TK: It was amazing. He's a brilliant guy. He knew exactly what he was looking for. It was based on his comic book, so he knew the story he was after, but he was wide open to expanding and opening up concepts that were only a bit in the comic book and turn them into material that would work really well with animation. He understands animation. He's a big fan of animation.

So the collaboration was very intense. He was very detail oriented, very hands on. A lot of time we had to communicate long distance because of his traveling, but he looked at every detail of things and was wide open to great ideas from the animators. As is typical with animation, a lot of work is done in the storyboard stage to get a scene to work correctly or a sequence to work correctly. He was very collaborative in working with a wide range of artists. Because of the way the project happened, we had a few different crews over a few different periods of time working on different aspects of it. He was in the studio a tremendous amount of the time, approving artworks and approving scenes, giving direction on how the artwork should be different. Anything from the storyboards to the animation to the art direction. When we got into post-production, he was living here in the edit room with the rest of us, doing all the directorial things that happen.

RD: Were there any specific influences that he brought to the project?

TK: The comic book. There's been a line quoted around the press that it's sort of a combination between The Munsters and A Hard Days Night. But I'd say his influences were animation overall. He was a particular fan of Groovie Goolies. He liked how humor works in animation.

For the music, we tried a few different approaches in the early stages. We were trying for more of a dramatic feel to some of the scenes, so he had the idea of bringing in Hard 'N Phirm to do the songs that are there now.

We looked at a lot of different movies for different ideas. He is a big fan of The Simpsons and Family Guy on TV now.

He was really eager to make a movie that was first and foremost funny. He loved the cartoony style we were able to bring to it. There was a lot of people that contributed to the look and the timing of the show.

RD: I got a strong Ren & Stimpy vibe to it. Did that come from the animators?

TK: There were a bunch of people who brought that. There were quite a few people who worked on the movie that worked on Ren & Stimpy. Myself I worked with John Kricfalusi on the Mighty Mouse Show. I produced that years back. It had a lot of the same style. Same with the "Harlem Shuffle" music video for the Rolling Stones that John did. I produce that as well. It's sort of the same family of styles that I worked on with John and Ralph Bakshi before.

There's a group of artists that did the boards and designed a lot of the characters that came from that world. And the timing also brings in some of the Ren & Stimpy performance style that you see in there.

 

RD: How was it working with the voice cast?