I know some of us avoid newsgroups like the plague, but I've written
some more Kats stuff falling into the realm of Turner-bashing, and
attracted the following response from Mark Evanier, who for those of us
who don't recognize the name is an animation industry fixture, and very
well respected for being a "balanced" individual concerning his comments
on the industry. Anyway, in case I misled people on the whole "Dumb and
Dumber" thing, here's Mark's correction.
_____________________________________________________________________________
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sat, 8 Jul 1995 15:03:31 -0700
From: Andy Hill <chance_at_unix.infoserve.net>
To: chance_at_unix.infoserve.net
Subject: (fwd) Re: Cartoon Voices/Owens
From: evanier_at_ix.netcom.com (Mark Evanier )
Newsgroups: rec.arts.animation
Subject: Re: Cartoon Voices/Owens
Date: 7 Jul 1995 01:47:30 GMT
Andy Hill wrote in (someoverlylongmessageidIdon'trecall):
>Yeah, whatever. No, I don't suppose everything Ted's ever done is
>clueless, else he wouldn't be where he is today, right? "10 or so
>friends", sorry pal, go grab a Neilsen chart. Do you know what's
>replacing "SwatKats" and Donovan Cook's "Two Stupid Dogs"? How about
>"Dumb and Dumber" and "Cave Kids".
ME: No, those shows aren't replacing "SwatKats" and "Two Stupid Dogs."
The decision to cease them and to start the new shows are completely
independent of each other.
"SwatKats" and "Two Stupid Dogs" were stopped because someone at Turner
weighed the cost of their production with their cash return and decided
that they were not cost-effective. I'm not saying this decision was
correct or incorrect. It may have been a stupid decision. But it was
made on that basis.
And despite your attempts to use them as a psychoanalysis of Ted
Turner, I doubt he had much or anything to do with the decision. If he
did, it was simply a matter of the numbers, not an indictment of the
quality of the shows.
"Dumb and Dumber" is being done because ABC wanted a show based on the
movie. I believe the decision to do the show preceded the decision to
do it at Hanna-Barbera. New Line Cinema did the movie and they are a
division of Turner Entertainment...so, to keep the project in-house,
the deal was steered to H-B, which has otherwise stayed pretty much
away from network Saturday morn production lately. This is a little
different from the "SwatKats" deal since this is a case of someone
paying H-B to produce a show, not of Turner investing his own money.
(If H-B had said no, "Dumb and Dumber" would have been produced at DIC
or some other studio. H-B saying no would not have brought "Two Stupid
Dogs" back in syndication.)
(By the way, the execs at ABC who bought "Dumb and Dumber" have since
been fired.)
--
_____________________________________________________________________________
Me again. I guess I've technically been flamed, but this is info
I didn't have, and Mark was very honest concerning his "I'm not saying"
line so it's worth the extra heat.
Received on Sat Jul 08 1995 - 18:15:29 PDT