Sunday, April 1, 2007

A day in the life of a non-drawing cartoon writer

(According to a few people anyway)

8:00 AM - Alarm goes off. Hits snooze. Sleeping comfortably on piles of money, rolls over and goes back to bed.

9:11 - Phone rings, waking writer as baffled story board artist calls to find out what the hell he was talking about. Throws sack of Kruggerands at phone to shut it up.

10:27 - Finally wakes up. Goes to the rest room. Takes a crap. Looks at it, realizes once again, he has crapped gold. GOLD! And peanuts. But gold!

11:14 - Saunters into the studio, accidentally knocking over a pile of neatly organized storyboard pages that were about to be pitched, causing her hours of work rearranging it for for an 11:15 pitch.

11:20 - Passes cubicles on way to gigantic office, saying hello to board artists, but getting half of their names wrong.

11:30 - Leaves for lunch.

2:30 - Returns from lunch, smelling of gin and stripper.

3:00 - Calls agent, asks how it's looking for a job on Fox's "War at home." In lieu of that, looks for joke writing for Jay Leno. Or Letterman. Or anybody who will pay WGA minimums and residuals.

3:30 - Realizing no residuals will be coming anytime soon, forces a meaningless song into an episode. After spending 30 minutes on Rhymezone.com in an attempt to find words that rhyme with "Fart," pronounces the song emmy-worthy. Song takes up pages 24 through 27 in the revised script.

4:45 - Starts writing new script with the words "100 zebras of different colors run down a hill of daffodils, rose bushes and apple trees that have rainbow colored apples. The thorns glisten in the light, like the sun rippling against a lake on a windy day."

4:59 - Heads home, asks board artists to not raid the 'fridge of his diet cokes when they leave that night.

8:00 - On way to Hollywood, realizing he lost his watch while patting himself on the back. Swings by the studio to pick it up, saying hello to the board artists on the way to, and back from his office. Stops to count "diet cokes" - unsure of he the number he had in there, takes a moment to leave a bitchy note with the line producer, just in case.

9:30 - Parties with Paris Hilton. Has no shot at her, of course, because when he answers the quesiton "what cartoon" he mentions it's a basic cable kids show. She disappears into the bathroom with two guys who were smart enough to say they were the creators of South Park, but were actually the Valet parkers.

1:15 AM - Drives past studio. Lights on in the studio as the board artists continue working. Accidentally breaks wind and smells it... sure enough, it smells like roses.

P.S. - Happy 4/1... including to John and Stephen, who probably believe this. :)

16 comments:

Thad said...

LMFAO

Anonymous said...

That would have come out better if it was storyboarded and not written down!

Anonymous said...

Hello,
I just discovered this blog and after reading most of it, it's interesting to note that despite repeated pleas from the blog's administrator for writers to come forward with insights, they have predominantly posted snotty rhetoric and/or sarcastic, defensive rants. Ironically (or maybe not) the only ones who have really contributed thoughtful, sincere essays are Andi, Roy, Vincent and Bob... who are all artists (I believe).
It sort of says a lot about who is actually willing to exchange in helpful debate versus who simply has an axe to grind.
That's how it looks from where I sit, but maybe I'm missing something.

Anonymous said...

I love this post. I love the way you resolved and called back the 'roses' joke at the end. Perfect. A writer's writer. Not sure if non-writer artists would have paid off that joke on a storyboard.

Anonymous said...

anonymous:
probably not, because cartoons don't have smell-o-vision, dipshit.
that joke is just another example of a typically lame writer joke that would be ill-served in animation.

Steve said...

Brad;

Good point. I'd probably have to have somebody in the car with him so it could stage out like this:

1) Rips one.
2) Passenger makes disgusted face, passes out in a four frame drop.
3) Driver / writer sniffs the air.
4) Shoots a "Ah, that new car smell." But since that's not very kid friendly, I'd probably stick with the roses reference.

Of course, that's a lot of drawing for a fart joke, so I'd probably cut it before the drawing started and get out on a bigger gag.

- Steve

Anonymous said...

Brad T: "a typically lame writer joke that would be ill-served in animation."

Really? Have you been to the Spumco website and seen all the ripping farts, dancing shit, and walking turd jokes there? Isn't that what "artists" hold in high esteme as the true art of animation, suckling at John K's teet? Dipshit.

Anonymous said...

Anon said:
I love this post. I love the way you resolved and called back the 'roses' joke at the end. Perfect. A writer's writer. Not sure if non-writer artists would have paid off that joke on a storyboard.

I'm sorry Brad missed the obvious sarcasm in Anon's post.
As for Walt Disney if that is your real name, you may go and gargle a turd. A big shaggy leafy green turd.
Sliding up and down, in and out, vigorously against your tonsils.

Vincent Waller said...

Oy! You guys should play nice. Saying such nasty things to one another.

Instead of biting each other's backsides you should go watch this...

http://media-c02m01.libsyn.com/podcasts/b3c46684ccb9278aec9eddb9a266b883/4612f3b2/fm/BooBooGrunting_trimSM.mov


Now, don't you feel better?

Anonymous said...

Hey dipshit Walt...
"ripping farts, dancing shit, and walking turd jokes there?"
Guess what, genius? Dancing shit and walking turds are visual... farts are a sound... sights and sounds can be relayed effectively in a cartoon.
Actual smells? Not so much.
Geezus, I pity the artists who undoubtedly have to explain this stuff to you on a daily basis...

Sib said...

Wow, all this vitriol over an April Fool's bit? Methinks there needs to be a general lightening up on both sides of the fence.

At least anonymous #1 got the joke and answered in spirit. Nicely played, anon...

Anonymous said...

Oh I got the joke, I was just worried about Brad T. there. ;-)

Consider that turd gargled, butt good.

You see? Butt (but) that's a visual joke for a writer.

As far as "BooBooGrunting" nice. Fun visuals. But how long can you really watch retarded bears throwing food at each other?

Anonymous said...

I posted the final word on the issue of "animation writing" on my blog. No further discussion on this subject is warranted.

Vincent Waller said...

WD said:As far as "BooBooGrunting" nice. Fun visuals. But how long can you really watch retarded bears throwing food at each other?


Well the clip was about a minute or less, I think that's about as long as you need to watch the retarded bears.You know , just as a palate cleanser, after that abominable act someone had you perform. (A bear that can read can't possibly be retarded, can it? I know a few retarded people that can read, but a bear? Seems almost, well, smarter than the average bear to me. )

Anonymous said...

Actually I could have watched about 3 more minutes of Boo Boo throwing food.

One man's smarter bear is another man's retarded human.

;-)

Steve said...

For the record, I watched that cartoon when it first came out and watched it know.

It was, and always will be, a scream.