Best of Original Cartoons:
Random! Cartoons [2008-2009]
What started life as the fourth season of Oh Yeah! Cartoons, for niggly business reasons eventually became my third cartoon incubator, Random! Cartoons (39 shorts in a playlist embedded below). I’m happy that it’s most famous as being the start of Pendleton Ward’s Adventure Time and Bravest Warriors, and Eric Robles’ Fanboy & Chum Chum, but Random! was a turning point in our industry for completely different reasons.
When I got into cartoons one of my missions was to bring under represented creators into the industry. I’ve miserably failed with Black Americans , been sort of OK with Latinos, and a lot better with women. With What A Cartoon! I begged folks from those groups to pitch and it was a pretty miserable failure. Oh Yeah! Cartoons improved a tiny bit. But at Random! and then at Too Cool! Cartoons and GO! Cartoons a real stride was started.
Of course, our crews on various series started having a more female proportion of talent in the shows, but with Random! Cartoons a swirl of our youngest pitches began, and no surprise, the new generation also brought in a lot of women creators, maybe a few dozen pitches.
Eventually, out of 39 short cartoons we produced, eight were women creators. It might not seem like a lot, 81 original shorts I made from 1998 through 2002 had two women creators, so the proportion of the total jumped dramatically.
And while none of the Random! shorts became series, all of the women –Jun Falkenstein, Dana Galin, Diane Kredensor, Aliki Theofilopoulos, Anne Walker, Melissa Wolfe (yes, an executive[first at Frederator now at Amazon] and a creator), and Niki Yang– became forces in the industry, many with series of their own (and Too Cool! creators broke out big!).
Random! Cartoons was the first show that I produced after I relocated back to New York City. Eric Homan and Kevin Kolde had joined Frederator Studios and ran development and production and put together teams of creators that I would have missed entirely. Those two guys are amazing.
For business reasons –these shorts shows historically have really low ratings and Nickelodeon was rightfully nervous– even though all the shorts were produced in 2005 and 2006, the series was held until 2008 and then ran on Nicktoons.
Eric Robles’ Fanboy & Chum Chum brought a real cartoony squash & stretch to television for the first time.
I was happy that four cartoons were by New York creators –Dana Galin’s and Diane Kredesnor’s Call Me Bessie, Manny Galan’s & Alan Goodman’s Bronk & Bongo, John Dilworth’s Garlic Boy and Bill Plympton’s Gary Guitar– a vanishing breed.
Most known for his animation historian chops, Jerry Beck was the creator of Random!’s Hornswiggle.
I have commented else where that I was the idiot who almost turned down Pendleton Ward’s Adventure Time. Eric and Kevin pointed out my giant mistake and made sure I sat tight enough to get the series going, and then Bravest Warriors. Thank you gentlemen!
