The success of 'The Simpsons' really opened doors. It showed that if you were working in animation you didn't necessarily have to be working in kids' television.
The success of The Simpsons really opened doors. It showed that if you were working in animation you didn't necessarily have to be working in kids' television.
This is my work ethic: I do not want to raise my future kids where I was raised, and I know the only way to do it is working, working, working, working, working.
Don't buy society’s definition of success. Because it’s not working for anyone. It’s not working for women, it's not working for men, it's not working for polar bears, it's not working for the cicadas that are apparently about to emerge and swarm us. It’s only truly working for those who make pharmaceuticals for stress, sleeplessness and high blood pressure.
It's always hard when you're working on a project, and you're seeing it in bits and pieces, whether that be film, television, video games, animation - you only really have perspective of what you're interacting with.
You can't really gauge the difficulties of television. There's difficulties and joys that happen with an amazing, great team, when one is working. Television can be a very frustrating job for almost anybody working in television, because you're shooting episodically, and you don't know one scene from the next, and maybe they change around.
I think the No. 1 lesson I learned from 'The Simpsons' was just that animation could be as funny as live-action. That animation could be funnier than live-action. That animation didn't have to just be for kids.
Working with the WWF was a wonderful experience and it opened up a lot of doors for me.
'The Simpsons' obviously is a huge success, and Fox has nothing to do with its success, with its creative success, and as a result they don't really like the show. They don't like 'The Simpsons' at Fox.
The experience I've had with Strikeforce kickboxing, K1, Strikeforce MMA, working with ESPN, working with Showtime, working with Japanese television, working with fighter camps from all over the world has given me a unique perspective.
So I'm happiest when I'm working with artists and writers, and involved in stories, whether we're talking about animation or movies or comics or television.
Kids don't have a little brother working in the coal mine, they don't have a little sister coughing her lungs out in the looms of the big mill towns of the Northeast. Why? Because we organized; we broke the back of the sweatshops in this country; we have child labor laws. Those were not benevolent gifts from enlightened management. They were fought for, they were bled for, they were died for by working people, by people like us. Kids ought to know that.
I get a lot of credit for Tron. They called us scene choreographers back then because the animation unit wouldn't let us be called animators because we were working on computers. And we were some of the first people ever to make 3-D computer animation.
Yeah, I like working in television, a lot. I really enjoyed my time on 'Lost.' I like developing that hint of family with people. I mean, if you're on a happy set. If you're on a set where there's some sour apples, then I don't like working in television.
The surprising thing was, it's actually easier working on animation than working on a comic strip, because Garfield is animated in my head.
Anybody in animation today would be lying if they said they weren't somehow influenced by 'The Simpsons' to a certain degree. Except for the shows that go out of their way to look as far from 'The Simpsons' as possible.
Working with the actors, working with production designers, working with the creative people who surround the process is really fun, it's really inspiring and I take great pleasure in working with them. That's what's most fun about directing.