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JERRY BECK
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AMID AMIDI
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How To Become An Animation Executive
by amid
February 19, 2007 9:20 am


It turns out that John Kricfalusi isn’t the only TV animation creator who is vocal about his dislike of contemporary animation execs. Doug TenNapel, the creator of three animated series—Earthworm Jim, Project G.E.E.K.E.R. and Catscratch, offered this amusing insight on how to become an animation executive in this interview from a couple years ago:

Executives usually get in through “development.” They can be receptionists, P.A.’s lawyers, Literature majors and they end up being good at anything but writing, directing, acting or drawing. They have excellent social skills and could use a business background.

02/19/07  10:35am
Ron says:

Sure, but Doug also said this –

“Does a children’s book publisher who happens to be a feminist secular humanist liberal in New York really want to deal with the fall-out of my Pro Life blog?”

I think he may have issues that go above and beyond the normal problems one faces with executives. Still, I miss his blog. It was always good for a laugh.

02/19/07  10:39am
Squidkid says:

This sounds all too familiar. One of the last studios I worked at, a lot of assistant directors and project managers had zero artistic talent. They were damn good at a critical path though.

02/19/07  11:00am
ovi says:

doug is right on. the creepy hand finds its way into high places of control and power. i like to call it “big brother”.
i went back and read his entire interview and would also like to say that as a Christian myself i agree with most of what he said about Christians in the art industries.

02/19/07  5:15pm
Robert A says:

It’s too bad that a few execs promoted beyond their level of competence give others a bad name. Yes I suspect most of us have stories to back that up. It might be harder to hide a lack of talent if you draw as opposed to not drawing, but not impossible. They both tend to be on the same projects. Talent-less- attracts the same?

02/20/07  10:19am

You see, it’s stuff like this that’s making me decide to major in sequential art in college instead of animation.

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