Dave Warren of channelzero put his career and house on the line to finance the making of SoSophie. Photo credit: Frank Longford, Studio2 Productions, Santa Ana, California.

David got his foot in the door with Ralph Bakshi's Spicy City and found his calling. © 1997 Home Box Office.

NWA’s “Straight Outta Compton” blasted from the speakers of the Mitsubishi as I rounded the on-ramp onto the 710 Freeway, making my final drive home from the city of the same name. Today I was happily leaving behind my job as art director for a garment company in this roach-infested, locked behind security bars sweat shop in the gang capital of the world for a new job, a new career, in animation. After two years of studying nights and putting together a portfolio, I was hired as a character designer at the now defunct HBO Animation studio in Century City working on Ralph Bakshi’s Spicy City.

The studio was an amazing little family of artists in this boutique environment where creative input was encouraged and nurtured. HBO was new to animation and was looking at a lot of ideas. Everyone from the production assistants to the producers had an idea for a show that he or she was working on. It was impossible not to get caught up in this swell of creativity. I was hooked. I wanted to sell a show too. Being brand new to the business, I was naïve and thought this was the norm for the animation business, so I went home every night (usually after an extended happy hour with my fellow artists) doing the Snoopy dance because I was so in love with my job and the dream of seeing my own vision on the air.

About the time production was wrapping up, reality stepped in. It was my birthday and I had just returned from lunch with a big group from the studio. I got called upstairs to the producer’s office. My present from the producer was to lay me off. My work there was done and my style didn’t fit the only other in-house production, Spawn. Just like that it was over.

Luckily one of the artists at HBO had a good relationship with a producer at Warner Bros. who just so happened to be looking for a character designer for the series Pinky and the Brain. As quickly as one experience ended another began. I remember telling Eric Radomski, supervising director at HBO the news. He said, “You’re in the animation business now.” I didn’t know what he meant at the time. I do now.

Eric Radomski warned David early on that changing jobs constantly is a way of life in animation. Photo courtesy of Film Roman.

Warner Bros. was a completely different environment than HBO. It was a big machine. This giant gray sea of cubicles full of artists, assistants, writers and all the other people it takes to put a show on television. Often times, it was a lot of work and there were real deadlines to be met. Although the plush environment of HBO and its generous production schedule was gone, I was still having a great time. I’m this kid from a poor little Podunk town in Connecticut, and here I am, working at Warner Bros. on a Steven Spielberg cartoon.

This was like a dream. I grew up watching Bugs Bunny and learned to draw by tracing him from my coloring books. I was honored to be part of that legacy and still am. These were fun times. I was working on an incredible show, surrounded by amazing talent and made a lot of great friends. What happened though was I got caught up in my life at Warner Bros. and without realizing it, stopped thinking about creating and selling my own ideas. Opportunity and a reminder of my dream arose when, after many an episode, Pinky and the Brain finally came to an end and Warner Bros. started laying off the staff.