Welcome all my friends to the show that never ends.
My MacBook Pro power cord died on me again. This happens from time to time. Maybe I need to hang it up and buy a PC. So I’ll be wrapping up Anime Month today even though it’s April. Tonight’s feature is 1986’s Fist of the North Star from director Toyoo Ashida. This movie is guaranteed to blow your head apart. Sorry. I’ve got Emerson, Lake & Palmer on my brain. Maybe because I saw so many brains exploding out of heads in Fist of the North Star.This might be the most violent animated motion picture I have ever seen. Hell, this might be the violent motion picture I’ve ever seen. Fist of the North Star begins with the world being nuked into oblivion. Must have been the Soviets. Or maybe it was Matthew Broderick. At any rate, you see the full horror of that nuclear fallout, people stumbling around as their skins melt off. The aftermath leaves the world a wasteland reminiscent of the Mad Max movies. Only the strong survive in this cruel, new world.
Enter our hero, Ken (voiced by John Vickery), a martial arts master with the title of Fist of the North Star. While traveling with his fiancé, Julia (voiced by Melodee Spivack), he gets challenged by the Fist of the South Star, Shin (voiced by Michael McConnohie). Shin is Ken’s best friend from childhood, but he wants Julia for himself so he challenges Ken to a fight. One thing to note about many of the men in this film is that they’ve got muscles upon muscles upon muscles. Arms and legs shaped like tree trunks. I wonder how these men can pack on the muscle when food is so scarce in this post-apocalyptic world.
Fist of the North Star Movie 10
Ken loses the bout and is left for dead. Shin and his gang of hooligans make off with Julia. Fast-forward a year. A gang of marauders is chasing two kids named Bat and Lin. I think Lin has some psionic powers because she summons Ken from the wasteland. Ken fights the marauders and knocks a couple of ruined skyscrapers over. This movie is kind of a blur to me. Maybe it’s because I can’t keep track of whose head exploded when and where.
Yes, Ken has a martial arts technique where he touches pressure points on another guy’s head resulting in his opponent’s brain exploding from his skull. People get killed in all sorts of ways in this movie. Some get crisscrossed into chunks. Others spill their guts all over the ground. It’s all really quit nasty. Still, if you look past the carnage, you’ve got a movie that champions love, honor, and the restoration of the Earth to a green paradise. I think they released a Fist of the North Star video game last year. You get to explode men’s heads in the game. It’s amazing what they can do with technology these days.
The VHS cassette box for Twilight of the Cockroaches, a live action/anime hybrid movie, has a quote from Richard Harrington of The Washington Post. He says, “Could do for cockroaches what ‘The Secret of NIMH’ did for rats.” Now I know you kids have never heard of the Don Bluth animated masterpiece, The Secret of NIMH. It tanked at the box office leading Don Bluth to spend his energy making the arcade game Dragon’s Lair. You remember Dragon’s Lair, don’t ya? It was featured on that Stranger Things show that you guys love so much.
Anyway, we’re not here to talk about The Secret of NIMH. Tonight’s feature is 1987’s Twilight of the Cockroaches from director Hiroaki Yoshida, a movie that proves that cockroaches are people too. The movie centers around a pretty, young cockroach named Naomi (voiced by Rebecca Forstadt) who’s engaged to a boring, yet stable young cockroach named Ichiro (voiced by Stephen Apostolina). They live an idyllic life with their community of roaches in the apartment of a Japanese bachelor named Saito (Kaoru Kobayashi), who gave up killing roaches when his wife and daughter left him. Saito lets the roaches roam free in his apartment, letting them eat whatever they want.
What on Earth am I watching here? Twilight of the Cockroaches is an interesting production in that it combines live-action acting with animation not unlike Mary Poppinsor Who Framed Roger Rabbit. The technique is rather neat, featuring animated cockroaches against a backdrop of real life images such as Nike footwear and Heinz Ketchup bottles. While the movie does feature human characters in the form of Saito and his eventual girlfriend, Momoko (Setsuko Karasuma), the story focuses on the cockroaches, kind of like the latest Planet of the Apes movie. Except the cockroaches get their butt kicked in this movie.
A young woman named Momoko lives in the apartment across the way from Saito and she hates cockroaches. She buys all kind of sprays and traps, trying her damnedest to eliminate every cockroach in the vicinity. As a result, the tribe of cockroaches living on her property is a warrior tribe. One of these warriors is a handsome cockroach named Hans. He even has a cleft chin. After an excursion, he finds his way over to Saito’s apartment and Naomi falls for him instantly. Hans recovers and returns to his tribe, but Naomi follows him. They begin a torrid affair. Oh, along the way, Naomi runs into a talking turd. The talking turd is done with clay animation. What on Earth am I watching here?
Saito and Momoko also fall for each other. She moves into Saito’s apartment. so we know what that means. What follows is truly horrifying, a genocide of a race of creatures who just wanted to live peacefully with their human hosts. The warrior tribe of cockroaches comes to aid of the soft, yuppie tribe, but they get wiped out too. Naomi survives, pregnant with the next generation of cockroaches, immune to the poisons currently used by humans. This will force the humans to create deadlier poisons that will lead to even tougher cockroaches developing immunity to such poisons. Such is the fate of the cockroach as decreed by the god of the cockroaches. What on Earth am I watching here?
I was on a James Bond kick around the same time I started getting into state of the art Japanese animation. Naturally, I wanted these two interests to converge in the form of an anime that resembled a Bond film. Eventually, I would discover Lupin the 3rd, a series of television shows and movies about the world’s greatest gentleman thief. I believe I wrote about them years ago on this blog, no doubt overflowing with sentimentality for Lupin and company. But when I first looked for a Bond-style anime, I discovered The Professional: Golgo 13, a deeply depressing movie about an international assassin.
1983’sThe Professional: Golgo 13from director Osamu Dezaki is a journey into a nihilistic hellscape. Duke Togo (voiced by Greg Snegoff) is a contract killer known as Golgo 13 who always sees the job through no matter the damage or consequences. Richard Dawson (voiced by Michael McConnohie) is the richest man in the world since he’s the president of a huge oil conglomerate. At Richard Dawson’s 62ndbirthday party, Golgo 13 shoots and kills Richard’s son, Robert Dawson, right as Richard is about to hand over the reigns of Dawson Oil to his heir.
Thus begins the hunt for Golgo 13. Richard Dawson has operatives from CIA, the FBI, and the United States military at his disposal, all with one mission: the tracking down and killing of Golgo 13. During the movie, we get to see how Golgo 13 operates whether he’s assassinating a Mafia Don in Sicily or shooting en ex-Nazi SS officer in a New York City high rise. Golgo 13 spends his time between missions bedding beautiful women, drinking liquor, and smoking Parliaments. Golgo 13 also has allies that supply him with information and equipment to aid his assassinations.
Dawson’s subordinates attempt to kill Golgo 13 time and again, only to have him escape or worse, actually retaliate and waste them. Duke Togo is an expert and sniping and close combat. Dawson’s thirst for revenge grows with each failure. He sacrifices what’s left of his family on this mad quest for vengeance, teaching his eight year-old granddaughter how to shoot a handgun so she’ll have a chance to assassinate Golgo 13 when the time is right. He also employs demented psychopaths in his mission to destroy Golgo 13.
One such psychopath is the Snake, a gangly man with serpent like eyes and teeth that resemble snake fangs. The Snake agrees to help Dawson if he’s allowed to have his way with Dawson’s daughter-in-law. Dawson reluctantly agrees, locking her in a room with the Snake, and a disturbing scene follows. The Snake manages to kills some of Golgo 13’s allies, sinking his blades into this one guy’s torso causing him to shower the room with blood.
Richard Dawson convinces the CIA to release a couple of death row inmates known as Gold and Silver, former assassins driven insane after being dropped in a jungle in South America with no provisions and no weapons. They survived, slaughtering 2,000 guerilla fighters, but were driven insane by the experience. The CIA doesn’t like this idea, telling Dawson this doesn’t serve the public interest like when he ordered the CIA to assassinate President Kennedy.
Eventually, this all leads to a showdown with Dawson Tower, with Golgo 13 fighting off demented assassins while avoiding gunfire from several attack helicopters. This is a movie about evil people doing terrible things to one another. By the way, I learned years later that Takeo Saito, the creator of Golgo13, actually wrote James Bond comics for Japanese audiences. This makes me wonder if Takeo Saito saw James Bond as an assassin, no better than a man like Duke Togo.
Streamline Pictures was instrumental in bringing state of the art Japanese animation to the United States back in the early 90s. It wasn’t marketed as anime like it is now. There was no existing audience for Japanese animation like there is today. A man named Carl Macek brought features stateside for distribution under his Streamline Pictures label. These features were often dubbed in English and released on videocassette. On cassette cases you’d often find a “NOT FOR KIDS” sticker fixed to the box featuring a caricature of a confused, freckle-faced young boy. These stickers always disturbed me, my mind conjuring images of young children being irrevocably scarred by witnessing animated sex and violence. NOT FOR KIDS stickers also elicited my feelings of guilt over not watching something more wholesome, but I couldn’t turn away from the exotic nature of these curiosities from Japan.
Which brings us to tonight’s feature, 1987’s Lily C.A.T. from director Hisayuki Toriumi. How does this film earn the “NOT FOR KIDS” label? Well, it’s basically an Alien knockoff with a little bit of John Carpenter’s The Thing thrown in. And we can forgive the movie for this since Alien basically ripped off It! The Terror From Beyond Space. The movie begins with members of the Sincam corporation getting ready for cryostasis aboard the starship, the Saides. Sincam employs people from all over the world. The crews mission is scope out some planet that’s twenty light years away, meaning the crew will be away from Earth for about forty years.
That’s a long time. Heck. If you do two missions, that will be eighty years. Think about all that could change. You’ll come back to Earth, ask for a cool, refreshing Coca-Cola Classic only to discover that New Coke has made a triumphant comeback. Talk about a waking nightmare.
Crewmembers have different reasons for wanting to leave the Earth for forty years. One blonde-haired jock type wants to use the money he earns from the trip to do some serious damage when he gets back while he’s still young enough to do some serious damage. Nancy Strauch (voiced by Julie Maddalena), the daughter of the President of the Sincam corporation, is taking the journey so she can get revenge on the best friend that stole her boyfriend. She’ll show up back on Earth all young and pretty when her friend is old and wrinkly. I don’t think Nancy thought this out. Captain Mike Hamilton (voiced by Mike Reynolds) keeps going on these trips because he’s too out of step with the times whenever he comes back to Earth.
There are also a couple of “time jumpers” mixed in with the regular crew. Time jumpers are fugitives that board starships hoping to hide out from the law for forty years. What else? There’s an alien bacterium absorbing members of the crew into a monstrous mass so that’s creepy. There’s also an evil robot sent by the corporation that’s disguised as a cat. So the crew of the Saides has a lot to worry about. Will they survive? I’m sure at least one of them will. That’s how these Alien movies tend to go.
I’ve got nothing prepared this week. Digging up schlock from decades upon decades of film is hard work. I took a break and went to movies, went to check out the latest James Cameron milestone, Alita: Battle Angel. Not that James Cameron directed it, that duty fell to Robert Rodriguez, but whatever. I’ve liked his movies, too. He directed Planet Terror, a movie that spoofed that much-revered classic, Nightmare City. Without Planet Terror, there may not be a Museum of Schlock, so kudos.
But Alita: Battle Angel isn’t schlock, but perhaps it has schlock origins? The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines schlock as “of low quality or value.” Certainly Japanese animation was at one point considered to be of low quality or value. Maybe it was because Japanese animation studios toiled under greater budgetary restraints than that of their American counterparts. Maybe it was because they didn’t hit the number of frames per second that their American counterparts strived for. Maybe it had something to do with anti-Japanese sentiment that was still rampant in the 1980s, a holdover from World War II. I used to hear the term “cheap Japanese cartoons” being tossed around when I was a kid, no doubt intended to discourage kids like me from watching Robotech or The Mysterious Cities of Gold. It didn’t work.
But being into Japanese animation was strange. Heck, being an adult who was into American cartoons was considered strange, but being into exotic cartoons from the Land of the Rising Sun? Forget about it. There were no fandoms back then except for Star Trek fans. No conventions or cosplay–except for Star Trek fans. I didn’t have Internet access until 1995. There was no connecting with people of similar weird interests. You got little exposure to things outside of the mainstream, having to rely on word of mouth and friends brave enough to fork over money for expensive VHS tapes featuring the latest in state of the art Japanese animation. One day, a friend loaned me a VHS tape titled Battle Angel Alita.
Battle Angel Alita was what was known as OVA in Japan. It’s an abbreviation for Original Video Animation. This was animation produced solely for those purchasing it on VHS or Laser Disc. These were usually limited series featuring animation of a higher quality that what was made for television. OVAs are notorious for being unfinished. In just two 30-minute episodes, Battle Angel Alita introduced me to a teenage girl cyborg fighting for justice and survival in a scrap-heap city lorded over by a city of elites that floated above them in the sky.
I think it was after Titanic got released that James Cameron said he was going to make a movie based on a Japanese comic book titled Alita. While I appreciated that Cameron was a fan of this underground comic, I never expected this project to get off the ground. Never in a million years did I expect an adaption of some VHS Japanese animation I borrowed from a friend in the mid 90s to be turned into a movie with a huge budget, state-of-the-art special effects, and an all star cast. And the movie is great, the best blockbuster of the year. Stop reading and go see it. I want a sequel.
And we will be covering anime features from the 1990s for the rest of this month. Until next week.
Late in January, first thing in the morning, I received this on Facebook messenger: ‘You want to laugh at kids being groomed again come to my gym and do it on the mats. Will knock your ass straight the fuck out so a [sic] can laugh at you.’
The correspondent alluded to a Ren & Stimpy Facebook post in which he mentioned creator John Kricfalusi’s misdemeanours with minors.
His first message was followed by: ‘Will be sending a pic of you laughing to Eland book [my British publisher] see how they feel.’
A screen shot of the email he sent to the publisher popped up.
After contemplating the dizzying possibilities inherent in me rolling on a gym mat with a sweaty stranger, I pulled myself together and replied: ‘I don’t know who you are or what you are talking about. As someone who was sexually molested as a child, I do not find grooming amusing in the least.’
Back he came with: ‘Fuck you very much. Prick. Well you laughed at it. Why if thats [sic] the case.’
Sucker for punishment said: ‘Let me be very clear. I like Ren and Stimpy cartoons. That is not the same thing as approving child molestation. I often press like on Ren and Stimpy posts. To my knowledge I’ve never laughed at any cartoons about child grooming, something which horrifies me. Given my own experience as a child. Again I do not know what you are talking about.’
His reply: ‘Well I’m sorry Demtri [sic] you clearly hit the laugh and my post highlighting him grooming kids.’
Followed by a screen shot of the Ren & Stimpy post in question. Sure enough (much to my horror) I had pressed Laugh on his comment about Kricfalusi.
He went on to say: ‘You clearly did it. Am sorry for your experience thats [sic] horrible but it confuses my [sic] to why you done it then. You can explain it to your publishers.’
I explained it was probably a mistake when I was trawling comments to the Ren & Stimpy video. And I apologised for upsetting him. He accept the apology, adding that he will send another email to my publishers ‘suggesting it could possibly be a mistake.’ (Note the wording.) He signed off by saying he works in community development with victims of abuse.
I don’t bear the man a grudge. I’m not angry. He sounds sincere and well-meaning, if rather volatile. This is not about him. It’s about a phenomenon. Trolling. Call-out culture. Call it what you will.
I am astounded a stranger—someone I’ve never met and who knows nothing about me—can threaten violence, make vile accusations and fling about damaging insinuations; and then escalate the matter by including business associates in what is obviously a foolish error, something that could be sorted out in minutes if he and I engaged in civil conversation.
The intention was clear. Counting me among the worst offenders, he wanted to sully my relationship with my publisher and thus affect my livelihood. Why? Because a Ren & Stimpy fan, dizzy with laughter, mistakenly pressed Laugh on a comment about child grooming.
In the age of emotional upheaval and indignation, laughter (albeit mistaken) is complicity. Woe betide a dark or perverse sense of humour! On the internet individuals can now take it upon themselves to police behaviour and act as judge and jury, condemning willy nilly, certain of right doing.
Mature conversation goes out of the window. To say nothing of consideration and some degree of self-control.
I wouldn’t speak to the lowliest specimen like that. (Well, maybe a politician.) It seems untoward and rude. It’s no way for civilised human beings to conduct themselves in civil society. Given the far-reaching consequences, it’s tantamount to terrorism.
Only, of course, it’s happening invisibly and at a distance on the internet. We need never meet to destroy one another. Thus we need take no responsibility for the fallout. We need only sit back and enjoy our handy work.
How could you live with yourself if you got it wrong? Or doesn’t that matter when you’re piously beating your breast?
Even if I had deliberately pressed laugh, so what? It is not a crime to laugh. Given the subject matter it might be ethically and morally reprehensible. It might be in bad taste. But it’s still only laughter. It’s not the actual doing. Nor does it mean that one approves the crime.
People who go on the attack like this are ruled by their emotions. One word and they flare up. They’re offended. Their feelings are hurt. Now they will punish you. A scorched-earth policy rules. They have no self-control whatsoever.
If words can throw you into such turmoil, it means any one can control you. Anyone can press your buttons whenever they wish. Whereas true power resides in restraint. Sit back, take a breath and let it roll. Choose your battles.
When I mentioned the incident to friends, they laughed. ‘Welcome to the internet,’ they said. It appears I got off lightly. Lives have been destroyed for less. Offend online and you’re a goner. Might as well pack your bags and go live in the Vatican.
The double irony hit home when it was over.
Not only did this business happen because of Ren & Stimpy (an absurdist cartoon that sends up ugly behaviour), it also made a bad into a good. Getting molested as a child turned out to be a blessing for me in this instance. Something that blights my life, saved my bacon. If I hadn’t been fiddled with, I’d have no recourse against the march of the true believer—those who shoot first and never ask questions.
Dmetri Kakmi (Episode 158) is a writer and editor based in Melbourne, Australia. The memoir Mother Land was shortlisted for the New South Wales Premier’s Literary Awards in Australia; and is published in England and Turkey. His essays and short stories appear in anthologies and journals. You can find out more about him here.
Batman Day has come and gone. The Sewer King display at The Museum of Schlock was a resounding success with a whole five patrons’ eyes transfixed on the five animation cells from The Underdwellers episode of Batman: The Animated Series that John King purchased for around $76,000.
Now, while the Sewer King may be my favorite Batman villain, Gorilla Grodd is my favorite DC villain of all time. He’s the Flash’s arch-nemesis, a hyper-intelligent, evolved gorilla with psychic powers. What more can you ask for in a super villain? Imagine my elation that he’s front and center in the Japanese-animated production, Batman Ninja (Ninja Battoman in Japan), from director Junpei Mizusaki with character designs from Takashi Okazaki, the creator of Afro Samurai.
The animation is among the best ever created anywhere.
We will be covering the Japanese language version of this movie not the English language dub which features a different script.
I don’t even know where to start with this film. There’s a scene toward the end where a giant Batman (composed of thousands of monkeys and flying bats) fist-fights a giant Joker robot composed of mechanized Japanese castles to the tune of Japanese hip hop. It’s movies like these that remind me of why I do what I do.
Batman Ninja begins with Gorilla Grodd (voiced by Takehito Koyasu) testing out a time/space machine at Arkham Asylum with the inmates as test subjects. Batman interferes, the machine gets damaged, Batman gets sucked through a vortex, and ends up in Feudal Japan. He skirmishes with some local samurai wearing Joker masks, tries to grapple hook out of there before realizing there are no buildings higher than two stories in the town.
Turns out the Joker (voiced by Wataru Takagi) and Harley Quinn (voiced by Rie Kugimiya) are in charge of this part of Japan. In fact, several of Batman’s rogues gallery are lords in charge of different territories. These include Two-Face, The Penguin, Poison Ivy, and Deathstroke. Batman learns all of this from Catwoman (voiced by Ai Kakuma) who informs him that she, the villains, and the whole Bat Family arrived in Japan two years before Batman showed up, something about him being the furthest away from the time portal. The Bat Family consists of Nightwing, Robin, Red Robin (I don’t know who that is.), Red Hood (Isn’t he a bad guy?), and Alfred Pennyworth. Alfred has been busy trying to recreate his fine English cooking in Feudal Japan, even going so far as to ferment green tea leaves to make black tea.
There’s a Bat Ninja clan who believe in a prophesy that a man dressed as a Bat will travel from the future (obviously) and save Japan, restoring order from the chaos.
What else? Gorilla Grodd wants to turn Japan into a safe haven for simians from all over the world. The Joker and Harley Quinn become poor Japanese farmers after losing their memories only to regain them and become super villains once again. There’s the aforementioned battle between the giant Batman and the giant Joker robot. Robin gets a pet monkey. Or does Red Robin get a pet monkey? I don’t know.
My mind is a scramble right now. Maybe it was seeing Bane portrayed as a sumo wrestler. Or maybe it was that hot springs scene with Gorilla Grodd.
But it was all worth it. Every single human being must watch this masterpiece.
Batman Day may be September 15th, but it’s Batman Month here at The Museum of Schlock. I will be dressed as my favorite Batman villain, the Sewer King, a kind of evil version of Fagin from Oliver! Consider yourself at home! Consider yourself one of the family! We’ve taken to you so strong! It’s clear we’re going to get along—I’m sorry. I break out into song whenever I think of Oliver! Where was I? Something about Batman?
Tonight’s feature is 2010’s Batman: Under the Red Hood from director Brandon Vietti. It’s a cartoon as are the other Batman movies we’re featuring this month so if you were hoping for my input on that Batman Killing Superman movie, you’ll have to check back at another time. And while Batman: Under the Red Hood doesn’t feature Batman killing Superman, it does begin with the Joker (voiced by John DiMaggio) beating Robin to death with a crowbar.
This was inspired by that Death in the Family storyline back in the 80s. I remember that being a thing back in the day. How dare they kill off Robin? Then you find out it wasn’t Dick Grayson they killed off, but Jason Todd and nobody really liked Jason Todd, or so I’ve heard. I didn’t read comics growing up. I was too busy watching good American television like Diff’rent Strokes and Mr. Belvedere.
Ten years pass and Gotham is as much a cesspool as it’s always been. A man known as the Black Mask (voiced by Wade Williams) is running organized crime in Gotham City. He looks like a guy who had a Halloween mask super glued to his face in what I assume was a fraternity prank gone wrong. Black Mask controls the drug trade until another masked man shows up on the scene, the Red Hood (voiced by Jensen Ackles).
He offers the drug peddlers a deal. Work for the Red Hood instead of the Black Mask and give him forty percent. They just can’t sell drugs to schoolchildren. In exchange, he’ll offer them protection from the Black Mask and the Batman.
Batman (voiced by Bruce Greenwood) is teamed up with Nightwing (voiced by Neil Patrick Harris), the first Robin, Dick Grayson, not the second Robin, Jason Todd, who got murdered by the Joker at the start of the movie. I think some of Red Hood’s goons were stealing a killer robot from the Black Mask who was trying to smuggle it out of the country. Batman and Nightwing destroy the robot, start questioning the goons, but the goons get shot and killed by the Red Hood. As the turf war between the Red Hood and Black Mask escalates, Batman keeps investigating the mysterious Red Hood having a few altercations with him along the way. He seems to know a bit about Batman. He even calls him Bruce. Hmmmmmmmmm…
Later in the movie, Black Mask gets so desperate that he breaks the Joker out of Arkham Asylum to take care of the Red Hood for him.
That’s never a good idea, and Black Mask knows this, but what choice does he have? It all comes to a head, but I’m not going to give away the twist ending. Tune in next week—same Bat-time, same Bat-channel!
An Interview with Brendan Hay, Producer & Writer of “Harvey Street Kids”
By Chuck Cannini
After his animated show about cave people, Dawn of the Croods, finished its final season on Netflix, Brendan Hay teamed up with DreamWorks Animation again to create Harvey Street Kids. Based on classic characters from the old Harvey comics, Harvey Street Kidsbrings a simple premise about kids who live on a block, very much in the same vein as many early ‘90s cartoons, such as Doug, Hey Arnold!, and Ed, Edd, and Eddy. Brendan Hay also worked on The Daily Show, The Simpsons, and Robot Chicken, as well as wrote the graphic novel Rascal Raccoon’s Raging Revenge. I had the opportunity to speak with Brendan about the behind-the-scenes of Harvey Street Kids, some recommendations for writers, and the writing life.
The Drunken Odyssey: Was there anything you did not accomplish with Croodsthat you wish you had?
Brendan Hay: In that last season we got our weird pie in the sky dreams of doing a baby musical or an episode about the invention of God. I’m sure we could have come up with more stories, but on the other hand it also felt really nice to have a solid resolution that hooks our series up to the feature [film].
TDO: Will you have a hand in the sequel to the film in 2020?
BH: I would have happily taken a hand, but I always kind of knew it wasn’t going to happen. For better or worse, in animation, features and TV are two worlds that don’t cross over too much.
TDO: What would you like people to know about Harvey Street Kids?
BH: One is depending on where you are generationally. We are a throwback to a simpler cartoon. We’re a show that feels very much of the moment, but there is a certain nostalgia infused into it. Aliki Theofilopoulos, the supervising producer and show runner on this, and I keep saying that [the show is] about how childhood feels. Hopefully, some adults can connect to that. Also, as I tried to do with Croodsand will try to do again, we try to be a smart show. We try to make sure we have jokes for all ages. Growing up, I always loved Rocky and Bullwinkle. Watching that show, I would be like here’s a joke that I’m going to have to, at that time, go to a library and open a book to find out. Like, who is Omar Khayyam? I would actually end up researching it and enjoying the show and joke more. For kids, there’s that. For adults, they don’t need the research. They’ll get the idea and they’ll be fine.
TDO: The main characters – Audrey, Dot, and Lotta – are based on characters from Harvey Comics. Did you or your team add anything new to the characters?
BH: Yes and no. We tried to make sure that whatever we’re adding is based on the heart of who the character was originally. Our best example probably being Lotta [voiced by Lauren Lapkus]: in the old comics, she is a kind of character who just has an outsized love and enthusiasm for things. She also is very big and very strong by comparison to the other kids. It was amazing how pretty much all the old stories were about how Lotta gets hungry and eats crazy amounts of food. Well, we’re not going to do that. It feels weird reducing her to that. But to take that and make it more like a hunger for life and a hunger for experiences and fun, and keeping that same kind of bright, positive attitude – someone who just wants to try to love and embrace everything – that still feels like it’s still very true to who she is, but we’re not limiting it to the fact that she eats a lot of food.
TDO: Did you or your team contribute your own childhood experiences to the show?
BH: Little details, like we have a sibling relationship that comes in a little later in the series. That’s based on one of our writer’s sibling rivalries in her own life. Our writers and directors and board artists all are bringing a lot of their own childhoods and lives into this show. It’s kind of a fun, cathartic process for us. I remember reading that Freaks and Geeks, when they put that room together, Paul Feig had everybody involved write down three of their most embarrassing teenage stories. They were all shared anonymously, but just to generate ideas. We’re dealing with characters who are more around the age of ten. We didn’t have to go as far as Feig, but it was just us all diving into our childhoods. As we went on, it’s a very collaborative show in general. Everyone on the crew’s childhoods became a part of the show.
TDO: Whose idea was Harvey Street Kids? At what point did you become involved in the project?
BH: There’s one executive, her name’s Beth Cannon, and this show was her idea for a very long time. She saw the potential in these old characters that DreamWorks owned the rights to that were just going untapped. She saw this great idea: a female-driven comedy. She reached out to a whole lot of different people to find the right take. There’s a writer / animator named Emily Brundige. She had a really strong take on the characters and how to put this all together. So she put together a bible for what our series became. She left the project before I came on. So when I came in, they already had this great idea. Here is this great-looking world and there are these great ideas for characters. We then just got to take them and play with them and create stories.
TDO: What is an average day like for you working on a show like this?
BH: The days vary. When I started a few years ago, especially if you’re the show runner / producer, it’s mostly writing. Early on it was just a lot of talking with the writers, generating story ideas. We were still trying to define who everybody is and what their voices were, and what are the types of jokes that we do. I’ll be there to break the story initially, then I will read the draft that they put together. By the end of it, it’s mostly producing. I think the metaphor we keep using is plate spinning. I come in, sit down with the writers for 20-30 minutes to talk about the story they’re working on. I give them my notes, my feedback, and they work off that. Then I’ll jump into watching a storyboard pitch or an animatic screening and give my notes on that. Then I’ll jump out to a record with our voice cast; I also have to be a voice director on this show. Then we’re doing postproduction, so we might be going over sound effects or music spotting. It’s just basically checking in on every department, giving notes, keep that plate spinning, and make sure there isn’t a pileup at any one point on that process, on anybody’s process, that’s going to back up the whole show. A lot of writing ends up done at home. At night, I’ll finally take a pass at an outline. It’s usually when I’m not in the office just because the office is usually split between every other department.
TDO: What is your writing process?
BH: There are two different ways, especially in TV. There’s group writing and then there’s where I do it myself. When I have to write I like to brainstorm while I drive. I just put on my phone’s microphone feature. I just talk out all the possible permutations or ideas and it’s kind of like free-associating what might work. I jot down my notes from that, then I’ll pitch that to the writer’s room. We talk about things that work or don’t work. We use Dan Harmon’s story circle method. For the actual writing process, I’m very much somebody who needs to figure out ways to cut out distractions. I like either doing “writing sprints,” where I’m only going to work for thirty minutes or an hour. That helps me stay super focused and not go on social media or stuff like that. I also started using this app called Focus At Will, which finds instruments that accompanies you and your writing or your personality. It’s suppose to help you cut down distractions. I also like writing in public. Weirdly, it chains me to focus. So I’m big on writing in a coffee house or a restaurant. If people are going to be watching me, I don’t mind them seeing me, but I don’t want them to see me on Facebook.
TDO: When I talk to young and/or aspiring writers I often hear about “the struggle.” They talk about the industry as though it’s beyond their reach. For animation, do you think these younglings have all they need to create works of their own? Is it accessible?
BH: They can … with some caveats to that. It depends on what kind of work you want to do. The plus side now is that I think the tools are there to do it yourself, especially for animation. If you can draw at all or create any kind of moving figures in art and then use a flash animation program that’s relatively simple to use from your own home, you can absolutely create your own short to help sell your own idea. Thank God for being now able to shoot a comedy short or a dramatic short or whatever you want on your phone! Post it online! Get it out there! I think it’s better to create something and get it out there than to just while away on one script in a filing cabinet and never share it with the world. Between those two options, when you’re trying to break in, just keep trying your own things. Create your own shorts. Create your own scenes. There are radio plays, there are podcasts – I think those are a really good way to go.
TDO: And if they want to break into the industry?
BH: I will say for anybody who wants to break in as a writer – the TV side of things at all, animation included – it is possible to break in through production. Not that those jobs are easy to find, but they’re slightly easier than finding writing jobs. Production is a good way because then you also learn more about the process, meet people in the specific industry you want, and just work your way up through that. Look for those internships and production gigs and know that it’s not going to mean that you’re writing. You might have five years where you’re just kind of toiling in the trenches on other stuff, but you’ll be learning that whole time and meeting people who will help you get to the next spot that you want to get to. Try to get one of those production jobs. Once you get that production job and realize you’re not doing a terrible job at it – six months, nine moths down the road – let everybody there know what you want to do is write. Try to talk to the writers and ask for their advice. Let everybody know that if they have a writing assistant gig or any opportunity, start letting them know that you’re interested. And if they think you’re really showing your chops and you’re a good PA, they’ll let you know. That’s basically what worked for me.
TDO: Anything of note that you’re reading right now?
BH: Still loving all of Brian K. Vaughan’s Saga and Paper Girls. Two comics I definitely want to recommend are Image Comic’s The Fix by Nick Spencer and Steve Lieber and Dark Horse’s Black Hammer by Jeff Lemire. The Fix is a really fun crime comic if you like the movies of Shane Black at all. Black Hammer– I’ve only read the first volume of that so far – is really moving and sweet and sad but interesting take on superheroes and superhero comics. Another Image Comic: Curse Words by Ryan Browne and Charles Soule. Curse Wordsis super fun. Just ridiculous if you ever want … I don’t know how to describe that one … magical comedy action? It’s just a wonderfully weird little book. On the book front, I’ve been on a humungous music bio kick lately. The one I’m currently reading is off to a really good start. It’s called Meet Me in the Bathroomby Lizy Goodman, which is an oral history of New York’s rock scene in the early 2000s. It’s just a fun deep dive on a whole lot of bands, some that I love and some bands that I didn’t even really know about. It’s a really fun look at the scene at that time. My favorite that I read over the past year – and I’ve read four or five – was the biography called Trouble Boysby Bob Mehr, the book about the band called The Replacements. I thought I had done a deep-dive into that band before, but in this book every other page had something I had never known. So just the depth of the access of history that Mehr gets into with that band really impressed me.
TDO: How about animation?
BH: More than anything: Bob’s Burgers. That show remains the one constant of anything I watch on TV. Recently, I was just watching some Craig of the Creekon Cartoon Network, which is a really charming new show. I’m really enjoying the characters on that. And DreamWorks – I’ll support my own company – they’re doing some nice work.
TDO: Where else can followers look for more information about Harvey Street Kids?
BH: The first thirteen episodes will launch on June 29th. I think in that whole lead up until then, go to the Harvey Street Kids Facebook page. There have already been a few extra clips released. We’ll have more and more stuff coming out in the lead up to the 29th. If you really like the show, follow Aliki [Theofilopoulos] and me on Twitter.
Chuck Cannini grew up on a diet of animation, including Disney classics, Pokémon, and Ed, Edd, and Eddy. One day, he had to choose between a new episode of Dragon Ball Z and his first middle school dance. Years later, after he graduated with a B.F.A. in Creative Writing for Entertainment, he realized he should have chose the former.
This might be the most violent animated motion picture I have ever seen. Hell, this might be the violent motion picture I’ve ever seen. Fist of the North Star begins with the world being nuked into oblivion. Must have been the Soviets. Or maybe it was Matthew Broderick. At any rate, you see the full horror of that nuclear fallout, people stumbling around as their skins melt off. The aftermath leaves the world a wasteland reminiscent of the Mad Max movies. Only the strong survive in this cruel, new world.
