JS: How do you find talent? Or do you wait for it to come to you?

FS: No, you can never wait. Well you can wait, big companies wait. The studios wait, the networks wait; they literally sit there in their offices and take phone calls from agents. As an independent or as a small place you can’t afford that, because frankly you’re the last one on their phone list — you’re never first.

I’m analytical. I’m not very disciplined, but I’m very organized — I’m a systems guy. When I have to deal with an issue like rooting out talent, I develop a system. Within that system I figure out how to put out a call to the greater community, saying I’m looking, and now I’ve developed a system for them to come in and to judge, which is ultimately what you have to do.

JS: You have a brain trust you’ll call and say ‘I have a project here that I need you to come in and give me some feedback on.’

FS: Yes, that’s exactly what I do.

Seibert gives all props to John Kricfalusi, seen here with some of his creations. © Spumco.

JS: People like Kricfalusi?

FS: Yeah, absolutely. Literally when I started What A Cartoon!, in part based on things I learned from John Kricfalusi, he was the first one I called. I said, ‘John you’ll never believe it, I’m doing exactly what you believe should be done.’

If anyone should get credit for changing the name of the game in traditional cartooning, it should be John Kricfalusi. There were also the Mike Judges of the world and a few other people. But for people who work in the commercial grind, making commercial cartoons — John Kricfalusi’s the man. He changed the game. He wanted to make the kinds of cartoons Hollywood wanted to make, in the system they wanted to make it, but he wanted them to be passionate and successful.

When I started Frederator and Oh Yeah! Cartoons, my first talent pool were the people that I had already done stuff with that I thought were special, but maybe hadn’t hit the mark yet. There were people that didn’t show up in time for the What A Cartoon! and get those. One of the most interesting ones was Larry Huber who had been my supervising producer for What A Cartoon! I asked him to leave Hanna-Barbera and come over with me like a shot in the dark and be my partner in the cartoons. Here I am, I haven’t been in the business five years, I’m really young, younger than he is. He said, ‘Well I’ll be your supervising producer.’ I said, ‘No, be my co-executive producer.’

He said, ‘Okay, what do I need to know?’ I said, ‘There’s only one thing, you have to make a short.’ He said, ‘Why?’ I told him, ‘You’re an awesome story man. You’re not paid to be a story man, no one thinks of you as a story man, you’re paid as a line producer.’

Larry said, ‘I’m not going to do it.’ I said, ‘You can’t be the guy unless you do a short. Why don’t you want to do one?’ The reason was he was basically scared of all the young folk, who he saw rightfully as stunningly talented. ‘I can’t compete with them,’ he said.

I said, ‘I’m not giving you the job unless you do your own.’ He reluctantly agreed. The first one he did, he partnered with Bill Burnett, an animation and advertising writer I’d worked with in New York that I’d brought to L.A. — and that was ChalkZone. That was Larry’s first creation in his life that made it to production. At the time he was 50-some odd-years old.

Bill Burnett’s writing talents, admired by Seibert, were put to use in ChalkZone. Photo credit: Michael Yarish/Nickelodeon.

JS: Was he sort of hedging his bets working with Burnett?

FS: It just happened. It was Larry at his very best. Bill was also lucky. He’s about as old as Bill and he was comfortable working with someone of a certain age. When we started Oh Yeah!, one of the first people who came to see us was this 20-year-old recently graduated student from CalArts who had already been working in the business doing props and other things. He said, ‘I heard that you might need somebody.’ I’m looking at his portfolio. I don’t know how to judge artists — but this guy looks amazing!

So I sent him to Larry, who calls me up immediately, he’s like whispering in the phone, ‘What do you want to do with this guy? This guy’s the best guy I’ve ever seen!’ That was a young guy named Carlos Ramos. He brought Carlos on to design ChalkZone.

What Larry did was put a team together. He’s an awesome film story man. Bill Burnett is an awesome writer — probably 45 at the time — and Carlos is not just young, but has a vision. He’s in many ways is in the top five or 10 artists I’ve ever worked with — of any kind.