They Shoot Animators, Don't They?

Once in a while, this happens. Mostly, executives take the fall for it, but every once in a blue moon, animators will get blamed.

Now, if you can’t decode this cryptic, incomplete message than I might just have to spell it out for you. When an animated show fails, either the executive or the animators come up short.

No one is concerned with the cancellation of an animated show. No one. At the end of the day, people go back to work, no one is hurt, and the show fades into memory.

Enter the animator. The animator remembers the show to his deathbed. He remembers that he wasted half of his life on his best idea. And now, he’s pissed that his best idea didn’t work. Now, usually, this is the fault of the executive--he didn’t promote it enough/support it enough/paid a minute’s worth of attention to it.

And, the show’s few fans get press release crap shoved down their throats.

The executive doesn’t have to weather the storm. That’s what PR people are for, right? So that they can put up with the public’s disproval and dissent. When the animator is blamed/targeted, they defend themselves.

Sometimes, there’s more that can be said for such people, who defend their honor all by themselves. Someone who admits that, yes “Scraggydump” may not have been such a great idea for an animated series, but now they might have a better one. AND THEN, THEY REBOUND.

Executives, they’re a strange sort, aren’t they? Me, the Eternal Optimist, would prefer to believe that good--Great--executives actually exist. That there are executives that would take chances with a show, and back it all the way. But good executives are hard to find.

If you’re a beginning animator, and you’re just coming into town, then you take what you can get. Often, that means having to s-e-t-t-l-e. That’s hardly a good thing.

Circumstances change if you’re an Ivy-League school grad. You can shave some years off of working in the industry. Studios are pre-conditioned to giving first preference to overachievers, because their skills seem to be proven. “Those S.O.Bs have degrees to back it up! Aw, come on! Whaddya sayin’? They got it custom made, over the ‘Net?”

So, it doesn’t matter that the “recipient” could have manufactured a sheepskin--the studios don’t believe in investing time, money and intelligence into the sincerity of their applicants, of the legitimacy of their credentials. Seein’ is believin’, ‘cause in Hollywood you’re supposed to be too busy to research things. Now, I’m not implying that college and university grads more often than not--cheat. On the contrary, most of them work very hard. They put their all into what they do. But, there are some who prosper in the industry by scheming. You know that, though.

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