Creator of Be Cool, Scooby Doo! Comments on the problems in the

>>93446868
> It's a frantic finger-pointing episode

Eh, people were getting used to the animation and look of it. That wasn't the problem. WB made huge mistakes right from the beginning (including the look of it, which was there before Zac and I arrived - we pulled it back from being even worse). We needed the more cartoony look for the comedy, which people began to understand as they gave it a chance. The real problem was that WB and CN didn't give the show a chance, didn't trust Zac and I to just make the show we knew we should make, so they interfered way too much early on - which, when they saw it was a mistake, held up production and made me rewrite the first 8-10 episodes from scratch (1-3 days a piece instead of 4-5 weeks a piece, which is normal) and wasted hundreds of thousands of dollars. They hired "Phieas & Ferb" guys and then didn't trust us to know what we were talking about when we said "THIS is how we made "Phineas," THIS is why it was a hit."

Then, they couldn't suddenly admit they had been wrong, so they blamed all the hold-ups on me and Zac and we never really caught up until near the end of first season - while we still actually to manage to make a bunch of really great, fun first season shows. By second season they stopped getting in our way as much (that was their version of admitting they were wrong - by leaving us alone more). We made a great second season, until they saw how great it was, then they gave someone else all the credit, fired Zac and stuck me, creatively, under a non-writer who thought they were a better writer than I was. Everything went downhill from there. Nobody who had anything to do with the creation of that show or what made it great was rewarded (I was never made a producer on the show) and they almost acted like if the show did catch on and become a hit, then they'd have to give me and Zac credit and lose face for having never trusted us, so they buried it out of ego.

Whatever. I hope you all see second season (and they didn't destroy it) and I hope you like it. I'm just really pissed off now that the streaming service is here and has also totally blown it. What a waste of time and money.

Thanks, Doo - Just to clarify, they didn't exactly "fire" Zac, he walked off in disgust because WB allowed certain crew members to take too much power and get too much credit because they played politics, were at WB longer and were WB's "pets" - so they could o what they wanted and had the top brass' ears, into which they whispered how they could do a better job than Zac and I. Zac is one of the nicest, fairest and most egoless people you'll ever meet in Hollywood, who is also one of the most talented. Usually those two don't go hand in hand, but somehow Zac makes it work. He's an saint of a guy - and absolutely brilliant. That kind of style is just not in keeping with WB's current managerial style, so Zac appeared "weak" and the water was chummed and the sharks attacked. Every move they made was a creative mistake for the show, but if an arrogant jerk suggests it, WB believes it MUST be right! Zac just got tired of fighting against a machine that clearly didn't respect what and how he was doing to make a great show, so he bailed.

I was Zac's second in command - I was the head writer, story editor and uncredited co-creator/developer of the series. It would have been natural, since even WB considered me "the voice of the show,' to promote me to producer and allow me to have some creative control over what happens AFTER the scripts were complete (important things, like being in voice records to make sure the lines I wrote were delivered correctly, etc), but no, once Zac left, I was NOT demoted, I just lost my direct line to the top of the creative power structure and the people who took his place thought THEY knew better, so I was basically left in my office churning out great scripts without any control over making sure they were executed correctly like I had with Zac. If Zac wasn't sure about something in the script, he'd walk in my office and ask me what I meant. That stopped happening and board artists and directors were given permission to rewrite at will - most of the time for stuff that they wouldn't have rewritten had they understood what the intention was or what the function of it was in the story structure. They all really talented artists - but none of them are trained writers.

Animation (especially kids animation) is made up of a bunch of artists who went to art school and they're brilliant, trained artists, not writers - which takes JUST as much training and practice. It's the old cliche - EVERYBODY thinks they're a writer because words on a page look like words on a page - unlike ART, which you can tell when someone has gone to school and is trained and learned the craft of drawing and animating. They all think, "I'm funny! I can write this!" without having any idea what there-act structure is, what character arcs are, how to create character driven comedy, how to structure and build a story and keep your character's voices and action unique and individual to that character. It's all just so common in Hollywood. The WGA is about to go on strike again because the studios and producers don't want to give writers the tiniest, little bit more (in fact, while Hollywood is raking in record profits, writer salaries are going down). It's the oldest story in the book (ironically, because "books" need writers).

I'm sorry to rant, here, folks, and I'm expecting to get a stern letter from WB telling me to shut up, but I'm so sick and tired of haven been treated like crap at that place, being basically out-right told they didn't want me there - BUT - they couldn't do the show without me, so they'll grudgingly let me stay because the show if funny and no one else seems to able to write it correctly. I'm sorry, but we made a GREAT show and if everyone who had the power had done the right things to give the show a good chance of finding an audience, they would have had a hit Scooby Doo show. I don't care what any of the "haters" (God, I despise that word) say. BCSD was the a great funny show with great, well-rounded characters that would have caught on and would have one day been considered one of the top 3 best Scooby series of all time. There's no way of knowing now. They sunk it, instead. Lord forbid Zac and I were right all along. Sorry, I'm having a grumpy day. End of rant.

Thanks for the kind words, as always, Doo. Technically, Zac wasn't fired, but they tied his hands and made it impossible to do his job, so he left.

I also wasn't "demoted," as I remained story editor until I left, but the person who took over for Zac took me out of the loop - so I couldn't make sure the scripts were being executed properly once completed or be in the room when there was a creative problem to help solve. BCSD was a very script driven show and very difficult to write - even for many brilliant veteran writers. But people tend to assume writing is easy or anybody can do it. They fail to understand that the amazing animation artists became that good because they went to school for it, practiced it, worked at it for years and learned their craft - and the same thing applies to writers. They mistake "being funny" or being able to come up with funny ideas as "writing," which requires an understanding of character arcs, act structure, plot points, pacing, etc, etc. The problem is if you took a trained artist and a non-trained artist and asked both to draw. Any layman off the street could look at both drawings and guess who the professional artist is. If you did the same with a trained and untrained writer, the layman would see same thing when he looked at what they produced: words on a page.

I've heard much of second season turned out well. I imagine the problems will begin towards the last few episodes after Zac left and then they put me on hiatus when I finished the last script and completed production for 6-7 months without ANY writer on staff at all. Hopefully, they'll drop the rest of season 1 and all of season 2 on the streaming service (or anywhere) soon. There's so much great stuff I'm excited for you guys to see it.

http://scoobyaddicts.proboards.com/thread/4595/official-return-boomerang-streaming-service?page=4

>>93446880
Who is this from?

>then they gave someone else all the credit
Who does this refer to?

>>93446972
This part is fucking beautiful.

>>93447003
Kind of disappointed we didn't see Be Cool's full potential if he was this confident in it.

Season 2 episodes haven't even aired yet.

The first episode was neat, but frankly, this behind-the-scenes drama is far more entertaining

I'm surprised this was even renewed for a second season, considering all this shit. I wonder what horror stories other badly treated shows like Wabbit, the DC shows, etc. had.

Nice insight. Sounds like even for proven Vets, things can suck.