Cartoon Lagoon

May 21, 2012

Last week, I wrote about the magic of Saturday Mornings. This week, I would like to talk about a project I created that channels the pop culture of childhood. Technology has made it easier than ever to build a show. My laptop is now equivalent if not superior to a 1960's movie studio. Plus, a place like PATCH allows us to share our “behind-the-scenes” journey as we build it.

“Captain Cornelius Cartoon’s Cartoon Lagoon.” is a show with puppets that are partially animated (animated facial expressions, and traditional puppet bodies). The show is about three sailors who travel in a tiny submarine called the “Manta Ray.” They explore a lagoon in search of the worst cartoon ever made. The one that got away! It will debut on DVD in the fall of 2012. The show is a love letter to everything we watched and enjoyed as kids. We think grownups will appreciate it as much as kids will.

I am producing the show with my business partner Pat Giles. We shot the first two episodes in August 2011. The “set” was painstakingly handcrafted in my basement, and then reassembled in a Catholic Girls’ School on the Lower East Side, upstairs from The Puppet Kitchen. Since school was out for the summer, and the ceilings were very high, we had the perfect location for a puppet show. 

The real story here may be about two guys (my partner and I) wading into the treacherous waters of opening a business, and the doubly treacherous waters of going into "show" business. On the "opening a business" part, the sheer complexity of lawyers, taxes, state fees and paperwork, insurances, makes us ask (often), "Why are we doing this again?" From Restaurateurs to Hot Dog Stands, I have a new respect for entrepreneurship. Because it is very, very HARD. I created a toy line a few years ago called “Dookie-Poo,” and got my first taste of what this would be like to start a business. But this has been infinitely more complex. There is an awful lot of math, so kids, remember, stay in school, or at least marry someone good at math. 

The "show business" part should be much more frightening, but in a weird way it isn't. We think we have something really fun and interesting to put in front of audiences, and we really have no choice in the matter. We are committed to our path like Lemmings. Even if it leads us off the cliff.  Now that's dedication!  

Patch comes in, because here we are, a guy in New Jersey (Montclair Patch) and a guy in Long Island (Huntington Patch), as an outlet for a local business to get the word out about the arts. We fully hope to do big debut screenings in our area, and want to keep reminding folks that great (or in our case mediocre but funny) art can come from anywhere. Not just Hollywood. 

Over the next several months I’ll be sharing some behind-the-scenes, some inside stories, sketches, some amazing friends I have been working with, and maybe even some actual scenes from the show. I'd also like to talk about the stresses and trials and plain goofiness involved in getting something like this done, while still commuting into Manhattan everyday. In fact, I’d better stop blogging, and go back to whatever it is that I am supposed to do to get a puppet show made. I'll let you know when we actually figure it out!

Until then, Check out our show blog at cartoonlagoonshow.blogspot.com.