It is difficult for me to describe Breadwinners and exactly what it means to me. Originally intended as as a one-off to entertain fellow animators, the creators, Gary Di Raffele and Steve Borst, were surprisingly contacted by Nickelodeon after they posted their short to YouTube. It is also relevant to mention that Di Raffele and Borst pitched Breadwinners to the 2012 Nickelodeon Animated Shorts Program, but the show wasn’t originally picked up for pilot development.
Di Raffele’s and Borst’s brainchild has a lot of expectations. Nickelodeon needs a breadwinner, pardon the pun. The network has been struggling on and off since a stunning ratings freefall in 2012 that allowed Disney Channel to surpass Nickelodeon and allow Cartoon Network, the perennial third place, to beat Nick on some nights. Nickelodeon is changing their approach to try to catch the attention of millennial kids, but if Breadwinners is an indicator of the new direction, it is difficult to see how this will succeed in the dramatic fashion Nickelodeon wants.
My biggest problem with Breadwinners was that it was completely, utterly devoid of anything I found even the slightest bit amusing. It is not even a pale shadow of Regular Show, which it so desperately wants to be. The four 11-minute stories presented in the two screened episodes, “Thug Life”, “Mine All Mine”, “Frog Day Afternoon”, and “Stank Breath”, are clearly meant for a demographic much, much younger than the 26-year-old I am. Apparently the test audience of extremely young boys loved this show, but for someone like me, who’s old enough to be the father of a child in said target audience, both episodes were a chore to sit through. Breadwinners has all of the surrealism of Adventure Time and Regular Show, plus the mixture of live-action stills with animated characters offered in The Amazing Adventures of Gumball. At the same time, there’s none of the appeal for an older demographic that the former two shows have, or the sense of fun that Gumball provides. It’s too gross, and too calculated in its gross-ness, for me to find much appeal in the show.
Our protagonists are SwaySway (Robbie Daymond) and Buhdeuce (Eric Bauza), whose schtick is SpongeBob SquarePants on the road. Their lives center around their delivery truck, which delivers bread to anyone who orders it; like SpongeBob, misadventures happen left and right, whether it has anything to do with a delivery or not. SwaySway is loud and enthusiastic resembling a slightly smarter SpongeBob, while Buhdeuce is a more competent Patrick and the little kid stand-in, complete with the gross tendencies you would expect from one. It was hard for me to see the appeal of these characters, beyond the fact that they’re more idealistic than usual for this type of humor.
Toilet humor is my least favorite kind of humor, so I found the prevalence of it in Breadwinners, especially in “Stank Breath,” to be eye-roll-inducing. The show is obsessed with butts. Without any hesitation or regrets, the show will go out of its way to showcase a butt, be it of SwaySway or Buhdeuce (especially Buhdeuce), or a three-butt “Mama Monster” in “Frog Day Afternoon,” among myriad examples. The constant shoving of butts in my face (exposed butts at that) of deformed ducks and monsters was a distraction at best and a show derailment at worst.
The animation has improved from the original pilot, running as smoothly as a typical Spongebob episode, and integrates the live-action stills with as much skill as Gumball does. My biggest praise must go to Tommy Sica’s soundtrack. The music drives the show, utilizing everything from traditional orchestration to dubstep, to control the show’s pacing. It is noticeable, and more importantly integral, in a way seen in few Western animated productions. However, the obnoxious opening and closing theme songs (which will likely be omitted from the TV broadcast anyway) belong in the dank sewer system seen in “Stank Breath.”
The voiceovers are stellar. Daymond and Bauza are perfect for their characters — perhaps too perfect. DiRaffele and Borst did the voice directing themselves, and they do a good job by my account. If any fault is to be found in the performances (which soon begins including such talent as Fred Tatasciore, Vanessa Marshall, and Cree Summer), it is to be blamed solely on the writing, which eschews subtlety no matter what the cost.
At the same time, despite all of my misgivings and criticisms, I am not the target demographic, and that blunts a lot of my viewpoint. Boys 6-11 are the target. Breadwinners panders to them, and lovingly encourages and supports the short attention spans many boys have. I have no doubt on my mind that boys in the 6-11 age range will enjoy this unless their sense of humor has already become too sophisticated for what Breadwinners has to offer. Parents, however, will probably feel uncomfortable watching this show with their children as there is precious little available for them here, and the type of humor Breadwinners embraces will likely not make many parents happy.
In its pandering gross-out humor aimed at 6-11 year old boys, Breadwinners is eschewing any chance it has to obtain a larger audience or to attract boys who aren’t necessarily thrilled by toilet and gross-out humor. I believe this will turn out to be a minor hit, but it won’t be the SpongeBob SquarePants-esque “breadwinner” that Nickelodeon wants and needs. It should be able to attract enough of the audience it wants to give Spongebob a decently-performing supporting act for three or four years.
Not recommended for anyone outside of the 6-11 boy demographic. If you have a child who fits the profile, they will probably enjoy it, but I would make sure that this is something you’re comfortable in letting them watch first.
Breadwinners premieres on Nickelodeon on Monday, February 17, 2014, at 7:30 PM (ET/PT). Visit the Breadwinners web site for clips and more information.
Nickelodeon Kicks Off the Weekend with All-New Episodes of its Hit Animated Series Sanjay and Craig and Breadwinners Beginning this Saturday, February 22
Nickelodeon kicks off the weekend with all-new episodes of its hit animated series beginning this Saturday, Feb. 22, at 10:30 a.m. (ET/PT) with the return of Sanjay and Craig, followed by the recently launched Breadwinners at 11:00 a.m. (ET/PT).
In a new episode of Sanjay and Craig, Craig can’t stop eating Megan’s pet gerbil in “Booger Johnson,” and in “Dream Rangers,” Sanjay and Craig must re-enter their dream to rescue Belle. Then, in an all-new Breadwinners, Buhdeuce has to deal with some awesomely bad stank breath that leads to some awesomely bad trouble in “Stank Breath,” and in “Frog Day Afternoon,” SwaySway and Buhdeuce teach their pet Jelly how to fetch, and she accidentally fetches a monster egg.
Sanjay and Craig fans can visit nick.com/sanjayandcraig to play 12 Frycade games inspired by the series including Cul-de-Sac Man, Do Your Taxes, Road Pugilist II, Centipeed Man, Zombies in Da House, Driving Ms. Peach Tokyo Slide, Couple of Dragons, Mrs. Dot Chomper, Thumbs Up Karate, Caveman Track & Field, Glitter Parade, and Punch!
Breadheads can also visit Nick.com to access photos, learn about the characters and watch “Thug Loaf.” Fans can learn to be a Breadwinner by playing a series of 10 fast, fun and addicting mini-games, in the Big Bread Booty Bash game. Players must complete a work day as SwaySway and Buhdeuce where they mine some bread, ride the minecart, fly the Rocket Van and more without crashing, toasting or roasting. Additionally, in the Emmy Award-winning Nick App, there are funny mini videos of SwaySway and Buhdeuce.
Comic Legend Kevin Eastman Guest Stars in New Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Sunday, March 2, at 11:00 a.m. (ET/PT) on Nickelodeon
Sanjay and Craig and Breadwinners Jump Start the Weekend with All-New Episodes
Kevin Eastman in the recording booth for “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles”
Comic star Kevin Eastman makes his debut in “Of Rats and Men,” a new episode of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles premiering Sunday, March 2, at 11:00 a.m. (ET/PT) on Nickelodeon. In the episode, when the Rat King returns, Splinter must overcome his guilt and fear of the Rat King controlling his mind in order to defeat his foe once and for all. The episode introduces Ice Cream Kitty, voiced by Kevin Eastman, a stray kitten who after licking some ice cream that fell into mutagen, becomes Ice Cream Kitty, Mikey’s adopted pet and sometimes secret weapon.
Additionally, fans can get an exclusive sneak peek of “The Manhattan Project,” the upcoming one-hour episode premiering Friday, March 14, at 7:00 p.m. (ET/PT) featuring the original 80’s voice cast, Cam Clarke, Townsend Coleman, Barry Gordon, and Rob Paulsen who return to reprise their original roles as Leonardo, Michelangelo, Donatello and Raphael, respectively, by visiting Nick.com or the Nick App beginning Sunday, March 2.
Kicking off the weekend is a new episode of Sanjay and Craig, premiering Saturday, March 1, at 10:30 a.m. (ET/PT) on Nickelodeon. First, in “Prickerbeast,” the kids discover a local legend is a lie and get revenge on their parents. Then in “Day of the Snake,” Sanjay discovers all the awesome things Craig does when Sanjay is at school. Immediately following is a new episode of Breadwinners at 11:00 a.m. (ET/PT). In “Employee of the Month,” Buhdeuce’s life is about to change forever when SwaySway gives out an award. Then in “Brocrastination,” SwaySway and Buhdeuce have to take care of a pile of dirty dishes, before it takes care of them.
Viewers can catch new Sanjay and Craig online content like a compilation of Craig’s grossest encounters such as the “The Fly By,” “The Physical Challenge,” and more, in Craig’s Top 10 Grossest Moments. Then, Breadwinners fans get a heads up that the local weather is on “Bread Alert,” when scattered reports of sourdough and bubble gum rye loaves are spotted across the region in a new Nick Sorta News. Additionally, all episodes of our hit animated series are available for purchase via our DTO partners day after air, including iTunes, Amazon Instant Video, Vudu, Xbox Video and Playstation Store.
Nickelodeon closed February as the top basic cable net with Kids 2-11 (3.0/967K) and total viewers (1.8M), marking 13 straight months of prior-year gains with Kids 2-11. The network’s February win was driven by hits in every genre: animation, live action and preschool.
Original 80’s Voice Cast, Cam Clarke, Rob Paulsen, Barry Gordon and Townsend Coleman Reunite to Reprise their Roles In Hour-Long Special Debuting Friday, March 14, at 7:00 p.m. (ET/PT) on Nickelodeon
New Episodes of Sanjay and Craig and Breadwinners Round Out the Weekend
The original 80’s voice cast, Cam Clarke, Rob Paulsen, Barry Gordon and Townsend Coleman return to reprise their original roles as Leonardo, Raphael, Donatello and Michelangelo, respectively, in a new episode of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on Nickelodeon. In the hour-long episode, “Wormquake!,” premiering at a special time, Friday, March 14, at 7:00 p.m. (ET/PT), Leo must decide whether to risk his brothers’ lives or ask for Splinter’s help when facing Shredder’s deadly new assassin. Donnie must also put aside his rivalry with Casey in order to uncover a new Kraang plot.
The madness continues Saturday, March 15, at 10:30 a.m. with a new episode Sanjay and Craig. In “Flip Flopas,” when Sanjay and Craig and the gang eat a candy that makes good things taste bad forever, they set out on a quest to find an antidote. Then in “Chill Bill,” a cool bass player who lives in an underground convenience store threatens to break up Sanjay and Craig’s friendship. At 11:00 a.m., (ET/PT), a new episode of Breadwinners follows. In “Lost at Pond,” when SwaySway and Buhdeuce get stranded in the middle of the Great Pond, they’re forced to level up into ‘Survivor Ducks.’ Then in “From Bad to Nurse,” SwaySway and Buhdeuce show off their ‘bread-side’ manner by nursing their number one customer back to health.
Viewers can prove their Turtle fandom online in “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Wormquake Play Along,” a play along experience where fans will get a random set of 12 tiles – each one being a cut-out from a scene in the series. Some tiles will be from the episode “Wormquake!,” while others are not. As players watch the episode to see if there is something that is in their grid, they can tap it to toss a ninja star on it. At the end of the episode “Wormquake!,” players will get a Turtle fan rating of 1-5 shells based on how many tiles they spotted correctly. Kids who get a 5-shell rating get shown a printable Turtle fan certificate.
Nickelodeon’s commitment to animation has produced some of the biggest, most ground-breaking hits of the past 30 years, including Rugrats, The Ren & Stimpy Show, Doug, SpongeBob SquarePants and The Fairly OddParents. In addition to its heralded Animation Shorts Program, Nick’s slate for the upcoming 2014-2015 season is part of the network’s biggest content pipeline it has ever had, with new series and innovations on new platforms in every genre — animation, live action, preschool and live events.
Nickelodeon’s recently announced animation pipeline includes:
Bad Seeds (26 episodes) – Harvey, a sweet and well-meaning bird, makes two new best friends, Fee and Foo, the wildest imps in the forest. Although their friendship seems unlikely, their connection only grows as they push each other out of their comfort zones and into endless adventures. Created, written and directed by C.H. Greenblatt (SpongeBob SquarePants, Chowder).
Pig Goat Banana Cricket (26 episodes) – This show features a series of absurd interwoven stories about four friends and roommates, Pig (the fool), Goat (the artist), Banana (the wise-guy) and Cricket (the brain). The series is created by Dave Cooper and J. Ryan, and executive produced by David Sacks (The Simpsons, Regular Show) who co-writes with J. Ryan. Cooper also art directs the series and the pilot was directed by independent animator Nick Cross.
Welcome to the Wayne (6 episodes) – Launching on the Emmy Award-winning Nick App, Welcome to the Wayne, is an animated comedy following the adventures of two 10-year-old boys Olly Timbers and Ansi Molina as they explore their crazy apartment building, the Wayne. The series was created and written by Billy Lopez (The Wonder Pets!).
The network will also roll out new episodes of returning hit animated series, including, SpongeBob SquarePants, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Sanjay and Craig, Breadwinners, Rabbids and The Fairly OddParents for the 2014-15 season.
Nickelodeon’s global Animated Shorts Program, now in its third year, has yielded a number of terrific new voices. The Program provides a steady stream of talent and creativity, making Nickelodeon a magnet for the best creator-driven projects.
From over 1000 pitches received last year, 10 domestic and 7 international projects were chosen to be developed into animated shorts that will air on Nickelodeon, appear on www.nick.com, and on the Nick App in 2014. “The Loud House” created by Chris Savino, “Bear Wrestler” created by Deanna Rooney, “By Request Pizza” created by Arica Tuesday and Mick Ignis, “Hole” created by Sam Spina, “Matt and Gus” created by Matt Braunger, and “Charlie and Mr. Two” created by Travis Braun join the previously announced domestic finalists: “Bug Salad” created by Carl Faruolo, “Earmouse and Bottle” created by Brian Morante, “Woodstump” created by Zach Smith, and “Broats” created by Jack Cusumano.
The international animated shorts in development include “Badly Drawn Animals” by Hamish Steele (UK), “Louis and Georges” by Renaud Martin & Raphaël Chabassol (France), “Monster Pack” by Pedro Eboli & Graham Peterson (Brazil and Canada), “Moosebox” by Mike Scott (South Africa), “Scoop” by The Brothers McLeod (UK), “Tech Oddity” by Marco Ibarra and Stefie Zöhrer (Mexico), and “Tonk’s Island” by Mel Roach (Australia).
NICKELODEON’S NEW ANIMATED SERIES BREADWINNERS QUICKLY RISES TO #1
Nickelodeon Nabs 10th Straight Weekly Victory as New Content
Scores in Animation, Live Action and Preschool
Sam & Cat is Number-OneLive-Action Series with Kids 2-11 and Kids 6-11
New Preschool Literacy Series Wallykazam! Leads with Kids 2-5 Across All TV
NEW YORK – March 18, 2014 – Breadwinners,the latest original animated comedy from Nickelodeon’s Burbank studio, has risen to the top-rated show for kids 2-11 in only its 4th week on the air. Overall, Nickelodeon continued its winning ratings streak this past week as Breadwinners,combined with Sanjay and Craig and SpongeBob SquarePants,helped the net score a clean sweep with kids 2-11 and total viewers. Nick’s performance marks 10 straight weeks at number one this year.
The network’s weekly win was driven by solid performances from its stable of hits across animation, live action and preschool. The latest addition to the net’s animation roster, Breadwinners, was the week’s top program with K2-11 across all TV, averaging a 5.3/1.7M K2-11 and posting double-digit year-over-year gains (+26%). It was followed by Sanjay and Craig, which averaged a 5.2/1.7M K2-11, and then SpongeBob SquarePants in third, averaging a 5.1/1.6M K2-11. Breadwinners, which just launched February 17, also ranked as the top animated program for the week with K6-11, averaging a 5.3/1.0M (+33% versus year ago).
Sam & Cat was the number-one live-action series for the week with K2-11, averaging 4.7/1.5 K2-11 (+47% versus year ago), followed by The Thundermans, which averaged a4.5/1.4M K2-11 (+65%). Additionally, Sam & Cat (5.9/1.2M K6-11, +79%) and The Thundermans (5.2/1.0M K6-11, +79%) were also the top two programs with K6-11 for the week.
The net also scored the week’s top two preschool series: Wallykazam!, which averaged a 7.3/899K with K2-5 (+28%); and PAW Patrol, which averaged a 7.2/889K with K2-5 (+31% versus a year ago).
Nickelodeon, now in its 34th year, is the number-one entertainment brand for kids. It has built a diverse, global business by putting kids first in everything it does. The company includes television programming and production in the United States and around the world, plus consumer products, online, recreation, books and feature films. Nickelodeon’s U.S. television network is seen in more than 100 million households and has been the number-one-rated basic cable network for 19 consecutive years. For more information or artwork, visithttp://www.nickpress.com. Nickelodeon and all related titles, characters and logos are trademarks of Viacom Inc. (NASDAQ: VIA, VIA.B).
Nickelodeon rewarded a second season renewal to “Breadwinners” – an animated show about two ducks named SwaySway [Robbie Daymond – “Transformers: Rescue Bots] and Buhdeuce [Eric Bauza – “Ben 10: Omniverse”] who deliver bread from their rocket van and get into crazy adventures with their friends from their home planet of Pondgea.
The second season for “Breadwinners” will have 20 episodes and is expected to begin in early 2015.
UPDATED: The full press release is below:
NICKELODEON ORDERS A SECOND SEASON OF HIT ANIMATED SERIES BREADWINNERS
20-Episode Pick-Up for the Booty Shakin’ Duck Tales
BURBANK, Calif.–May 8, 2014–A second season is in the oven for Nickelodeon’sBreadwinners, a popular animated series that ranks #1 in its Saturday 11:00a.m. time slot with Kids 2-11/6-11 and Boys 2-11/6-11. The announcement was made today by Russell Hicks, President, Content Development and Production. The outrageous comedy series, filled with infectious music and boundless energy, follows two quazy ducks who never give up on delivering bread to hungry beaks everywhere in their jet-fueled rocket van. The series will make its season one debut on the network’s international channels this fall.
“The popularity and success of Breadwinners is a testament to our commitment to creator-driven animation,” Hicks said. “We’re thrilled to bring our audience another season of this great show as part of our continued pledge to building our pipeline of original animation.”
The 20-episode order continues with more of SwaySway and Buhdeuce’s wild and quazy adventures aided by their trusted allies: the Bread Maker, Ketta, T-Midi and Jelly. As SwaySway and Buhdeuce delve deeper into the expansive world of Pondgea, they dodge more menacing monsters, discover new magical breads, and meet more riduckulous customers along the way. No matter what, this duck duo will keep moving to the beat and getting bread up in yo beak!
Nickelodeon closed April as the top basic cable net in total day with Kids 2-11 (2.7/872K, up +4% versus a year ago) and total viewers (1.6M), securing its fourth straight monthly win driven by its hit animation and preschool roster.
Breadwinners is created by Steve Borst (Teen Titans Go!, MAD) and Gary “Doodles” Di Raffaele (MAD, Metalocalypse), who was discovered from Nick’s 2012 Animated Shorts Program. This team of emerging and innovative artists delivers a funny and original series for this new generation of kids. With vast inspirations from classic buddy-comedy animation, and various current gaming, internet and music cultures, this innovative show introduces the next duck duo who always keep their beaks up and their heads boppin’.
About Nickelodeon
Nickelodeon, now in its 35th year, is the number-one entertainment brand for kids. It has built a diverse, global business by putting kids first in everything it does. The company includes television programming and production in the United States and around the world, plus consumer products, online, recreation, books and feature films. Nickelodeon’s U.S. television network is seen in almost 100 million households and has been the number-one-rated basic cable network for 19 consecutive years. Nickelodeon and all related titles, characters and logos are trademarks of Viacom Inc. (NASDAQ: VIA, VIA.B).
Innovators Will Be Honored at the !magination Awards on June 11 at The Yale Club in NYC
An esteemed class of Animation Innovators will take the stage at the third annual Cynopsis Kids !magination Awards, 8:00 -10:00am, June 11, at the Yale Club in New York City.
Congratulations to: Steve Borst & Gary “Doodles” Di Raffaele, Co-Creators & Exec Producers of Nickelodeon’s Breadwinners; Peter Gal, Head of Television Development at DreamWorks Animation; Traci Paige Johnson, Blue’s Clues Co-Creator and Co-Founder of Yummico; Joel Kuwahara, Co-Founder of Bento Box Entertainment; and Cort Lane, VP of Animation Development & Production at Marvel Television.
These creative pioneers will receive an award and participate in a panel discussion at the third annual !magination Awards, which recognizes the best in kids and family media. “Animation is experiencing a renaissance,” said Cynopsis Kids editor Cathy Applefeld Olson. “We’re thrilled to honor this dream team of innovators, and have them on stage to share their insights and experiences.”
A complete list of the !magination Awards finalists can be found here. Winners and honorable mentions will be featured in a special report of Cynopsis Kids to be distributed after the awards event and to more than 13,500 executives in kids media. For registration questions, contact Pete Romas at pete (at) cynopsis (dot) com. For advertising or sponsorship information, contact VP of Sales & Marketing, Mike Farina at mike (at) cynopsis (dot) com.
Cynopsis Media is a division of Access Intelligence LLC. The Cynopsis Media family of products includes Cynopsis, Cynopsis: Digital, and Cynopsis: Sports daily e-publications, weekly Cynopsis: Kids and Cynopsis: Classified Advantage e-publications, Special eReports, Event/Summits and a strong database of Classifieds and more. Visit Cynopsis.com.
SWAYSWAY AND BUHDEUCE ARE BACK IN NEW EPISODE OF BREADWINNERS PREMIERING SATURDAY, MAY 31, 11:00A.M. (ET/PT) ON NICKELODEON
New Episode Introduces SwaySway and Buhdeuce’s Formidable Opponent Oonski The Great
SwaySway and Buhdeuce meet their next biggest adversary in a beaver, Oonski the Great, in an all-new episode of Breadwinners premiering this Saturday, May 31, 11:00a.m. (ET/PT) on Nickelodeon. This Viking beaver is always looking for a bread mine to raid, and with his crew of mindless ducks, flies around Pondgea in a Viking blimp causing all sorts of mayhem. In “Quazy for Vanessa,” SwaySway and Buhdeuce disguise the Rocket Van as a girl to keep Oonski from stealing it, but their plan backfires when Oonski falls head-over-wheels in love. Then in “Tunnel of Fear,” SwaySway and Buhdeuce are forced to enter into a scary part of the bread mines to face their deepest, darkest, and silliest fears.
Breadheads can visit Nick.com for additional content, original photos, funny videos, and the updated game “Super Brawl 3,” where fans can witness what happens when the Breadwinners join a brawl.
Nickelodeon closed May as the top basic cable network in total day with Kids 2-11 (2.5/795K) and total viewers (1.5M), marking the net’s fifth consecutive month at the top.
Gary “Doodles” DiRaffaele (left) and Steve Borst (right)
Steve Borst is the writer. Gary “Doodles” DiRaffaele is the artist. Together they fight crime.
OK, actually, they co-created Nickelodeon’s new animated series Breadwinners, described as the adventures of “two booty-shaking ducks as they operate a bread delivery service out of their awesome, jet-fueled rocket van.” Borst’s animation credits include stints writing for Teen Titans Go! and MAD, as well as being the head writer for Cartoon Lagoon, an independently produced series that was an official selection of the 2012 New York Television Festival. DiRaffaele’s credits include Metalocalypse and storyboard director for the first three seasons of MAD.
I’ll let them tell the story of who the Breadwinners are and how they came to be, since we met with Steve Borst and Gary Doodles at Nickelodeon’s New York City offices for an interview while the pair were in town for the Cynopsis Kids !magination Awards. Among other things, the pair told the full story of how they teamed up to make cartoons about ducks. And fight crime (*).
TOONZONE NEWS: My first question for you guys is about how you guys first teamed up when you were working on MAD, because I’ve seen a couple of slightly different versions of this. My understanding is that Gary, you approached Steve in the breakroom and asked, “Hey, do you write cartoons?”
STEVE BORST: Yeah, I’m a writer, and I had been brought on and off of MAD because they rotate their writers. I was in and out starting in May of 2010, over the course of a couple of years, but Gary was there full time as an artist.
GARY DOODLES: I was one of the first artists to come on to MAD, to produce animatics, design the cartoon, and animate sketches. They don’t bring back many writers, but they kept bringing Steve back. They had their staff of writers, but they had two slots for rotating writers, so when Steve kept coming back, I was like, “Oh, this guy is probably good,” you know? And in the MAD machine, I don’t know who’s writing what because it’s always a collective of writers. Kevin Shinick was the head writer and everyone had their influence on the scripts. There was one day…
STEVE BORST: Yeah, it was one day, I was in the breakroom, where the copier was and also the coffee, and I was getting my coffee, and Gary…
GARY DOODLES: I was printing my timecard.
STEVE BORST: Gary came in, and I don’t know what you said, something like…it was like I was being asked out on a date, basically.
GARY DOODLES: Because, I mean, we’re grown men! And it’s like, “Hey, man, do you…do you…”
STEVE BORST: “What do you outside of work?”
GARY DOODLES: “Do you make cartoons? Do you write?”
STEVE BORST: “Do you think we could, maybe, like, collaborate on something?” (Laughter) It was awkward. It was super-awkward…
GARY DOODLES: But at the same time, I feel like we both knew what was going on, you know?
STEVE BORST: So yeah, I said, “Sure!” And we exchanged work that we had both done, and we got a sense of each other’s style, and then we just started kicking around ideas and developing different ideas and making tiny little shorts. It was not that much longer from the time we started collaborating until the first inception of what became Breadwinners. It was, like, a few months.
GARY DOODLES: We started jamming in…November?
STEVE BORST: Yeah, November.
GARY DOODLES: 2010. No, wait, 2011? The idea was to try and keep it topical, like, “Let’s come up with a Christmas short” or something like that. We started brainstorming ideas…I had a bunch of ideas I was pitching to Steve, and then we kind of landed on one idea, “Let’s do a Christmas cartoon because it’s topical, put it on the Internet.” And also, we just wanted to test how we worked together. Because we were clicking, but you don’t know how you really click until you collaborate together.
STEVE BORST: Breadwinners wasn’t the Christmas short, but Breadwinners came a couple of months after as we kept just generating stuff. It started with a doodle that Gary had in his sketchbook of two ducks.
TOONZONE NEWS: Ducks tossing bread at each other, right?
GARY DOODLES: They were tossing it up in the air. Just a really wholesome kind of fun image. We met at a bar, because we’d always be jamming after hours, so I’d be like, “Hey Steve, let’s just meet here, maybe grab dinner, and just talk.” I’d bring a printout, because I didn’t know what he was going to think. If he was just like, “Eh, I don’t really like it,” I would have designed something else. But he was reacting to it in a positive way, and then he was like, “I could work with it.” That was my contribution to it. He gave them names and personalities. The idea is that he writes it, I’ll produce it. That was our deal. And that’s how the short was born. He wrote it in about two weeks.
STEVE BORST: Because Gary had an animation festival, a Midsummer Night’s …
GARY DOODLES: Midsummer Night Toons. It’s like a screening. There’s no prize given out. It’s just a bunch of alumni from the School of Visual Arts, where I went to school, and people in the animation industry who make a new cartoon every year, and have a platform to show it. Matt Lee is the guy that runs it, and he rents out a bar. This was the fifth year I was doing it, but I didn’t have an idea. “Breadwinners” was the only thing that was most fleshed out. Granted, at this point, it was like…April?
TOONZONE NEWS: And you cranked it out by the summer? Wow.
GARY DOODLES: Two months. Yeah. I cranked it out for the screening, and once we put it in the screening, and before we put it on YouTube, we made a couple of minor tweaks to it. and then we posted it up on YouTube, and…then our lives changed forever (laughter). Pretty much.
TOONZONE NEWS: And that’s where Nickelodeon picked it up, right? That’s one of the other things that I’m a little hazy about, because it doesn’t seem like it was in the shorts program.
STEVE BORST: No, it wasn’t officially part of the shorts program. It was kind of wrapped up into it after the fact. Gary had actually been brought on as the director on another short.
GARY DOODLES: Yeah, I was in the middle of producing the short with them and that’s when we were pretty much done with the Breadwinners short, and I was building this trust with the network. Two comedians came and pitched this cartoon to the network called “Pam and Sid’s Port-a-Party,” and they needed a director to flesh their idea out. So they chose me, and I designed it and produced it with a storyboard artist and a background designer and a composer. It was such a small team. And they saw the result, and it was the same process that we used on “Breadwinners,” with the musical beat where everything is so tight and rhythmic and musical. We applied that same science to the Nickelodeon short, and then Nickelodeon was just head over heels. And then we created the “Breadwinners” short, and they were like, “Well, if he can do this, let’s let them make a show together.” Because the thing about the “Breadwinners” short is that it’s really fleshed out. It really had a heart and a soul to it, and all the foundation is there.
GARY DOODLES: We call that short the show bible. Because we do party punches, we do booty kicks, there’s that whole rhythm. To me, it’s a prototype, and I’m super proud of it, because in the short amount of time we produced that, we were able to really uncover so many little details that would later become the show. We reused so many elements in that. Now we’re essentially evolving from there. It’s pretty incredible, the process of where we come from. Where we’ve been and where we’re going to.
TOONZONE NEWS: Some animated series are described as being script-driven, and others are storyboard-driven. I’ve read about your process and it sounds like…what DO you do? It sounds like it’s you and even your composer Tommy Sica gets involved with the music really early.
GARY DOODLES: It’s a combination of everything.
STEVE BORST: It’s technically a script-driven show. A lot of my favorite cartoons are the board driven shows, but we do start out with scripts as opposed to a traditional board-driven show that just starts out with an outline. So we have a script, but because of the way we work, I feel like it’s very much a hybrid of things. We work closely together on the stories and then with the way the audio is worked in, it almost becomes an audio driven show in a way.
GARY DOODLES: Yeah, because we write the script and then we record the actors. Once we record the actors, we chop up their dialogue, we dump it into Pro Tools, and we time it all out. We audio-map the show and time it out to 10 minutes and 45 seconds. That’s exactly the length of the show. So there’s no reason to board 15 minutes of storyboard panels and know you’ve got to cut your boards down to 10:45. We start at 10:45.
STEVE BORST: Well, it’s not always exactly 10:45, but we are in the ballpark of that. It’s within 15 to 20 seconds.
GARY DOODLES: Yeah.
STEVE BORST: If our episode comes out and it’s 12 minutes long, we know we have to re-write stuff before the even artists get involved. We need to chop it down and get it to a workable place so artists aren’t wasting time.
GARY DOODLES: Exactly. So when the storyboard artists are ready to board, we give them the final audio of the characters, so you get to hear all of the emotions that they’re expressing, from happy to sad, and you can really draw what they’re feeling, as opposed to working from an outline for a typical board-driven show: “Oh, the character is sad.” So you draw the image of them sad, but there’s so much material to be inspired by. That’s why the script drives the audio, and then the audio drives the storyboard. Then the storyboard drives the animation. It’s a pretty tight process.
Right before we ship it to Titmouse Vancouver, there’s pretty much 80% music on it. Everything’s timed to a beat, and everything’s super-tight. Once it goes to animation, it’s pretty much roughly laid out. Everyone really has a clear understanding of what the shot is going to look like and when it comes back from animation, there’s no editing. If you take the animation and drop it over the animatic, it’s exactly the same thing. There’s no, “Oh, we have to rehaul this entire scene because this doesn’t work.” We figure it all out in the animatic. If it’s not going to sing in the animatic, it’s not going to sing in animation, so we make sure we’re extremely happy with the animatic, and the animatic has got to feel like it’s totally fleshed out and feels like a working cartoon to us before we ship it.
STEVE BORST: And that’s cool because that allows the animators to really focus on pushing the animation and making all of the animation super-cool, as opposed to having to figure out timing, and “Why isn’t this working?” At every stage of the process, if you try to answer as many questions and get it as far as you can, when you pass the baton on to the next person, they’ve got a really great foundation to work on. Everybody at every stage can really just elevate it instead of figuring out stuff that could have been figured out earlier.
GARY DOODLES: Yeah, it’s like when you send it to the next stage, you’re not fixing problems. You’re just enhancing the awesomeness that it is.
TOONZONE NEWS: How long does it take you to make an episode then? One 10-minute episode in the show?
STEVE BORST: I think it’s up to 9 months now, isn’t it?
GARY DOODLES: Yeah, we started with 8, and now we stretch the schedule out to 9 months now. So it’s 8-9 months per episode.
TOONZONE NEWS: So there’s a lot of sweat going into those 10 minutes.
GARY DOODLES: Yeah. On all angles. From start to finish. Yeah. (Laughs)
STEVE BORST: We’re very fortunate to have an extremely talented crew, everybody from the directors to the writers to the art director to the animation director to the production crew. They’re really good at what they do, so it helps keep the ship keep moving. You definitely want your ship to be moving smoothly in an animation pipeline, because there’s so many moving parts and things that are moving so fast.
GARY DOODLES: Everyone is very passionate about our show. They really want to contribute their own personal flavor to it. And I think a lot of it is trust. We trust our directors. We trust our board guys. The trust trickles down in a way. We encourage them to kind of own their work and really make the best thing they can make. And be proud of what they’re making, and I feel like it really shows. You can see all the hands involved. I know all the artists on the show, and when it gets to animation and it’s final picture, you can kind of tell who directed the episode. Kind of like the old-school Warner Bros. cartoons.
TOONZONE NEWS: Like how you can tell the Tex Avery shorts from the ones by Friz Freleng or Chuck Jones…
GARY DOODLES: Yeah! And they’re all great, but they’re all just a little different. They all have their own attitude and their own voice to them. That’s what we want. Our style is not always on-model, and that’s the fun part of it. You can draw SwaySway and Buhdeuce a number of ways. It keeps it refreshing for every shot, so you’re not always looking at the exact same piece of artwork throughout the entire ten-and-a-half minutes. You’re always being entertained in a new way in every scene.
STEVE BORST: I think that kind of ties into Nickelodeon and the fact that Nickelodeon has been a really great environment for us to work in because it’s so creator-driven. They really do give us a lot of creative freedom to do what we want, and we try to give everyone on our crew creative freedom so that everyone’s voice and creativity can come through at every stage of the process.
TOONZONE NEWS: One thing I really like about the show is the real mixed media feel to it. There’s a lot of bits and pieces taken from a bunch of different places. Your show is even different because you’re even pulling the music in on that. It’s truly multi-media. Is that something you were planning? Where did that come up in your process?
GARY DOODLES: MAD was fun because every sketch you were working on let me challenge myself. I was like, “How can I make this different from the previous one that I designed, storyboarded, and animated?” Mark Marek, one of my directors, he brought in this photo collage element to it. And it was just funny. To me, if it’s funny looking, if it’s…I don’t know, it’s a stupidity kind of thing? “That looks super silly. Why would you put that there?” But you mix the 2-D and the photo-real, and you just start to laugh at what you’re looking at. So I feel like that was part of the reason why I was like, “If we’re going to have ducks, why not have a photo-real duck?” Part of that actually worked its way into the evolution of our show and how the characters, SwaySway and Buhdeuce are more evolved ducks. The less evolved ducks are photo-real, so SwaySway and Buhdeuce came from these photo-real ducks. They’re just more highly evolved, except that if you think about SwaySway and Buhdeuce they’re pretty zany and silly, so how evolved are they?
TOONZONE NEWS: They’ve evolved thumbs, at least, but that’s about far as it goes.
GARY DOODLES: Yeah (laughter). So there’s a lot of levels. And even like with the music, it’s not like, “Let’s make dance music.” If you’ve watched the short, it’s a lot of dance music. Some rock stuff. But, like, I used to be in a band, and it’s hard rock music, but I listen to pop music. Just good songwriting. So I feel like it’s a collage of awesomeness from 2-D animation to photo-collage to awesome music from any genre. Throw it all in there and put it in the blender. Also like the video games, that we grew up on. I’m a Nintendo baby, so Nintendo, Super Nintendo, N64…those were my jams. I love that stuff. And trying to incorporate that into the show is always fun, so that gives it that other element of the collage. Just put it all in there.
TOONZONE NEWS: It sounds like you have a pretty tight process, but outsourcing is always one of these great risks when you do animation. Are there any specific instances where either Titmouse plussed something that you weren’t expecting, or something got horribly misinterpreted or misunderstood and came back in a surprising way?
GARY DOODLES: You know what’s funny? The misunderstood aspect of it never happens, and the reason why is because our boards are so clear. The only way you could not fulfill the promise of the board is by following the board exactly. So if SwaySway is driving the Rocket Van and he’s got an A and a B pose, and he’s just doing two poses — arms stretched out, arms in, just two frames — if they just did that without adding any in-betweens, that’s just not fleshing it out to the point of what I’d want to see in animation, even if the integrity of the scene is there because he’s following the poses.
But I feel like they embellish more than they leave out. There’s two specific scenes that I can think about. There’s one in “Diner Ducks” where they’re in this diner and they’re posing as waiters, and they’re trying to run the restaurant all by themselves and they can’t. SwaySway is freaking out, and Buhdeuce is freaking out because the customers want all this food and they can’t serve it in time. And then SwaySway is out of eggs, and he’s asking for eggs, and Buhdeuce is like, “I’m out of eggs! What do I do?” and SwaySway is like, “You’re a duck! Think of something!” And Buhdeuce …(laughs) he goes into this pose like he’s trying to squeeze out an egg, you know? The board was just one frame of this one pose, but the animator did this crazy thing! It was on the ones and he’s totally stressing out and it just makes the joke so much funnier. The idea is that he’s straining and straining and straining and straining, and you think he’s going to pop an egg out, but then he goes, “Oh, wait!” and pulls one out of his pocket. And he breaks it. It’s one of those things where, like, everyone in the room just lit up when they saw that.
Then in “Buhdeuce Goes Bezerk,” he gets a bad haircut and every time he sees his bad haircut he just freaks out and explodes. Gets big muscles and he starts rampaging through town. The transformation sequence is just intense, it’s like…whoever animated it was adding so many drawings and there’s so much stress. I’m pretty sure it’s the same animator, and it’s just awesome to see them just saying, “OK, this is a scene I really want to have fun with.” And we don’t say, “Oh, you’re having too much fun. Stop that.” (laughter) We really like when the artists take control of the scene and really make it surprising.
STEVE BORST: I’m constantly impressed with the animation that comes back from Titmouse. They’re all super super talented, and every time we get animation, it’s like Christmas (laughter). It’s like we unwrap a present, so it’s really fun and exciting to see it all come back.
TOONZONE NEWS: Plus, by the time you get it I’m sure it’s been away for a couple of months and I’m sure you’ve forgotten a bunch of things.
STEVE BORST: Yes, exactly!
GARY DOODLES: That’s the best part! When we ship it, I’m always like, “This is a good episode. It’s not my favorite, but it’s a good one.” Then when it comes back from animation, I’m always like, “You know what? This one might be my favorite.” (laughter) It’s amazing what color and a couple of in-betweens can do, but it’s incredible the amount of work that they do and it really shows. Everyone is super-proud of it. We’re really proud of everyone who works on the show and we just hope that everyone keeps doing what they’re doing because everyone’s really enjoying it.
TOONZONE NEWS: You have been greenlit for season 2, and I assume you’re already working on that?
STEVE BORST: Yeah, the way an animation pipeline works, you’re always working on 20 different cartoons all at the same time at various different stages. We’re just delivering the 10th episode of our first season, but we’re still doing animatics for, like, number 30 and 32 out of 40. We’re still working on animatics for the first season, but now we’ve just started scripting the second season. We haven’t started recording any of those episodes yet, but we’re moving along now and coming up with more story ideas.
TOONZONE NEWS: Knowing what you know from season 1, are you changing anything? Are you going to do anything differently for season 2 that you can talk about right now?
GARY DOODLES: I always feel like you can improve on something that already works. We’re adding more bodies to the production. We’re filling those up just to alleviate some of the stress that goes along with the production. There were gaps on the audio side, where we didn’t think we needed the resources. So we’re building our team out a little bit more, which means that now that we can build out the show more. I feel like we can create bigger stories and bigger worlds. Just bigger and better kind of things. We love season 1, but we’re like, “How can we top this?” It’s like a video game. How many more characters can we add, how many more places can they visit, but Keeping with respect that we have to explore the spots that we’ve already set up. Like Tree City, we want to dive deeper into Tree City. Volcano Valley, we want to know more about that landscape, because all we know about Volcano Valley is Ketta’s tune-up shop. And introducing more characters. We haven’t really come up with any new ones yet, but I’m sure there’s going to be some new guys that we make.
STEVE BORST: Yeah, the first season was a whole period of development where we were figuring out our production pipeline, and it was really new. It was really new to Nickelodeon, too, and Nickelodeon was really great in supporting us and helping us figure out how to set up our whole pipeline. Now things are moving smoother they’ve ever before. On the story side we’re finding certain kinds of stories that we really like to tell. The bread that SwaySway and Buhdeuce mine was always kind of fun like huckleberry spaghetti bread and jelly-filled alfalfa. Then we discovered, “Oh, maybe the bread is magical and has magical properties,” which is where “Love Loaf” and “Stank Breath” came from. So now we’re exploring more magical types of bread because it’s a really fun story area. You can really do almost anything. It’s definitely fun. We’ve created this really big, crazy world and it’s really fun for us to explore it, so as we’re kind of exploring it, the audience is going to get to explore it, too.
GARY DOODLES: Even their catch phrases and the branding kind of stuff that we have like the booty kicks, we’re going to bring more of that back but maybe put a little twist on it as we go. We always try to find a way to keep things familiar but make it refreshing at the same time. I feel like everyone likes to hear the classics, but just kind of put a twist on it. We’re definitely excited to see where we take it.
Toonzone News would like to thank Gary “Doodles” DiRaffaele and Steve Borst for taking the time to talk with us, and to the awesome folks at Nickelodeon PR for setting up the opportunity. Breadwinners airs on Saturdays on Nickelodeon; check the official Breadwinners website for more information.
(*) = NOTE: Steve and Gary do not actually fight crime. Much.
PREPARE TO LOAF OUT LOUD AS NICKELODEON DELIVERS NEW ANIMATION BREADWINNERS
Expect hilarious escapades, high energy and booty-shaking music in plucky new series Breadwinners, premiering on Monday 22nd September at 4:30pm only on Nicktoons
London, 20th August 2014 – New animated comedy Breadwinners follows SwaySway and Buhdeuce, two hilarious ducks who operate a bread delivery service out of their jet-fueled, Rocket Van, feeding hungry beaks everywhere. Breadwinners is an original production from the Nickelodeon Animation Studios and will premiere on Monday 22nd September at 4:30pm on Nicktoons.
Throughout the series SwaySway, the upbeat leader of the flock and his loyal best friend Buhdeuce go on riduckulous adventures together. From eating a loafof ‘StankBread’ and getting lost on the lower yeast side,to record-beaking attempts for most bread deliveries in one day, nothing will stop this duo from making a delivery all while shaking their tail feathers. Breadwinners will air regularly on weekdays at 4:30pm.
For fans who can’t wait, the first episode will sneak beak on the Nick App on 15th September. In the series premiere,“Thug Loaf,” when SwaySway andBuhdeuce have to deliver bread to the bad part of Duck Town, they accidentally lock their keys in the Rocket Van and have to befriend a gang of Biker Ducks for help.
Steve Borst (Teen Titans Go!, MAD) and Gary“Doodles” Di Raffaele (MAD, Metalocalypse) teamed up to produce Breadwinners which was discovered as part of Nickelodeon’s 2012 Animated Shorts Program. With inspiration taken from classic buddy-comedy animation, gaming and pop culture,this innovative new show introduces a duck duo who always keep their beaks up and their heads boppin’.
From 15th September viewers will be able to play new game Big Bread Booty Bash on the Nick App, where players must complete a day of work as SwaySway and Buhdeuce without crashing, toasting or roasting. The Nick App will also play host to the ‘Breadwinners Ducktionary’ where viewers can brush up on their beak lingo.
Nicktoons Available in over 13 million homes, Nicktoons showcases the world’s best comedy animation. Launched in 2002 and part of the Nickelodeon network of channels, Nicktoons broadcasts the very best in funny cartoons to audiences across the UK and Ireland, featuring top shows such as SpongeBob SquarePants, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, T.U.F.F. Puppy, Fairly OddParents and Kung Fu Panda. More information is available at nicktoons.co.uk Nicktoons is available on Sky 606, Virgin 717 and through BT Vision.
The Nickelodeon Network is a top-performing commercial kids TV network in the UK and Ireland with Nickelodeon channels available in over 14 million cable and satellite homes. Having launched in 1993 Nickelodeon UK comprises seven dedicated entertainment channels for kids aged 4-15 and their families, and is a joint venture between Viacom International Media Networks and BSkyB.
Nickelodeon Packs the Weekend With A New Episode of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Including the Return of Season Two of its Hit Animated Series Sanjay and Craig and Breadwinners Beginning Friday, Sept. 19, 8:00 p.m. (ET/PT)
Nickelodeon’s weekend of premieres kicks-off with an all-new episode of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Friday, September 19, at 8:00p.m. (ET/PT). In “Into Dimension X!,” while Mikey is always messing things up at home, when the Turtles go to the bizarre realm of Dimension X, he’s the only one who can figure the place out.
Then the best buddy journeys continue Saturday, September 20, at 10:30a.m. (ET/PT) when episodes of season two return of Sanjay and Craig. Up first in “Barfy’s Babies,” Sanjay and Craig try to find the “hook” to help a boring puppy find a home. Then in “Butts Up Club,” what starts as Sanjay and Craig playing a schoolyard game turns into a mythic quest involving a girl in trouble, Darlene and a villain appropriately named, Butt Master.
Where one adventure ends, another begins in a brand-new episode from the season two return of Breadwinners at 11:00a.m. (ET/PT). In “Introducktions,” SwaySway and Buhdeuce head deep into the bread mines to introduce their number one customer to the one and only Bread Maker. Then in “Fowl Feud,” after breaking each other’s favorite possessions, SwaySway and Buhdeuce get into a feud and might just part ways forever!
For more TMNT action, viewers can logon to Nick.com to play the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game, “Shadow Heroes.” Fans can also choose from 15 original games from Sanjay and Craig’s favorite spot, the Frycade, and level up in multiple Breadwinners-themed games including Big Bread Booty Bash and Super Brawl 3.
Breadwinners, Nickelodeon’s latest hit comedy focussing on duck buddies SwaySway and Buhdeuce as they deliver bread in their high tech rocket van, has arrived on Nicktoons in the UK. We recently got the chance to pose a few questions to series creators Steve Borst (Teen Titans Go!, MAD) and Gary “Doodles” Di Raffaele (MAD, Metalocalypse) about the show and their inspirations.
TOONZONE NEWS: What do you consider to be the major difference between child and adult audiences and which do you prefer creating for?
STEVE BORST: I think that child audiences have a better appreciation for poop jokes. So we prefer to create a show for kids.
TOONZONE NEWS: There’s been a lot of recent criticism that modern cartoons use designs that are too simple. Do you agree with this and if not what do you feel to be the highlight of the current style of mainstream TV animation?
GARY “DOODLES” DiRAFFAELE: I do agree that modern cartoons today are simpler. With Breadwinners, my approach in terms of design was definitely to keep it simple – that way you can focus on so many different parts of the process like storytelling, and putting simple characters on the cool detailed backdrops to really make them pop. For animation it’s easier on the animators and we can create more content by not being weighed down by complicated designs.
TOONZONE NEWS: How does inspiration strike you? Is it through discussion and experimentation or were you blessed with surreal minds?
STEVE BORST: I think inspiration can strike in any number of ways. Sometimes I’m in the shower and I’m struck with an idea that leads to something, or Gary will make a funny drawing that just popped into his head that will then inspire an entire story. Deadlines make you very inspired because of the way the animation production pipeline works. It’s very fast-paced, so you have to be constantly generating ideas. And there’s nothing like a deadline to inspire you quickly.
GARY “DOODLES” DiRAFFAELE: Being up pretty late and being pretty delirious – there’s weird inspiration that comes from that. Even some inspiration over a nice bowl of oatmeal! I’m inspired by many different things and it can come from anywhere. When it does I’m always ready to capture that moment – whether in my sketchbook, calling up or texting Steve and being like “hey man what do you think about this idea?” We always try to have this constant dialogue to inspire each other and we do have creative minds, but it definitely helps when there’s a seed that’s planted to build from.
STEVE BORST: Some of our inspiration comes from our daily lives. We have one episode where Buhdeuce gets a terrible haircut and that’s something that anybody can relate to – everybody’s had a bad haircut. But what we do with it after that is that Buhdeuce goes berzerk and becomes this giant berzerk monster every time he sees his bad haircut. So inspiration can start with just a tiny little kernel of an idea and then it’s just what you do with that idea and how you build upon it that makes it special.
TOONZONE NEWS: Are there particular things you’ve learned from your prior credits that helped shape Breadwinners?
GARY “DOODLES” DiRAFFAELE: All my previous animation jobs have definitely prepared me for Breadwinners, especially the sketch comedy show I worked on, MAD. I would have to animate, design, storyboard and work on the sound design. I would build a cartoon based on the script I was given. When we were developing Breadwinners, I made this short within two months because I was already in that rhythm of constantly creating and making cartoons. So it wasn’t a challenge for me anymore, I was like “yeah, bring it on – let’s make another cartoon!”
STEVE BORST:I used to work on Nickelodeon’s on-air promos team, so I spent many years writing promos and commercials for the shows that were on Nickelodeon. It was a really fantastic experience for me because I became immersed in the sensibility of the network. And I got to watch tons of Nickelodeon shows, which helped prepare me for making my own show.
GARY “DOODLES” DiRAFFAELE: I had a bunch of folders on my computer with ideas that I would constantly develop. Before Steve and I met, over the course of eight years– I had all these ideas that I was constantly doodling and trying to create. So creating Breadwinners came a little naturally to me because of the whole development aspect of it and creating characters and the whole process from start to finish has been something that I’ve been practicing without knowing where it would potentially lead to. But then when we were developing Breadwinners it just felt really natural to find out who the characters were and develop the style as we went. It was part of my DNA.
TOONZONE NEWS: What do you hope that kids will get out of the show?
GARY “DOODLES” DiRAFFAELE: I hope kids get a lot of laughs.
STEVE BORST: I hope they get an appreciation for the value of friendship. At the end of the day, SwaySway and Buhdeuce are best friends and they are always there for each other.
GARY “DOODLES” DiRAFFAELE: Best baps for life!
TOONZONE NEWS: What type of bread would you personally order for delivery?
GARY “DOODLES” DiRAFFAELE: If I was to order bread from SwaySway and Buhdeuce I would probably order Rainbow Confetti, because I’ve never barfed rainbows before and I’d love to see what that looks like on the wall.
STEVE BORST:If I was going to order bread from SwaySway and Buhdeuce I would order Quazy Mane Whole Grain, because when you eat it, it makes your hair grow crazy-long and I think that would be really fun!
TOONZONE NEWS: Is there anything you’d like to say to UK fans of Breadwinners?
STEVE BORST: Hey Nick UK viewers we’re really excited for you to check out Breadwinners.
GARY “DOODLES” DiRAFFAELE: We hope you loaf it!
Toonzone would like to thank Steve and Gary for taking the time to answer our questions and the Nickelodeon UK press department for helping to arrange this interview.
Breadwinners airs weekdays at 4:30pm on Nicktoons UK (Sky 606, Virgin 717 and through BT Vision).
With the summer over and year’s end not far away, Nickelodeon UK have announced their plans for the twilight months of 2014. As usual this includes a healthy number of animated shows.
November will see the main channel air A Fairly Odd Summer, the latest Fairly OddParents live action movie starring Drake Bell and Daniella Monet. January also sees the return of another popular Nick show as The Legend of Korra begins airing Book 3, in which Korra and her friends must contend with the consequences of her handling of the spirit world.
Nicktoons puts its best webbed foot forward with Breadwinners, which recently premiered (read our interviews with the creators here and here). SwaySway and Buhdeuce are a pair of hip young ducks on a rocket powered mission to deliver bread and laughs. Also returning in September for more loony fun are the raving Rabbids in brand new episodes of Rabbids Invasion. The fun continues with brand new episodes of SpongeBob SquarePants and Sanjay & Craig in October. The latter will include a brand new half hour Halloween special, ‘Tufflips Tales of Terror’. Things are rounded up with brand new episodes of both Fairly OddParents and Kung Fu Panda: Legends Of Awesomeness in November.
For those wanting some ninja action with their laughs, the second season of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles will reach its dramatic conclusion over November and December, before making an explosive return in the all new season three next February.
Nick Jr leads with new episodes of popular series Poppy Cat and Zack & Quack. Brand new literacy focussed Wallykazam! premieres Monday 6th October at 4pm. The series focuses on Wally and his friends in a magical world where words come to life. November sees the premiere of Dora and Friends: Into the City. Aimed at growing the character alongside children who have aged past the initial Dora the Explorer show, Into The City sees the explorer and her friends (Pablo, Alana, Naiya, Emma and Kate) attend school and have adventures in the city of Playa Verde.
November is also the month for brand new episodes of Paw Patrol, as young Ryder and his team of rescue dogs continue to protect Adventure Bay from danger. December will include three new Barbie movies (Barbie and the Secret Door, Barbie Mariposa & the Fairy Princess and Barbie and Her Sisters in A Pony Tale) while January sees brand new episodes of Lily’s Driftwood Bay and the debut of new series Wanda and the Alien. Based on the award winning books by Sue Hendra, the series focuses on the escapades of rabbit girl Wanda and her stranded alien friend.
With the temperature slowly dropping outside, the Nick family of channels are giving children and parents alike a reason to keep warm inside through the winter months and into 2015.
Nickelodeon Unearths Spooky Line-up of Halloween-themed Animation Premieres This Friday, Oct. 17– Saturday, Oct. 18
This Halloween season, Nickelodeon treats viewers to a spooktacular line-up of spine-tingling adventures with brand-new episodes of its hit animated series Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Sanjay and Craig, Breadwinners and Rabbids Invasion this Friday, Oct. 17– Saturday, Oct. 18.
The eerie weekend line-up includes:
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – Friday, Oct. 17, at 8:00p.m. (ET/PT) – In the episode, “Buried Secrets,” the team discovers a Kraang ship buried under April’s house where they find… April’s mom! But as April reconnects with her lost mother, is she really all that she seems? Renae Jacobs, who voiced April O’Neil in the original animated series, guest stars in a surprise role.
Sanjay and Craig – Saturday, Oct. 18, at 10:30a.m. (ET/PT) – In this original half-hour episode “Tufflips’ Tales of Terror,” Tufflips hosts a spooky, strange and shoddy Halloween special.
Breadwinners – Saturday, Oct. 18, at 11:00a.m. (ET/PT) – Another special half-hour episode “Night of the Living Bread” debuts in which SwaySway and Buhdeuce invent a loaf of bread so irresistible, it turns their customers into bread-craving zombies.
Rabbids Invasion – Saturday, Oct. 18, at 11:30a.m. (ET/PT) – The wacky Rabbids conclude the evening in the new episode “Vampire Rabbid,” “Rabbid Halloween” and “Zombie Rabbid.”
For more frightening fun, fans can head to the Halloween Hub on Nick.com and the Nick App, which features brand-new games, clips and full-length episodes of everyone’s favorite shows. Viewers can play as Sandy Cheeks (SpongeBob SquarePants) in Nickelodeon’s Mystery Mansion. During the game, Sandy receives a personal invitation to the Mystery Mansion for a Halloween party and arrives to discover that the mansion is empty and haunted by ghosts, ghouls, zombies and other scary creatures. Players must defeat the enemy with a magical ghost-busting vacuum and trusty flashlight. A new floor featuring a different Nickelodeon animated series will open up weekly.
SpongeBob SquarePants gets into the Halloween spirit in a brand-new update to the SpongeBob Moves In app. A spooky ship has crashed into Bikini Bottom, bringing with it a never-ending night and pesky ghosts. In the game, players must help SpongeBob rid the town of ghouls by dressing him up in costumes, feeding hungry ghosts and much more.
MASTERS OF FEAR ROBERT ENGLUND AND JOHN KASSIR GUEST STAR IN
NEW EPISODE OF NICKELODEON’S TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES
FRIDAY, NOV. 14, AT 8:00 P.M. (ET/PT)
Premiere Weekend Continues with New Episodes of Sanjay and Craig and Breadwinners
Horror icons Robert Englund (Freddy Krueger, A Nightmare on Elm Street) and John Kassir (Crypt Keeper, Tales from the Crypt) lend their voices as a group of inter-dimensional beings in an all-new episode of Nickelodeon’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles premiering Friday, Nov. 14, at 8:00p.m. (ET/PT).
Englund lends his voice as Dire Beaver, the leader of the group, and Dark Beaver, the vicious, monstrous and evilly intelligent one, while Kassir plays Dread Beaver, the maniacal and cruelest of the lot, and Dave Beaver, the silliest of the pack. In the new episode, “In Dreams,” each Beaver targets a different Turtle using various methods. These creatures, which feed off dreams, trap the Turtles inside their own dreams, so April and Casey must find a way to wake them up.
The fun continues on Saturday, Nov. 15, during a brand-new episode of Sanjay and Craig at 10:30a.m. (ET/PT). During “2 Tuff 2 Watch,” the kids stage a Tufflips movie marathon and find that staying awake through every cheesy flick proves tougher than they expected. Then in “Cuddle Buddy,” Craig becomes desperate for cuddling after he sees the neighborhood pets receiving so much tender affection.
Up next, viewers will discover the premiere of Breadwinners, “Space Ducks/Kettastrophe” at 11:00a.m. (ET/PT). In “Space Ducks,” strap on your helmets and hold on to your tail feathers because SwaySway and Buhdeuce are delivering bread in space. Then in “Kettastrophe,” when Ketta crashes at the Swamp Pad, her home modifications drive the guys whoa‐ma‐gosh quazy.
For more TMNT action, viewers can logon to Nick.com to play the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game, “Shadow Heroes.” Fans can also play games in Sanjay and Craig’s favorite spot, the Frycade, and level up in Breadwinners’ Big Bread Booty Bash.
Season Two of Breadwinners Lands on Nickelodeon, Harvey Beaks and Sanjay and Craig Kick-off New Night of Animated Premieres
Nickelodeon treats viewers to an all-new night of animated premieres beginning this Sunday, April 5, with the launch of Breadwinners season two at 6:00 p.m. (ET/PT). In “Adventures of Big Baby Bun Sitting,” SwaySway and Buhdeuce babysit Big Baby Buns, but a sudden growth spurt makes the task even more challenging. Then in “Crumbskull,” the guys accidentally feed Ketta Dunce Bread just when her smartness is needed to save the planet.
After an encore episode of SpongeBob SquarePants, the premiere line-up continues when Nickelodeon’s newest animated series Harvey Beaks hits in its regular timeslot at 7:00 p.m. (ET/PT). In, “The Finger,” the discovery of a giant, stone finger in the ground leads the kids on a passionate quest to find out what’s attached to the rest of it. Then in “The Negatives of Being Positively Charged,” when Fee and Foo become magnetized, nature seems determined to force them apart. But a life without each other simply won’t do.
A brand-new episode of Sanjay and Craig rounds out the premiere block at 7:30 p.m. (ET/PT). In “Fowl Work,” when Sanjay and Craig get the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to work at the Frycade, they soon discover Belle’s secret life. Next in “Rash Thrash,” Sanjay develops an allergy to Craig—could this mean the end of the dude-snake duo?
Viewers can visit Nick.com and the Nick App to learn more about these shows and characters, get a behind-the-scenes look and play games. Episodes are available on Nick.com and the Nick App, along with platforms including iTunes, Amazon, Xbox, Google Play, Vudu, Playstation, Hulu and VOD.
Innovators Will Be Honored at the !magination Awards on June 11 at The Yale Club in NYC
An esteemed class of Animation Innovators will take the stage at the third annual Cynopsis Kids !magination Awards, 8:00 -10:00am, June 11, at the Yale Club in New York City.
Congratulations to: Steve Borst & Gary “Doodles” Di Raffaele, Co-Creators & Exec Producers of Nickelodeon’s Breadwinners; Peter Gal, Head of Television Development at DreamWorks Animation; Traci Paige Johnson, Blue’s Clues Co-Creator and Co-Founder of Yummico; Joel Kuwahara, Co-Founder of Bento Box Entertainment; and Cort Lane, VP of Animation Development & Production at Marvel Television.
These creative pioneers will receive an award and participate in a panel discussion at the third annual !magination Awards, which recognizes the best in kids and family media. “Animation is experiencing a renaissance,” said Cynopsis Kids editor Cathy Applefeld Olson. “We’re thrilled to honor this dream team of innovators, and have them on stage to share their insights and experiences.”
A complete list of the !magination Awards finalists can be found here. Winners and honorable mentions will be featured in a special report of Cynopsis Kids to be distributed after the awards event and to more than 13,500 executives in kids media. For registration questions, contact Pete Romas at pete (at) cynopsis (dot) com. For advertising or sponsorship information, contact VP of Sales & Marketing, Mike Farina at mike (at) cynopsis (dot) com.
Cynopsis Media is a division of Access Intelligence LLC. The Cynopsis Media family of products includes Cynopsis, Cynopsis: Digital, and Cynopsis: Sports daily e-publications, weekly Cynopsis: Kids and Cynopsis: Classified Advantage e-publications, Special eReports, Event/Summits and a strong database of Classifieds and more. Visit Cynopsis.com.
SWAYSWAY AND BUHDEUCE ARE BACK IN NEW EPISODE OF BREADWINNERS PREMIERING SATURDAY, MAY 31, 11:00A.M. (ET/PT) ON NICKELODEON
New Episode Introduces SwaySway and Buhdeuce’s Formidable Opponent Oonski The Great
SwaySway and Buhdeuce meet their next biggest adversary in a beaver, Oonski the Great, in an all-new episode of Breadwinners premiering this Saturday, May 31, 11:00a.m. (ET/PT) on Nickelodeon. This Viking beaver is always looking for a bread mine to raid, and with his crew of mindless ducks, flies around Pondgea in a Viking blimp causing all sorts of mayhem. In “Quazy for Vanessa,” SwaySway and Buhdeuce disguise the Rocket Van as a girl to keep Oonski from stealing it, but their plan backfires when Oonski falls head-over-wheels in love. Then in “Tunnel of Fear,” SwaySway and Buhdeuce are forced to enter into a scary part of the bread mines to face their deepest, darkest, and silliest fears.
Breadheads can visit Nick.com for additional content, original photos, funny videos, and the updated game “Super Brawl 3,” where fans can witness what happens when the Breadwinners join a brawl.
Nickelodeon closed May as the top basic cable network in total day with Kids 2-11 (2.5/795K) and total viewers (1.5M), marking the net’s fifth consecutive month at the top.
Gary “Doodles” DiRaffaele (left) and Steve Borst (right)
Steve Borst is the writer. Gary “Doodles” DiRaffaele is the artist. Together they fight crime.
OK, actually, they co-created Nickelodeon’s new animated series Breadwinners, described as the adventures of “two booty-shaking ducks as they operate a bread delivery service out of their awesome, jet-fueled rocket van.” Borst’s animation credits include stints writing for Teen Titans Go! and MAD, as well as being the head writer for Cartoon Lagoon, an independently produced series that was an official selection of the 2012 New York Television Festival. DiRaffaele’s credits include Metalocalypse and storyboard director for the first three seasons of MAD.
I’ll let them tell the story of who the Breadwinners are and how they came to be, since we met with Steve Borst and Gary Doodles at Nickelodeon’s New York City offices for an interview while the pair were in town for the Cynopsis Kids !magination Awards. Among other things, the pair told the full story of how they teamed up to make cartoons about ducks. And fight crime (*).
TOONZONE NEWS: My first question for you guys is about how you guys first teamed up when you were working on MAD, because I’ve seen a couple of slightly different versions of this. My understanding is that Gary, you approached Steve in the breakroom and asked, “Hey, do you write cartoons?”
STEVE BORST: Yeah, I’m a writer, and I had been brought on and off of MAD because they rotate their writers. I was in and out starting in May of 2010, over the course of a couple of years, but Gary was there full time as an artist.
GARY DOODLES: I was one of the first artists to come on to MAD, to produce animatics, design the cartoon, and animate sketches. They don’t bring back many writers, but they kept bringing Steve back. They had their staff of writers, but they had two slots for rotating writers, so when Steve kept coming back, I was like, “Oh, this guy is probably good,” you know? And in the MAD machine, I don’t know who’s writing what because it’s always a collective of writers. Kevin Shinick was the head writer and everyone had their influence on the scripts. There was one day…
STEVE BORST: Yeah, it was one day, I was in the breakroom, where the copier was and also the coffee, and I was getting my coffee, and Gary…
GARY DOODLES: I was printing my timecard.
STEVE BORST: Gary came in, and I don’t know what you said, something like…it was like I was being asked out on a date, basically.
GARY DOODLES: Because, I mean, we’re grown men! And it’s like, “Hey, man, do you…do you…”
STEVE BORST: “What do you outside of work?”
GARY DOODLES: “Do you make cartoons? Do you write?”
STEVE BORST: “Do you think we could, maybe, like, collaborate on something?” (Laughter) It was awkward. It was super-awkward…
GARY DOODLES: But at the same time, I feel like we both knew what was going on, you know?
STEVE BORST: So yeah, I said, “Sure!” And we exchanged work that we had both done, and we got a sense of each other’s style, and then we just started kicking around ideas and developing different ideas and making tiny little shorts. It was not that much longer from the time we started collaborating until the first inception of what became Breadwinners. It was, like, a few months.
GARY DOODLES: We started jamming in…November?
STEVE BORST: Yeah, November.
GARY DOODLES: 2010. No, wait, 2011? The idea was to try and keep it topical, like, “Let’s come up with a Christmas short” or something like that. We started brainstorming ideas…I had a bunch of ideas I was pitching to Steve, and then we kind of landed on one idea, “Let’s do a Christmas cartoon because it’s topical, put it on the Internet.” And also, we just wanted to test how we worked together. Because we were clicking, but you don’t know how you really click until you collaborate together.
STEVE BORST: Breadwinners wasn’t the Christmas short, but Breadwinners came a couple of months after as we kept just generating stuff. It started with a doodle that Gary had in his sketchbook of two ducks.
TOONZONE NEWS: Ducks tossing bread at each other, right?
GARY DOODLES: They were tossing it up in the air. Just a really wholesome kind of fun image. We met at a bar, because we’d always be jamming after hours, so I’d be like, “Hey Steve, let’s just meet here, maybe grab dinner, and just talk.” I’d bring a printout, because I didn’t know what he was going to think. If he was just like, “Eh, I don’t really like it,” I would have designed something else. But he was reacting to it in a positive way, and then he was like, “I could work with it.” That was my contribution to it. He gave them names and personalities. The idea is that he writes it, I’ll produce it. That was our deal. And that’s how the short was born. He wrote it in about two weeks.
STEVE BORST: Because Gary had an animation festival, a Midsummer Night’s …
GARY DOODLES: Midsummer Night Toons. It’s like a screening. There’s no prize given out. It’s just a bunch of alumni from the School of Visual Arts, where I went to school, and people in the animation industry who make a new cartoon every year, and have a platform to show it. Matt Lee is the guy that runs it, and he rents out a bar. This was the fifth year I was doing it, but I didn’t have an idea. “Breadwinners” was the only thing that was most fleshed out. Granted, at this point, it was like…April?
TOONZONE NEWS: And you cranked it out by the summer? Wow.
GARY DOODLES: Two months. Yeah. I cranked it out for the screening, and once we put it in the screening, and before we put it on YouTube, we made a couple of minor tweaks to it. and then we posted it up on YouTube, and…then our lives changed forever (laughter). Pretty much.
TOONZONE NEWS: And that’s where Nickelodeon picked it up, right? That’s one of the other things that I’m a little hazy about, because it doesn’t seem like it was in the shorts program.
STEVE BORST: No, it wasn’t officially part of the shorts program. It was kind of wrapped up into it after the fact. Gary had actually been brought on as the director on another short.
GARY DOODLES: Yeah, I was in the middle of producing the short with them and that’s when we were pretty much done with the Breadwinners short, and I was building this trust with the network. Two comedians came and pitched this cartoon to the network called “Pam and Sid’s Port-a-Party,” and they needed a director to flesh their idea out. So they chose me, and I designed it and produced it with a storyboard artist and a background designer and a composer. It was such a small team. And they saw the result, and it was the same process that we used on “Breadwinners,” with the musical beat where everything is so tight and rhythmic and musical. We applied that same science to the Nickelodeon short, and then Nickelodeon was just head over heels. And then we created the “Breadwinners” short, and they were like, “Well, if he can do this, let’s let them make a show together.” Because the thing about the “Breadwinners” short is that it’s really fleshed out. It really had a heart and a soul to it, and all the foundation is there.
GARY DOODLES: We call that short the show bible. Because we do party punches, we do booty kicks, there’s that whole rhythm. To me, it’s a prototype, and I’m super proud of it, because in the short amount of time we produced that, we were able to really uncover so many little details that would later become the show. We reused so many elements in that. Now we’re essentially evolving from there. It’s pretty incredible, the process of where we come from. Where we’ve been and where we’re going to.
TOONZONE NEWS: Some animated series are described as being script-driven, and others are storyboard-driven. I’ve read about your process and it sounds like…what DO you do? It sounds like it’s you and even your composer Tommy Sica gets involved with the music really early.
GARY DOODLES: It’s a combination of everything.
STEVE BORST: It’s technically a script-driven show. A lot of my favorite cartoons are the board driven shows, but we do start out with scripts as opposed to a traditional board-driven show that just starts out with an outline. So we have a script, but because of the way we work, I feel like it’s very much a hybrid of things. We work closely together on the stories and then with the way the audio is worked in, it almost becomes an audio driven show in a way.
GARY DOODLES: Yeah, because we write the script and then we record the actors. Once we record the actors, we chop up their dialogue, we dump it into Pro Tools, and we time it all out. We audio-map the show and time it out to 10 minutes and 45 seconds. That’s exactly the length of the show. So there’s no reason to board 15 minutes of storyboard panels and know you’ve got to cut your boards down to 10:45. We start at 10:45.
STEVE BORST: Well, it’s not always exactly 10:45, but we are in the ballpark of that. It’s within 15 to 20 seconds.
GARY DOODLES: Yeah.
STEVE BORST: If our episode comes out and it’s 12 minutes long, we know we have to re-write stuff before the even artists get involved. We need to chop it down and get it to a workable place so artists aren’t wasting time.
GARY DOODLES: Exactly. So when the storyboard artists are ready to board, we give them the final audio of the characters, so you get to hear all of the emotions that they’re expressing, from happy to sad, and you can really draw what they’re feeling, as opposed to working from an outline for a typical board-driven show: “Oh, the character is sad.” So you draw the image of them sad, but there’s so much material to be inspired by. That’s why the script drives the audio, and then the audio drives the storyboard. Then the storyboard drives the animation. It’s a pretty tight process.
Right before we ship it to Titmouse Vancouver, there’s pretty much 80% music on it. Everything’s timed to a beat, and everything’s super-tight. Once it goes to animation, it’s pretty much roughly laid out. Everyone really has a clear understanding of what the shot is going to look like and when it comes back from animation, there’s no editing. If you take the animation and drop it over the animatic, it’s exactly the same thing. There’s no, “Oh, we have to rehaul this entire scene because this doesn’t work.” We figure it all out in the animatic. If it’s not going to sing in the animatic, it’s not going to sing in animation, so we make sure we’re extremely happy with the animatic, and the animatic has got to feel like it’s totally fleshed out and feels like a working cartoon to us before we ship it.
STEVE BORST: And that’s cool because that allows the animators to really focus on pushing the animation and making all of the animation super-cool, as opposed to having to figure out timing, and “Why isn’t this working?” At every stage of the process, if you try to answer as many questions and get it as far as you can, when you pass the baton on to the next person, they’ve got a really great foundation to work on. Everybody at every stage can really just elevate it instead of figuring out stuff that could have been figured out earlier.
GARY DOODLES: Yeah, it’s like when you send it to the next stage, you’re not fixing problems. You’re just enhancing the awesomeness that it is.
TOONZONE NEWS: How long does it take you to make an episode then? One 10-minute episode in the show?
STEVE BORST: I think it’s up to 9 months now, isn’t it?
GARY DOODLES: Yeah, we started with 8, and now we stretch the schedule out to 9 months now. So it’s 8-9 months per episode.
TOONZONE NEWS: So there’s a lot of sweat going into those 10 minutes.
GARY DOODLES: Yeah. On all angles. From start to finish. Yeah. (Laughs)
STEVE BORST: We’re very fortunate to have an extremely talented crew, everybody from the directors to the writers to the art director to the animation director to the production crew. They’re really good at what they do, so it helps keep the ship keep moving. You definitely want your ship to be moving smoothly in an animation pipeline, because there’s so many moving parts and things that are moving so fast.
GARY DOODLES: Everyone is very passionate about our show. They really want to contribute their own personal flavor to it. And I think a lot of it is trust. We trust our directors. We trust our board guys. The trust trickles down in a way. We encourage them to kind of own their work and really make the best thing they can make. And be proud of what they’re making, and I feel like it really shows. You can see all the hands involved. I know all the artists on the show, and when it gets to animation and it’s final picture, you can kind of tell who directed the episode. Kind of like the old-school Warner Bros. cartoons.
TOONZONE NEWS: Like how you can tell the Tex Avery shorts from the ones by Friz Freleng or Chuck Jones…
GARY DOODLES: Yeah! And they’re all great, but they’re all just a little different. They all have their own attitude and their own voice to them. That’s what we want. Our style is not always on-model, and that’s the fun part of it. You can draw SwaySway and Buhdeuce a number of ways. It keeps it refreshing for every shot, so you’re not always looking at the exact same piece of artwork throughout the entire ten-and-a-half minutes. You’re always being entertained in a new way in every scene.
STEVE BORST: I think that kind of ties into Nickelodeon and the fact that Nickelodeon has been a really great environment for us to work in because it’s so creator-driven. They really do give us a lot of creative freedom to do what we want, and we try to give everyone on our crew creative freedom so that everyone’s voice and creativity can come through at every stage of the process.
TOONZONE NEWS: One thing I really like about the show is the real mixed media feel to it. There’s a lot of bits and pieces taken from a bunch of different places. Your show is even different because you’re even pulling the music in on that. It’s truly multi-media. Is that something you were planning? Where did that come up in your process?
GARY DOODLES: MAD was fun because every sketch you were working on let me challenge myself. I was like, “How can I make this different from the previous one that I designed, storyboarded, and animated?” Mark Marek, one of my directors, he brought in this photo collage element to it. And it was just funny. To me, if it’s funny looking, if it’s…I don’t know, it’s a stupidity kind of thing? “That looks super silly. Why would you put that there?” But you mix the 2-D and the photo-real, and you just start to laugh at what you’re looking at. So I feel like that was part of the reason why I was like, “If we’re going to have ducks, why not have a photo-real duck?” Part of that actually worked its way into the evolution of our show and how the characters, SwaySway and Buhdeuce are more evolved ducks. The less evolved ducks are photo-real, so SwaySway and Buhdeuce came from these photo-real ducks. They’re just more highly evolved, except that if you think about SwaySway and Buhdeuce they’re pretty zany and silly, so how evolved are they?
TOONZONE NEWS: They’ve evolved thumbs, at least, but that’s about far as it goes.
GARY DOODLES: Yeah (laughter). So there’s a lot of levels. And even like with the music, it’s not like, “Let’s make dance music.” If you’ve watched the short, it’s a lot of dance music. Some rock stuff. But, like, I used to be in a band, and it’s hard rock music, but I listen to pop music. Just good songwriting. So I feel like it’s a collage of awesomeness from 2-D animation to photo-collage to awesome music from any genre. Throw it all in there and put it in the blender. Also like the video games, that we grew up on. I’m a Nintendo baby, so Nintendo, Super Nintendo, N64…those were my jams. I love that stuff. And trying to incorporate that into the show is always fun, so that gives it that other element of the collage. Just put it all in there.
TOONZONE NEWS: It sounds like you have a pretty tight process, but outsourcing is always one of these great risks when you do animation. Are there any specific instances where either Titmouse plussed something that you weren’t expecting, or something got horribly misinterpreted or misunderstood and came back in a surprising way?
GARY DOODLES: You know what’s funny? The misunderstood aspect of it never happens, and the reason why is because our boards are so clear. The only way you could not fulfill the promise of the board is by following the board exactly. So if SwaySway is driving the Rocket Van and he’s got an A and a B pose, and he’s just doing two poses — arms stretched out, arms in, just two frames — if they just did that without adding any in-betweens, that’s just not fleshing it out to the point of what I’d want to see in animation, even if the integrity of the scene is there because he’s following the poses.
But I feel like they embellish more than they leave out. There’s two specific scenes that I can think about. There’s one in “Diner Ducks” where they’re in this diner and they’re posing as waiters, and they’re trying to run the restaurant all by themselves and they can’t. SwaySway is freaking out, and Buhdeuce is freaking out because the customers want all this food and they can’t serve it in time. And then SwaySway is out of eggs, and he’s asking for eggs, and Buhdeuce is like, “I’m out of eggs! What do I do?” and SwaySway is like, “You’re a duck! Think of something!” And Buhdeuce …(laughs) he goes into this pose like he’s trying to squeeze out an egg, you know? The board was just one frame of this one pose, but the animator did this crazy thing! It was on the ones and he’s totally stressing out and it just makes the joke so much funnier. The idea is that he’s straining and straining and straining and straining, and you think he’s going to pop an egg out, but then he goes, “Oh, wait!” and pulls one out of his pocket. And he breaks it. It’s one of those things where, like, everyone in the room just lit up when they saw that.
Then in “Buhdeuce Goes Bezerk,” he gets a bad haircut and every time he sees his bad haircut he just freaks out and explodes. Gets big muscles and he starts rampaging through town. The transformation sequence is just intense, it’s like…whoever animated it was adding so many drawings and there’s so much stress. I’m pretty sure it’s the same animator, and it’s just awesome to see them just saying, “OK, this is a scene I really want to have fun with.” And we don’t say, “Oh, you’re having too much fun. Stop that.” (laughter) We really like when the artists take control of the scene and really make it surprising.
STEVE BORST: I’m constantly impressed with the animation that comes back from Titmouse. They’re all super super talented, and every time we get animation, it’s like Christmas (laughter). It’s like we unwrap a present, so it’s really fun and exciting to see it all come back.
TOONZONE NEWS: Plus, by the time you get it I’m sure it’s been away for a couple of months and I’m sure you’ve forgotten a bunch of things.
STEVE BORST: Yes, exactly!
GARY DOODLES: That’s the best part! When we ship it, I’m always like, “This is a good episode. It’s not my favorite, but it’s a good one.” Then when it comes back from animation, I’m always like, “You know what? This one might be my favorite.” (laughter) It’s amazing what color and a couple of in-betweens can do, but it’s incredible the amount of work that they do and it really shows. Everyone is super-proud of it. We’re really proud of everyone who works on the show and we just hope that everyone keeps doing what they’re doing because everyone’s really enjoying it.
TOONZONE NEWS: You have been greenlit for season 2, and I assume you’re already working on that?
STEVE BORST: Yeah, the way an animation pipeline works, you’re always working on 20 different cartoons all at the same time at various different stages. We’re just delivering the 10th episode of our first season, but we’re still doing animatics for, like, number 30 and 32 out of 40. We’re still working on animatics for the first season, but now we’ve just started scripting the second season. We haven’t started recording any of those episodes yet, but we’re moving along now and coming up with more story ideas.
TOONZONE NEWS: Knowing what you know from season 1, are you changing anything? Are you going to do anything differently for season 2 that you can talk about right now?
GARY DOODLES: I always feel like you can improve on something that already works. We’re adding more bodies to the production. We’re filling those up just to alleviate some of the stress that goes along with the production. There were gaps on the audio side, where we didn’t think we needed the resources. So we’re building our team out a little bit more, which means that now that we can build out the show more. I feel like we can create bigger stories and bigger worlds. Just bigger and better kind of things. We love season 1, but we’re like, “How can we top this?” It’s like a video game. How many more characters can we add, how many more places can they visit, but Keeping with respect that we have to explore the spots that we’ve already set up. Like Tree City, we want to dive deeper into Tree City. Volcano Valley, we want to know more about that landscape, because all we know about Volcano Valley is Ketta’s tune-up shop. And introducing more characters. We haven’t really come up with any new ones yet, but I’m sure there’s going to be some new guys that we make.
STEVE BORST: Yeah, the first season was a whole period of development where we were figuring out our production pipeline, and it was really new. It was really new to Nickelodeon, too, and Nickelodeon was really great in supporting us and helping us figure out how to set up our whole pipeline. Now things are moving smoother they’ve ever before. On the story side we’re finding certain kinds of stories that we really like to tell. The bread that SwaySway and Buhdeuce mine was always kind of fun like huckleberry spaghetti bread and jelly-filled alfalfa. Then we discovered, “Oh, maybe the bread is magical and has magical properties,” which is where “Love Loaf” and “Stank Breath” came from. So now we’re exploring more magical types of bread because it’s a really fun story area. You can really do almost anything. It’s definitely fun. We’ve created this really big, crazy world and it’s really fun for us to explore it, so as we’re kind of exploring it, the audience is going to get to explore it, too.
GARY DOODLES: Even their catch phrases and the branding kind of stuff that we have like the booty kicks, we’re going to bring more of that back but maybe put a little twist on it as we go. We always try to find a way to keep things familiar but make it refreshing at the same time. I feel like everyone likes to hear the classics, but just kind of put a twist on it. We’re definitely excited to see where we take it.
Toonzone News would like to thank Gary “Doodles” DiRaffaele and Steve Borst for taking the time to talk with us, and to the awesome folks at Nickelodeon PR for setting up the opportunity. Breadwinners airs on Saturdays on Nickelodeon; check the official Breadwinners website for more information.
(*) = NOTE: Steve and Gary do not actually fight crime. Much.
It is difficult for me to describe Breadwinners and exactly what it means to me. Originally intended as as a one-off to entertain fellow animators, the creators, Gary Di Raffele and Steve Borst, were surprisingly contacted by Nickelodeon after they posted their short to YouTube. It is also relevant to mention that Di Raffele and Borst pitched Breadwinners to the 2012 Nickelodeon Animated Shorts Program, but the show wasn’t originally picked up for pilot development.
Our protagonists are SwaySway (Robbie Daymond) and Buhdeuce (Eric Bauza), whose schtick is SpongeBob SquarePants on the road. Their lives center around their delivery truck, which delivers bread to anyone who orders it; like SpongeBob, misadventures happen left and right, whether it has anything to do with a delivery or not. SwaySway is loud and enthusiastic resembling a slightly smarter SpongeBob, while Buhdeuce is a more competent Patrick and the little kid stand-in, complete with the gross tendencies you would expect from one. It was hard for me to see the appeal of these characters, beyond the fact that they’re more idealistic than usual for this type of humor.
At the same time, despite all of my misgivings and criticisms, I am not the target demographic, and that blunts a lot of my viewpoint. Boys 6-11 are the target. Breadwinners panders to them, and lovingly encourages and supports the short attention spans many boys have. I have no doubt on my mind that boys in the 6-11 age range will enjoy this unless their sense of humor has already become too sophisticated for what Breadwinners has to offer. Parents, however, will probably feel uncomfortable watching this show with their children as there is precious little available for them here, and the type of humor Breadwinners embraces will likely not make many parents happy.
TOONZONE NEWS: Plus, by the time you get it I’m sure it’s been away for a couple of months and I’m sure you’ve forgotten a bunch of things.
