Latest news with #TeamTO
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
'Je Suis Milhouse': Matt Groening Gets Emotional At Annecy As He Reveals The Motivation Behind The 800-Episode Longevity Of ‘The Simpsons'
Matt Groening, arguably the greatest TV animator of all time, grew visibly emotional receiving the Honorary Cristal Award at today's Annecy International Animation Film Festival, which he labeled the 'best festival in the world, animation or otherwise.' Receiving the gong in front of a packed house, he paid tribute to the 'gods and goddesses' in the audience, who 'fill the universe with crazy characters who do what you tell them to do.' More from Deadline From Brink Of Bankruptcy, TeamTO Unveils Six New Shows & Adult Animation Push At Annecy Neil Court Joins Coolabi As Chairman Amid 'Warrior Cats' Growth Push And M&A Opportunities Sola Media Posts First Deals For Annecy Title 'Captain Sabertooth And The Countess Of Grel' 'You can have them be brave but isn't it more fun to have Homer fall off a cliff?,' he said. 'We torment our characters and have fun with them.' Groening was emotional as he thanked his family and reminded the audience that the main characters in The Simpsons are famously named after his father and mother, Homer and Marge, his sisters, Lisa and Maggie, and his grandfather, Abe. Is Bart named after Groening? 'I'll let you into a little secret…. Je suis Milhouse,' joked Groening, in reference to Bart's loveable, dorky best friend. After watching a new ep of The Simpsons, the audience were treated to a masterclass from Groening, animator David Silverman and showrunner Matt Selman. During this session, Groening revealed the real thing that has motivated him to return to The Simpsons after all these years. 'We don't think about being responsible but our main motivation is to surprise ourselves,' he said to applause. 'If we surprise ourselves then we think we can surprise the audience.' The secret to the 36-year-old animation stalwart's 800-episode longevity is never to be lazy and keep layering the humor, he added. 'As it goes on we become known for different kinds of jokes,' added Groening. 'We have parodies of cinema and references to books, TV shows and personal autobiographical anecdotes. The sum total of the show is that contribution of everyone involved.' In the next season of The Simpsons, there will be an ode to famous American cartoonist Jules Feiffer and Groening quoted Feiffer when referencing The Simpsons' long-lasting success: 'Jules said with every advance in technology comes decline in quality. So we have tried to maintain that hand drawn quality.' He also faced questions over the show's odd knack for predicting real-life events, including an episode in which Lisa references a President Donald Trump years before he became POTUS. 'All the conspiracy theories are true,' joked Groening, who pretended that the creative team pulls its predictions out of a Marge Simpson-shaped wig that his team had brought on stage. Groening and the team then proceeded to pull out a set of joke predictions including that the 'Statue of Liberty will be returned to France when no one in America can remember what the word 'liberty' means,' and 'electric cars will use a new energy source powered by a hatred of Elon Musk.' In terms of the advice he'd give future animators, Groening first said 'do not let your mom throw away your comic book collection when you leave High School,' and secondly became emotional once more as he urged the crowd of young animators: 'Whatever you're working on, finish it. The world is full of half-finished pieces of animation, so finish it and get it out there.' Groening was speaking on the second day of the Annecy International Animation Film Festival, which is being attended by all the big American studios. Groening labeled Annecy 'the best festival in the world, animation or otherwise.' Best of Deadline Sean 'Diddy' Combs Sex-Trafficking Trial Updates: Cassie Ventura's Testimony, $10M Hotel Settlement, Drugs, Violence, & The Feds A Full Timeline Of Blake Lively & Justin Baldoni's 'It Ends With Us' Feud In Court, Online & In The Media Where To Watch All The 'John Wick' Movies: Streamers That Have All Four Films
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘Dexter's Laboratory' & ‘The Powerpuff Girls' Creators On How They Broke The System At Cartoon Network
If he was starting out today, Dexter's Laboratory creator Genndy Tartakovsky would 'make cartoon after cartoon until something hits.' That was Tartakovsky's pearl of wisdom delivered to a packed Annecy audience as he celebrated 25 years of Cartoon Network Studios with a sextet of creators of some of the biggest American cartoons of all time, including The Powerpuff Girls, Adventure Time and Steven Universe. More from Deadline From Brink Of Bankruptcy, TeamTO Unveils Six New Shows & Adult Animation Push At Annecy Neil Court Joins Coolabi As Chairman Amid 'Warrior Cats' Growth Push And M&A Opportunities "Je Suis Milhouse": Matt Groening Gets Emotional At Annecy As He Reveals The Motivation Behind The 800-Episode Longevity Of 'The Simpsons' Tartakovsky, who is also in Annecy promoting Netflix's Fixed, figures it's easier than ever to get your big break because young cartoonists can flood YouTube with ideas. 'It's partly independent now because you can make it and put it on your own kind of cable channel,' he added. 'That's what I'd do [if I were starting now]. I'd work a day job and then at night I'd make cartoon after cartoon until something hits. It was more difficult when we were coming up.' Tartakovsky is enthused by the new landscape and said he 'feels like when I was younger, I feel like that energy makes me still want to do new things.' He sat next to his old friend and The Powerpuff Girls creator Craig McCracken, who concurred, saying that for his spin-off of Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, which he is making with Warner-owned Hanna Barbera Studios Europe, 'the energy is so Cartoon Network' on set. Adam Muto, showrunner of Adventure Time, was slightly more muted on the current state of things. 'We need to make sure people with idiosyncrasies get to have their own voices,' he said. 'But [commissioners] have to greenlight stuff. They have gotta greenlight.' 'We were breaking the system' Tartakovsky and McCracken walked the Annecy audience through how they broke the system at Cartoon Network Studios a quarter century ago when they were first starting out, with Tartakovsky describing the older generation of cartoonists back then as being 'beaten down' when he landed his Dexter's Laboratory greenlight as a young man. McCracken, who worked with Tartakosvky on Dexter's Laboratory, added: 'We were breaking the system and they didn't like that. They were survivalists and we had been given an opportunity they had been working their whole lives for. I felt a bit bad for them but we were given this golden opportunity, this one seven-minute show. And to be fair some of the old guard loved what we were doing.' Tartakosvky set the scene for the early days of Dexter's Lab, which went on to achieve the rare feat of being a primetime Emmy-nominated cartoon. 'Half the crew were high,' he joked. 'I felt like I was saying, 'Guys come on this is our one shot,' and then they wouldn't start working till 2 p.m.' He said he was 'so worried about getting fired' that he 'didn't have a minute to focus on anything apart from what I was doing.' Soon after, McCracken's Powerpuff Girls landed a greenlight, making him into a star of the animation world, but this wasn't plain sailing either. McCracken spoke of experiencing the worst focus group of his life with a group of 11-year-old boys, one of whom even called for the 'creator to be fired.' At the time, Cartoon Network executive Mike Lazzo convinced McCracken that it was better to have people hate the show than be indifferent, and he was told to push ahead. 'I had to get out of my own head and tell myself to stop being so arty,' said McCracken. 'We felt we could make cartoons at the time so we said let's make this the best thing it can be.' The pair were joined on stage by four younger cartoon creators including Muto, Regular Show's JG Quintel, Steven Universe creator Rebecca Sugar and Adventure Time's Pendleton Ward. This quartet, who were termed the 'second generation' of Cartoon Network voices, had an intriguing discussion around fear of failure. 'The first season we thought we'd get canned every moment,' said Muto. 'It was during a transitional moment [for Cartoon Network] and our shows had to be hits.' Quintel said creatives live in fear at the start of their journeys that 'if these are bad, then we're getting in trouble.' For Sugar, who is the first non-binary person to independently create a series for the network, it was 'less about competition and more about protection' at the start of her journey. 'I learned when showrunning that when there is something specific on a board, you have to think how to protect it,' she explained. Sugar was delighted to sit on the same stage as Tartakovsky. She recalled pitching him an early version of Steven Universe. When Tartakosvky said he'd direct an ep, 'I crashed my car into a pole on the way home,' Sugar added. The group were speaking at Annecy on the same day as Matt Groening. Best of Deadline Sean 'Diddy' Combs Sex-Trafficking Trial Updates: Cassie Ventura's Testimony, $10M Hotel Settlement, Drugs, Violence, & The Feds A Full Timeline Of Blake Lively & Justin Baldoni's 'It Ends With Us' Feud In Court, Online & In The Media Where To Watch All The 'John Wick' Movies: Streamers That Have All Four Films
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
From Brink Of Bankruptcy, TeamTO Unveils Six New Shows & Adult Animation Push At Annecy
Last year, storied French animation outfit TeamTO was on the brink of folding. Today at Annecy, its new owners unveiled reinvention and expansion. The PJ Masks outfit ran into financial problems after 20 years in operation and was bought in late 2024 by Italy's Riva Studios for €2.6M ($3M) after a 'highly competitive auction.' More from Deadline Neil Court Joins Coolabi As Chairman Amid 'Warrior Cats' Growth Push And M&A Opportunities "Je Suis Milhouse": Matt Groening Gets Emotional At Annecy As He Reveals The Motivation Behind The 800-Episode Longevity Of 'The Simpsons' Sola Media Posts First Deals For Annecy Title 'Captain Sabertooth And The Countess Of Grel' Six months on, new CEO Marco Balsamo unveiled a sextet of shows, a push into 2D and adult animation, and new technology. During an Annecy Studio in Focus event that has just finished, Balsamo showed audiences SKWAD!, TeamTO's first adult animated 2D comedy, which is set in the world of MMA, along with Infinity, a cinematic adult action-drama from acclaimed director Jay Oliva. Tapping into Balsamo's love for soccer – his family owns a soccer team in New York – TeamTO is also making Shadow Soccer, an anime-inspired sports drama with supernatural elements. Completing the sextet are What's Up, Eesha?, a whimsical preschool series co-produced with Maga Animation (Italy) and UMedia (Belgium), Greek mythology show Next Level: Odyssey and H.O.M.E., a sci-fi family comedy about a blended household living inside a retired intergalactic battle robot. Speaking to Deadline before the Studio in Focus, Balsamo said CGI will 'remain our bread and butter' but 'we've always wanted to branch out and show a variety of what TeamTO can accomplish, and that is in the 2D and adult animation space.' For the foreseeable future, the indie will take a roughly 50/50 split approach to its original IP work and production services, he added. Balsamo and his team became interested in acquiring troubled studio TeamTO initially to rescue some IP the pair were working on titled Junichiro Jackson – 'In our head it wasn't buying the studio but getting back our IP,' he said – but he quickly realized TeamTO was a 'turnkey' company. 'When we opened up the Pandora's Box there's this incredible team of people,' he added. 'It's a lot more than just CGI. And our job now is to optimize that and do the best we can to instil confidence within our team and our partners that we can re-establish ourselves as a premier animation studio.' Around 90%, or the 'core group' of TeamTO's circa-39 staff have kept their jobs, Balsamo said, although they were unable to retain the previous ownership 'for various reasons.' He said 'a handful of poor decisions at a bad time' combined with the 2023 U.S. labor strikes spelt the end for the previous iteration of TeamTO. 'They decided to expand into a huge studio that cost way too much money to sustain because they were under the impression that they were going to handle productions in double digits,' he added. 'When the service projects stopped coming in, the money dried up. It just boiled down to that decision.' Balsamo notes it is a rocky time for animation but said 'with that comes opportunity.' The new owner said he is equally happy working with local French players and major American studios, who are out in full force at Annecy this week, and he issued a rallying cry for the industry to come together in a time of strife and in the face of layoffs and the dangers of artificial intelligence. 'I think we're at an inflection point,' added Balsamo. 'Tribalism has to go. At the end of the day the robots are not going to support us or pay our bills. So studios, executives, partners and broadcasters really need to champion stories. Budgets and greenlights are harder to come by so we need to work together.' With this in mind, Balsamo's team will also unveil this week proprietary tech that it will shop to the market rather than keeping in-house including Tangerine, a real-time animation platform that it says increases animator productivity by up to 30%, and Yuzu, a new production management tool offering real-time visibility. Balsamo was speaking to Deadline at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival in France. Best of Deadline Sean 'Diddy' Combs Sex-Trafficking Trial Updates: Cassie Ventura's Testimony, $10M Hotel Settlement, Drugs, Violence, & The Feds A Full Timeline Of Blake Lively & Justin Baldoni's 'It Ends With Us' Feud In Court, Online & In The Media Where To Watch All The 'John Wick' Movies: Streamers That Have All Four Films
