Hanna Barbera President Fred Seibert talks about Cartoon Network!

But I got to imagine in that that 30 years of Cartoon Network, not only have you had your ups, you've had your downs, you had your peaks and your valleys, man, and you've had the times that you're most happy about and probably most sad about. Overall, if you could sum up Cartoon Network in one word, one sentence, one phrase, one paragraph. Really, what would you sum up your experiences with Cartoon Network as unique? Yeah, they are as unique as their programing. I mean that in a positive and neg

ative way, you know, when when things aren't going well, they're especially not going well. Adult Swim is its own piece of magic. I've mentioned to you before that Mike Lazo, who was the founding programmer of Cartoon Network, is not only a brilliant programmer, but turned out to be a brilliant, creative soul himself with his creation of Space Coast, coast to coast, and and all of the spin offs that have come out out of there. But, you know, when you look at all those decades of Cartoon Network,

they really, truly embodied those two words, Cartoon and Network. They had the widest range of programing in the space that you could imagine. You know, everything from Huckleberry Hound to Tsunami and everything in between, what he brought forth with Robot Chicken and what we brought forth with everything that Genndy Tartakovsky has done from, you know, from Dexter's, his production of Powerpuff Girls to his creation of Samurai Jack, you know, his his latest cartoons. Where else have you seen

such an original array of creative talent that has populated our industry and beyond and kept so many people happy over the years? Hey, guys, at your host julianne. This week i sit down with fred cipher hanna-barbera's last president. We chat the 30 year anniversary of cartoon network, the trials and tribulations throughout the three decades where Fred thinks the animation industry is headed and so much more. Thanks for listening and enjoy the show. Fred, third time returning guest and we're tal

king Cartoon Network. Man. How are you? Awesome. I'm great. Julian, how are you? It sounds like you're on fire. Oh, man. All in the best possible way. If anybody's on fire right now, it's Cartoon Network in a both bad and good way. However, since we're talking 30 years of Cartoon Network, you were a part a huge part of that 30 years. I mean, without without your tutelage and without your your you're driving the cartoon cartoon and what a cartoon. And then I can't remember what they did. World ca

rtoon premiere's world premiere cartoon without that initiative, we don't have the renaissance of cartoons, man. So first thoughts, whenever I say this, what is it like? Or What do you think about when you think 30 years of Cartoon Network, what comes to your mind? I'm really, really, really old hat. You got to remember, I walked into Hanna-Barbera as an employee there the first time when I was 40 years old. So I don't know about you, but I couldn't even imagine being 30 or 40, no less. 70. So t

hat's what I think about. You know, that being said, I think like it's been an amazing era. You know, I have called a variety of times the new golden age of cartoons. And between Nickelodeon, Fox and MTV and Cartoon Network. You know, we really have lived through a new golden age of cartoons, you know, pure and simple. Absolutely. I mean, when you think about that, that those four those four companies that you just mentioned, obviously you're going to have both positive and negative from each on

e that you can take away from and ask this question to a lot of animators, voice actors, writers and stuff like that. But I want to ask you the same question. When you sit down and you lay your head on the pillow at the end tonight, is there one that you feel the most satisfaction for, whether it's emotional, spiritually, mentally, physically? Do you have one of those companies or one of those initiatives that you started and ran that you. Absolutely. That is the one that is like your golden you

r golden ticket, I guess. Or is that that's the one you look at is the most fondest, I guess. You know, that's really hard to say. Clearly, for me, the scene was MTV. Mm hmm. Right. And I think what we were able to accomplish in MTV is to set the stage that you didn't have to do just more of what had been. You could start to invent what would be. Mm hmm. And I think MTV, in its early years and its first decade, let's say, really set the stage for everyone else in the business to say, let's figur

e out what's right for this audience, what's right for this moment, rather than, oh, we're in the TV business. We need to do what TV channels do. Nickelodeon sort of furthered that, at least it was for me. And then when you get to Cartoon Network, you know, Betty, Colin had been my client and MTV and Nickelodeon. In fact, one of the first calls I got from her about when I went to Turner and she was there, Cartoon Network said, I don't know what we should do. And I said, What do you mean? She sai

d, Well, you know, you always said that we had to be first said, okay, I got to be first. Said, Well, we're second. I said, What are you talking about? And she will. Nickelodeon's the First Kids Network. We're the second Kids Network. And I was like, completely confused. I said, Betty, you're the first Cartoon Network. Yeah, but will anyone care? I said, People love the first. First of anything is great. That's why you need to be first. So you know those experiences that I got in those other pla

ces and that Betty got, you know, to be fair, set the stage for cartoon Network to find its own way, to find its own path. That was really different than anyone else that was out there for better and worse, by the way, sometimes it's better to jorts. Is there a moment in your tenure with Cartoon Network and Hanna-Barbera that you're most proud of? Yeah, the day I got there, I knew I wanted to do a series of shorts, and I think you and I have talked about this before, but the Leonard Maltin and J

erry Beck book, you know the title Better Than Me of Mice and Men was at My Side. That was my spark for understanding what I needed to do in cartoons. And when I walked in the door, I told my boss that that's what I wanted to do. And he told Ted Turner. And they went, No way, I can't do it. So about, I don't know, 18 months, two years later, I was able to convince them that this is what we should do. And I think it really for me personally opened up why I needed to be in the cartoon business. Ri

ght, because I'm always looking for why me. What is it about me that makes this worthwhile for them? And two, that it took what had been the seeds over at Nickelodeon of really sparking people's views of what cartoons could be. And then in my terms, industrializing it so that it was supercharged. Yeah. So convincing, Ted Turner, that what a cartoon was going to be a golden ticket for Cartoon Network is probably my favorite moment there. That's a good no less. No, no less. The great cartoons and

the great creators that have come out of it, obviously. Now, we I don't think we talked too much on the I know we talked on pitching and having the creators come in. And then you guys were you would take them on the road or you would have focus groups to see which cartoon was going to make it, which one wasn't, which one needed work. And Betty broke it down a little bit more. You know, she told us there was a green, yellow and red light. I think it was green, yellow and red. It might have been g

reen. Yellow and orange. Can't remember. But I think it was those three colors. And green was obviously good to go, you know, maybe a little bit of supervision. But they've they've got the they've got everything there that they need. Yellow needs some work. Red was like completely break it down, retool it, everything like that. Which, by the way, I never heard that that was internal. That was internal at Cartoon Network and had nothing to do with at least the decisions I was making. Beautiful. W

as there a grading system? So let's let's talk specifically on how you would do it. Was there no. You wouldn't have a grading system when when they would come in and pitch? Were you guys going or having them come, you know, directly to the office? Would you guys go and, you know, shop some of the up and coming animators school? How would you guys kind of bring in people? Obviously, you had some people there from Hanna-Barbera that were under Cartoon Network as well. But when you guys started loo

king for new talent, would you guys just swim around the pool or was it word of mouth? How did that work? You know, it worked in the most traditional way possible. Mm hmm. One, I went and talked to every human being who would sit with me and let me tell them what it was I was hoping for. Yeah, I was one too. We sent out a press release around the world. Mm hmm. And invited people to come in and pitch. And three, we sent development and staff out to various kinds of places as close as Cal Arts in

Valencia, as far away as Providence, Rhode Island, at the Rhode Island School of Design. And we sort of surveyed what was serviceable in the pre-Internet era. Mm hmm. You know, and but most of the pitches came in, I mean, literally when we announced by press release this new effort, I think over time we got 5000 storyboard pitches for six minute storyboard pitches, but we didn't say yes until somebody actually pitched it in person. And then in those days, in person could literally be in person.

Mm hmm. Or on rare occasions, we did a couple of video conferences from Europe. But that was. Expensive. No, I mean, it wasn't at the time. I don't remember exactly what the tech was. It was let's put it this way, it was a lot funkier than Zoom. I'll leave it at that. That's interesting, man. Was there any now I had this question, so I I'll make sure I reference the person that wrote it. And I think at least on this one might have been one of the other three executives that I've had coming on o

r I've already had on that this question has come up. But looking at it now, obviously 30 years is a very long time ago, right, is when Cartoon Network happened 25 years ago. Roughly is generally where the work now a little bit later than that. So I think it's like 28 years ago was when everything started rolling out for the what it cartoon in the cartoon cartoon. So looking back at it now, is there anything that you wish you would have greenlit? Anything come to mind that you wish it would have

went farther than that pilot? You know, I thought a lot of them were really good. Mm hmm. I will tell you one that I missed entirely. And luckily, a couple of years later, I was able to pick it up, and it turned out great. There's a director named David Watson. Gabe Watson. He most recently did Cuphead. He was the supervising director at Netflix. He had pitched me a cartoon and I, I sort of quickly said no. I mean, I don't think he even came and pitched them. I mean, he pitched in person to me.

But I don't think it showed up in the room. And when I left Hanna-Barbera and started Predator, I had lunch with them. This one day and I said, Is there anybody I should be talking to? He said, Well, you know, you already talked to this guy, Gabe Watson, and he's like, amazing. You should really talk to him again. And so we went to lunch and I said, okay, so what happened? He said, Oh, you know, I did it all wrong. I pitched you all wrong. I brought you in a production storyboard, which is real

ly slow. And I don't think you really understood like what it was I was trying to do, which is I was trying to do a cartoon that felt kind of like Mr. Bean. Mm hmm. And so he came and pitched it. It was called Max's special Problem. And it turned out to be one of the best shorts of the 250 I've done over the years. Yeah, it was, like, unbelievable. In fact, it was so great. I said, Dave, we have to put this together as a series. And he said, Please, please, please, let's not go. And I was like,

What? And I'm like, What? He said, Making this 6 minutes almost killed me. Holy shit. Really? There's so much work to do. This kind of cartoon. I don't know how we would do it as a series. Mm hmm. So he might feel differently today, but that's how he felt back in the day. And it's funny, Dave. Dave was on a couple a couple months back. Fantastic. Because I remember talking to him. I was like, dude, I remember where I was at when time squad his his first one popped and I was like, Dude, I literal

ly faked being sick so I could stay home and watch watch cartoons. And I remember I see this one he said. He said, oh, you were the one you were the one who watched it. But I appreciate you. Faking taken out school so you can so you could stay on to watch the cartoons. Yeah, man. That guy was so great. We talked a lot of cuphead. Cuphead is a phenomenal show too. I didn't know it was a video game beforehand, but watching it, I'm like, Oh, this is this is funny as hell. And then having him on and

him break down the sensibility and going in, it was like his love letter. What I do, this is a love letter to you guys. But Cuphead was a love letter to the cartoons he grew up on. It's a phenomenal cartoon. So I really wanted to do it. I actually it's one of the very few things that I've gone after that got away. Yeah. Man. Well, if we can get that time machine like the head to a time squad, maybe we can redo that one. Yeah. So I guess that's that guy was such, such a cool dude and such a grea

t time. And another thing that we didn't. Yeah, another good thing we didn't really talk about too much. I mean, you kind of happened to stumble along this little cartoon called Adventure Time. There's a lot of fans that watch this and been asking and asking and asking and asking. I know I completely steered clear of it the first two episodes we had on because I felt like it would go not in the weeds in a bad way, but it would get pretty deep because you were there from the inception. So I mean,

let's just start off, man. How did Panel Award come in? Fred I got the show. How did that all transpire? You know, again, fairly simple. And Hanna-Barbera, I started working with a guy called Eric Coleman who was in our animation department. He literally his first job was putting on a white cotton glove and wiping off fingerprints on the cartoon cells that we would sell to, you know, art galleries. So he worked with me in various capacities over the years and became the head of Predator develop

ment. And as part of that, he would go every year there is a junior screening and a senior screening at CalArts. So at the junior screening, one year he went, he looked, he saw Penn's first student film and introduced himself to Penn and said, Hey, let's stay in touch. A year later, he went to the senior screening and saw another of Penn's student films and said, Hey, you have to come and pitch. So it turns out that the earliest version of Adventure Time that I'd never seen the pitch had been pi

tched to Nickelodeon who were trying to copy our shorts thing. They did these one minute shorts things which were not only useless but stupid about the way they went about doing it and they rejected it. Fine. Got it. They came. He came to us a month after he graduated from CalArts and pitched Eric and Kevin Coley, our producer, the creator of Castlevania, by the way, and probably a Nick executive named Claudia Spinelli. They all really liked it. I was living in New York at the time, and I would

come to town once a month, and on the day that I would come in, they would like gather up, you know, all the things they thought might be good to read, pitched to me. And Penn came in and pitched it. I have to say, in certain ways, the weirdest pitch I've ever had, because he came in with a guitar, really. And yeah. And at the beginning of the pitch just started singing and I felt like I was in that movie. There's something about Mary with Jonathan Richman, you know, sort of narrating along the

way. I'm like, Okay, I've never had a pitch like this. So the pitch adventure time, everybody laughed. And at the end of the day, we got together on all of the pitches that had happened and we got to Adventure Time, and I said, Oh, we can't be doing that one. And they're like, What? And I said, Well, you know, this guy's a month out of school. Like, we're not here to make student films. We make world class films here. And, you know, we're not making, like, you know, art films and like an idiot,

I broke my first rule, which is executives. No, nothing, including me. Right. And I was looking at the you know, I was probably let's see, at the time I was in my mid-fifties, like what kind of idiot in his mid-fifties is greenlighting cartoons for kids? And I thought I knew something because we'd had successes. You know, and I looked at the art style and it didn't look like the things I thought would be successful. What an idiot. I'd always been saying, I don't care if somebody pitches a spike

cleaner's. If it's good, we'll do it. So luckily, Eric and Kevin, who loved the pitch, said, Look, you, we have to do this. And I'm like, Well, why? They said, Look, usually in a pitch you have a fake laugh. You try to make everybody feel like you're feeling good about their thing. And so, you know, in this one, you had a real laugh. And there I was. I was busted. Yeah. But to sort of cover myself, I said, Well, let me meet him in person and let me find out a little bit about him. And so Pen cam

e in a couple of days later and I met him and I was like, okay, great, we'll do it. In my mind, it was one of 39 shorts we were going to do, and on a good day, 37 of them were going to fail and fail in the sense of not getting the series. I have to say in that group of 39, we had some fabulous shows that should have been series. But I just figured, okay, one more. They're really into it. I did laugh. That was right. And immediately as he started work, you know, I realized what an idiot I had bee

n. And when we got the film back, it was like, Duh, yeah, you know, like, this is magic. And then, of course. And then, of course, no one at Nickelodeon was interested in actually making it a series. And please, nobody in power was interested in making it into a series. That's wild when you think about how popular that show not was is. So I've been dressed in the same way since I was since I was 16, just some kind of cartoon t shirt, cargo shorts and funky socks, man. So I 100% agree, if somebod

y put a character of me, I'd look, I'd probably hate it because I look, I don't like the character things because I've had a couple of my mom likes. Get those for Christmas for some reason. I understand why she does. She likes getting a caricature of me and the kids and my sisters and brothers every year. That's what she's always asked for. She's asked for like a painting, you know, from the fair, which is I like I said, it's weird, but hey, Mom wanted it, so Mom got it, man. She gave me everyth

ing. So it's the least I can do is a. Fabulous thing I. Can, right? Absolutely. So, you know, as we as we start to almost transition to the fans question because I guess we got quite a bit, man, and they're very good questions. Looking back, like I said, over the 30 years, we kind of had that, you know, retrospective. You said, man, I just feel old, right? But I got to imagine in that that 30 years of Cartoon Network, not only have you had your ups, you've had your downs, you had your peaks and

your valleys, man, and you've had the times that you're most happy about and probably most sad about. Overall, if you could sum up Cartoon Network in one word, one sentence, one phrase, one paragraph, really, what would you sum up? Your experiences with Cartoon Network is unique. Yeah, they are as unique as their programing. I mean that in a positive and negative way, you know, when when things aren't going well, they're especially not going well. Adult Swim is its own piece of magic. I've menti

oned to you before that Mike Lazo, who was the founding programmer of Cartoon Network, is not only a brilliant programmer, but turned out to be a brilliant, creative soul himself. With his creation of Space Coast, coast to coast, and and all of the spin offs that have come out out of there. But, you know, when you look at all those decades of Cartoon Network, they really, truly embodied those two words, Cartoon and Network. They had the widest range of programing in the space that you could imag

ine. You know, everything from Huckleberry Hound to Tsunami and everything in between. What he brought forth with Robot Chicken and what we brought forth with everything that Genndy Tartakovsky has done from, you know, from Dexter's, his production of Powerpuff Girls to his creation of Samurai Jack, you know, his his latest cartoon. And where else have you seen such an original array of creative talent that has popular in our industry and beyond and kept so many people happy over the years? Abso

lutely. Man without a Cartoon Network is like, guys, man, there's so much that you said it's crossed so many barriers, so many hurdles. It's flooded into live action. It's flooded into regular life, man. I see. I never as a little kid, maybe I'm just putting this self put putting this on my six year old, eight year old, ten year old self. Back then, when I was really deep in Cartoon Network, you couldn't pull me away from the TV on Friday nights, man, because Friday nights, Saturdays, any chance

that I got if I could say, Mom, I'm not feeling good, I'm sick, I'm playing hooky, I'm staying home and watching Cartoon Network, man, I don't know if I've ever told you the story, but when Ed Eddie and this is after after you left by Ed and Eddie comes on, I had gotten a bird and fans apologized. But this is a fun story. I had a bird and his name was Nacho. A little cockatiel, right? As a fat kid. Still a fat kid now. But I loved eating food, so his cheeks were really rosy, like nacho cheese,

right? So I was like, I'm going to name him Nacho. So for every day, whenever I would get up at 630 in the morning, 6:00, and Eddie was generally the first cartoon on on Cartoon Network. And I don't know if you remember that theme song, but it started out with the whistle. It went, Damn, I can't whistle. And that's how it would start. So every day for a year, my bird was annotated with this soundtrack, right? So marks Mark the first day of summer, right? I'm sitting in bed trying to sleep and at

601, this bird eyes popped open and starts whistling this song. I was like, You son of a bitch! But it was the coolest thing ever because my bird was in that theme song, you know? So you guys not only inundated us as little kids with how beautiful this network is, could be and should be boring. What's happening now I do not like to get is negative on the show as I try to be as positive as possible. Barring what's going on now with the complete just purging of Cartoon Network shows and creators

and everything that's kind of going on with HBO, Netflix, Hulu is doing it. Amazon let let's let's look at you just hit the nail on the head. The media industry is in chaos. Yes. And and it's no more a cartoon Network than it is Nickelodeon, than it is at HBO, than it is at Paramount. Plus, some of it is at Netflix, etc., etc., etc.. Disney, the you know, when I got into cable TV, I was one of the earliest employees in modern cable TV at MTV. We thought we were going through a revolution that in

retrospect, all we were going through was an evolution, which is we were taking what television was. We were giving you a lot more and we were starting it differently. But it was still television. Yeah, the modern era of streaming is not television as we know it, you know, and nobody, including the leaders, the so-called leaders at Netflix, have figured it out. And we're going to be going through this rough period for years and years, probably long after I get out of the business. Right. Becaus

e no one has figured out how it all works. Yeah. So God bless Cartoon Network. God bless all the rest of them. Everyone is figuring out it isn't pleasant. It certainly isn't pleasant for people who do what I do and my creators. But it's inevitable when you go through a revolution that there's like a lot of blood on the ground. Yeah. And great new things come out of it. Absolutely, man. I mean, I don't know how many times I've seen it, but throughout all of my travels, one of the prettiest places

that ever been in my life is Washington State. My first duty station, a station, Bremerton, Washington. My wife was, I want to say, probably five months pregnant with our oldest son, Hayden, and we got a three day weekend. I've it's crazy when I think about it. I got more time off in the military than I ever have as a civilian working out. I'm good at it. But so I got a three day weekend when I was when I was in the Navy. And then we we go up, I think it was Mount Olympia or, you know, somethin

g, Olympia, Olympus or something like that. Beautiful big mountains gapes up there in the Pacific Northwest, and we drove all the way up to the top of the mountain. And you could look in those big binoculars and you could see out and there was a there was a lady there. And then she was like, you see all of that? And I said, Yes. I was like, What happened? She was like, Lightning struck. It was a very dry in a burnt everything to the ground for hundreds of acres. And I was like, wow, that's reall

y sad. And she's like, You would think it's sad, but think about it this way. With everything that was burnt down to the ground, she was like, Zoom in on those binoculars. What do you see? I was like, I see a lot of green. She's like, Exactly. You have to burn a forest to regrow a force. She was like, This forests in 20 years is going to be more abundant, bigger, greener than it ever was before the fire. And that's what I equate what's going on right now. Obviously, it is very clear. I hope you'

re planning your trip back. Oh, I would love to. Check it out. I'm hoping so, because that was in 2000. 2009. 2010 was when we were there. Last I tried to get my wife to move back. She's like, it rained all the time. I don't want to go back. I was like, I know, but I'm a red headed. She's right. She is. I live in Florida, so the sun is my enemy. I am natural at odds with the sun being a red headed dude. It is my time to shine, no pun intended in Washington state where the sun doesn't shine. But

yes, I'm hoping that obviously there is some dark times going on right now, but hopefully something good will come out of it. Do you. Have. When you look at what's going on, obviously you're not in Cartoon Network or HBO or any of the people that are having just an upheaval right now. But when you look at it as as what you've done and what you've created and where you've come from over the last 30, 40 years of your career, do you have an optimistic, optimistic approach to it? Do you think someth

ing good is going to happen from all of this or are we? Yeah, I'm like the woman in Washington. Yeah. You know, the the thing that cannot be stopped is the innate optimism of the most negative creative person in the world is about creating the next thing. Yes, what's next? That's on my mind. And, you know, the great thing is, every time you're about to have a baby, every time a baby is born, we're increasing the stock of optimistic, creative people who want to create the next thing. Yes. And tho

se people can't be stopped, whether they create television or movies or whether they create books or canvases or whether they create restaurants and recipes, it doesn't matter. The human spirit in its most negative place. I guarantee you that in the bowels of North Korea, there's some person that's imagining a future. Oh, yeah. And what things could be. So, you know, in the grand sweep of history, I have great optimism. Yeah. In the you know, in the short term, there's pluses and minuses. Like I

said, it's frustrating for people like me. But believe me, believe me when I tell you how many older executives and creative people I frustrated when I was a young person saying, get out of my way, like the new people are in town. We're going to do like we're going to do it like you never saw it before. Yeah. And by the way, we kind of did bless us, you know, and some of those older, creative people came along for the ride, some of them retired, some of them got angry and threw bombs at us and

they didn't kill us, you know? So it is so, so, so be it. Yeah, I have a great faith in the creative spirit, by the way, particularly the American creative spirit. Absolutely. You know, where where for all of our faults and problems and God bless us, we're going through a lot of them now. We do have this innate optimism that we can change the world. Absolutely. And sometimes that world is really small. Sometimes it's just within our household. Sometimes it's writ large, sometimes it fails in a b

ig way. But more often than not, over time, we constantly we are reinventing the world in a way that makes us sort of wake up and smile, which is great. It absolutely is, man. And what better way to end it and rotate in the fans questions and that lovely sentiment. Right. Awesome. So before before we go to the fans question, there is two fans or there is I'm a fan myself, but there is two fans. Question the joy among us before we get to the real fans questions. And the first one is you've got yo

ur Mount Rushmore four plus one. I've heard on this list it doesn't have to be just animators, but since, like I said, we're doing animation, I'd love for it to be just animators. But I've heard Van Halen, I've heard people use their wife or husbands as their inspiration, too. So it's completely your choice. You get four on your Mount Rushmore, plus one who's going to make the Mount Rushmore. That's really unfair. I know. It's great. That's really unfair. So for me, it's really kind of simple be

cause it breaks down and for John Paul George Ringo to be okay that was okay they they set me up for everything that has happened in my adult life in a way that I couldn't have ever imagined and continue to inspire me to figure out how to work with creative people and be a fan of people like I was of them. So They're my for the fifth, my plus one has to be my wife. Okay. Robin Sloan, who from the day I had my first blind date with her, continues to teach me more about what I do for a living to t

his very day than ever before. The man's beautiful. I'm really glad. Glad you brought up your wife, because there's been a few people that have brought up their significant others. And it's always it's always I want to say it's refreshing because it doesn't seem like it's a strong enough word, but I'm just going to use refreshing is delightful. I guess I like hearing that. I like when I see that somebody that has somebody because we've been married, my wife and I have been married for 14 years n

ext year. So it's always great when somebody else has somebody they can lean on, especially during the tough times, especially during a good times. And then you guys help each other grow, right? You guys are going in the same direction. Everybody wants the same thing. Everybody wants something great for their kids, great for themselves, you know? So we're all pushing for the same goals. But it's just like I said, it's nice to see that you can lean on somebody like your wife and then like you sai

d. Well, Robin and I aren't as smart as you guys, and it's our second marriage is both of us. So we learned a lot and I'm trying to remember this year, I think is our 29th anniversary, like, oh, well, congratulations. You better. Thank you. What? What what day is the anniversary? November 22nd. Which, for people in my generation, I. Know exactly what that is. Yes. 11 2263. Yeah, exactly. It's a really tough day. I can't believe we got married that day. But then again, some of my very favorite pe

ople, it's their birthday, too. It's all just about their birthdays. That's probably a better way to think about it than to hold JFK. Ladies gentleman, that was a history thing. That was the day President John F Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. Yeah. And if you're if you're a reader of you like Stephen King, it's a phenomenal book. 11 2263. And I will I will also point out, apropos of nothing, I heard about that shooting in the exact same class that I first heard about the Beatles. So

there there are yeah. There are real positives for me in that in that memory also. Yeah. Well if you can find the sunshine in any kind of a negative day like that is I mean you got to really push towards that one, right? And then the other. One. Is what two books that every fan of animation or everybody in animation should have on their bookshelves? Well, you know, we've mentioned the one and it was the first one that I mentioned to you of Mice and Magic. Yeah. Written by Leonard Maltin and Jerr

y Beck. And it's a history of cartoons pretty much up until, let's call it, 1980. And it was what inspired me to figure out my role there. You know, my role in the cartoon business was inspired by reading that book, which up until then I had just watch cartoons like anyone else. I never considered being in them. I don't know how to draw. I don't know how to write. I barely know how to produce. But reading but reading that book is what gave me the seeds of what became my cartoon career. So, you k

now, that was fantastic. The second one, that's really tough. That's really, really hard. You know what I would say that any fan of cartoons ought to find any book that they can as to how to writers write a writer's write. Because, you know, we think about cartoons solely from a visual standpoint. And, you know, probably a lot of the best cartoons were created by artists who drew their stories right on their storyboards rather than typing out a script or anything like that. But the truth is, is

that storytelling and story writing is been the same for thousands of years, and too many people in the cartoon business are to focus just on the visual frame and on the character design. So whether it's you know, Stephen King did a fabulous book about learning how to write. Yup. I have on the guy who did. Yeah, the guy who did the What's Now four or five volume history or biography of Lyndon Johnson just did a book on how he how he writes any book that shows you how a creative person does what

they do, whether it's a comedian, a musician, a writer, an artist, a painter, whatever. Chef One of the greatest books that I've read in the last 20 years was about a fiction editor at The New Yorker wanting to learn how to become a chef. Yeah. And and how he went. I think it's called it might be called the Heat. All I remember is it as a yellow cover. I'll I'll send you a link to it. I'll find it. And his process of how he learned what happened in a in a restaurant kitchen, which is sort of the

written equivalent of the bear, is really perfect. So any any the second book would be anything that is about creative process. I think that's really it. Beautiful. And then excuse me, any chance you read The Disney Revolt? It just came out a few months back by Jake Friedman. I did not, but I know about it because I kept getting him invited to a book party that I couldn't make it to. Man Oh, man. I just finished I got Jake coming on, I think, on Wednesday to talk about Fabulous. Or is this book

good? I mean, ladies and gentlemen, go out and buy it. It's the labor strike of the Disney on the Disney side from and it goes into detail I didn't know half obviously whenever you read something you don't know half the stuff you're reading about to read it. But just to know that the mafia was involved in labor, I knew that because I wanted to be in the Mafia and I was younger. That's a different story for a different. That was before I knew what Mafia really was. I only saw the fight fucking 3

minutes of Goodfellas when they're talking about all you know, nobody ever messed with them on the streets. They got to eat good food, you know, they got to play cards and games. They got to drive the nicest cars, wear the best clothes. I thought that's what being the Mafia was when I was younger. So it's it's a phenomenal book. And like I said, I'm looking forward to chat with that guy because I'm going I'm always interested to write something like this. Now, I don't want to say it's easier, b

ut it's definitely easier because of the Internet. You could go to so many sources. I mean, this is how we connected. I connected because I saw I think I saw your email or saw a post. I was like, Fred Cyber, I know the name. I want to know more about him. And then I we did two episodes back to back with you. Now we're on the third one. So the Internet for sure has made it a lot easier. But the amount of detail this this this young man did and I'm only saying he's young because he looks young as

hell on the jacket cover. We're probably the same age. But I mean, just to know the detail, he went through everything he had a comb through, it was phenomenal book. But nonetheless, man, we're going to we're going to rotate into the fans questions like I said, we won't be able to get to all of your fans questions, ladies, because like I said, there was quite a few, but you had quite a few. And because I give really long answers, so I. Like that. So we'll start off from our YouTube channel here.

Alexander Underscore Austin, 1995, wants to know what are three adaptations, novels, comics or games you think Be Great animated by Fred Schrader. Why those three and what would you hope they could mean for an audience? Well, I would only point out that I can't talk about Frederick or any more as to what they could or could not do, because I'm not at Frederick anymore. And so I can only talk about Fred and I. I find that an almost impossible question to answer. I'm trying to adapt a series of k

ids graphic novels right now called Mr. Wolf's Class, which I'm really excited about. The author, Aaron Nell Sankey is a cartoonist who became a fourth grade teacher to support his family. And he's written a series of graphic novels about being a teacher, which are fantastic. You know, I don't have a good answer for that. I'm not. Most of the novels that I read are mystery and crime novels, and I think some of them could be adapted. I tried to adapt Agatha Christie mysteries, but I can't get the

rights. What does the name sound familiar? What is. That? Sounds right. The Christie. Agatha Christie is one of the great mystery writers of the 20th century. She did a murder on the Orient Express. That's what I know her from. Yes. Yeah, she's done. She's done. Promo on public television and now on ACORN TV. I don't think that's her famous or famous detective. She's the most famous whodunit mystery author of the 20th Century Know. So I wanted to adapt those, but I haven't been able to get the

rights to do it. I think they would be fantastic. I can't answer that. It's a question. It's unanswerable because there's just too many things that are great. Beautiful. This one's fun. Jay Guajardo I think apologize mispronounce that. Is there a secret formula to a successful long running cartoons? Examples being Looney Tunes, Scooby Doo, Tom and Jerry SpongeBob to name a few? Or do many cartoons become victims of budgets and or trends? Okay, those are two separate questions entirely. Let's sta

rt with the second question first. Okay. Yes, many films of any kind can be destroyed by budgets, executives, networks, all that type of stuff. It's hard it's hard to make something wonderful. And it doesn't matter whether it's cartoons or live action or a novel or a painting or, you know, or a podcast, it's hard to do something great. Yeah, and sometimes budgets are in the way, but most of the time it's the creator themselves that are in their own way. Here's the secret formula. I never made TV

shows. I was a promotion and branding guy the beginning of my career, and I was working consulting with Nickelodeon, and I didn't understand anything about kids. I didn't have kids at the time, and I didn't understand anything about kids television. And they started figuring out that they wanted to do their own original programing rather than licensing Yogi Bear cartoons. So I went to the head programmer. I said, So what's the secret formula? Is there something special for kids? And she looked

at me like I was an idiot. And she said, Fred, we look for exactly the same thing that everyone looks for, whether it's Hitchcock, Scorsese, Jerry Seinfeld, Larry, David. Here's what we look for great characters and great stories. That's the secret formula. And by the way, I will just point out, if it was easy, we'd all be rich and famous. Absolutely. The hardest thing to do is make great characters with great stories. So they wanted to put a little context to this next question. He said not ask

ing Fred to do one, just on how he feels about them in general. He wants to know a romantic phantom. How does he feel about current reboots? How do you feel about reboots? I guess I feel that the good ones are great and the bad ones should be thrown away. Simple, pretty standard. Well, you know, the thing about it's again, because I came out of my music fandom into all of these business, I think of everything like songs. Yeah. And you know, there are people who take great songs and make a comple

te mash of them and then there are people who take great songs and make them greater. BE You know? So I happened to be reading this morning about one of my favorite pop songwriters from the sixties, Carole King and her husband, Gerry Goffin. And I loved the hits that they made in the sixties. You know, and one of their greatest hits of all time was Aretha Franklin's A Natural Woman, which they wrote in 24 hours. That's insane. Aretha and Aretha brought a lifetime of magic to it. Three years, fou

r years later, Carole King embarked on a solo career, and she did a remake of it. And she made it just as beautiful, just as wonderful, and told a completely different story with it than Aretha had. Yeah, that's possible. It is possible in a reboot to grab the essence of those characters and give them new life and new stories and. And new magic. Sadly, that rarely happens. Yeah. Just look at the 2016 version of Powerpuff Girls, but they also were missing a very, very, very and I cannot I cannot

state this very vital part of that. And that part was they didn't fucking have Craig McCracken If you were going to go and make a show, I really think you should have the guy there that created these characters. Well, no and yes. Yeah, sure. If the creator has something more to say. Mm hmm. On the other hand, Marvel movies are made without their creators. Yes. And they opened up a completely new world. Those are, in many ways could be called reboots. How many how many times has the birth of Supe

rman been retold in a comic book? Probably just as many times as Batman's parents death. Exactly. And some of them are wonderful and some of them are okay. I've seen the story. So it really depends. And but I will say that as a a few of the reboots are really wonderful and most of them are, you know, forgettable. Yeah, absolutely. Looking forward to the. The bigger question is, why are there so many reboots? Yeah, that is a big issue because they tend to cash in on properties that already alread

y have an audience or already have a, you know. Yes, that's the simple answer, the non simple answer, which I won't go into in detail because we could do a two hour podcast on this one subject is in the course months later, in the era of streaming, no one has figured out how to help the audience fall in love with new things. No. One zero. And they don't even try, which is the most tragic, sad part of it. Once someone figures out how to get someone to fall in love with something new, the era of t

he reboot will go away. So we won't go into detail. But what I got from that is we're going to have to do a part four and we're all going to talk about reboots on the next part. However, there is one question I have from that one. Do you think it is because everything is thrown up at once, right? So Netflix, they'll put an entire season of Stranger Things up there. Obviously, that's a horrible example to kind of use because that shows phenomenal. Right. But I don't think it I don't think that he

lps. Yeah, but I don't think it's the core of the issue. Okay. So let's look at it. Just a quick analogy. When they put a movie up, they don't put up a movie in ten parts. They put up the movie. The question is, is did they help you as a potential audience member to figure out why you might love that movie, to give it a shot? Yeah, that makes sense, right? Yeah. So the challenge is helping the audience become a fan. Mm hmm. You're a smart person, Fred. They need you over at Cartoon Network now.

I don't. Want to be negative anymore, but we need you back, Fred. Thank you. Oh, they don't feel the same way. Which, if I were them, I would understand. Who do you want me to write, Fred? Because we'll write a whole bunch of letters if you want to go back. It won't make any difference because. Because anyone who has the responsibility to be in charge has to believe that they can solve the problem or they won't. Oh, man, what a bygone era. What an error to grow up at. Because, like I said, we ha

d the greatest cartoons of all time. There will be great cartoons again. Don't worry. Yeah, I can't wait. Jim Usher wants to know what was the process like on World Premiere Toons? We don't have to go super into detail, but does anything stick out for from that era to you? You know, here is the quick here was the quick secret to that. We were open to everybody and everything yeah. And we were willing to sift through 5000 pitches to find the 48 cartoons that we made in whole hopes that we might f

ind one that was magic. As it turned out, we found out some more. Yeah, but the biggest thing is to not believe that you know the answers to believe it. We got into this in the Adventure Time section. But to understand that the next creative person has the answer not you, not meaning me or my team. We did not have the answer. It was the next creative person who walked in the door and we were open to every person coming through our doors. Yeah. Flashing back to that produced a second. Do you reme

mber what you laughed at? What they called you out on what you said you laugh that you remember that that part of the pitch. You laughed. Yeah. Adventure time. Yeah. Do you remember what it was that made you laugh or was it a joke or was it a scene or. Oh, I mean, if you look at that for a short, there are a dozen places to laugh. And I laughed at every one of them. Right. Because Pen understood he completely understood how to platform a joke. It maybe didn't seem like a joke, but was hilarious.

Yeah. Okay. Excuse me. Oh, this one's a good one. Creation. Arie wants to know what has been the most rewarding part of your job. The next person. Yeah Next person up. Like as far as training, or. The next person who walks in the door and makes me realize that that person has a key to future. Yeah, that's got to be always that way. Yeah, it's always that way. And I'm always looking for it. That's good, man. I think we've answered this one possibly, I think, in the beginning. But is there a proj

ect that you're most? Yeah, well, we didn't answer this one. We talked about your entire career. But is there a project that you are the most proud of? And if so, why? I'm proud of all my kids. I have to. I'm not proud of one of them more than the other. And that's the same with every one of these projects. Every project I've been involved with, that creative person has come to the table and put everything they have on the line for the hopes that it's going to work like crazy. Yeah. So I love ev

ery one of them. Every single one, even the ones that I can't remember. Yeah. What's a good way to have me? Because I guess you guys are a lot. Well. This one's funny. Puppet jazz. The only reason I did this one is because I had the term jazz in the name. So I tell, you know, puppet jazz wants to know mayonnaise or Miracle Whip. Neither. Oh. Mayonnaise. All the way for me. I can't do Miracle Whip. My wife's family does that shit. And it's just. I'm I, I if if I, if I had to make a choice, it wou

ld be mayonnaise. Yeah. Good man. Uh, we got some more here. I took a whole bunch and kind of flipped through them by accident. Peter, and I'm not going to be able to pronounce your name correctly. He's a listener from Poland. He wanted to say support. On the screen, super their names on the screen when you're putting them that way. I should do. That. Yeah, this is smart. Fred. I've already said it like three or four times. You're fucking smart, man. You should be. I'm a TV producer, Hawk. That'

s a brilliant idea, Larry. Buckle up because you got some stuff you're going to be editing here pretty soon. But Peter wants to know, not really questions. He does want that, but he's like, I'm just wondering what both of you were thinking about the current situation of Warner Brothers in Cartoon Network. We talked about that and their streaming services. Also tell Fred hi from a guy from Poland what he said about his first Hanna-Barbera was pretty interesting. So this guy has actually been list

ening since probably like the first couple of episodes I dropped. And he really liked how your first day at Hanna-Barbera, let's see. Example one Where me tell him look, tell him one My mother's family comes from a similar part of the world from Bulgaria, which is south of Poland, south east of Poland. So I appreciated. The second thing I'll say is just a shout out to everyone in Poland for what's going on and how they're helping out everybody in Ukraine. Yeah, so the fact that we can give this

guy any smiles at all in life, I'm down for it. It's been interesting seeing. So we launched all of audio back in January. It was a big push after I found out there was a lot of fans that were there's some fans that were death or were some are blind. They're some fans are on the spectrum. So I try to make it where everybody that wanted to consume something like this consume it. So one of my favorite things to do at the end of every week is to look at where the episodes are being downloaded from

and the U.K. for sure. Eastern Europe. I've had a blow up over the last probably since March, April timeframe, right around the time of the war and stuff like that. So I've had a lot of people write in and they say these cartoons, man, they really helped growing up and they, they help now. So you guys have gotten some people to do some good things to really look forward to during production. And in retrospect, and this is by GSMA during production. And in retrospect, does Fred have a preferred c

artoon and or creator involved? We just talked about you love them all the same and what a cartoon or does he have or does he see each entry equally and without any bias? Thank you for the wonderful memories. Mr. Seibert. Best regards. Antonio Alves So we just heard that all of them, you know, kind of come together. Thank you, Antonio. I appreciate it. I'm glad we can make you smile. But like I said, every one of these people, even the pictures that we don't say yes to remember, every one of the

se people is getting up. And even though it's a cartoon, even though they're primarily comedy, if every one of those people is getting up and doing the equivalent of taking off all their clothes and saying, Please love me and you know, you got to really give it to every one of those people. I couldn't do that. You know, they they they all get props from me, and they should get props from every one of your listeners. Absolutely, man. And the only reason I brought that one up is to make sure, like

I said, there's so many people that reach out like I've had so many people come out. He's like, I wish I could do what you do. Like podcasting, talk to people, because I find this extremely fun and it's really easy and so many people. I've got so many great things to say about these people that I've I've watched these cartoons with. I grew up with Cartoon Network, raised me or Nickelodeon raised me or Disney raised me. You know, he's like, But I can't find the way to tell them Thank you. So the

reason I read that one is because I want you guys to know, just just for me, I'm a fan. I love what you guys have done, but there's so many people out there absolutely loved what you guys done. Means a lot to us, too. Cameron wrote in, Man, there's there's a lot of good ones. I'm going to try to pick a pick there as part of the best one. Do you have any specific long term goals? Do you feel there are people in your corner who you can count on to help you reach them? Obviously, we talked about y

our wife. She's your rock. You know, she's a person you lean back on to give me long term goals left. Yeah, I have the same long term goals that I always did. Yeah. More better. That's a good goal to have this to the goals to have. I just want to, you know, look, I think I said to you in one of our previous podcasts that I finally realized when I was about 60 what I did for a living, which is I was a fan first and foremost, and then I had created a profession around being a fan. Yeah, I looked f

or people to be a fan of and seeing if there's any way I can help them. I think I told you I just released an album that I recorded 50 years ago of somebody that I was a great fan of, and I had a concert that had never been released. I was thrilled to be able to do it. Yeah, you know, I will give all of the money to his estate. You know, I'm a fan first and foremost, and all I want to do is find more people to be fan of. Help them better than I did before. Absolutely. And that's that's we need m

ore. Fred Seibert in the world. This is this is some really good stuff. That you play. Well, we have a Jillian Hester that's good enough now. I mean. I think we'll we'll probably end it on this one. Well, Ben-Veniste wants to know, would you support giving any of the obscure Cartoon Network original series their own official complete series releases, even if they're tax write offs? Now, I've heard the only reason I brought this question up, because I've heard a couple different times that a few

of the shows, whenever they did the I think it was a Time Warner merger early 2000 that was that went okay that a couple shows one of them being from Genndy said bionic titan that was a tax write off and they really couldn't do you might be able know more than than I do but since it was considered a tax write off they can't really release anything from that show or bring it back or put on a DVD. Do you know anything? Look about that situation. But with that I. Don't get but I've heard a lot cert

ainly recently about people's complaints about tax write offs and this and that and the other thing. So I'm going to put it in really simple terms. I love it if somebody was going to take away your house, if you didn't stop doing something that you'd been doing, would you let them out? If somebody was going to take away your parent's house or take away your car or take away your job? So look, in the in the most simple terms, in the latest merger over at Warner's, let's put it this way, their for

mer owner, AT&T, bought the company for about $90 billion. So much money. The company is now worth $30 billion. They have lost $60 billion in value. They're desperately trying to not become bankrupt. So, yeah, I'm unhappy with a lot of the decisions they've made and they affect me directly. Yeah, but can I tell them that they should or shouldn't do something now? Did they handle some things in a stupid way? Yes. Were they not polite enough to creative people? Absolutely. Have I done things that

are not nice to creative people? I guess so. That I need to. I didn't. But there just doing what you would do if the hurricane was coming for your house, if the fire was coming for your house, for your kids, for your parents, whatever, wouldn't you do anything you had to do to save it? Yes, they're trying to do that now. Do they take too much money for themselves in the process? They don't think so, whether we think so or not. You know, we could debate that issue, but basically, the hurricane, t

he fire, they're both coming for their house. They're trying to save it. So I don't like it. Yeah. Can I blame them? I can't, because I'm not on the inside. I don't really know what's going on. Know I can't answer it any more clearly than that. Yeah. And I mean, it's a it's kind of a pessimistic way to end on it. But we did talk some very positive because like you said when you came in, man, you kind of got to cut a few fingers off to save the hand. And anything that burns down also tends to reg

row stronger, deeper. And now here's here's what's not going to happen. And we should make this really clear. There's no 20 year old or 30 year old or 40 year old or 50 year old that is ever going to feel like they're eight years old again. Mm hmm. And when we saw a cartoon that we loved, one or eight years old, one, it didn't mean it was good. It just mean we like it. Yeah. And two, we're not going to get that feeling again as a kid. We might get it as an adult, but it's going to be something c

ompletely different when I was seven, I fell in love with Huckleberry Hound. It's what led me to run Hanna-Barbera, honestly. And then I got there and I looked at Huckleberry Hound again. I went, What were you thinking? It wasn't too good, but I could fall in love with Bosch on Amazon Prime because I love mystery and cop shows and I feel great doing it. So there's going to be great cartoons again. End of story. Are they going to happen when we want them to happen? And who the hell knows? Are the

y going to happen? Absolutely. Greatness is around the corner. The only question is how long is it going to take us to get around the corner? Absolutely, man. And like I said, Fred, I've really enjoyed these last couple of years being able to converse with you because I've said it so many times on so many of my podcast. There's a few people that I can reach out to and I'm going to get a straight answer. I'm going to honest answer if I'm in the wrong direction. You guys are going to point minute.

It's been you. It's been Robert Alvarez and Linda Szymanski has been Randy Myers. And there's a couple of people that could probably put in there, but I don't want to spend an entire show just, you know, giving out all my sources. Go find your own sources, ladies and gentlemen. But no, this being for real. In our past podcast, do we ever talk about Robert? Yes, we did. We talked because I think Robert actually mentioned it too, because I brought it up. That was right after you sent me the artic

le because it was because I don't know if you mentioned him until the second podcast, but you said there was friction back and forth and he's like, Fred knows. Was an understatement. Yeah. Yeah. But he's he's. A great one. Oh, I'm great. I've said it on so many occasions. That man is a national treasure. Any time get to talk to him, there's some stories I can't tell because it was off the record and some are on the record. But some of his stories were some of my favorite stories of all time, bec

ause very rarely this. Industry. And just any industry where a lot of people don't like to rock the boat, in a sense, he's just torpedo. Straight ahead, like I must say, whatever the fuck I want. And he's like, I'm 70 something years old. He's like, What the hell do I got? Fuck it, burn it down. And he's just going for it. I was like, Man, I'm so by the way. He, he was like that when I met him when he was 40. And my guess is he was like that when he was ten oh, 100. So he's all. Right. You show

me. He showed me a picture of him and it was like, man, look at those pictures back in the Cartoon Network days, right around the the the that what a cartoon in the cartoon cartoon premieres and he's like, I wasn't a silver fox anymore I had colored my hair still. That's like, God. I mean, Fred. You know. If there's if there's some people out there that that want to say, hey, I love what do where can they find you on the old social media sites? Oh, I'm on Twitter at Fred Seibert. I'm at Instagra

m at Fred Seibert and there's always they can email me Fred and Fred films dot com. Beautiful and all those links will be down in the description So you get his point click say, Hey, Fred, I love what you did, man. Well, like I said, Fred, always a blast to get to talk to you. He's been Fred. I've been Julian. That's been a what's. Oh, this is new to you. Haven't heard this one live yet. This is my little sign off. It's been great. I got this one when I was trying to take a shower one time. But

he's been Fred, I've been Julian has been the What's My Head podcast and this has been another piece and a huge piece of your childhood. Goodnight. Thanks again, Julian. That was great. My guest next week is character designer Andy Bjork. Enjoy the teaser as went from show to show. I mean, from Dexter's to Powerpuff Girls to Samurai Jack. I mean, you guys were going Fosters came in right after that one. So I mean, you guys were obviously had a proven track record. You guys worked phenomenally to

gether, you know, so everybody was kind of meshing. You guys went from show to show to show. But would you have or echo that same sentiment like that was the greatest time as far as your career goes? Or Oh yeah, I mean, you know, I can pick I can pick through the whole gamut of of, you know, good points. But we had such a freedom back that, you know, the industry just wasn't what it was. There wasn't as much involvement as far as executives writing. I mean, Dexter's we just did out with we didn'

t have scripts yet. That's unheard of. Right. And so if you were storyboarding you were writing it as you were boarding it. That does that just doesn't happen anymore. Kennedy was also allowing us, because I did a couple of boards and I did a bunch of character designs and snacks and props and that stuff, too. But I did about four or five storyboards for Dexter's as well. Candy was letting his voice direct. So like whoever heard of that? I mean, he brought us into the recording studio and he all

owed us to give direct your voice direction to the to the voice actors. So that was a real exciting and cool opportunity. So big, big ups to candy for doing that. And and so that's just part of the freedom that I'm talking about. The executives in Cartoon Network were all in Atlanta. There was like one or two of them here in Hollywood, Hanna-Barbera. It wasn't till Powerpuff that they really kind of go in and they demand, I believe, scripts and have much, much more control and input. But from th

e early days of Dexter's, I mean, we were riding our bikes down the hallways, were running around screaming. We were like, stay until midnight, like run around Hanna-Barbera, trying all the costumes, like Fred Flintstone down in the basement, like listening to records. I mean, we were young. I was 22, I think, when I started. So, you know, it was this sort of like college extension fun. I mean, it was our life. It was it was so exciting.