Riddle: Who is most qualified to "give notes" to a cartoonist:
A plumber? A nuclear physicist? An animation director? A public defender? Or a duck?
A plumber? A nuclear physicist? An animation director? A public defender? Or a duck?
I sat down the other morning to do my business and grabbed a magazine to thumb through. It was "Animation Magazine", the magazine about executives.
It made me think to myself, "I wonder what makes an executive tick? How do you go about being an expert on things you can't do yourself?
What background, experience and study qualifies you to tell cartoonists how to cartoon?
Well, lo and behold the answer was in the magazine. There was a whole page devoted to answering all these mysteries! Let me share it with you.
If you thought about it for a minute what would you think would qualify someone to tell cartoonists how to make cartoons?
Having made some popular cartoons? Of course not. Having drawn a cartoon picture once? Nah...Having told a funny story to somebody and they actually laughed? Don't be silly.
Of course!If you can defend burglars, murderers and wife beaters, I guess you can defend just about anything, even not having any logical qualifications to boss cartoonists around!
But then, surely you'd have to have some talent.... at least in a distantly related field, right? There has to be some way you can relate to creative people.
"I can't act and I can't sing." I'll have to put that on my resume when I go out trying to get a job in entertainment!What would I have to do to trick you into buying a show from me?
I'm gonna go back and rework all my characters so that they have transcendent adjectives! That's what the kids want in their cartoons!
"Reaaaaallly think about them"......after all, I've never created a world of characters, but I sure have some theories about it."Poor old Tex Avery would fail under this criteria (Believing in his world of characters).
Do cartoonists ever make you roll your eyes patronizingly?
Can I say, "It's gonna be breakout like Sponge Bob?"So basically to sell a show, you don't really have to have a good show or any experience. You have to know how to trick an executive with your enthusiastic and pretend sincere pitch.
If you can jump up and down and wear a retro outfit and make wacky faces, and listen sincerely to his "I can't act, write, draw or sing" comments, then you're in.
Tell him you "Believe in yourself." They eat that shit up!
A funny anecdote:
I actually did all these exact things in front of this very public defender and surprisingly, he didn't have any comments about the stories or the worlds of characters.
He was however intensely interested in my pants. "Where did you get those awesome jeans?"
Unfortunately, the pants weren't quite good enough to sell a world that day. Later, I burned the pants and sent them down the Ganges River to a better world.
(BTW, he isn't the only exec to focus on the pants during my pitches; it seems to be a common occurence)
What's your greatest preposterous fantasy?
Another mystery to solve!Which part of the cartoon does an executive "make"? The drawings? The story? The voices? The colors? Can anyone help me out here? Have you seen one make something? Is there a photo of it happening?
I think I will make a hit song by telling a musician to write one and play it for me. But I'll make sure he plays it off key by giving him arbitrary notes.
The amazing thing about all this is that someone who went to law school - to learn about the logic of argument, in order to subvert logic to win court cases would willingly present his completely illogical qualifications, boldly in public -where all his little zany cartoonist worker bees could read it! That's even wackier than Sponge Bob!
Here, check out this rap sheet.
EpiLOG:
Is there an executive bolder than this? Share your stories.
