Lately I’ve been interested in the “foundational texts” of cartoons, so much so that I’ve compiled a list of just about every one I could find online. In reading a bunch, I’ve learned some fascinating things about them—and about creative work in general. Like…
#5: How Creators “Sell” Their Stories
Every animated series starts with a person in a boardroom presenting a pitch bible!
Well, actually, it’s not that simple. I’m pretty sure that there are other ways creators get their foot in the door. Before the pitch, there might be a long phone call or a series of meetings. In-house marketing departments may have spitballed ideas long before the characters came together. And so on.
But a pitch does give us insight into how series creators bundled up and presented their stories to others. Thus, a pitch can show us how they marketed to a crowd of (I’m guessing) mainly producers.
You and I may think of SpongeBob SquarePants primarily as a funny show about a wacky sponge. A pitch has to go deeper and explain why this sponge is funny, as well as “sell us” on everything from its cast to its setting to SpongeBob himself.
These two SpongeBob pitches explain, for instance, that the setting is like an undersea vacation for viewers. Never would I ever have said that I enjoy watching a non-travel show because it’s “like a vacation,” but there you go! Maybe there’s something to that. A pitch for Brandy and Mr. Whiskers spends several paragraphs explaining the appeal of the Amazon rainforest as a setting for the show’s target demographics, including a mention that the Amazon is, after all, the source of ingredients for much of the world’s makeup. So, uh…there you go again!
In reading these pitch bibles, I find that even when a lot of a show’s appeal lay in its setting, the pitch always puts much more emphasis on its characters and what makes them tick. The Wild Thornberrys has some of the neatest and most appealing settings of the known world (i.e. all wildernesses everywhere), but it doesn’t rely on that to “sell” itself in either of these pitches. Eliza Thornberry and how she interacts with her family are the keystone.
(…Did you know it was almost called Nigel Thornberry’s Animal World?)
#4: How Creators Refine Their Stories
Comparing the ideas in a pitch to the show itself—or a pitch to an even earlier pitch, if you’re lucky enough to have both—can be fascinating and bizarre.
Did you know? Lazlo’s biggest enemies in Camp Lazlo are Scoutmaster Lumpus and…the four lemming campers. The adventurous babies of Rugrats are always stymied by Tommy’s bossy…grandpa. A critical plotline of early Adventure Time was absolutely the day Finn, Marceline, and Betty Bubblegum all got together and the latter two kissed Finn’s cheeks.
All these things ended up on the cutting room floor: Lazlo got a more multifaceted rival camper in Edward; only in a later writer’s bible did the Rugrats get Angelica, a toddler villain closer to their level; and Adventure Time had changed so much by the time that first season rolled around that I don’t even think Marceline and Princess Bubblegum shared one scene.
It’s true that a series bible carries authority. Pitch bibles are intended to give any old boardroom member a great general idea of how the show will run, and production, development, and writer’s bibles are intended to give writers and artists the basic and foundational info they need to start actually making the show. Any show bible represents hours and hours of thought and refinement—the creator brainstorming the best and most interesting scenarios possible.
But even though these bibles carry authority, they really aren’t the end-all be-all; that would be the TV shows they spawn. Even then, a TV show changes its whole setup and getup from season to season. Shows like SpongeBob, The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy and Fairly OddParents strike me as having moodier, lonelier first seasons, followed by endless seasons of increasing slapstick, wackiness, and reliance on their ever-broadening ensembles of new characters that their series bibles had no hand in creating.
In the production handbook for Camp Lazlo, Joe Murray writes,
Animated Series Bibles are tricky things… They are a bit like throwing some cells into a petri dish, and even though the cells are well established, once life begins, all that we plan can go out the window. The characters begin living, breathing, rapping and tripping. Who can predict some of the happy accidents that will happen, and what will need to be revisited or reevaluated? But to the best of my ability, at this time, this is the blueprint I offer that will make these characters live, and the world they will live in. If we follow these paths, it will create entertainment that, I feel, will be hilarious, and will provide a healthy return on investment. Beyond that…only a fun time is guaranteed for all.
#3: The Heart of Shows I Know and Love
Some of these show and character descriptions strike me as…perfect. They may, again, be words I’d never thought of using, but they fit so well even after the slight mutations from bible to screen.
SpongeBob is described as a character who is so uncool he makes his own cool, whose eternal optimism will resonate with kids—and it did. Wander Over Yonder foregrounds the relationship between the main characters Wander and Sylvia, which I expected, but also notes that the show is about the everyday background people of all those galaxies far, far away.
What is the main theme of Ed, Edd n Eddy? Is it “scams”? NO! Is it “The Three Stooges but kids”? Closer, but NO! According to the pitch document, it is…”puberty is unforgiving.” Would I have guessed that? No. But knowing what I know about the series, especially the first season (wandering around the house and thinking wistfully about Eddy’s cooler older brother…being forced to wear horrible swimsuits), it’s making more and more sense.
When I say “the heart,” I mean the unshakeable bedrock of show identity. What separates SpongeBob, Wander, and Ed, Edd n Eddy from other shows that may also be wacky, or also be colorful, or also have wiggly outlines—or even have unforgettably funny character dynamics—has to go deeper. It’s a coolness, grace, or deeper meaning that, until you see it put into words, might be ineffable. It can certainly be “heart” in the warm and fuzzy sense, or the relatable and vulnerable and personal sense, but it may simply be something really neat that not everybody would come up with. I guess it’s bottled essence of individuality.
#2: The Heart of Shows I Know and Didn’t Love (…but Might Now)
I was in high school when Breadwinners came out. I didn’t like it for three reasons, the first being that I was in high school, therefore not in its target demographic, and the second being that I watched videos online of people not liking it before I even watched any of it. Then I sat down to watch it and I could add “it is obnoxious!!!!! DX” to the list.
Looking at the show does not help me appreciate it. Looking at the show bible, though…I begin to see. I mean, I still don’t give a shit about the two main leads. They bore me both at a glance and in detail, like a Fanboy and Chum Chum or a Beast Boy and Cyborg (as portrayed in Teen Titans Go!, which was the enemy of all teenagers at the time) with no pizazz. But the silly fun and vibrancy of the place they live in, the general good vibes of their friendship, and heck, even the fact that they can “level up” and transform by standing and screaming “SURFER DUCKS!” or “BIKER DUCKS!” and suddenly they’re surfer/biker ducks…seems more endearing to me now. Basically, I feel like I now know what the showrunners were going for thanks to the power of the Breadwinners Bible.
And so I went on to learn about the soul of Doug:
During testing, one of the compliments Doug received from kids was that it was more like a “real show” than a cartoon. The story had a point. Everything in Doug’s world is fairly normal; however, there are a few exceptions that make it off-balanced and…well, quirky. …It’s important to maintain a certain symmetry between being realistic and cartoony. Every story should have a point, however, every story should also be quirky.
Jim Jinkins, 1991 Doug Writer’s Bible
It’s been a hot minute, or more like a hot hour, since I watched any Doug. Still, here is a question for the ages: why are people embracing Arthur and Hey Arnold!, but leaving Doug in the dust? Nine times out of ten, I see people bring it up just to trash it for being boring. But they don’t say that about Arthur, which similarly follows a young average joe in his grounded yet quirky world as he indulges in long daydreaming sequences. Is it really because the writing was “just better”? Or is it marketing and airplay? Could it be that Arthur aired on networks for younger children (and was therefore seen as more mature and action-packed) while Doug aired on zany Nickelodeon (and was therefore the most grounded and “dullest” around…even “duller” than an Arnold)?
Like I said, it’s a question for greater minds than me.
But here’s my biggest surprise of all: I came out of this with a greater appreciation of a show that always tasted to me like cardboard. I learned that Yakkity Yak has THEMES.
You see, when I saw the show around age 8, I thought it was generic goofiness. But according to the two series bibles available online, it’s all about a young comedian struggling to rise in a small town, scraping up pathetic gigs, with nothing but pathetic jokes. Everyone wants him to be the football team’s mascot, even his own well-meaning grandma, but he just wants to stick with his shady low-rent talent agency. Today it’s birthday parties, but tomorrow, maybe…the world?
This could have been the Waterboy of cartoons…wait, that doesn’t sound like a compliment. Okay, well, with a different writing trajectory, it could have been like a King of the Hill with Bobby Hill as the hero, and to me that sounds a little amazing.
But it only sounds amazing to me now that I’m an adult. To me as a kid, seeing a show about a yak who lives in a chemical dump spout intentionally bad one-liners must not have been inspiring…whether or not it had a soulful core.
But enough about that—here’s the last thing I learned!
#1: Why I Should…Pitch My Own?!
I’m not a creator of animated series, although part of me always hopes to be, so maybe I’ll make that happen someday. I’m a writer of mostly silly fiction. I guess it’s no surprise that seeing how animated series structure their pitches gets me wondering how I would structure my own stories, prose included.
Currently I’m writing a story called Catgirl System, and while I definitely did have what show bibles call “do’s and don’ts” in my head as I started creating it, I didn’t plan it in the way, or to the sheer extent, that a TV bible would. Now I kind of wish I had.
There is a lot to be said about letting things flow and happen naturally. But it’s in my nature to have it both ways: make a strong foundation and let things flow. This is exactly what a good series bible allows. You set up a core cast with dynamics that you know work well, and if you figure out a change to those dynamics that you find works a little bit better, amazing—go tweak it!
Making a Catgirl System bible (aside from allowing me to tell others that I “wrote the catgirl bible”) would’ve given me a nice, orderly way to make the rules of the world more coherent. It would’ve invited me to think more deeply about the elements of my story that most matter to me.
One example: it wasn’t until I actually started writing that I decided the landscape would sometimes be like a “patchwork.” In hindsight, that’s such an unrealistic-but-oddly-kinda-cute idea that I wish I had incorporated it more consciously throughout. Instead, half the locations are patchwork squares, half aren’t. We could’ve had some really inventive dividing lines, too, like a straight-line river or distressingly straight-edged hillocks.
Plus, forcing myself to write down character bios as well as character interrelations might’ve forced me to think “waah waah, this character is too boring and pointless!” earlier in the process—and thus catch the problem sooner.
In a way, writing a story bible for a story you make yourself is just troubleshooting. They say that journaling puts the mind in order—this could help me put my stories in order. At the very least, it would get me thinking, brainstorming more about my novels’ worlds. It’d help me figure out the “appeal” of my work, what makes it stand out to myself and others. Why people will want to spend their time in this little world I’ve made.
Catgirl Writing Accountability Corner
Many months ago, I vowed to make biweekly updates on my novel-writing progress.
Revising Book 3 is going great! I decided to prioritize my writing and rewriting and to do it every day, generally in the morning before any other work whatsoever. For me that’s been a healthy and low-stress way to approach it.
My goal shifted from “rewrite at least 3 chapters every week” to “write for 45 minutes every day.” As a result of the new goal, I’ve actually rewritten a little over “quota”—I’ve gotten 8 chapters done instead of the 6 I was aiming for (and not making) before.
But I ought to stop putting as much emphasis on wordcount and chapter-count goals, since I seem to do better with time goals. In a day I can comfortably straighten out either half a chapter or a whole chapter. It really depends on how often I consult my spreadsheets that day.
I’m guessing I’m a quarter done with Book 3. It might even stretch out further than I anticipate—which makes me nervous about Book 4 potentially having too little material when placed next to it, but we’ll get there when we get there. 16 chapters so far… The first book was 41 chapters and the second isn’t gonna be much longer. Huh.
Anyway, thanks for reading, and Patrons, thank you for Patreonning!
Click around! Stay a while!! I’ve got several posts about creativity and how I approached Catgirl System, as well as posts about various stories and games I enjoy.