A Quote by Alex Hirsch

I think good kids TV has got to have layers. It has to have compelling characters that everyone loves, but you can't dumb it down. — © Alex Hirsch
I think good kids TV has got to have layers. It has to have compelling characters that everyone loves, but you can't dumb it down.
A lot of people who don't write for kids think it's easy, because they think kids aren't as smart as they are, or that you have to dumb down what you would normally write for kids. But I think you have to work harder when you write for kids, to make sure every word is right, that it's there for the right reason.
I think there's grays in characters if you look at all the great characters, those characters that have those layers of being good and being bad and what's the struggle. It's always more interesting to watch.
It's a different thing with cable TV. You don't have to have your characters be lovely again by the end of the episode. And in this era of the male antiheroes on cable TV, you don't even need to make them likable; you just need to make them compelling. As opposed to film, where it's still those basic tropes of good versus evil. But for women, I don't think that has been widely seen yet.
They see a blooper here and there, and they just think, 'Oh, he's dumb.' I mean, what can I do? I can't 'at' everyone on Twitter and tell them I'm not dumb. Because that looks dumb.
In America, we're being stripped of our jobs, our good jobs are really good down, and we've got to stop it. And the only way you're going to stop it, the nice way is, we're reducing taxes very substantially for companies so they're not going to have to leave because of taxes. We'll be reducing regulations. Now those are the nice ways of doing it and everyone loves it and everyone's happy. Businesses, way down. Also middle class, but way down, O.K., taxes and regulations.
I think if you make good, interesting content with compelling story lines and good characters, people will tune into the web for as long as you want them to.
You have to add some sort of dimension to each of your characters because everyone has their own layers.
Everything in Louisiana is about layers. There are layers of race, layers of class, layers of survival, layers of death, and layers of rebirth. To live with these layers is to be a true Louisianian. This state has a depth that is simultaneously beyond words and yet as natural as breathing. How can a place be both other-worldly and completely pedestrian is beyond me; however, Louisiana manages to do it. Louisiana is spooky that way.
I think that layers in music, whether it's layers juxtaposing emotions and feelings or layers of texture, make for a more interesting product.
I don't think kids have a problem reading books meant for adults; the problem is on the other side of the fence, a misconception of what one kind of literature is 'supposed' to be, perceived to be, as opposed to another: if it's for kids, it can't be any good; it's got to have been dumbed down and/or sweetened up.
I think the tricky balance, the most important thing more than the horror is to have a compelling story, compelling drama, a show about great characters that you care about and you want to come back every week to see what they're up to.
A lot of kid characters you see on TV are sassy, and snarky, and think they're just the coolest kids in the world, and are mean spirited.
Hana, everything that God made valuable in the world is covered and hard to get to. Where do you find diamonds? Deep down in the ground, covered and protected. Where do you find pearls? Deep down at the bottom of the ocean, covered up and protected in a beautiful shell. Where do you find gold? Way down in the mine, covered over with layers and layers of rock. You've got to work hard to get to them.
For me, the attraction of TV is that you continue to get to tell those stories and refine those characters. The other thing is that TV, in the last years, got really, really, really good.
I was 7 years old when 'Roots' was first broadcast, and my parents gathered all us kids around the TV to learn about how we got here. But it wasn't until I sat down and immersed myself in the research that I got the barest inkling of what it meant to be a slave.
You have to think about good storytelling and characters first. Then hopefully, the rest of that stuff will follow, some more than others. But if you don't have a good film and strong characters, then you don't have anything down the road.
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