This blog is an examination of my creative process, sorta. In the last year plus it's become a journal of my struggles with learning to paint. I say "learning" because it's the first time I've taken a course, read books, generally studied the basics. I have painted in the past and have actually been paid for my work. I just sort of bumbled along. I have to remember that when I drop into a defeatist attitude as I squeeze out fresh blobs of gouache.
I've actually done three more paintings since my last update in April. I have scans of two. The third was a present to my oldest granddaughter and I tossed the thumbnail, thinking it was the photo reference. I haven't posted them or painted as much, largely because we adopted a rescue dog, Suki. She's from China and has been through a lot.
She's settled in, loves her backyard but doesn't know how to play. Generally, outside of loving walks and staring at us when we eat, she doesn't do dog things. Doesn't chew anything, including dental chews, easily digestible "no hide" stips, nothing. Probably means we'll be paying for dental cleaning. Chases squirrels but not tennis balls or toys. Still skittish if you approach her the wrong way. No doggie kisses. No cuddling. RARELY barks. Sorta acts like an old lady. But she's sweet and no trouble at all. She's under my desk as I type this. Much of this is perfect for an older couple of humans. But we hope to get her to have fun. We've had her since May 1st and have a ways to go.
However, that's not why I thought to post today. I just watched a trailer for a new cartoon show on HBOMax, Jellystone. It's a complete reworking of all the old Hanna Barbera characters in a new style. Creatively, it's a valid choice to use old characters as inspiration to launch in a whole new direction. It's weird to my way of thinking. My gut would be to create new characters but maybe the IP buys you something. It's possibly a business decision to keep the characters active in some way, no matter how much they're changed. I do wonder if there's any value for the new audience to base a show on the shows their grandparents watched.
On the other hand, a new action/mystery show based on The Shadow could be really cool whether a modern audience had never heard of the character.
But I've digressed. My purpose of this blog entry is to post a version of Jellystone that I pitched in 2014. WB asked me to pitch new ideas using the classic HB characters. I went in pitched "my" Jellystone but they already had someone working on a Yogi revamp. They were actually considering giving the Disney Afternoon treatment to the HB characters. I ended up developing a Dino project. The creative exec wouldn't use the words until I said, "Oh, you want the Rescue Rangers with dinosaurs idea" She was visibly relieved that I had said it so she didn't have to.
I developed the show, using the conceit that Dino led a small group of appliances to help those in trouble. Remember, their "appliances" were living creatures - pterodactyl record players, mammoth vacuum cleaners, dinosaur garbage disposals and the like. Those appliances see everything going on in Bedrock and knew when things were getting weird. The design style would have been traditional and the adventures would happen without the knowledge of the Flintstones and Rubbles. Fun show but was told, "This doesn't feel like the Flintstones." Well, it wasn't supposed to. But then merchandising said they actually wanted a Pebbles and Bam-Bam show that included Dino, not a Dino show. So my development stopped.
Before I post my pitch, I acknowledge my humor may be out of date without my knowing it. I remember when showrunners, Bob Schooley and Mark McCorkle, pointed out to me that they were working with writers that never lived in a world without The Simpsons. I grew up indoctrinated with early Warner Brothers cartoons by Tex Avery, Chuck Jones, Bob McKimson and Bob Clampett, along with the early HB lineup of characters. New writers had access to all that, just like I watched the Simpsons and later worked on Bob's Burgers. But that's different than being indoctrinated every morning over sugary breakfast cereal. It doesn't mean older writers can't write modern shows. They just can't fall into the fan nostalgia trap of thinking that old shows were the best and new versions are trash.
But I acknowledge my humor may be out of date without my knowing it. So be kind in reading this. It's from 2014 so YouTube references would be replaced by TikTok and the like. I tried not to be the GrandTad trying to be hip. Still, this was taking a version of characters that were much closer to their origins and putting them in a new situation. Plus, it opened up possibilities for new characters. It would've been a fun show to work on. It doesn't make it intrinsically better than the HBOMax version. It's just that, I wrote this thing that nobody has seen and I wanted to share. (And now I'm wondering if I posted this before).
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