prisoners of Love, Tucker can be seen playing Space Invaders on his PDA.

087 Valerie Grey lives on 461 Elm Street, an obvious reference to the classic horror film A Nightmare on Elm Street. She'd probably stand more of a chance against Freddy Krueger than the other kids in the Street as well.

088 Johnny 13 and Kitty's voice actors, William Baldwin and China Phillips, are a married couple in real life. The knot has been securely tied since 1995. Way before they were cast.

089 In Fanning the Flames, Danny quips "Do you take requests? How about Beat It." in addition to telling Ember to hit the road, Danny's referencing Michael Jackson's classic song Beat It. Good one, Danny. And good one, me.

090 Michael Jackson makes a more obvious cameo in the episode Infinite Realms where he's seen in at his 2005 trial while Vlad is flipping through channels.

091 When we see Tucker's report card in What You Want, we learn that Tucker is not only highly proficient in computers, but sewing as well. If Danny ever needs a suit redesign, he who he can call. Not the Ghostbusters, they'll likely kill him. He should call Tucker.

092 The Groovy Gang and Scaredy Cat from The Million Dollar Ghost are an unsubtle jab at Mystery Inc and Scooby-Doo. An additional fact fact for you guys, I actually worked for Hanna-Barbera, the animation studio that created Scooby-Doo.

093 The secret government organization dedicated to eliminating paranormal entities known as the Guys in White are obviously a parallel to the Men in Black who essentially do the same thing but with evil extraterrestrials.

094 I've gone on record saying the reason Danny is not shirtless when he's at the water park is because he gets sunburned very easily.

095 We can all infer that Sam has good taste in films. For instance, a poster for Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange can be seen in her room.

096 In Memory Blank, Sam wants to see Trinity of Doom, a movie starring Femalien, the female version of Alien that’s a Predator, not a Xenomorph, you uncultured swine!, Terminatra, the female Terminator, and Nightmerica, the female version of Freddy Krueger. I'd still go see that.

097 Danny has a birthmark that's shaped like the state of Florida.

098 Timmy Turner's favorite comic book hero, The Crimson Chin, appears at the Ember concert as one of her many adoring fans in the episode Fanning the Flames. I officially sanction your conspiratorial speculations.

099 In the episode What You Want, Danny and Tucker can be seen playing an arcade machine titles Crash Nebula. Crash Nebula is one of Timmy Turner's favorite heroes of the Fairly Odd Parents. The plot thickens!

100 The cross referencing continued over into the Fairly Odd Parents, too. In Poulter Geeks, a wanted poster for Danny Phantom can be seen in the ghost hunting basement of Timmy's parents.

101 Or you guys could be thinking about this all wrong, and Danny could just be a fictional hero. In the Fairly Odd Parents Crash Nebula special, Danny can be seen on the back cover of a comic book. The truth is out there.

102 If Vlad were real, Steve Marmel would have made him the happiest half man/half ghost on the planet. The writer purchased a brick at Lambeau Field, the home of the Packers, and engraved it with "Someday I will rule - Vlad Plasmius".

103 David Kaufman's favorite episodes tend to be the ones in which Danny spends time with one particular member of his family and the plot strengthens their bond and understanding of each other. He cites the episodes Maternal Instinct and My Brother's Keeper as prime examples.

104 Like every great superhero, Danny Phantom has transcended into the realm of video games. His first outing was a Game Boy Advance adaptation of The Ultimate Enemy, a 2D side-scrolling beat-em-up ordeal.

105 The second was called Danny Phantom: Urban Jungle, which was released for both Game Boy Advance and Nintendo DS and it was a side-scrolling shooter.

106 There was once a Danny Phantom themed ride at the indoor Nickelodeon Universe theme park at the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota. Danny Phantom: Ghost Zone's design was that of an Ali Baba. In other words, it consisted of a stationary horizontal gondola with a 360 degree swinging pendulum. Unfortunately, the rise was taken down in 2015.

107 Danny Phantom ran for three season, from 2004 to 2007. A total of 53 episodes were created for the series. The news of Danny Phantom's cancellation was not well received by the fans at all. The Danny fandom took to the streets of New York City and protested outside of Nickelodeon's building to bring the ghost boy back into production. Unfortunately, to no avail. But thank you. Seriously, thank you.

Ok, guys, thanks so much for watching. Hope you guys enjoyed it, 107 facts about Danny Phantom. Don't forget to like and subscribe to the Frederator Channel.

#yt closed captions kept putting dash's name as - and i thought it was hilarious #and fact 27 is where it all goes downhill #fact 27: it's not a show about ghosts #fact 29: it's a show about ghosts!#if I misspelled any of the names i'm so sorry #there are just so many of them #huh only 106 facts #i wonder what happened to fact 94 #it is a mystery #i was gonna do images too #but they weren't anything special #enjoy your wall of reading voice actor's wiki pages #butch hartman #channel frederator #107 facts #danny phantom #reference

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striving-artist · 7 years

Note

So I'm partway through Today Tomorrow, and I have to ask: I remember reading a while back you were writing a novel? Is it going well? (Feel free to take that as OMFG I need more of your original fic ASAP. ;)

Yes! I am! I got some notes back that necessitated extensive edits. The comments are completely right, and I’m getting a better book from this, but... yeah... it’s sort of slow. Everytime I think I’m almost done, I find a new area unravelling. Then it has to go back to copy editing. It’s 140k, and it’s the first book of four, because I apparently hate me. At this point, I’m hoping to publish it this summer.

However! you just made my night, so, below the cut is the opening of Hunters.

It ends abruptly, that’s not an error in copying it over. That’s how the prelude ends. XD

PRELUDE

Breathing. That was important. Jac had to remember to keep breathing.

Otherwise she might faint on the side of a mountain, and then someone might find her and they might take her back and hand her to a police officer. Or a hospital. Or she could end up eaten by a bear while unconscious.

None of those worked for her.

So, breathing.

She wasn’t shaking anymore. She expected to be. Jac spent the hike up the foothills reminding herself that when she finally saw the door, or the lack of a door, or whatever it was that was here that she had felt and followed, everything would fall apart. She brutally reminded herself of it. She’d get to the top, then she’d just be a crazy little girl again, lost in the woods and the subject of an imminent manhunt.

She fought so hard to lower her expectations that when she mounted the last boulder and could finally look, her mind went blank.

Because there was definitely something in front of her.

It was perfectly warm in the clearing. Humid from recent rain. The heat of the day hadn’t dissipated yet, and considering the climb she’d just made with heavy packs, there was no reason to be thinking about snow.

But she was, because she knew as sure as anything that if she took a few more steps she was going to need a coat. Because here it was warm and there it was cold. Because there was a there on the other side of that doorway, and it wasn’t the other side of the clearing. She knew that, and it scared the hell out of her.

She sank onto the boulder with her mouth hung open, almost hoping that she was mid episode from stress and a lack of meds. That there wasn’t a pulsing slash of otherness in front of her. Like she wasn’t entranced by a spire, half again as tall as she was, and as wide as her arm. A distortion in the air that rippled like water over clear glass. Her eyes swore there was nothing to be seen, even as she memorized the fractal edge of it where it vibrated in the same pitch as the power she’d known.

All the same, she hoped she was wrong.

If there wasn’t a portal to another world in front of her, it meant she hadn’t wasted a decade of her life.

If it wasn’t real then she didn’t have to face that mistake.

Except it was there. It was real.

Probably.

There was no way of knowing, not really. Not unless she walked through. Not unless she could actually take hold of every scrap of her courage and step into the unknown.

Breathing.

Still necessary.

Bothersome and easily forgotten, but very necessary.

It wasn’t like she knew what it was, or why she could see the thing.

She needed to make a decision. Either she was going through the thing or not.

Easy decision. No. Binary decision. There was nothing easy about it.

Abandon everything she’d known or thought she’d known to be reality. Walk away from her family and what few friends she had. Walk away from meds and therapy sessions and security.

Walk into a world that wasn’t Earth, but wasn’t Braora either. It wasn’t her home. Whatever was on the other side of that blur was another, a third one, which meant there would be more. Not that she could explain how she knew, except for a certainty etched in her bones. But still. It was a risk.

There might not be portals there.

There was no guarantee it was safe. Or that it was nice or even possible for her to make it from wherever she arrived to another doorway.

Jac walked forward with one hand stretching out toward the haze, getting colder and maddeningly itchy as she let her fingers nearly touch the outermost edge of it.

There wasn’t an answering frisson of power in her skin.

There wasn’t magic there for her, that was sure. The echo of magic in the air was something else; maybe the door itself.

Her other hand was at her stomach, but it wasn’t pinching anymore, or picking or scratching at her fear. It was resting. Sitting there, ready to center an attack or help her build grounded shields. Ready for her once she found a place where her magic waited. It was a little whisper of what felt right. It wasn’t anxious anymore, just eager.

Hope had to be enough.

Somewhere beyond that shining, intangible thing there had to be another one. And another one. And to hell with how long it took, or how many worlds she had to walk through to find her way home, she was going to do it.

Jac spent the last six years pretending it never happened. She spent the last ten doubting.

She wasn’t wasting her life anymore.

She took a shuddering breath and rolled her neck to hear the cracks.

A smile split her face as she realized that if there was a manhunt on, when they found this place her footprints would abruptly stop. She’d be an urban legend. Look out or Mad Jac will find you and stab you.

But only a little. Not fatally.

Her smile grew wider and her gasping breaths calmed down.

Jac giggled.

Then clapped a hand over her mouth because there was no way it was appropriate to giggle, alone in the woods, while making life changing decisions that unravelled the laws of the universe.

Or maybe that was the best time.

She was laughing, free and happy and delighted, as she checked straps and packs and knives and bags. It would break her mom’s heart, Eli would blame himself, her dad would have to hold them together, but Jac couldn’t stay where she was if there was a chance she could thrive. Surviving an endless march -- hating each day-- wasn’t a life. It wasn’t for her. She knew, no matter how she tried to deny it, that staying would kill her.

This was what she wanted, not what she could tolerate. This was what she was supposed to do.

She hadn’t been so happy in a decade, and closed her eyes in anticipation, savoring the calm before the storm.

“So. Are you gonna take that step, are you planning to stand there giggling til it closes?”

Her mouth fell open, and she turned to the speaker.

#My writing #asks #I really should start the blog for the book series #but there is so much going on rn #its overwhelming. long post #ravencromwell

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zachwritesstuff · 6 years

Text

Awesome Trevor: The Long and Winding Road

I’m very used to writing things about other people, products and properties. So this one is going to be a slightly weird one for me. It’s a story of hopeful imagination, and disappointment; Of long hours working to make things perfect, and never finding it; And going through version, formats, people, places and ideas just to keep an idea afloat. But, most importantly, it’s the story of Awesome Trevor, an idea that is eight years in the making, yet so far has not given any worthwhile fruit, no matter how hard we tried. In writing this out, I’m hoping to both show the trials and tribulation of taking an idea from concept to fruition, and how impossible it might seem sometimes. Idealism and inspiration can be a hell of a stimulant, while stalling and depression can be a hell of a… depressant. So maybe someone can get something interesting out of it, or at least find the whole saga entertaining, I don’t know. I should probably quit stalling and actually get to the point… It all started...

Part 1: The Movie

The year is 2010. Just barely out of high school, I was now in Community College, and not working, which was a dumb idea for many reasons. I had worked on independent, or more accurately, amateur, film projects a dozen times, both for class and simply because I wanted to. None of them were good. Despite the fact that I was an adult, I still was not a competent film maker (And some might say that I still am not). But I was young, and still had the delusions of being a big shot director someday. All I needed, I reasoned, was a big project to really pick things up and get a bit of a spotlight. I could continue making simple YouTube videos, but if I actually wanted to get anywhere, I needed to make something bigger.

So I had to make a feature film.

I talked to my regular cohort, Evan Greenhoe. I had known him for a few years at this point, having met when I was still in high school, and we had the same thirst for creating. While he was more of the on camera type, acting and performing music (he still is, but he was then too), I always felt more comfortable behind the scenes, writing and directing. We had talked over projects before, as we always loved making ideas and fleshing them out, and when I told him my desire to make a feature film, he almost instantly handed me the idea of Awesome Trevor.

He had come up with the idea with his girlfriend, Sarah, and had held onto the idea for a little while, never fully formed, but when we started talking about making bigger things, he figured it would be a fit. He had never really formed the idea too terribly deeply, beyond making it a video game inspired piece of a regular joe becoming a hero and saving the princess. We talked out the idea over several days, and eventually we had a strong base to work off of.

Now before I go any further, there is one important note I must add. Around this time, Scott Pilgrim vs The World had just come out. This is important because, in the beginning, Awesome Trevor was a rip off of that. In later years, we would change the story around to make it it’s own thing, but to start with, it was a story of a kind of loser dude going on a quest to save his ex girlfriend from a bunch of people from her past, one of which is even a weird ninja girl. It was a copy.

Now that we had our base, the next step was to write out this masterpiece of original fiction. This was no problem, as I had already written out a few feature length scripts before (all of them going unused, of course). While writing, though, I decided to change up the flow a bit: Instead of one movie, I would make it a six part series, and after all parts were released, I would edit them together as a movie! My genius knew no bounds…

So I got to writing this newly formatted script. I filled it with video game references, witty dialogue, and set it in local areas, so that it would be simpler to film. I introduced the amnesiac main character, Trevor; His tired roommate, Mark; The mysteriously vanished girlfriend, Mary; and the 4 mysterious bosses, Kevin Kurochi, Peyote Jones, Stephanie Connor and Samuel Tanner. The story was of Trevor, who woke up after a heavy night of drinking, to find his memories of a former girlfriend gone, and going on an adventure to get them back with the help of his quip filled roommate.

My wit, it burns....

The scripts, well… They weren’t great. They weren’t bad for an untrained 20 year old, but I would like to think I’ve come a long way from when I wrote them. But the most important thing was, we had our scripts. Now started the pre-production.

We pretty much had our cast right off, as they were mostly friends of ours. I was going to play Samuel, who was a bouncer at a club with super strength; Evan was to play Mark, the plucky costar; Kevin (a samurai), Peyote (a drugged out metal guitarist) and Stephanie (a cloaked ninja) were going to be played by our friends Ken, Adolf and Amber respectively; And Mary, who appeared as herself in only one scene, was planned to be played by a woman named Amanda Alch. who I was going to school with at the time and was already an established actress (Bad Kids Go To Hell and Claws). It’s likely she doesn’t even remember agreeing to appear in it, which is probably for the best.

Our starring role went to a good friend of mine from high school named Kyle Mason. Then, he was a kid in his late teens with an interest in cosplay and video production. Nowadays, he is a professional cosplayer and video producer, so he’s not doing too shabby. It didn’t take much convincing to have him play the lead role, and we were off to the races!

youtube

A Readthrough of the script, which of course didn’t go through any editing

I had even asked a dude I had met in college named James to be our Director of Photography, as he had had more experience working on original projects and camera work. Our hearts were working faster than our minds, and we skipped over dozens of important steps (setting proper schedules, storyboarding, finding proper funding, etc) in our pursuit, instead focusing on marketing, finding places to film, and practicing our parts. We even had popular content producers Video Games Awesome plug our project on their show, despite the fact that there was not any actual substance behind anything we were doing.

youtube

Timestamp is at 9:24. A preview of what never comes...

The best way to sum this up is that is was an embarrassment to filmmaking. Had we actually started production as planned, everyone involved would probably hate each other, and the entire thing would be scrapped after about two episodes. I was saved by James cancelling his involvement, probably rightly sensing that this all was half assed, causing the production to fall behind and ultimately being cancelled due to people no longer being available.

And so the first part of this story ends with but a wisp of smoke that was our hope for a movie. Though we possibly dodged a bullet, I was still frustrated and disappointed by all of it, so I put the idea on hiatus and started working on other things. It would lay there for 3 years before it appeared again…

Part 2: The First Cartoon

2013. I was out of community college, and at the University of Texas. I didn’t fit in very well, and being farther away from home and friends made me a bit of a sad, lonely hermit. I knew several people at school, and though I would consider many of them friends now, back then, they were just classmates.

To occupy my time, I was doing side work for Frederator Studios, makers of such fine cartoons as Adventure Time, Fairly Odd Parents, and Chalkzone. I had become friendly with Fred Seibert, the founder of Frederator, after interviewing him a couple years prior, and he had let me make some videos for their YouTube Channel. While I was doing work there, they started up their Cartoon Hangover project, where people could pitch their own cartoons with relative ease, and if Frederator liked it, they would produce a full cartoon short.

This seemed like an amazing opportunity for both myself and Evan, who had experience with animation. I talked to him about it, and he was on board before I even finished explaining the whole thing to him. Like we always do, we started discussing ideas, and after long deliberations, we narrowed it down to three: Captain Amazo, the idiotic superhero; Metal Mania, which was about a metal bad traveling through space to be the biggest band in the galaxy; And, of course, Awesome Trevor, back from the dead.

Well, back from the dead is a slight misnomer. We had discussed the idea once more in between, thinking of bringing it back as a comic. We got far in our discussions, but never made any physical items to go with it, and soon it went back into its slumber.

Editing note: After reviewing the article, Evan has told me that he actually made a comic cover that he never showed me. The cover, unfortunately, has been lost to time.

Both of us were still feeling the sting from the failed mini-series/movie, and as we were now a little bit older, we decided to be a bit wiser as well. Not wise enough to not choose Awesome Trevor, mind you, but also hedging our bets by pitching two shows, the other being Captain Amazo. (Note: we did plan to pitch Metal Mania as well, but we never got around to finishing it).

So this process was pretty much a rinse and repeat. I went home and made a script, and from there, we began working on a pitch. This new script, while not a ton better than the originals, was still an improvement, and since we weren’t having to go through pre-production and big planning meetings, we were able to take stuff in stride. We kept the same general story, but decided to make stuff bigger and flashier, as we weren’t limited by the shackles of real life. We also changed around some of the character designs, as we wanted to have new actors play the characters.

I’m sure I thought of the shirt designs. I’m a comedy genius.

We kept the base designs of Mark and Trevor, but Samuel the Bouncer was changed to match the person we really wanted to play him, Seanbaby. Once Satisfied, we storyboarded everything out and sent them in to Frederator, eagerly awaiting the approval so we can start again on our dream project.

I wrote in the dialogue myself, despite my awful handwriting.

As these are the first you are ever seeing of the characters or story, it’s needless to say that we were denied. The problem with it was that, whoops, we had sent a full storyboard, when in fact they wanted a beat board (like a storyboard, but using thumbnails instead of large images). He also noted that the end of this pitch was left as a “To Be Continued”, and that they were looking for standalone ideas instead of pitches for full series.

Part 3: The Second Cartoon

While again disappointed, this wasn’t a denial based on content, instead just the way it was presented. So we went back to the literal drawing board and reworked the idea into a standalone. It was at this point, in the first time since the idea was formed, that we decided to change the story up. While we kept the saving the girl idea (as to us, it felt like a very video-game thing), we made him more of a player-character like character, almost like an avatar battling in a game.

Looking back through the beat boards we made, they were lame. While I had grown as a writer, I focused way too much on trying to make something someone else would like, and wrote in a very cliched way. Instead of trying to introduce or establish characters, I made Mark and Trevor generic, and didn’t even give defined forms to the people they were fighting. The jokes were bad, the characters were one note, and for some reason I felt the need to physically write out the dialogue on the sheet, despite the fact that I have terrible handwriting.

Seriously, why did I feel the need to write in the dialogue?!

Evan tried his best to work with what he was given, but I feel that I dropped the ball on this one. And of course it showed when I sent it in and got a response from Eric Homan, who runs all the creative development at Frederator.

“Thanks, Zach, for the work and continued interest.

Unfortunately, "Awesome Trevor" is very far away from what we're looking for in our Cartoon Hangover shorts, in everything from character to story to tone.

I may have recommended this before, but I really suggest you take a look at our shorts as we begin to release them in a few weeks. I think they'll give a better indication of the types of cartoons for which we're looking.

Thanks, again.

-- Eric”

In everything from character to story to tone. That said what needed to be said. Even though I was sour at the time, with five years of hindsight, I realized that Eric was, as he often is, completely right about it, in more way than I could have thought. It was a slapdash job on an idea that was already starting to become kind of stale. We tried to change it up, but in trying to rush this idea to get it made (I checked, there was literally one month between the denial of the first pitch and sending in the second pitch), I did a poor job and let both of us down.

I of course blamed people like Eric, who was just telling me the truth, and situations like my school life, which was causing me anxiety and depression, but deep down I knew that I had done poorly. I had taken this idea, that wasn’t even mine originally, and basically ruined it to the point where we felt like we couldn’t do anything more with it. So at this point, I want to make two apologies. One to Eric, who was simply trying to help and harboured resentment towards for years, and one to Evan, who I kind put a lot of pressure on while we were working on these, and probably wasn’t the best person to work with. Um… My bad.

Part 4: The Past and Future

That last one was probably the last major wave we had in trying to produce Awesome Trevor. It pops up in conversations of ideas a lot, but nothing ever comes to fruition. The closest that ever came after the second cartoon debacle was another video game video series related idea I had. The idea was of an NPC in an open world game who breaks programming and tries to fight back against the player character, who repeatedly kills people for no reason. After discussing that idea for a while, we thought of attaching the Awesome Trevor name to it, as they were both vaguely video game related, and even started jotting down some story ideas. But, like many plans, this one faded away, and was soon in the vault, like the thousand other things we come up with…

And, well, that’s kind of the end. There might have been an expectation of some kind of twist or surprise announcement, but that’s not always how things go. At this point, Awesome Trevor is just an old idea, one that had stewed in our minds for years now. It comes up in conversations every few months, maybe trying out a cartoon pitch again, or doing it as a podcast series, but so far, nothing is set in stone. Hell, it’s possible that after this, a new vigor of interests might pop up inside of us, and the world is finally introduced to this plan that is now 8+ years in the making. You never really can tell.

The main reason I wanted to write this was to just put this all out there, and finally view something of it. Maybe I wanted people to finally see this thing that has been on my mind for a portion of my life. Maybe it’s a cautionary tale of not stepping back and taking the necessary steps to make something come to life properly. Or maybe it’s simply my plea of vanity, begging someone to tell me what I made was good. At this point, I can’t really tell. I just hope someone enjoyed it enough to get to the end.

And man, did it get kind of depressing at the end. Well, for those who made it here, here is your secret easter egg ending. Presented in full is the original draft to the Awesome Trevor Theme Song, produced by the extremely talented Evan Greenhoe. Thank you for reading!

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ramialkarmi · 7 years

Text

After 2 years of development, Netflix has released its first 'choose your own adventure' show

When Netflix approached Dreamworks Animation to pioneer a "choose your own adventure" style show, "Puss in Boots" writer-producer Doug Langdale accepted before they even finished the pitch.

“They came and started explaining the possibilities,” Langdale told Business Insider. “I don’t think they got through the word ‘interactive’ before I said ‘yes.’”

Dreamworks had already created a few seasons of “The Adventures of Puss in Boots,” and Langdale welcomed the fresh challenge of making multiple paths for kids to explore. (Making season after season of a TV show can get a tad monotonous, he admitted.)

For Netflix, it was a chance to make its kids content stand out from the competition, and emphasize how Netflix can use technology to open up new forms.

Netflix’s programming for kids has quietly become a juggernaut, but competitors like HBO, Amazon, and Hulu are also fiercely going after the market. There's good reason: Half of Netflix subscribers watch children’s and family shows on a monthly basis, according to Netflix’s head of product innovation for the category, Carla Engelbrecht Fisher.

Fisher said that Netflix had been kicking around the idea of creating “branching” shows for most of the three years she’s been at the company, and that its first title, “Puss in Book: Trapped in an Epic Tale,” took two years to come to fruition. Netflix released it on June 20, and will release another, "Buddy Thunderstruck: The Maybe Pile," on July 14.

A simple choice

A “branching” Netflix show works much the same way as a choose-your-own-adventure book. You are watching a TV show unfold, and eventually you get to a virtual fork in the road, where you choose one of two options. Then the narrative continues.

Here’s an example from the “Puss in Book” demo given to Business Insider. Puss in Boots shows up at a house populated by bears. Then the viewer is presented with a choice. Either the bears are “friendly” when Puss in Boots walks in, or “angry.” In our demo, it was simple and intuitive. All you had to do was press one of two buttons on screen, either with the remote if you’re watching on the TV, or with your finger if you’re viewing on a laptop or tablet. Then you're back on the story path.

18 minutes or 39 minutes

While navigating every story choice is easy, it’s anything but simple to set up the narrative, Langdale told Business Insider.

“It’s a little more like writing a sketch show,” he said. “It’s more modular.” The story has to be able to fork and recombine, otherwise Dreamworks would be creating an insane amount of storylines. And that can cause big story headaches, Langdale said.

For the most part, the plot of “Puss in Book” is Puss in Boots trying to find his way out of a book he’s become trapped in. And the emotional arc is, generally, one of building frustration, Langdale said. It’s hard to have anything more specific, since your journey through the book could take 18 minutes, 39 minutes, or something in between.

The story constraints also meant that when Langdale wrote a specific problem to confront Puss in Boots with, it was sometimes hard to know how to have him react. In a specific instance, Langdale had to scrap a character coming back into the narrative, since it wasn’t clear whether Puss in Boots could say “Oh, you again.” Had he seen him before? Throughout the process, Langdale said he was the only one who really had general narrative structure in his head. He would give out bits to write to others, which he’d then fit together.

In creating a story that wasn't too bland and wasn't too confusing, it helped that Langdale was able to lean on a previously created “Puss in Boots” universe, both in story and with GGI models (which saved some resources).

The tech considerations

As far as technical constraints, Netflix said that for buffering reasons, no “choice” could last less than two minutes, and there had to be two choices in each brand, Fisher said. (However, in the future, Netflix would like to experiment with more than two choices.)

To help kids understand what's going on initially, there’s also a short explanation of how to navigate the story at the start of the narrative, which in the Puss in Boots demo was slickly worked into the storyline. Early on in development, Netflix made an prototype of a choose-your-own-adventure show by chopping up previous episodes of “The Adventures of Puss and Boots.” While kids immediately understood what they were supposed to do on iPad, on a TV they kept talking to the screen, Fisher said. So Netflix decided to guide kids toward using the remote.

The future

The big question is how much traction Netflix will get with these types of narratives. Choose-your-own-adventure books never really expanded outside the kid and young adult realm, and remain niche. But conversely, video games have continued to build more and more compelling plotlines, and are approaching this choice-driven cinematic experience from the other side.

Still, even if the “branching” narrative isn’t a monster hit for Netflix, it shows that one day Netflix might have an appetite for experimenting with things like virtual reality, or even augmented reality (which overlays virtual objects onto the real world), as these all give the company the chance to prove it can bring ideas to life that its traditional TV competitors cannot.

SEE ALSO: The hidden reason why children's shows could be a huge hit for Netflix and Amazon

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