[http://www.frederator.com] words//cassie coutard

If there is one guy who says no to normal, it’s Fred Seibert. You may know him as the baby’s daddy of Frederator Studios, or as that guy who produced the forever bizarre Oh Yeah! Cartoons. But it seems like whatever this man touches turns to gold. Or at least an incredible success.

So, before Frederator was born, you were MTV’s first Creative Director. Did that set off your career in television and producing?

MTV started me in television. But my love of rock and records got me into production.

I had a high school rock band, but went to college to major in chemistry. My love of the Beatles and all things pop music distracted me and at a certain point I realized I liked recording more than playing. Self-taught trial and error (back in the day there was no school for learning such things) got me some low-paying gigs, but I couldn’t figure out my way into a self-sustaining recording career. A day job in country music radio led me to nascent cable TV (my response to the job offer: “I watch TV, I don’t want to make it.”).

You were there when MTV was being launched and you made the decision to use tradition cell animation for the now world-recognized logo, even if that was a little “old school” for the time.  It seems like straying away from the ordinary has done you wonders, yes?

Yes. I’m contrarian to a fault, much to the chagrin of those around me. It’s not like I really want to be–I’d much rather have an easy life and be in the normal, mainstream flow–but it’s my lot in life. And, yes, it’s really worked out well for me in the end.

As to the MTV case in particular, the hot animation style of the late 70s was slit scan. In the wake of Star Wars and Star Trek, everyone wanted to use the latest and greatest in hot motion across star fields–especially in the FM rock radio ads that were cluttering the airwaves at the time. Since a key part of MTV’s management came out of radio, the boss thought that should be look of MTV.  I suggested that Star Wars was very 1977 and that a rock ‘n’ roll network should be looking ahead.

“OK, if not Star Wars, what?”

Gumby. The famous (if you grew up in the 50s), creaky, stop motion series.

He looked at me like he’d fire me if I pursued the subject.

Luckily, the boss was so busy with other things that I continued on my way.  As a practical matter, slit scan animation was the most expensive style in the marketplace, and we’d been given an extremely limited budget, so older styles would allow us much more bang for the buck. But, more importantly, we really wanted our channel identity to stand out from everything else on television.

The best way to call attention to ourselves would be using styles that had been abandoned. And claymation and tradition animation were essentially extinct in the early 80s. Put up against the 16mm film look of all the videos in the first couple of years of MTV we looked different and special.  Hooking up with all the indie animators we could find in the world, we let them go to town.

Within a year of MTV going on the air in August 1981, claymation and 2D animation were the hippest look in the world. Truly. Just check two of the most popular videos of the era: A-Ha’s “Take on Me” and Peter Gabriel’s “Sledgehammer.”

In the 80’s, you and Alan Goodman pretty much took Nickelodeon by storm. Worst to first in ratings. Did you expect it to be that successful?

No.

We had no idea what we were doing. Alan and I didn’t like kids TV, the people working in kids TV, and I’m not really sure we even knew if we liked kids. We were working on instinct and adrenaline (and the need to pay our rents) and took the lessons we’d learned at MTV, and from watching TV as kids ourselves in the 50s.

Lo and behold, it worked!

We already know you’re the man when it comes to directing and running animation studios. Have you done any animation of your own?

Not a chance. I have no skills in animation. I can’t draw and I can’t write.

Luckily, I learned a great lesson very early in my producing career. Having no idea what record producing actually was, I taught myself engineering, figuring there was some connection. One day, I was lucky enough to work with world-famous jazz engineer Rudy Van Gelder. He stopped our first session cold because I was spending too much time asking him questions about his recording techniques.

“Your job is the music in there,” pointing to the musicians in the studio. “You don’t need to know one thing about how my equipment works, or for that matter, how their instruments work. I’ve worked with the best producers in the world and they concentrate on one thing. The music.”

It took me years to realize what he was talking about, and I figured it out just in time to start my cartoon career. I stay focused on the kinds of cartoons I’d like to see, and the animators create and animate. We each try and do our best at our gigs.

What’s your favorite cartoon of all time?

When I was a kid I loved Bugs Bunny, Huckleberry Hound, and The Flintstones.

Fortunately, my formative years were spent watching TV when there wasn’t enough original programming. So the studios dusted off everything in their libraries and the stations played it all–Felix the Cat, Farmer Gray, Koko

the Clown, Crusader Rabbit, Astro Boy, Tom and Jerry, the Disney’s, Warner’s, Hanna-Barbera’s, Fleischers’, and all the independents, they were all on all the time.

It never seemed to me that any particular type of cartoon dominated, which has served me well since I’ve become a professional. There’s no approach to cartoon making that dominates our studio. Whatever works wins.

[images//carlos ramos & michael mcintosh]

Your grand experiment, the “What A Cartoon!” project, got your team nominated for an Academy Award and two Emmy nominations. How many times did you practice saying that you’d like to thank the Academy?

[laughs] None. The Oscar winner would have been John Dilworth (creator of the nominated “Courage the Cowardly Dog in The Chicken from Outer Space”). It’s the great creative talent that should claim the prizes.

Before you became this epic pioneer of the industry, we heard you had a love for jazz music. Your label, Oblivion Records, got nominated for a Grammy. Why didn’t you pursue a career in the music business after that point? Why did you turn to the dark side of cartoons?

Truth be told, I wanted to make pop records, but I couldn’t find my way in. My jazz recording career peaked with my 1976 earnings of $2500, so I needed employment that would pay at least one bill.

The Grammy nomination actually came after Oblivion went belly up. It was for Hank Jones and his album Bop Redux.

What can we expect to see from you in the future? Any new projects coming up?

Lots and lots. We just launched a series on Nickelodeon called Fanboy & Chum Chum (created by Eric Robles), which has already gotten a second-season pick up.  Adventure Time (created by Pendleton Ward) has gotten a second season even before it launches in March on Cartoon Network. We’re developing features at Paramount (Genndy Tartakovsky’s Samurai Jack) and Sony, and a few indies we’re lining up.

Anybody got any ideas?