#space ark

DL:So I ask you, who are you,what do you do, and what you're best known for?

KM:Ken Mitchroney, Carbon based unit. I do a lot of things but let's boil it down too, animation studio swiss army knife and comic book artist. Best known for Teenage Mutant ninja Turtles Adventures comic books and numerous animated features and TV shows. None of my skills include proof reading as we will see here.😄

DL:Lol! So growing up, how was your childhood?

KM: Middle class, Florida upbringing. No complaints.

DL:So, what were your favorite cartoons growing up?

KM:Warner Brothers and Tom and Jerry cartoons mostly. Some of the Hanna Barbera tv cartoons as well.

DL:So when did you decide you wanted to become an animator?

KM:Once I found out what they were.I think I was like, ten?

DL:So did you practice drawing? Like trying to draw the characters you see on Tv? Like how do they work?

KM:Constantly. And comic books and comic strips. Just trying to crack the code back then. It's how you learn.

DL:Yeah, kinda me too! It's just so hard. Until I found a book called How to Draw Animated Cartoons. That book taught me how to draw cartoons and design them.

KM:Yeah. Preston Blair's book on animation was the turning point. Found it in an art supply store in Lake Worth and it changed everything.That and getting a 16mm camera and learning how film works and is put together.

DL:I know, he just made everything look so easy! Especially character construction!

KM:The building blocks.

DL:Yeah! So,how was high school?

KM: had a different kind of high school experience than most. A friend of my fathers, Archie Di Bacco started a private school that had its own way of teaching and also focusing heavily on the arts. Being that I'm highly dyslexic, I was struggling in regular school because no one catered to this back then, so my folks sent me to Di Bacco School.I flourished there being a visual thinker.I learned film making, animation ,photography, broadcasting art and art theory and a ton of other skills. What a great place.Saved my life and loaded my gun for the careers I had coming.I was also in communication with Bob Clampett, Tex Avery, Mel Blanc and Friz Freling by this time. Great mentors 3000 miles away.And they were very kind with their time on the rare times I would come out.

DL:So how did you enter the industry after school? Was it hard? Because you didnt work in animation until 1988.

KM:Yeah, It was frustrating. Friz offered me a job at DFE but, I told him I wanted to finish my last year of high school and I would be back. The industry changed from cartoons to more realistic superhero shows and my portfolio didn't reflect the change so, even though I knew people, I could not get hired so I went back home, Licked my wounds and started to work in Comics and film until something broke.And it did. I was at comic con in San Diego promoting my book, Space Ark and Jerry Beck came by my table. " Sody Clampett has been trying to get a hold of you. They are doing a new Beany and Cecil television show and the family wants you to come in and Interview." My wife flew back to Florida. I took the train to Burbank and got the job. God bless Bob Clampett and the family.From then on it was animation, comic books and live action film.

DL:So,I want to ask you something.

KM:Why I'm here😄

DL:So are you a furry? According to your WikiFur page?

KM:Actually no. Space Ark was the first real funny animal comic book out there in the early 80's. I was not aware of the furry movement then but it was embraced by them and I think that's where all this came from. I have some friends who were into all that and I was happy to drop a few Space Ark drawings in fanzines as favors but that was about it. Guilt by association.

DL:Like Mike Kazaleh and Marc Schrimster?They were your colleagues right?'

KM:And friends, yeah. Good guys and very talented artists.

DL:I know! I have one of Mike's Captain Jack books!

KM:Yeah. Mike's books came after Cutie Bunny and Space Ark hit the stands. I wish more people remembered what we did back then. That self publishing time back in the early 80's was something else. A lot of talented guys and gals followed us and they and their books are sadly forgotten now.

DL:Yeah, I mean the most known funny animal comic now is Cerbus the Aardvark!

KM:I got a very nice write up in one of the Cerbus editorials back then when we all met up for the Comic Book Creator Rights Conference in North Hampton that my old pals Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird put on.Talking about how funny animal comic book artist are the Rodney Dangerfield of the industry.😄 But I digress.

DL:Haha! So back on track, Beany and Cecil for DiC, Bob Clampett Productions and ABC.

KM:Yup!

DL:How was working on it as a layout artist?

KM:It was fine. John.K was very demanding about what he needed and kept us all on our toes. I learned a lot about TV production, schedules and studio politics and made friends with guys who would ask me to go on to be life long trench buddies in the business. It was a shame it ended so quickly.

DL:From an interview from DiC vice president Robby London, said it was a nightmare in production. especially John K, as he would draw stuff in the episode nobody would see.

KM:Being a mindless production drone at the time, we didn't really hear about that until the day we all got cut.So I went back to Florida again and then got the call to come back out and work on Tiny Toons so, it all worked out.

DL:So who called you? Tom Ruegger?

KM:Eddie Fitzgerald. He wanted to get the old Beany band back together again.So we all just migrated back there. And Mike Kazaleh graciously let me sleep on the couch in his living room.

DL:What a nice guy!

KM:Indeed.

DL:So what is a layout artist? Is he the guy who draws the poses for the in-betweener to draw, creating motion?

KM:You do key pose drawings for the overseas animators based on the storyboard. A lot like what an animation director would do back in the old days. This also included background keys from time to time. I was also doing storyboard revision and clean up by this time.

DL:Ah, so what did you think of doing a Muppet Babies version of the Looney Tunes?

KM:They were their own thing so I didn't have a problem with it at all. The fact we got to draw the real Loony Tunes guys from time to time was a real treat.And we got to work with some of the old WB mid timers. What an education. For me anyway.

DL:cool! Were you a caricature in Tiny Toons?

This is a splash page of all of the crew who worked on tiny toons circa 1990. Notice the guy with the derp stare and big forehead on the right, yeah that’s Bruce Timm, creator of Batman: the Animated Series.

This was all the crew on the show.

KM:Bruce Time taught himself how to do caricatures and he went nuts during production. Funny stuff. I'm right in front of Jeff Pidgeon in this one.

DL:Yeah, you were so tiny in that one!Did Bruce Timm really have a big forehead?

KM:Yeah. Both of us did in his drawings.😄

DL:Ah ok.

KM:Some amazingly talented folks in that one.

DL:I thought he wore glasses?This was a caricature of himself in Batman.

This is the character Ted Dymer, the main antagonist of the Batman:TAS episode, Beware the Grey Ghost. Who is also modeled after and voiced by Bruce Timm. notice the glasses and blonde hair?

Did he wear glasses later?

KM:We all did. Thanks animation.

DL:Yeah. So Taz Mania for FOX as a layout artist?

KM:I was a story artist by that time and was doing development with Jeff Pidgeon on Taz Mania. Jeff left to work on the Simpsons and then a little commercial house up north called Pixar. I went back home to Florida and got called back to do story on Taz once it got greenlit.

DL:So how was working there? with Bill Kopp and Mike Milo and some guy who's first name is Art

KM:Same old same old.Bill and I are certifiable and should not be left unsupervised. Hahaha!!!

DL:Lol!So you left WB in 1991, why did you?

KM:They would not let me move up to director so I followed Art Leonardi over to Universal to get their animation studio up and running. Being that I was a live action guy and understood his film language, Steven had me come back and re-board the mine chase in the Tiny Toons summer vacation special. I never received credit for that one but hey, it was for Steven and I love that guy's work. But yeah. I did a lot of development pitch art and storyboards for things like The Munsters and Oswald the Magical Rabbit. We also did work for Shelly Duvall's Bedtime Stories and whatever needed bandaids over there.

DL:Can you tell me what was the Oswald reboot?This was pre Disney/Walter Lantz ownership of the character.

KM:They found out they owned it and wanted to see if there was anything to it. Five boards of concept art and an outline was all it got.

DL:Oh ok. So that's what it was.

KM:Yeah. It just died.

DL:Sadly nobody uses Oswald after 1952, he wasn't brung back until 2006 with Epic Mickey, the video game.What was the Munsters cartoon?

KM:The Munsters was great fun and all mine to develop. I was in heaven because I loved the show so much. The studio shut down just before our pitch. It would have been great fun.The only thing that came of the whole Universal Animation studio effort was Stunt Dawgs for Hal Needham. Once Universal pulled the plug on its animation effort, that was sent over to DIC. I did all the character designs but didn't get the gig working on the show. That's Hollywood.

DL:Who is Hal Needham?

KM:Hal Needhan was king of the stuntmen and a very popular movie director at the time.

DL:Ah. You also worked on Back to the Future:the Animated Series?

KM:One of the great take aways from working at Universal. It's also the show where I met John Stevenson who went on to direct Kung Fu Panda when I was at Dreamworks and years later, he and I were working on and just finished Max and the Midknights at Nickelodeon.

DL:Wow! Friends to the end,eh?

KM:Yes sir!

DL:So you opened an independent studio with Mike Kazaleh in 1992 right in orlando?

KM:In Deland Florida, yeah. I was not getting what I wanted out of Hollywood and was sick of being away from your wife eight months of the year, sleeping on floors and couches all over the valley so I left. My last interview was with John K to come work with the old gang on Ren and Stimpy. I had a feeling it was going to be a train wreck so I thanked John, waved bye to all my pals over at Spumco and went home to start my own studio. Everyone said I was nuts but I was able to keep it going for seven years. We did a lot of productions for Hollywood, local commercials, comic books and anything that came through our doors. Bob Ross came by and had us develop a show for him before he died. Happy trees. Happy animated trees. Hahaha!!!

DL:Wow! So do you remember any projects you did back then at your studio?

KM:We did more Back to the Future and boarded a lot of stuff. The Ninja Turtle thing was hitting then so I did a lot of art and comics for Mirage and Archie. I'm so glad I did because all that is hot again and it's saving my neck between productions nowadays. Cowabunga!Then Jeff Pidgeon contacted me about a story gig at Pixar and the world changed again.

DL:What was Santa's Magic Book?

KM:Our last production. Yeah.

DL:I was baffled by that, and I had to ask.

KM:Yeah. Some local businessmen wanted to do a show.

DL:Go on?

KM:And that was it. Just another thing to keep the studio lights on- barely.

DL:And did it air on local TV?

KM:I guess? We delivered it, I shut down the studio and moved to the bay area by then.

DL:Ok. And you said goodbye to Orlando?