Doug TenNapel's Squirly Town.

Kyle A. Carrozza: I've been in and out of the industry since 1999. I worked at a CD Rom studio in Connecticut for two years, then after the studio went 3D (and shortly after dissolved), I moved to Southern California. I had no luck until Random! Cartoons came along. Since then, I've done some freelance storyboards, and one of my independent shorts aired on Comedy Central's Atom TV. I also did some comicstrip work.

Niki Yang: I graduated from CalArts in 2003 and started my first gig for Family Guy at Fox as a revisionist. There I was promoted to a storyboard artist. Ever since, I have been working as a storyboard artist on a variety of shows. I also directed three episodes of Slacker Cats (Film Roman) as well as my shorts for Random! Cartoons.

Pendleton Ward: My first gig in animation was my Random! Cartoons short, Adventure Time. I wrote and roughly sketched out the storyboard over a week or two weeks? I hadn't pitched to a studio before. It was exciting jumping into it not knowing whether I would sink or swim. I brought my guitar in to Frederator and played the theme song that I wrote for the short and did my best at pitching. While I was pitching I tried to forget about everyone in the room and I just looked at my storyboards on the wall. Tried to lose myself in the drawings and not worry about how anyone was reacting.

AF: How did you hook up with Fred Seibert/Frederator?

DT: I was working on my own show Catscratch at Nickelodeon and I ran into Fred from time to time. I once pitched to him back in 1997.

MG: A friend of mine sent me an e-mail that said there was an open call for pitches at Frederator for the new Oh Yeah! series. I called up Melissa Wolfe and was able to get a time to come in over the phone... it was amazing to me that you could just call up like that uninvited! You go in, pin your storyboards to the wall and then act out the cartoon in front of a group of people! My first pitch went ok (at least they were laughing) but nothing was considered in the right age range, so I took the notes I received from Larry Huber, Kevin Kolde, Eric Homan and Melissa Wolfe and revamped my pitches for the next time, which eventually led to The Infinite Goliath and Thom Cat being picked up.

KC: I had a friend who was working on [My Life as a] Teenage Robot who tipped me off that Oh Yeah! Cartoons was starting up again and that they were taking pitches. This, of course, was before it was re-named to Random! Cartoons. I already had a MooBeard storyboard drawn up, so I shortened it a bit and pitched it to them. Six revisions later, Fred gave me the green light.

NY: I heard Frederator was taking pitches for shorts, so I went for it. I was lucky that they picked my idea.

PW: Eric Homan is vice president of Development at Frederator. He contacted me after watching one of my films at an end of the year CalArts animation screening called The Producer's Show. Eric asked me to pitch an Idea to Frederator for Random! Cartoons. It was my first job lead after school and so I got to work trying to make it happen.

AF: Can you explain the plots of your shorts?

DT: Solomon Fix is about a teddy bear that is owned by a bad boy named Ned. Solomon just wants to be friends with the human boy and the human boy doesn't want a stuffed animal friend.

Squirly Town is about two squirrel executives who work at an acorn butter factory in the middle of the woods. Zoopie is the crazy, funny one and Lance is the uptight type.

Mike Gray's Thom Cat.

MG: Thom Cat originally appeared in one of my self-published comics called Fluff #1, and I owe Larry Huber for giving me the idea to expand upon him as an animated pitch. Thom Cat is a genius inventor, a brilliant scientist, and a fashion trendsetter, but he is not smug...in fact, his personality and voice is a lot like Davy Jones of The Monkees (simply a laidback star). It's as if the favorite cat of the neighborhood (he is based on one of my own pets who was just that) was able to come by and have a chat with you when you fed him (and maybe even improve your central heating while he was over).

The Infinite Goliath is basically a parody all the most evil/powerful beings in popular fiction (Darkseid/Darth Vader/Dr. Doom, etc.) and made him have to lead the life of "Mr. Wilson" in Dennis the Menace... without being able to destroy anyone! His only "friend" is his cat, Mr. Bobo, who Goliath enjoys because of his insolence.