ANIMATED SHORTS: DIDIO REMEMBERS REBOOT, CHUCK MCCANN AND MORE

[MattBrady]

DIDIO RECALLS REBOOT
CHUCK McCANN PT. 2, BOONDOCKS WINS PEABODY & MORE

by Steve Fritz

In the early 90’s a bunch of mad Brits and Canadians were feeling pretty good. They had set the MTV ablaze with a video they produced for Dire Straits entitled “Money For Nothing.” The short was an eyeful, it was completely computer animated, the first ever to grace the network’s, much less the public’s, eye. It was even best music video that year.

Now Gavin Blair, Ian Pearson, Phil Mitchell and John Grace had a problem. What would they do next? After one pint too many, Pearson had a brain storm. Everyone else sitting at the table called him “daft.” That didn’t stop them though.

The idea was named ReBoot. When it debuted on Canada’s YTV and the US’s ABC in 1994, it became the first CGI-generated TV series to grace the small screen. It jumpstarted not only one of the most innovative animation studios of the last twenty years, Vancouver’s Mainframe Entertainment, but also a new way to do animation.

Unfortunately, the series was cancelled by ABC in 1996. The person who had to do it is now DC’s Sr. Vice President Dan Didio.

“I was the program executive over the show and the Saturday morning programming at ABC,” Didio recalled. “One of my early decisions was, unfortunately, to cancel ReBoot.”

Before comic fans decide they have another reason to crucify Didio, understand this, it wasn’t his idea. ABC was acquired by Disney in 1995. One of Disney’s first moves was to totally replace ABC’s Saturday morning programming with Recess, The New Doug and other Mouse-produced programming.

“That was one of the problems we had,” Didio acknowledged. “We were also having delivery problems and the ratings were not as strong as we hoped. But yes, with Disney coming on board they did want to go with a slate of Disney-owned products. So basically, with the exception of Looney Tunes, everything we previously had on our Saturday morning schedule went off the air.”

Another casualty of the takeover would soon be Didio himself, so Pearson himself turned around and gave the man a job, which Didio accepted. Some say it was Pearson’s way of getting revenge. Then again, Didio did stay there until he got the DC job six years later…

“That was absolutely the case!,” Didio laughs. “What really happened was as Disney had an identical department as mine. When that news came out, Ian approached me and said they had already gotten funding for a third season of Reboot from YTV and they needed someone to handle placement.

“Oddly enough, there was a benefit from this. We didn’t have to live US Standards & Practices. We were able to do a lot more adventurous things with Reboot. So we sat down and figured out what would be the 16 episode arc of season three and were off and running.”

And it appears that even though the show was light years ahead of its time, it’s now starting to get the respect it deserves. A book, entitled The Art of ReBoot, has just been published by Arcana. There are rumors their long out-of-print DVDs, which command as much as $100 a piece on Amazon, will be coming back into circulation. There are good reasons for this.

While many acknowledge Mainframe borrowed a page or two from Disney’s film Tron, the differences between the two were still incredible. The series told the tale of the cybercity Mainframe (the studio named themselves after this), which was the heart of a game system. Mainframe is populated by sprites or binomes who’d turn into game characters whenever the system’s owner, called “The User,” wanted to play something. There were also more sophisticated sprites in Mainframe, who retained their core identities inside a game and comprised the central characters.

The bad guys were two viruses that used to be one, the malevolent Megabyte and his “fractured” sister Hexadecimal. On the good side were Dot, her brother Enzo, ancient Phong and Frisket. Beyond the city was the Net, where all manner of other forms of cybernetic life existed, among them the Guardians. One of these guardians was our hero, Bob, and his equivalent of the sonic screwdriver, called Glitch.

By the standards of the mid-90’s, the storyline was extremely radical. That being the case, the artwork was virtually revolutionary. Yes, shows such as Batman: The Animated Series and The Disney Afternoon block were already making waves for their incredible work, but they were still working in the traditional pencil, ink and paint medium. ReBoot was completely CGI, something Tron couldn’t even claim, and the eye candy it generated every week was never, ever seen on the small screen.

It should be remembered there were only two other studios producing anything like Mainframe, Pixar and PDI (now part of DreamWorks Animation). PDI was only just getting off the ground. Pixar’s Toy Story didn’t hit the big screen until Disney cancelled ReBoot.

“It was one of the most extremely creative environments I ever worked in,” says Didio. “Without a doubt it really was one of the best working experiences in my life. Honestly I can’t think back and not have a certain level of pride about what we did at the time. With computer animation being so common place now, we really were paving new ground with every new episode we produced.

“The amazing thing about Mainframe is we’d write scripts about what we would like to do, without ever understanding if we would be able to do it, because many times the software wasn’t in place. But if it made sense for the story, the creative people actually wrote the software for the script.

“What also was different was where everyone else was working on film,” Didio said, “and thus had the time to really work things out, we were working on television and under the gun constantly. Because this was television, we were literally making it up as we were going along. We would start working at 9:00 a.m. every morning. Then we would spend the entire day arguing, plan, fix and write until about 3:00 the following morning. Then we would start again at 9:00 a.m. that day. There really was a sense of there being us against the world.”

What was also important was the studio did survive. In those days in particularly, American networks paid much more than any other revenue source. In fact, a solid deal with a Saturday morning block like ABC could end up being more money than every other source in the world combined. Even though the third season of Reboot would eventually make its way to Cartoon Network, the lost revenues were considerable.

So how did Mainframe survive? Like Filmation in the past, Mainframe realized that toy licenses could do a lot of heavy lifting when it came to bills.

“We worked in conjunction with a lot of toy companies,” Didio said. “Toy companies actually loved the concept of computer animation because the toys literally looked like they were coming to life. The 3-D aspect let the toy companies feel they were seeing the physical manifestations of their products. So they got really enamored with the whole industry.”

The other thing is the shows Mainframe created in the last half of the 90s. They included titles as Transformers: Beast Wars/Beast Machines, Action Man, Max Steel, Scary Godmother and Shadow Raiders. While just about every one was game or comic oriented, they had a creative science fiction/fantasy edge rarely, if ever, seen on TV anywhere.

“What we tried to do which was really different was rather than just make it toys playing with toys, we tried to created depth of character for each series, as well as throw some imagination in there,” said Didio. “When you look at Shadow Raiders, which was called War Planets in the U.S., we were basically handed games where literally planets fought against each other. From there you couldn’t help but come up with a great story. I mean the idea of planets going and smashing against each other worked on so many levels.

“What many people don’t realize is at Mainframe’s peak, which was in the late 90s, we were producing 52 half-hours of original material, plus direct-to-DVD product and commercials, per year. And that didn’t include the materials we were producing for pitches, ideas or development. We were putting out more computer animation than all the other studios combined.”

The only real shame is many of the DVDs based on these shows are now darn near impossible to find. That’s why having a book like Art of ReBoot is such an important addition to what now must be considered the Mainframe legacy.

“The book is wonderful to look at,” Didio concurs. “It was great to read some of the quotes from the people involved. It’s also great to see the series laid out in chronological order and how all the development came into play.”

But all good things do eventually come to an end. A few years back Mainframe was bought out by IDT Entertainment, who in turn sold the studio as part of a package to Rainmaker. The latest incarnation is now responsible for such series as the Barbie, Hot Wheels and Tony Hawk licensed productions. They did have one huge hit in Canada with the series Zixx, but again it never took off over here. Quite frankly, they don’t hold a candle to even the last of the “old” Mainframe shows, such as the MTV version of Spider-Man.

As for many of the principles, Pearson and Blair have formed a new studio, simply called The Shop. Didio openly admits he has enough on his plate just handling all of DC’s printed materials and has nothing to do with the animation side anymore.

CHUCK McCANN PT 2. – Getting Animated.

In the first part of this interview, Chuck McCann had worked his way up from stand-up and second banana to his own shows on various New York City television channels. His incredible ability to improvise, use of puppetry and general ability to keep kids and parents in stitches made him a local star. Now it’s the mid-1960s, and the best was yet to come.

As far back as Howdy Doody or Mickey Mouse Club, kid shows relied on cartoons. Whether it was reruns of classic Looney Tunes, Disney or Van Buren shorts or originals from studios such as UPA, Jay Ward or Hanna-Barbera, these shorts provided needed breaks to change sets, grab one’s breath and, in general, buy time. Chuck McCann was no different.

“Before every show I would go through all of them just so I could be familiar when I introduced them,” McCann recalled. “Doing this I soon started to idolize voice artists like Daws Butler, Mel Blanc and Hans Conreid. When I would later get to work with them that was really a thrill.”

McCann’s ability for creative anarchy and army of voices also got him noticed, particularly by one producer in particular, Al Brodax.

In the mid-60s, Brodax was a particularly big name. He had just scored huge on ABC as the producer/ director of The Beatles animated series, which was the top show of the year, which was produced by King Features. Now it was time for his next project, and McCann would have a heavy role. It was called Cool McCool.

“That was it. That was the baby,” McCann said. “It was amazing because it was only just three of us, Carol Corbett, a wonderful actress, Bob McFadden and myself and we did all those voices. What really did it was while the man behind it all was Bob Kane, but Al Brodax was the real brains. He was already considered a great producer for doing The Beatles animated series. He would also later go on to do their film Yellow Submarine. In fact, we were going to do a sequel called Strawberry Fields--I was going to do the Walrus and other characters--but that fell apart. There’s completed footage of that somewhere.”

McCool capitalized on another huge trend of the day, superspies. In his yellow trench coat and flying car, the series titular hero took on villains such as The Rattler, Hurricane Harry, The Owl and more, usually blowing up a lot of real estate, himself and his friends in the process. The show not only capitalized on anything it could steal from 007, though. It also raided another hit series, Mel Brook and Buck Henry’s Get Smart!. As it was, both shows wound up on NBC. McCool just was on Saturday mornings.

“Yeah. It was,” McCann concurs. “So what we were doing was satirizing a satire. Get Smart was satirizing 007 and we were satirizing them with the wonderful characters Bob Kane created. I did about 90% of the voices. Bob McFadden, who was a very talented and wonderful guy, would do the other males. Oddly enough, he could any voice I could do, sometimes better. For instance, with McCool, Cool was supposed to sound like Jack Benny. Bob did Benny. I did Benny. We just thought he did Benny better. From there, we would toss up who would do most of the other characters, and I generally did most of them.”

The show would also become a smash. Although NBC would never order more than its initial run of 40 half-hours, they would then go on and run them for three solid years. Even then, Cool enjoyed a long half-life in syndicated reruns. The series has just recently been released as a nicely priced box set by BCI. A quick viewing would tell you why it’s now so well beloved.

“I never quite figured out who did the animation, but if you look at Cool and Jay Ward’s stuff, they’re both very similar,” says McCann. “I got a feeling they used the same studio as Jay. Whoever they were, they knew how to add the right edge to the humor, especially the designs. They were so skillfully done and they really pulled the money out for the day. Now that it’s out again, you can see just how on top of it they were. It’s no wonder it lasted.”

McCann’s reputation also got the attention of others besides Brodax, too. He got a call from General Mills, who advertised their kids cereals on his shows. There were some very mercantile reasons for this, too. General Mills used a lot of Jay Ward characters such as Bullwinkle to sell their product, but their ad studio was based in New York. McCann’s ability to mimic the likes of Stan Frieberg and Hans Conreid soon made the studios realize it was easier to hire him than fly Ward and company from the left coast.

“The great thing though is I did get to meet Jay, June Foray, Stan Frieberg and all that other incredible talent because I could also do Bullwinkle,” McCann admits. “They were all wonderful people and very supportive.”

But then GM had a new product it wanted to sell. It was a chocolate-based sugary confection it called Cocoa Puffs. The geniuses in advertising also came up with a cartoon character to push it named Sonny The KooKoo Bird. The first person they called to voice him was McCann.

“In fact, I did Koo Koo for the next 17 years,” McCann said. “All they did was show me a sketch and the voice, right down to his line ‘I’m Koo Koo for Cocoa Puffs!’ came right out. I also did Gramps, who would always give him his Cocoa Puffs.”

As one can now imagine, between his live show and calls for voice work, McCann wasn’t just a busy man, he was starting to lose his mind.

“I knew I was in trouble when I walked into a bar and ordered Bosco on the rocks,” he laughed.

The television industry would also have its own effect, as production was moving more and more to Hollywood than stay in New York. McCann was starting to find more work over in California than he was on the East Coast.

“I was flying back and forth so many times I wound up meeting myself at Kennedy Airport,” he joked.

It was time to make the move. In the early 70s, McCann would follow the industry and move to Cali himself.

But McCann’s love for comics and puppets would soon strike again, this time thanks in part to Marvel Comics, Hanna-Barbera and the Krofts.

The New York period of McCann’s life may be over, but that doesn’t mean the legend’s career was. Hardly. We learn more about that next Thursday..

BOONDOCKS WINS PEABODY AWARD

Aaron Magruder’s animated series may still be off the air, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t still getting attention. The Boondocks episode “Return of the King was given one of the top honors in journalism last week, The Peabody Award.

In this episode, lead character Huey fantasizes that Martin Luther King Jr. wasn’t killed in that infamous day in Memphis, but wound up in an extremely long coma. King then recovers, only to be vilified when he refuses to endorse the Iraqi War. That’s when Huey steps in and devises a promotional campaign to bring the spotlight back on King, only again to see it go horribly wrong. At the end of the episode, King delivers a sermon condemning everyone and everything that’s wrong with 21st Century and closes with “I’m moving to Canada.”

At the present time, Boondocks can be seen as reruns on Adult Swim. In one of the net’s recent bumps they hinted the series should be returning by this Fall. The Adult Swim upfront will be held later this month, so hopefully more definitive info will be available at that time.

BECK MONGOLIAN CHOP SQUAD TOURING U.S.

One of the most anticipated Japanese series coming to the Western world is Beck Mongolian Chop Shop, which tells the tale of the formation and success of a young J-Pop band. Now FUNimation, who will be distributing the anime, has announced a band is being formed and will take the band’s music on the road this summer.

This is a promotional event in the spirit of band tours that will feature a screening of the anime series and a downloadable promotional kit containing a poster and graphics to help promote the event at each location. The first three confirmed stops on the Summer Tour are Anime Boston, Anime Mid-Atlantic and Anime Expo.

The Summer Tour for Beck Mongolian Chop Squad is a nationwide tour and is open to conventions of all sizes. Any convention/event that is interested in being included in the Summer Tour can visit www.beckanime.com for more information.

For the record, the DVD will be released in the U.S. on July 10.

NEXT COLUMN: We find out what’s Shakin’ with ATHF actor Dana Snyder, who’s first full length movie goes nationwide this weekend..

[SeamusMcClernan]

Did REBOOT actually have a finale?

Oh, I recommend getting SHADOW RAIDERS on DVD - my kids loved it!!!

[RoiVampire]

man i loved this show, every saturday morning i would get up and watch this

[durkadurka]

Didio was the one to cancel ReBoot?!?!?! DAMN YOU DIDIO!!! YOU RUINED MY CHILDHOOD!!!
The first time you did it you left me hanging, and i am left hanging again after "My Two Bobs!" I want CLOSURE!!!

[Ace]

Oh yeah, Dan.

That's a good one. Give rabid fans more reason to be unhappy with you

[creatorman]

This show was groundbreaking at the time. The stories were fun in a computer nerd sense, but also appealing to animation and comic book enthusiasts. I particularily liked the Fantastic Four inspired episodes, The Code Warrior, and that Thriller/Halloween one. And Matrix was just cool. I never did get to finish the series though. Must get the box set.

[wither]

Damn, i loved reboot, i think it actually had a final couple episodes where they tied everything up.. i havent seen them though ... i miss reboot.

[Sean Walsh]

Originally Posted by SeamusMcClernan

Did REBOOT actually have a finale?

I was not a regular REBOOT viewer, sadly, but I vaguely remember the show returning to do a finale after its initial cancellation. I hope I'm not wrong about that...

And yes, I too thought "Oh geez, another reason for the Didio hate!" as I started reading this article.

[matchesmalone]

I'd like it if Dan Didio would go back to television, to be replaced by someone who didn't allow DC's flagship books to be palgued by lateness and fill-ins.

He's really blown it. The momentum that should have come about with the "One Year Later" ploy is nil. DC's sales have dropped precipitously accordingly. It's ridiculous to have fill-ins for anniversary issues (Action 850) and in the middle of "arcs".

[ziza9]

Be mad at Disney, not Didio. RIF - Reading is fundamental. "Before comic fans decide they have another reason to crucify Didio, understand this, it wasn’t his idea. ABC was acquired by Disney in 1995. One of Disney’s first moves was to totally replace ABC’s Saturday morning programming with Recess, The New Doug and other Mouse-produced programming.

“That was one of the problems we had,” Didio acknowledged. “We were also having delivery problems and the ratings were not as strong as we hoped. But yes, with Disney coming on board they did want to go with a slate of Disney-owned products. So basically, with the exception of Looney Tunes, everything we previously had on our Saturday morning schedule went off the air.”

[Mark Cardwell]

Looks like that THE ART OF REBOOT will have plenty of work by UK comics leg end BRENDAN McCARTHY in it, who was one of the lead designers on the show. Groovy.

[ziza9]

Originally Posted by matchesmalone

I'd like it if Dan Didio would go back to television, to be replaced by someone who didn't allow DC's flagship books to be palgued by lateness and fill-ins.

He's really blown it. The momentum that should have come about with the "One Year Later" ploy is nil. DC's sales have dropped precipitously accordingly. It's ridiculous to have fill-ins for anniversary issues (Action 850) and in the middle of "arcs".

While I am shocked that you showed up to go off topic like this, really just flabergasted, this has nothing to do with Reboot or any of the other story items above.

[froinlaven]

I didn't like this show very much, it was always on when I wanted to watch Dragonball Z. I always thought Beast Wars was better too.

[FatMaleGamer]

It saddens me greatly that a website devoted to reading has so many regular visitors who don't read before they talk.

ReBoot was the shiz-nite. If I rememeber correctly, the series ended on a cliffhanger, with Megabyte promising to hunt down all the good guys.

If I had several million dollars... I'd rectify the situation.

[Banana_Oil]

Originally Posted by wither

Damn, i loved reboot, i think it actually had a final couple episodes where they tied everything up.. i havent seen them though ... i miss reboot.

Season 3 did wrap up most of the plotlines. And the finale included a summary of the series IN SONG.



Never saw Season 4, it aired in Canada and only once on Cartoon Network.

[LRG]

I didn't watch Reboot much as a kid until it started playing on Toonami and then I really got into it.


Make with those new DVDs already!

[MattBrady]

Originally Posted by matchesmalone

I'd like it if Dan Didio would go back to television, to be replaced by someone who didn't allow DC's flagship books to be palgued by lateness and fill-ins.

He's really blown it. The momentum that should have come about with the "One Year Later" ploy is nil. DC's sales have dropped precipitously accordingly. It's ridiculous to have fill-ins for anniversary issues (Action 850) and in the middle of "arcs".

case in point folks - this post is how you derail a thread for your own agenda. See - he starts where you think he may stay on topic of the thread, but immediately shifts to a complaint that has absolutely nothing to do with anything being discussed. Sure - he's petulant and angry, but it has nothing to do with ReBoot, Chuck McCann or anything in the thread. He simply showed up solely to post a negative comment, and spread some of the inner joy that must be at the core of his being - that which makes him such a wonderful person.

Yes - you know people like this in your daily lives - you and some friends are talking about, say, a coach of a football team, and someone will come up, and say, "Yeah, but the games still suck because of the instant replay rule!" and then storm off. A valid point? Perhaps. Even mildly on topic to what you were talking about? Not really. But ah - don't those types just pepper the flavor of the day with the spice that is them and gosh, just make everyone happy?

These message boards are palgued by enough of these types. Please do not do this, and do not add to their number. It's not a "my right to an opinion" thing and its so not a "free speech" thing. It's a manners thing. Remember them, or learn them, do what ya gotta, but use them.

MattB

[JDoudican]

I loved this show.

[dalunt]

reboot was awesome

[Dudemeyster]

Season 4 was basically two tv movies, they got split into episodes later. The second one ended with a cliffhanger.

[ziza9]

Originally Posted by MattBrady

case in point folks - this post is how you derail a thread for your own agenda. See - he starts where you think he may stay on topic of the thread, but immediately shifts to a complaint that has absolutely nothing to do with anything being discussed. Sure - he's petulant and angry, but it has nothing to do with ReBoot, Chuck McCann or anything in the thread. He simply showed up solely to post a negative comment, and spread some of the inner joy that must be at the core of his being - that which makes him such a wonderful person.

Yes - you know people like this in your daily lives - you and some friends are talking about, say, a coach of a football team, and someone will come up, and say, "Yeah, but the games still suck because of the instant replay rule!" and then storm off. A valid point? Perhaps. Even mildly on topic to what you were talking about? Not really. But ah - don't those types just pepper the flavor of the day with the spice that is them and gosh, just make everyone happy?

These message boards are palgued by enough of these types. Please do not do this, and do not add to their number. It's not a "my right to an opinion" thing and its so not a "free speech" thing. It's a manners thing. Remember them, or learn them, do what ya gotta, but use them.

MattB

Thanks for that Matt. More importantly, thanks for putting up the cool article on Reboot. I hadn't thought about the show in a while and this was a good reminder of just how cool it was.

[M. Bloom]

I'd actually consider this a reason to thank Didio. The first two seasons of ReBoot were okay, but nothing special. That third season, though, that was just brilliant. If Didio having to axe ReBoot freed the writers up to create the amazing story arc of season three, then I'm glad he canceled it.

And yes, bring on the new DVDs, please.

[holtom2000]

There were I think 8 episodes in Season 8 (which were bunched into movies on YTV), picking up loose threads from Season 3 (which could have been the series finale)
It all came to a head with a wedding, and surprise, and another final battle with Megabyte.
And yet, as if to piss off everyone, that ended with yet another cliffhanger...
Perhaps that story should be told in a comic, but somehow it seems to me it should appear in animation, perhaps a direct to DVD?
What made this show so great were all in the inside jokes only older viewers would get...
However, we demand CLOSURE!

[VocalMan81]

Originally Posted by ziza9

Thanks for that Matt. More importantly, thanks for putting up the cool article on Reboot. I hadn't thought about the show in a while and this was a good reminder of just how cool it was.

Agreed on both points. This is one of those things that when you finally remember it, a flood of things come back and you realize it was totally great and original. It's like unlocking a chest of awesomeness in your head

EDIT: Nice use of the word flabbergasted earlier, btw. Well done, sir!

[DaVeO]

Originally Posted by Dudemeyster

Season 4 was basically two tv movies, they got split into episodes later. The second one ended with a cliffhanger.

At this point I'll even take a comic book Season 5. You listening Dynamite, Dark Horse or any one else?