Little Go Beep - Addendum
Two other things I wanted to mention, the first being a curious observation and the second being a mild rant.
Before the short went to color, the cels were offered to the Warner Bros. Stores art galleries (remember them?) to help offset the cost of the production. They refused them. They didn’t want them. Apparently, like comic books before them, the collector cel speculation market had dried up. There was a time when people would buy any old cel hoping that it would miraculously skyrocket in value. Of course, a few of them did, but if you didn’t know which ones they were, you might just wind up hanging that Keebler Elf on your wall and be forced to enjoy him. And thus, the short was colored on the computer and there are no cels from it. So, if you should happen upon a cel from Little Go Beep, it’s either a phony, or that’s the one that’s going to be worth a lot of money someday.
For some time now, there’s been a faction in the animation business with distinct opinions about writers. That opinion is that writers belong in animation about the same way an auto mechanic belongs in a symphony orchestra. Basically, writers who don’t draw shouldn’t be allowed to write cartoons. There are so many things wrong with this theory, but I’ll give you two reasons and then get to the point of why I brought this up: the writer is supposed to create a mental image with words. That’s the job of a writer. Then the artist can take that mental image and put it on paper. What difference does it make if the artist thought up the mental image or the writer put it in his head? It’s the same mental image.
Their argument goes on that because a writer is writing words to begin with, writer’s scripts tend to be more dialogue heavy than an artist’s storyboard would be. It depends on the writer and it depends on the artist. I’ve seen plenty of dialogue heavy cartoons made by artists with no writer involved at all and I’ve seen scripts written by writers with practically no dialogue.
Which brings me to my point: Little Go Beep was written as a script. There are about six lines of dialogue and the rest of the short is all visual gags. Spike had no trouble pulling the mental images off the paper and then enhancing them. He dropped one of my gags, added one of his own, changed the ending of another gag and added a topper onto the tail of another gag. Other than that, it’s exactly the way I wrote it. And by the way, that’s what I call a collaboration. Spike took what I wrote and made it even better without having to make wholesale slash and burn changes, like so often happens. Thank you again, Spike, for sharing my vision.
So, the next time someone tries to tell you that writers shouldn’t write cartoons, tell them to go look at Little Go Beep… oh, wait… you still can’t see it anywhere. Well, tell them to hire me and I’ll make sure they get a funny, visual cartoon. I know how to do it. I’ve seen it!