the wubblog

Mopsy, Flopsy, and Ted!

The idea for the 2nd book (Mopsy, Flopsy, and Ted) came from drawing a story with my super cool niece in Sacramento. She came up with a story, I suggested a few changes, and then I drew it REALLY fast. It was done really fast because she waited until a half an hour before I had to fly back to L.A. and said, "Bobby, we didn't do our story!"

I really liked the structure of our quicky story (see the original story in the photo album section) and I developed it to pitch as another children's book. After many more lunch time drawing sessions at Frank's diner I turned in the roughed out book and...

They liked it more than the 1st one!

But for legal reasons I had to change the name of the book. Flopsy, Mopsy, and Ted became Wubby, Widget, and Walden. My niece is still upset by that!

Inspiration

Inspiration can come from the strangest places!

It's a go!

As it turned out Eric loved the book. And Fred loved the book. And after what seemed like several months of wondering what 'I love It" really meant, Fred came to town and told me that Hugo was the 1st book that they were going to give the greenlight. All those lunchtime drawing sessions (see above+ below for the very first doodles) at the diner finally paid off!
But what next? Well, Fred was still looking for 49 more books so ....back to the diner for me!

It started with a Hippo!

Before I truely get started on this project I have to finish up the project that I am currently on. I have about a week and a half left as Producer/Art Director on the Nickelodeon shows The Fairly OddParents and Danny Phantom. About the only thing that I have been able to do on Wubby, Widget, and Walden is interview some writers and work out potential premises for the first script.
So in the meantime I thought that I should fill you in on how this whole thing came to be.
Lets start at the begining.
It was over 2 years ago when Fred Seibert (exec. producer of The Fairly OddParents, My Life As A Teenage Robot, Chalkzone ect...) came to the Nickelodeon Animation Studio and announced that he was going to publish 50 childrens books and that one of those books was going to be made into a Nick Jr. television show. He would start taking pitches immediately.
My eyes lit up! How many times does someone knock on your door and say "Hey, do you have any ideas for a childrens book?"
Fred specifically went out to animation artists because most of us LOVE childrens books. But as much as we all have dreamed of creating our own childrens books, not to many of us have fully realized book ideas just sitting in our drawers. Well at least I didn't.
My sketch books were filled with doodles and 1/2 thoughts but no ideas for books.
One weekend morning I went for a run and was looking up at the power lines above my head. For some reason I've always found power lines to be really fascinating. I started thinking about where the power lines ended.
And that made me think about how a kid might wonder the same thing and want to follow the power lines to the end to see what is there.
And that made me think maybe it's not a power line it's a string. And maybe it's not a kid it's an animal.
That all led to me coming up with a book called HUGO. It's about a happy hippo named Hugo who follows a very long red string thinking that he will find something special at the end. It turns out that there was nothing special at the end of the string but he makes lots of new friends along the way.
I had the idea now all I had to do was rough out a 64 page book. Eric Homan ,who has been handling this book project for Fred here in LA, told me that I didn't need to do a lot of drawings for the initial proposal but I felt like I should present a completely realized version of the book. I mean the text of the book was as simple as "Hugo followed the string down the hill." With out a drawing I didn't know quite how well that would read.

So after spending many a lunch hour eating a Chinese chicken salad at Frank's (the diner across the street from Nickelodeon), I finally had a rough version of the book! After a lot of editing, cutting, pasting, and a trip to Kinkos for some velobinding, I nervously gave the book to Eric. I had no idea if it was good or bad. Was it wonderfully simplistic or was it just simple minded? I didn't know. I had been alone on an island with it for a long time and the only other person to see it was my girlfriend Teri. She is a very tough critic who has no problem telling me when she doesn't like something. She really liked it but... you never know.
So, what did Eric think? Would it get passed on to Fred?
Well this seems like a good time for a cliff hanger. If you are interested in what happens next, tune in for the next post.

Post #1

Howdy folks!
My name is Bob Boyle and I am just starting to produce an animated show that I created for Nick Jr.
I thought that I would try to use this blog to keep a running journal of what actually goes into the creation of an animated show.
Maybe it will be interesting . Maybe it won't.
Maybe it will last a very long time. Maybe I'll be over it by the end of the week.
Whatever the case may be, I'm ready to give it a shot!
Let's see what happens!