ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE - ISSUE 5.01 - APRIL 2000

The Return of Elmo Aardvark in the Twenty First Century!
(continued from page 1)

Say, let's go behind the scenes, and meet some of the madcaps involved in the hyperbolically exciting creation of Elmo Aardvark: Outer Space Detective!

The new look for an old face. © Will Ryan.

Scripts, of course, are the final stage of the production process. They are cobbled together after all the animation and voice recording is done. This way writers get to pick the best of all the material previously provided by people who don't necessarily know how to put two words together. The writers in this case go under the noms de plume "Will Ryan" and "Phil Lollar." Who these people really are is anybody's guess. Personally, my guess is that "Will Ryan" is me, and that "Phil Lollar" is the guy I write these scripts with. But hey, that's just one man's opinion.

Little is known about Will Ryan. By the scant documentary evidence available, we can only determine three things with certitude: he lives in Elizabethan times; he once arranged for the purchase of a coat of arms for his father; and in his last will and testament he has left his "second-best bed" to ASIFA-Hollywood (the International Animated Film Society) of which he is the immediate past president. (Mr. Ryan was recently nominated for the Writer's Guild Award, an Emmy and BMI's Silver Circle Award, but modesty forbids his mentioning such honors in the first person.)

Phil Lollar, on the other hand, refuses to divulge the contents of his personal legal papers, a source of great irritation to probing reporters such as myself. He can perhaps be forgiven such coyness, owing to his extreme youth and an innate inability to articulate even the simplest of thoughts. This last observation is not an opinion. It is libel, plain and simple. If, however, we must seek the judgment of others so as to give an air of balance to this breezy screed, we will discover that Mr. Lollar (as he is known to his cowering flunkies) is a highly respected composer of scripts, the creator of several long running series and a fine fencer to boot, if you like booting fine fencers.

Every entertainment series -- even one on the Internet -- needs a producer: someone experienced, resourceful, energetic, multi-talented and wise. Someone photogenic who can pick up all those awards and pose modestly with them in photographs. Central Casting sent us Ashley Postlewaite, a former follower of Thespis and no stranger to Clio. She is also famous for cleaning house at Warner Bros. a decade ago and helping to turn their once moribund animation department into something to inspire awe.

What does Elmo have to complain about? He's got a new show on the Web. © Will Ryan.

Speaking of inspiration, when you look up the word in the next edition of your favorite unabridged, you will no doubt find the beaming countenance of one Darrell Van Citters -- the director who inspired the official comebacks of the two most successful animation studios in town. Disney's Office of Historical Revisionism claims that Who Framed Roger Rabbit (as opposed to, say, Universal's previous hit An American Tail) was the beginning of modern animation's rebirth. Mr. Van Citters had developed that project for that studio for three years. A few years later, the award-winning commercials he directed featuring Bugs Bunny and a basketball player led to Warner Bros. Feature Animation's biggest in-house payday yet, a tribute to commercialization entitled Space Jam.

Before I once again succumb to the all-too-human urge to digress (a not unnatural phenomenon in times such as these, so fraught with this and that, and with such and such, and with so on and with so forth), allow me to share with you some direct quotes from some of the principals involved in Elmo Aardvark's latest assault upon the sensibilities of the public.

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Note: Readers may contact any Animation World Magazine contributor by sending an e-mail to editor@awn.com.