Tooning In 17 Douglas Booth part 2 of 7
DL:Yeah! So can you tell me a little bit about Glenn Leopard like you did with Jeffrey Scott?
DB:Leopard? Hahaha! Leopold! We had fun writing scripts together - I'd never worked with a writing partner before, but we would just tell each other stories and do our bad voice-actor impressions of the characters - and keep going - telling each other which ideas we liked and which we thought were terrible, trying to make each other laugh - and then writing it down - taking turns with that - and coming up with what we would usually feel was a brilliant script! Glenn had been a rock 'n roller prior to coming to H-B - his band was called "Gun Hill Road" (after a street in the Bronx) - and they had a nice run before he moved over to cartoons! He was very quick with ideas, jokes, and irrelevant asides, and we both got very good at throwing pushpins across the length of the office, to stick in our bulletin board - which may have been our most notable achievement!
DL:Leopard,I was thinking of Leopold! With his last name, who can't make a mistake like that?
DB:But of course! Leopold the Leopard - could have been an H-B cartoon!
DL:Haha! i know right! He was pure HB material as he stayed with the company until 2001! A true company man he was.
DB:Absolutely! His wife, as I remember, was the head of the ink and paint department, as well.
DL:Any stories on the two?
DB:Not that I remember, though I'm sure there are many!
DL:Well after he left Hanna Barbera, he started to write for a German company called BKN, you probably worked with them right? P.S. they're also known by Bohbot Entertainment.
DB:Hmmm... not sure. I believe I worked on shows that Allen Bohbot, the founder, was involved with, maybe through DIC (?) - but, in terms of the European spin-off, when I just googled all that, none of the shows they produced looked familiar - though I would have loved to have worked on a new version of Zorro!
DL:Yeah Glenn worked on it, you couldβve too!
DB:All they had to do was ask!
DL:If you were around in 2006. Besides, Glenn was one of your friends.
DB:Who knows? There are probably thousands of shows that "slipped through my fingers" - but I certainly enjoyed working on the ones that didn't!
DL:Yeah well back to your career, The Flintstones Comedy Show for NBC. You were the story editor.
DB:As I remember, I story-edited episodes of "The Bedrock Cops", which was one element of that show.
DL:Explain to me the concept of the segment.
DB:Hahaha! Fred and Barney were cops - sort of "Car 54, Where Are You" goofy law enforcement officials, only in prehistoric Bedrock - with fun and silly adventures - nothing approaching "real crime", but lots of slapstick comedy and fun.
DL:oh, well when i think of Fred and Barney I don't really think cops but ok.
DB:No - but it was essentially the two buddies having the kind of funny adventures you'd imagine they'd have... that is, if they were, in fact, good-natured cops!
DL:Oh so why in 1980, did you Hanna Barbera the first time?
DB:? I think you missed a word or twoβ¦
DB:At the end of 1980, I took my two week vacation and flew to Cusco, Peru - then took the train to "Kilometer 88" which was the jumping off point for a 5 day backpacking hike in the mountains, ending up at Mac. oops - Machu Picchu - which was really, really fun! However, when I got back to the U.S., I only then found out that Andy Heyward and I were both "budget cuts" in the writing department - and were thus free to pursue our diverse destinies! I guess things were slow and they decided they needed to economize!
DL:Wow! So they favor Glenn and Jeff over you two,huh?
DB:Can you imagine? No accounting for taste! π
DL:I can, so how was finding work while Andy was on his own odyssey in 1981
DB:I got to broaden my horizons! I gained a lot of experience and knowledge from my time at HB and got to reach out to other studios, etc. As I remember, my next major gig was at Filmation, working on HeMan and the Masters of the Universe, as well as doing some development work for them that never quite made it to the air.
DL:well on IMDb after The Flintstones Comedy Show, you worked on Spider Man for Marvel Productions and NBC.
DB:Right - not sure of the timing for all this. I did write an episode of one of the versions of Spider-Man (and, years later, for another version of that show) - this first one was the version that Dennis Marks story-edited, and was, I think, my only professional encounter with Stan Lee. As well as the plate glass coffee table in their lobby that I always managed to bang into when I was walking past!
DL:Lol, that's awesome. Can you tell me about that encounter with the "business man" Lee?
DB:All I remember is that he was very friendly and nice - I think Dennis was mainly running the meeting, but I did think it was cool that Stan was sitting in on it, "supervising"!
DL:Lol! Wait Dennis is from Hanna Barbera too!
DB:Yes - that's where I knew him from.
DB:Not that I can think of. At HB I knew him as a comedy writer, so it was a surprise to find him running the Spider-Man show - but I think he and Stan really hit it off and collaborated on a number of projects (none of which I know anything about - lol)!
DL:He stayed at Marvel, until 1986 when he returned to the studio.
DL:so, if you can remember, would you like to talk about an episode of the 1981 Spider man series?
DB:Well - not much that I remember. Believe I wrote one episode, called "The Vulture has Landed" - featuring a superhero named... you guessed it - "The Vulture". Apart from being happy to be working on Spider-Man, that's about all I can remember! That and the plate glass coffee table banging my shins every time I went into the studio!
(Actually the comic book character, The Vulture is a villain not a superhero.)
DB:That's why I remember it so well!
DL:Your return to Hanna Barbera in 1982?
DB:I worked as a freelancer on a few different shows - not on staff.
DL:Oh! understand. How did it feel sending scripts to your former co-workers?
DB:Fine! That's pretty much the same way it worked in-house - the only difference is that my office was off-premises (with better access to a refrigerator)! We're all pretty much co-workers, as writers, with people changing roles and studios, but, many times, working with a familiar array of "the usual suspects".
DB:Although, of course, a lot more time needs to be spent "hustling" when one is working freelance!
DL:So about Spider Man, how do you write the web crawler?
DB:Well, we all know what he's like and what he does - at that point, from the comics - so the idea would be to start imagining oneself as Spidey and working to craft an adventure that would work for him, and then see how he would respond!
DL:Yeah, I mean everyone knows Spider Man right? So, you wrote an episode of The Little Rascals animated series. Rascalβs Revenge, process for the episode?
DB:Hahaha! I know I did - and I did like the original Little Rascals, back when I was a "little rascal" myself - but I don't remember anything about that episode at the moment!
DL:Oh ok, so did you watch the original shorts on television?
DL:You wrote the episode with Tedd Anatsi and Patsy Cameron. Who are those two?
DB:Hmmm. They were a writing team - maybe husband and wife? And... maybe they were the story-editors?
DL:Ah ok, do you have any memory of writing with them?
DB:No, I don't believe we co-wrote it - but, er, who knows? If that's what it says on IMDB, well, I believe it's incorrect - unless, say, either they had written the story and I was asked to write the script - or vice versa?
DL:Yeah probably fixed your script as story editors. Yeah probably fixed your script as story editors.
DB:Makes sense - though "fixed" depends upon the eye of the beholder - hahahaha!
DL:Haha! How was trying to make old 30s comedy shorts to appeal to 80s kids?
DB:Well, they certainly appealed to "50's kids" - so not too hard! A fun gang comedy - and the new version would have come with a bible, which would have done most of the heavy lifting for the transposition from the 30's to the 80's - so that's where the foundation would come from - and, from there - it would be "just like any other show" - where you read the bible and any scripts that are available, as well as remembering the feeling of fun from the originals - all of which would then allow you to start to "think like a Little Rascal" and start brainstorming stories and character action, while hanging out with "the gang" in your imagination and seeing what popped up!
DL:Very interesting! So The Smurfs for NBC and SEPP International.
DB:I think IMDB gave me too much credit for that show - as I remember, I wrote an episode for Smurfs and several for Johann and Peewee - which featured the Smurfs. I think Len Janson and Chuck Menville were the story-editors for The Smurfs, and Glenn Leopold was story-editor for Johann and Peewee, which I think were based on illustrated books by Peyo, the original creator.
DL:IMDb said that you wrote 39 episodes of the show in 1982!
DB:Whoa! Yeah, simply not true! Gasp - you mean IMDB isn't infallible? Oh well - mostly they're pretty good!
DL:Yeah, I know! Okay! So Monchichis for ABC, what was that?
DB:Hmmm. Bryce Malek and Dick Robbins were the story-editors. Fun, woodland fantasy creatures - I suspect there was a major comedic villain who wanted to do terrible things to them - and they had to figure out fun and imaginative ways to foil these nefarious plots! I know I wrote two episodes - and enjoyed doing it. One was called "Sky City'' - I think - which seems self-explanatory - but which is also a sort of a nod to the Native American city of Acoma (in New Mexico) - which also goes by the nickname of "Sky City", and is a cool place I've visited on several occasions. Bryce had been the guy in the accounting department at HB who used to walk around and give us our checks, but he was also a writer, and, as he was writing spec scripts, I seem to remember that Glenn and I used to give him notes! And then, he partnered with Dick Robbins, who was a veteran writer - and they became a great team - and, of course, went on to become the story-editors of the first couple of seasons of Transformers! Apart from all that, sorry, I don't remember much more about Monchichis - just that it was a good-natured and light-hearted fantasy/action/comedy that was fun to write.
DL:Ok. Well time for He Man! and you are working for Filmation.
DL:He Man for Filmation and Syndication/Group W
DB:I was on staff there for a bit - my office was actually the coffee room - so I got to see most of the people on the floor!
DL:How was Lou Scheimer? The head honcho?
DB:I didn't have much contact with him - just "hi, how are you?" - the person who was in charge of the writers was Arthur Nadel.
DL:Tell me about Arthur Nadel. Robby London said he was a great guy.
DB:Yes, he was! Deadpan, but funny. He had a series of initials he'd use, to make comments on your script - like NSG (not so good) - DB (do better) - not sure what other ones, but there were a good many! The best moment I had in his office was when he was raking me over the coals for an outline which he thought was terrible - not letting me get a word in edgewise - until he was finished, and I (grinning broadly) - told him that I was not the writer of that episode! He thought that was pretty funny, as well!
DL:Once I remember he gave Robby London an A, and Robby thought it was a grade and Arthur had to break it to him saying it was just his signature. That he wrote that A to show that he read it.
DBThat's hilarious - and sounds totally in character!
2087
dededos
annaxmalina
baratheonpilled
turnnoffyourmind
ellievsbear
