Bob Boyle has accomplished an almost impossibility with the debuts of his Wow! Wow! Wubbzy! (left) and Yin Yang Yo! Courtesy of Nickelodeon and © Jetix Animation Concepts/Walt Disney TV Animation.

In what is certainly a rarity, if not a first, one creator has two different shows airing on two different networks. Bob Boyle has accomplished an almost impossibility with the debuts of his Wow! Wow! Wubbzy! on Nickelodeon and Yin Yang Yo! on the Disney Channel. Such a feat is usually one done by studios, not individual creators. On top of that, both shows have received good reviews and ratings.

Bob and I go back nearly two decades. I was producing Bobby’s World at Film Roman when we hired him to help on models. It was one of his first animation jobs on the west coast. Originally from New York, Bob’s career began with freelance illustration for various publications, including The Nation and Business Week. Once in California, his portfolio showed up at Film Roman where he worked on such series as Bobby’s World and Garfield and Friends. He then moved onto the Oh Yeah! cartoons via Fred Seibert. His work on the Oh Yeah! shorts lead him to positions at Nickelodeon on such series as The Fairly OddParents and Danny Phantom.

Wow! Wow! Wubbzy! began as a pitch for Random Books. Boyle was inspired by a girl wearing a “Samurai-in-Training” t-shirt in Los Angeles’ Little Tokyo to create a tiny samurai with girl appeal.

I recently dropped in to Bob’s office at Film Roman in the new building that houses Starz Animation (formerly IDT Ent.). The office is filled with toys from various countries and decades. On his desk are some boards and model sheets for Wubbzy. We talked about how his amazing feat was accomplished. Ironically, both series were not officially created for animation.

“I was working on Danny Phantom and Fairly OddParents. Lunchtime and evenings I would work on my own stuff. Lunch was almost always at Frank’s Diner. I’d go in and the waitress would say ‘chicken salad’ and I would answer ‘chicken salad.’ She wouldn’t even have to ask.

“I had pitched a whole bunch of stuff. As time went on, I just hoped one would get optioned… maybe. I got a few things optioned at Disney. I did a short for Nickelodeon’s Incubator program.” With all the pitching for animation, it was a non-animated pitch that got things going.

“Fred Seibert’s Bolder Media had a deal with Random House and Nick Jr. to produce a series of books done by animators. The notice went out [to] the studio and fewer than 20 pitches for books were accepted. Wubbzy was one of them.”

I asked if his book pitch was similar to an animation pitch. “No, I roughed out every single page. At the time they stated they wanted 64 pages! And I thought, ‘That’s a lot.’ So I did 64 pages. They were rough, but I turned in the entire book completed. Then about six months later they came back and said, ‘We really wanted 24 pages.’ I just thought, ‘nooooooo!’”

Boyle’s pitch for Wubbzy! was passed on by Nick Jr. He continued to develop the idea for producer Fred Seibert and repitched it to Nick. This time he got a series order. Courtesy of Nickelodeon.

After that, the selections were taken to the network to see which ones might be worth going forward and create a pitch document for a series. “The network chose five to go into animation, and mine was not one of them! I thought, ‘Oh no, I’m already out of the running.’ I had thought doing a book would be nice, but that doing a show would be fantastic.

“So I went to Fred and asked him if I could continue with the idea on my own time and money. I told him I would finish the TV pitch and he could throw it in with the mix. If it was accepted, great, if not, there was none of their time or money wasted. Fred said, ‘great!’ He knows I’ll never stop when I’m working on an idea. As I moved forward, I got a chance to see a bit more of what they wanted.”

Bob finally gave his pitch to Nick. At first he feared it had not gone well. The meeting lasted only five minutes. “But you know executives; you can never really tell what they are thinking. One might get all excited about a pitch, but never call you back. Another may sit there stone face, and then tell you they like it." In the case of Wubbzy, despite the short pitch, the series was picked up. “We started production in February of 2005,” he said.

Around the same time, Bob was finishing his pilot on Yin Yang Yo! at Disney. “That idea came from a trip my wife and I made to Little Tokyo [in Los Angeles]. I saw a little girl wearing a shirt that said ‘Samurai in Training.’ I thought that’s cute, and then that a tiny samurai would be funny, and then went to ‘what is the cutest’ animal and thought of a fluffy little bunny and it took off from there. Always hearing from folks in pitches that an idea didn’t have enough boy appeal, or enough girl appeal, I thought why not do both. Have equal characters, or equal importance, boy and girl. Then give them that sibling rivalry.”

Though that series was actually farther along than Wubbzy, Wubbzy still got out of the gate first. “I was working on the pilot at Disney. Disney usually does three or so pilots and tests them before greenlighting a series. So I was in competition with some other series. And just a couple of months after Wubbzy went into production, Yin Yang Yo! got picked up. And that’s about when I started pulling my hair out!”