At 03:37 PM 9/19/96 -0700, Dana Uehara wrote:

chance:

I'm sending a bunch of Mook eps to Warners just to show them what
it's all about.

I wonder how many of the Warner execs will be like those of us on here
who compared the Kats to Road Rovers when RR first came out? 

Well, they're getting the eps for two-fold reasons.  One, they were
scratching around for contractors overseas once they dumped
Freelance, NZ, and I suggested Mook to one of the producers.
Though the individual was familiar with Hanho Heung-Up, he actually
told me he'd never seen Mook's work, so now he will.  

Two, I've also been talking up "SwatKats" to some of 'em since I first
saw it, but it doesn't seem as though any of them even *saw* as much
as a single ep!  That should shortly be corrected, and if the restructuring
takes place on the scale that I think it will, some of these very people
could be in a position to take favourable impressions of certain defunct
H-B shows and actually *do* something about it.  I don't want to raise
false hopes or anything - I'm just thinking aloud.

The fact remains that WBN will shortly be doing afternoon kidvid along
the lines of "The Disney Afternoon", and can't really pad the sched out
with "old favourites" such as reruns of "Animaniacs" and PATB ad infinitum.
Developing a series is extremely expensive, and the Turner merger is about
to hand them a viable one virtually on a platter - and oozing potential for
future episodes at that.  Warners is rather weak in the ac/adv inventory at
the moment, with only Supes and BTAS reruns to stack up against
ANIMX, PATB, Tiny Toons, Looney Tunes/Merry Melodies, Road Rovers
and so forth.  Comedy's always been a staple of the afternoon diet (witness
most of the DA lineup for years), but surprises like BTAS spurred them
on to create Supes, and I'm sure they can have hardly missed the impact
of non-human ac/adv in Mouse's "Gargoyles".  

Put yourselves in the execs' shoes over there.  They basically inherit a show
that's a high-quality shoot from frame one, with all the expensive development
work done, an established fan-following, ex-Kats staffers already on the
payroll,
and the necessity to feed an ever-growing market.  A show like that with
only 23 eps in the can, and with so many different places to still go within
the format?  They'd have to be stupid *not* to run with it.  

Also, with great thanks to someone hiding behind the skirting boards, I read
a memo which seems to indicate that H-B's dissolution is a fait accomplis (they 
reel off the properties that the Ted will bring to the resulting company, yet
suspiciously leave out any mention of Hanna-Barbera).  My favourite piece from
within the entire tract reads as though some PR guy is trying to sugar-coat the
fact that the Tedster's talents are best suited to an area of the resulting
partnership
that *doesn't* lean towards content decisions  (watch a "Captain Planet" to
learn why).

 "Creating and growing cable networks is a unique business, separate 
     and distinct from content creation or distribution.  Ted Turner 
     created this business and knows it better than anyone else.  
     Assembling all of our cable programming assets under Ted's leadership 
     will ensure the continued growth and development of these assets and 
     maximize our ability to build and deliver value for our shareholders," 

Whaddya think?  They set themselves up for the dissolution of H-B awhile ago
by creating the pseudo-offspring named "Cartoon Network Animation".  Though
it will all fall at least nominally under the aegis of Time-Warner, CNA seems
to be the 'lifeboat' for whatever certain execs wanted to 'save', allowing
the rest to suffer whatever fate befell the rest of H-B.  Just an educated guess
(and possibly drifting mightily towards "limited-interest" and "off-topic"!).

Anyway, further updates as events warrant....(cue James Earl Jones....)
"THIS IS CNN..."