Disney's "The 7D" -- Some of the Crew Members -- Part 1

For the past year or so, I've been working with an incredible team of artists, directors, writers, actors, musicians, producers and creative network execs on a new animated series called "The 7D," which will premier on Disney Junior sometime in 2014.   Here are just a few of the characters who have come together to help make this show happen...

Above:  an afternoon stroll by some of the crew, including (left to right) Paul Rugg (writer and the voice of Lord Starchbottom), Randy Rogel (series writer), Charles Visser (series director), Roger Eschbacher (writer), Deanna Oliver (series writer), Carson Kugler (storyboard artist), Kevin Frank (storyboard artist), Alfred Gimeno (series director), David Shair (storyboard revisions), Sherri Stoner (story editor and writer), Barry Caldwell (storyboard artist) and Roger Dondis (storyboard supervisor).

Lunch at the Sonora campus commissary with Kevin Michael Richardson , series composer Parry Gripp, and Emily Hart, who is the network executive on the series.  In addition to her creative input on The 7D, Emily is also Disney Junior's Executive Director of Programming. 

Series art director Frank Montagna and background designer Brad Gake.  

Writer Paul Rugg is given brilliant script notes by a visiting Amish woman.
 

Animaniacs Pose Sheet by Dan Haskett

Here's an Animaniacs pose sheet of Wakko and Dot by Dan Haskett, one of the great animation artists who worked on the series. 

This batch of drawings comes from 1992, a year before the series aired, when Wakko did not yet have the whiskers added to his cheeks.  Dan joined other huge talents like Rich Arons, Ken Boyer, Lynn Naylor, Barry Caldwell, Alfred Gimeno and many others to bring life to the early inspirational drawings of Yakko, Wakko and Dot and the other Animaniacs cast members.

Tiny Toon Adventures on DVD: How I Spent My Vacation

Coming August 14, 2012, on DVD:  Tiny Toon Adventures' How I Spent My Vacation. 

Above:  On the left, the new artwork for the 2012 DVD cover.  To the right, the artwork on the VHS cover, when "How I Spent My Vacation" was first released in 1992 as the first direct-to-video original animated feature.  

Back then, the folks at Warner Bros. Home Entertainment were dedicated to the notion that short movie titles were the only way to go, so they insisted that we change our original title, "How I Spent My Summer Vacation," to the insignificantly shorter title that omitted the word "summer."   

These are the same marketing geniuses who demanded that we change the title of the Animaniacs direct-to-video feature from "It's a Wakko Wakko Wakko Wakko Wish" to "Wakko's  Wish."  

I much prefer our original titles on both.  

As for the cover art, new and old, above  --  what can I say?   It's like the current regime at Warner Bros. isn't even trying.    

The People Who Made "Tiny Toons" and "Animaniacs" -- Part One

Here's Part One in a gallery of some of the very talented people responsible for making Tiny Toon Adventures and Animaniacs.


Barry Caldwell

Barry Caldwell, director, designer and storyboard artist on both Animaniacs and Tiny Toons, is pictured here in his office at Warner Bros. Television Animation in Sherman Oaks, California, circa 1994. 

Among Barry's many achievements, his story board designs breathed new life into the personalities of Babs Bunny, Shirley the Loon, Fifi LaFume and Elmyra in many of the best Tiny Toon episodes, including "Prom-ise Her Anything" and "Fields of Honey."  

And Barry's boards and direction gave us some of our funniest and most memorable Animaniacs segments, including "Bumbie's Mom," "Sir Yaksalot," "Ragamuffins," "The Flame Returns" and "Puppet Rulers."  

 

Also on Animaniacs, Barry directed both the first Minerva Mink cartoon produced ("Meet Minerva") and the first Mindy and Buttons cartoon produced ("Cat on a Hot Steel Beam").


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The People Who Made "Tiny Toons" and "Animaniacs" -- Part Two

Sherri Stoner

Sherri Stoner served as a writer, story-editor and producer on Tiny Toon Adventures and Animaniacs.  Here, she holds up one of the segment cards from Tiny Toons.

Sherri started writing cartoons with Babs Bunny's very first Tiny Toons script, "Debutante Devil," and Sherri hasn't stopped since.  She wrote a bunch of Tiny Toon episodes that have become fan-favorites, including "Hollywood Plucky," "Fields of Honey" and "Thirteen Something."  

In the photo above, Sherri stands in front of the Wall of Cards, which we used to build half-hour shows from various segments, each segment written up on an index card.  Sherri is holding up the card for the Tiny Toons segment "Milk It Makes A Body Spout."

By the way, directly behind Sherri is a Steven Spielberg Bop-Bag, drawn by Bruce Timm (on the back of a Yogi Bear Bop-Bag™.)   This sits in my office to this day, still fully inflated with 1992 air!  

On Animaniacs, Sherri not only helped write and produce the series, but provided the voice for one of the show's stars, the cranky octogenarian, Slappy Squirrel.  

Above, Sherri and fellow Tiny Toons story-editor Paul Dini  celebrate Easter 1991 by posing with the Easter Bunny at the Sherman Oaks Galleria.  Apparently, Paul was traumatized by the bunny and had a meltdown.