A Station Eight Fan Web Site

Gargoyles

The Phoenix Gate

Ask Greg Archives

Disney Afternoon

Archive Index


: Displaying #1 of 7 records. : Next » : Last » :


Posts Per Page: 1 : All :


Bookmark Link

Adam "MadMan" Martinez writes...

While I know you weren't involved in "The Shnookums & Meat Funny Cartoon Show" creatively speaking, you were a development executive at Disney when was being produced, so I figured I could ask to see if you could answer a couple of questions about it.

1. There's a story circulating on the internet (and even immortalized on the TV Tropes page) that the series was meant to just be a Pith Possum/Tex Tinstar series until, when creator Bill Kopp was pitching it to Disney executives, somebody suggested the addition of a cat and dog based on the success of Ren & Stimpy. I have my doubts about this story, though, due to the fact that Shnookums and Meat debuted as a segment on the Marsupilami series, not headlining their own series, not to mention there's an interview with DAF Radio where Bill Kopp implies that he came up with Tex Tinstar when he was asked to make the full series, not when he was pitching it. At any rate, do you remember if that story has any truth to it?

2. From what I've been able to gather from info I've seen, Shnookums and Meat seemed to perform decently enough in the ratings, but Disney never bothered giving it a merchandising push, not to mention there were apparently plans for theme park costumes that were scrapped before it was even on the air. Given what you've said in the past about how Gargoyles suffered from the domino effect caused by Frank Wells' death and Jeffery Katzenberg subsequently leaving for DreamWorks (and taking several high-ranking Disney TV execs with him), do you think the turmoil led to Shnookums and Meat being cancelled, or do you think it was just doomed either way?

Greg responds...

1. I pitched the cat and dog to Bill and Jeff DeGrandis. They ran with it and filled out the series with Pith and Tex. At some point, I'm sure they had to pitch Pith and Tex to myself and Bruce Cranston and Gary Krisel, but that was after the show was greenlit. Which doesn't mean they might not have already had those characters in their back pockets. That I don't know. But the dog and cat (not yet named Scnookums or Meat) came first from Disney's standpoint.

2. I honestly don't know and/or remember. Keep in mind, by that time, I was no longer an executive myself. I'd moved to the other side of the desk, so to speak, to produce Gargoyles. So I was no longer had the inside track on executive decisions.

Response recorded on May 25, 2022


: Displaying #1 of 7 records. : Next » : Last » :