Greg responds...

When Puck transforms into Owen, he transforms into a human being, with all a human's weaknesses and vulnerabilities. Now Owen can transform back into Puck, but he can't perform magic as Owen. And Demona caught Owen off- guard with a spell that affected his all-too-human form. I suppose Owen could have transformed back into Puck in between the two nights of the curse, but that would mean he couldn't help Xanatos at all. Remember their deal: one wish from the Puck or a lifetime of service from Owen. Xanatos chose Owen.

As for "The Mirror", Xanatos went without Owen for a few hours. Who knows whether he even noticed.

Greg responds...

1) Cary's done some movie and television work. (Columbus & Superboy immediately spring to mind.) He also happens to be one of my best friends and my former writing partner. When I expanded the story editing staff beyond Michael Reaves, he was one of the first people I thought of.

2) I've never met David Wise. I don't ever remember considering him for the show, not even when I was an executive with no real intention of producing the show myself. Maybe David was considered for Goliath Chronicles. I didn't participate in that decision at all. (This is not to imply that I have something against David, it's just that I was going with people I knew.
Michael Reaves had shown me his excellent work on Batman. Brynne Chandler Reaves did great stuff on the first season of GARGOYLES and had earned her promotion. I had known Cary from as far back as my DC Comics days. And I had worked with Gary Sperling at Disney on a number of shows. I didn't know David, and wasn't too familiar with his work, so he was never in the running.)

Greg responds...

Time is the factor that it all comes back to. I do think that the lack of continuity, i.e. the near-complete change-over in creative staff was another major factor. But they still had some good people, who given more time could have done better. Though I immodestly believe that since the episodes only incidentally reflected my plans for the characters, the series lost some focus.

Money and resources were other important factors. Less was spent per episode. And much of the work was sub-contracted out to Nelvana.

(I should say, that I'm hardly objective about Chronicles. Someone said that Chronicles is a good show if judged outside the context of the original series. I'd guess that's accurate. God knows I was pleasantly surprised by "The Journey" which turned out much better than I had a right to expect.)

Greg responds...

Thirteen or fourteen, unless we decided to incorporate the 2158 Future Tense spin-off into TimeDancer. In which case it could be much more open-ended.

Greg responds...

I believe that some things are eternal.

Greg responds...

By 2158, Elisa & Goliath were both dead.

Greg responds...

How many would they give me? How long will I live? I promise I would never have run out of stories. Hell, I have the damn thing laid out beyond the year 2158. It would be fun to meet up in the middle. Plus there was a lot of interesting stories in the past that still needed to be told. (Ever wonder how Wyvern Hill got it's name?) And as the "gargoyles universe" expanded and added characters, that gave me even more stories to tell.

Greg responds...

Define "peace". Is white and black America at peace with each other today?
I don't think we would have seen an end to racism, but overt discrimination would be a thing of the past by the year 2158. Yes, 2158. I can't say for sure how fast each step forward would have come. The point of a "Master Plan" is to know the general direction and have specific tentpoles, without tying one's hands thus allowing for creativity and serendipity.

Goliath Chronicles did go a bit fast for my taste. They skipped a lot of steps even within episodes. The trial of Goliath is a fascinating idea that I had had myself, but I would have done it quite differently. Beginning with the notion that most of humanity wouldn't think about putting Goliath on trial for a crime, anymore than it would occur to them to drag a dangerous mountain lion into a courtroom. Before you can agree to have a trial, you have to agree that what your trying isn't a beast, but a sentient individual. I don't think Margot would have made that jump very quickly.

Ironically, I believe that the presence of Gargoyles would have done a lot to help real race relations between humans. Nothing like something even more different to make people realize how much they have in common with each other. In "The Journey" I tried to show that the Quarrymen appealed to a multitude of human "races".

Greg responds...

What are you basing your analysis of their characters on?

I've heard a lot of complaints about the Weird Sisters. At first they struck me as odd, but now I think I know where the confusion came from.

A. People took the way they presented themselves in "City of Stone" and in "High Noon" at face value.

B. When they saw the Sisters again in "Avalon" and "Ill Met by Moonlight", people didn't like the way they were behaving as much. The Sisters weren't as mysterious or powerful or something. So they rejected the "face value" version that was presented in those episodes.

C. People were less enamored of the Archmage than I was. When we first used the Archmage in "Long Way to Morning" I was phenominally impressed with David Warner, the actor who voiced the part. The character was just a cliched sorcerer, but I felt David added a level of menace that was irresistable. So even though we had killed off the character, I was determined to bring the Archmage back in a way that would let David go to town, and make the cliched Archmage into the near Satanic villain I envisioned he could be. That was what "Avalon, Part II" was supposed to accomplish. David didn't let me down. His dual performances as both versions of the Archmage was a true tour-de-force. But perhaps I failed David. The "Archmage-plus" was supposed to be all-but-omnipotent and all-but-omniscient. Once he had the Grimorum, the Eye and the Gate, he was supposed to be much more threatening than any villain we had encountered up to that point, including the Sisters. His fatal flaw (demonstrated in parts two and three) was his unwavering arrogance. He could have finished all his enemies off instantly. But at heart, he was still this cliched guy who had to toy with his enemies and make them suffer before he wiped them out. That gave the good guys time to rally and defeat him. I'm sure most of you basically got this, but you didn't FEEL it enough, so the Archmage didn't seem tough enough to boss the Sisters around. So everyone assumes that the Sisters are using HIM in some way.

D. Part of the reason for this is probably due to the fact that the final script for "Avalon, Part II" was WAY, WAY too long. We had to cut a lot of stuff before we shipped in order to get the show down to the correct length.
You didn't miss any important info, but I do think we lost a bit of the scope of the Archmage's plans, as well as some nice character moments and a bit of helpful expository stuff.

E. People didn't get the Sister's constraints vis-a-vis Oberon. Their hands were much more tied than people seemed to realize. They couldn't enter Avalon of their own volition. They were banished to the barge to guard it. The Archmage's commands gave them their excuse. And they wanted that excuse. So let me make something clear here: THEY ARE A VENGEFUL TRIO OF WITCHES. They wanted vengeance. But as immortals, they could afford to be patient. It didn't matter whether vengeance came in nine days or nine centuries. So, they were using the Archmage. Using him to extract their vengeance. That doesn't mean they wouldn't have eventually turned on the Archmage to get him off Avalon, but that would have been some fight, let me tell you.

F. Having said all that, don't imagine that helping the Archmage is the only thing they did for a millenium. They didn't follow Demona and Macbeth around every minute. They do have other things going on. Other plans. And I'm not saying that what they did for the Archmage doesn't dovetail with these other plans, but that doesn't mean they didn't sincerely want revenge on the Magus and his friends.

G. And they still do. The Magus may be largely beyond their reach, but Goliath and the others aren't. They still need to tread carefully because they can't risk Oberon or Titania's wrath, but believe me, they've got something up their sleeves.

I'm sure this "answer" raises a lot more questions. I can probably predict some of them, but it's much more fun to wait for you guys to ask them.

Greg responds...

Masquerading isn't really the correct word. They sort of possessed Desdemona briefly, splitting her image into the three facets of their personality. Keep in mind, that Desdemona didn't exist in bodily form. She was just a wisp of soul inside a crashed computer. The Sisters stepped in for one brief moment. Desdemona was there the whole time, and it was all her in every other scene she appeared in. Sorry if that wasn't clear.

Greg responds...

I feel like I've answered this one too, but I'm not as sure, so...

Do you want the "Story" answer or the "Behind the scenes" answer?

The story answer to your question is "yes".

Behind the scenes, Frank Paur was not satisfied with the designs that we had in "Metamorphosis", but we had run out of time. So he had to run with what we had. After "Metamophosis" shipped, he had time to revise them for "The Cage". So he did. This was o.k. with me because I could easily believe they were still mutating. Also, I didn't think they'd spend their lives dressed in the tattered clothes they were wearing when they were first injected.

Greg responds...

Define "mate". Define "make". New gargoyles would have been introduced.

Greg responds...

Appearances can be deceiving. Una is all gargoyle. Gargoyle's lay eggs.

Greg responds...

1. Yes.

2. That's not a quick question. Well, at any rate, it's not a quick answer.

3. I don't remember exact numbers. The first season was promising, especially considering we were only on once a week. The second season was solid but disappointing to many Disney executives, because they had high hopes that once we went daily, we'd start kicking butt. Instead, we placed 2nd consistently, usually to Power Rangers. Third season ratings weakened even more, or so I'm told. I never saw any numbers for either the reruns or for the Goliath Chronicles. There are a lot of mitigating factors, the biggest being FOX's overall strength in kid's programming, but it doesn't change the fact that we didn't put up winning numbers with any consistency.

Greg responds...

I'm struggling with three or four year old memories here, but I think this is what happened. When we had finished casting the lead characters, my development associate, Paul Lacy, made some phone calls to a number of tribal reps and got a bunch of different Elisa surnames for us to choose from. (We were initially leaning towards "Bluestone". We even recorded the first couple episodes using the "Bluestone" name. And that's after we had already recorded those same lines using the name "Chavez".) My boss, Gary Krisel, chose "Maza", which was fine with me also. We were under the impression that "maza" was the Sioux word for "iron". That appealed to me. (So we rerecorded again.)

Later in the season, when Elisa was shot, her parents made reference to her sister Beth who was in school in Arizona. That was my mistake. No real Sioux population in Arizona, as it turns out. Brynne Reaves and Lydia Marano found that out pretty quick when they started doing their research for what would eventually be titled "Cloud Fathers". I had recently read Tony Hillerman's novel COYOTE WAITS, so I suggested a Navajo connection, but by the time the story was done, we clearly had a Hopi ritual. (Or maybe Zuñi. Even now, I certainly don't pretend to be an expert.)

To top things off, Michael Horse, the voice of Peter and Carlos Maza, read the script and gave us a few tips. He also told us that "Maza" was not a Sioux name, so we got that wrong too somehow.

So the long answer is... I screwed up. And it pains me, because we had such good intentions. Next time, I'll be much more careful.

The short answer (the explanation) is that Carlos Maza's ancestors are largely, but not exclusively, Hopi. This is some consolation to me, since (1) it helps us understand the interracial marriage that Peter and Diane have (not to mention Elisa's interspecies attraction) and (2) it offers us the possibility of exploring more Native American legends while simultaneously exploring more of Carlos, Peter, Elisa, Derek and Beth's ancestry. Trust that if I ever get the chance to do these further stories, I will research the hell out of the whole thing before I even begin.

Greg responds...

Inspirations, I think I've discussed. If you read the archives and have a more specific question about what did or didn't inspire me, let it fly.

As to who the characters were based on... well, no one was based on anybody specific from my life. Though all of them came out of my life experience and (I'm sure) the life experiences of the other writers, editors, artists and producers who worked on the series.

[It's an inherent danger of this whole ASK GREG set-up, that it always comes off as if I was working by myself. Let me state again that a LOT OF PEOPLE contributed a lot of extremely creative material to this show.]

Greg responds...

The Ultra-Pack was not supposed to be part of the "Future Tense" spin-off.
It was just going to be part of the on-going Gargoyles series. The "fifth member" would have been an all-new character. No one you know.

Greg responds...

It depends what you mean. Internally, we would have done what we did with Othello, Desdemona and Iago. That is, we would have given them designations in the script, so the artists and animators, etc, knew who we were talking about. In the show itself, we would have avoided using those names.
The gargoyles would refer to each other by relationship, just as they did in our very first episode. At least, that was the plan. I had a back-up plan if that just didn't seem to be working, which entailed Prince Malcolm giving each of his gargoyle warriors a Biblical or Mythological name. They never would use those names with each other, but the humans could use them and the audience could too. By the way, this series would have been set in the year 971.

Greg responds...

I don't remember if I had any. I may not even have been the person who came up with it. What I do remember is that from the moment I saw Bob Kline's drawing of a castle atop a skyscraper, I knew it was cool.

Greg responds...

People love to toss around incendiary terms. We had no "censor".

Yes, of course, the romantic relationship between Goliath and Elisa was planned from the start. I'm sure that's self-evident. I wouldn't call it "Lois & Clark-ish" though; I don't really see the parallel there.

I wanted to play their "courtship" realistically. I had two individuals who were destined for each other. But that doesn't mean things would progress quickly. Elisa is an extremely guarded woman in many ways. She's had to be. She's succeeded in a career that is traditionally male. Dating fellow cops is a dangerous move for a female detective. Double standards, sexual harrassment claims, precinct harmony etc. make it less than ideal. Dating crooks isn't too appealing either, for obvious reasons. Who else does she meet working the night shift as she does? You'll notice that the person who was always putting the breaks on any romantic discussion that Goliath tried to initiate was Elisa. She has trouble admitting her feelings, even to her mother. She's fairly secretive.

In addition, Elisa had, and still has, a keen sense of the situation's impossibility. I think Elisa would like to have kids someday. Not necessarily right away, but someday. That's not possible with Goliath. At least not in the traditional way. I hope "High Noon" revealed that Elisa is not Fox Mulder. She was never looking for weirdness to enter her life. She wanted, and to some extent still wants, a normal life. She could never have that with Goliath.

Goliath had a totally different problem. He had a wounded heart. Gargoyles mate for life. Mates die, but it was beyond his understanding that his mate could still be alive, and they would not be together. That's why Goliath was still trying to win Demona back as late as "Vows". That's why he never quite knows what to do with her. What to make of her. That was a huge distraction from Elisa. His feelings for Elisa were already present, as early as "Awakening, Part Three". But it took him awhile to recognize them. And when he did, he was ashamed. He felt he shouldn't be able to fall in love again.Certainly not with a human. (Don't for a minute believe that Goliath is immune to prejudice. No one is. At least no one I've ever met.) What's interesting is that Goliath fell in love with Elisa even before he understood how physically attractive she was. He didn't realize that until "The Mirror". He tried to talk to her about his feelings on numerous occasions. She always cut him off. And maybe, he thought, that was for the best. But that's also why the events of "Sentinel" were so painful to him. She didn't remember him or their life together. She didn't trust him. She even tried to shoot him. It broke his heart. (Again.) Of course, it wasn't her fault, and he knew it. And when push came to shove, she instinctively knew that they were connected and so saved him from Nokkar.

And that's the problem they were both faced with. Not having anything more than a platonic friendship made sense to both of them. But that wasn't possible. They didn't have a choice. They loved each other. It was almost a curse.

That's what was going on with Elisa in "Hunter's Moon". Jason and Goliath actually have a number of things in common. Jason's the kind of guy she goes for, and gee whiz, he was human. (Of course, he was also a Hunter, but she didn't know that at first.) She really liked him. And if she had never met Goliath... who knows? I think Officer Morgan is another guy who could have made Elisa very happy -- if she had never met Goliath. But she had.
And her love for Goliath transcended their differences. That's why she kissed Goliath at the end of "Hunter's Moon". That's what was going on between them at the end of "The Journey".

But that didn't solve the problem. Eventually, they'd have to TALK about it. Really talk about it. They'd have to discuss the pragmatic aspects of it. Not to get too crude, but how does a gargoyle make love? (I know the answer to that, by the way, but let's try to keep things clean.) What about children? Goliath has Angela and a whole clan of rookery kids on Avalon, but Elisa's never going to be a mother to Angela. And what about their future?

If I had continued on the show, I would have dramatized this conversation, with the end result being that they would have decided once and for all NOT to have a romantic relationship. The realities of the discussion would temporarily overwhelm their feelings for each other.

That break-up wouldn't last long. Because, ultimately, they have no choice.
They love each other with one of those great mythic loves of song and story.
But again, that doesn't solve any problems. (Well, actually, it does, but not the problems I'm talking about.) They'd have dealt with each issue as it came up.

Now back to your original question about censorship. Who knows what problems we might or might not have run into down the line? I can't answer that. But we had ZERO problems during the 66 episodes that I worked on. Elisa and Goliath loved each other. That was a given. But the characters we created weren't about to jump into interspecies sex, so there was nothing to object to. Heck, it took 65 episodes for them to kiss on the lips. What I'm getting at is that the slow pace was intentional. It suited the characters to go slow. But that dovetailed nicely with the fact that there was nothing for anyone to object to.

We also had the added help that Disney's Beauty and the Beast had just come out and raised everyone's consciousness. The animated lesson not to judge a book by it's cover was well-learned throughout the halls of Disney.

Greg responds...

Yes, I had plenty of stories planned for TimeDancer. The meeting of Xanatos and Demona was the second story. The first one was a Constantine/Finella/ Mary adventure. There was also, as I've mentioned, an extended visit to the year 2158. Plus a couple more trips to the past, including one to Ishimura in Japan's feudal era. And, yes, ultimately, Brooklyn would have rejoined the Manhattan clan -- five minutes after he left, from their point of view. (From his, forty years would have passed.)

Greg responds...

I don't feel like revealing that right now. Sorry. Ask me again sometime.

Greg responds...

It's not at all true. Who'd you hear that from? "Avalon" was always supposed to be a triptych. Not one long story, but three connected stories.
What IS true is that the final script for "Avalon, Part Two" came in very long. We did have to cut some stuff for time. Nothing important. But the Archmage did walk his allies and the audience through his plans a little bit more. There was some helpful expository stuff and a few nice character bits lost, but no story points.

Greg responds...

I did have plans.

Seriously, Coldsteel would have remained a threat. Coldstone & Coldfire would have eventually joined a clan. But I'm not saying which one.

Greg responds...

1. Sevarius was hypothesizing, but he was more right than wrong. Demona's
transformation was magical. Magic compensated. Why wouldn't it work for the
Mayan gargoyles?

2. Yes.

Greg responds...

Damn good question. Most people reading this won't like the answer, but NO,
Gargoyles were never THAT popular. We had midling success, and a core group
of extremely loyal followers, but it never made the impact that Power Rangers
made. Some merchandise did well. Some of it died. Our ratings started out
promising. Moved on to respectable. Moved to disappointing and ended up
being lousy. I wish it weren't so, and there were tons of mitigating
factors. But they don't alter the facts.

Greg responds...

1) Brooklyn developed overtime. He began as two characters in the show's
original comedy development. "Amp" looked more like Lexington, but had
Brooklyn's basic personality. "Lassie" (a male gargoyle who admired the
collie's heroic qualities) was an idiot-savant character. But he looked a
bit like Brooklyn. I think Bob Kline did the original designs on these
comedy characters. (They were all diminutive.) Dave Schwartz redesigned
Brooklyn, Lex and Broadway. The final models were done by Kazuyoshi Takeuchi
based on Dave's inspirational design. Frank Paur also made some minor
changes to it.

2) One answer is because the character demanded it. That is the stories of
his life seemed to exist and need to be told. On another level, I felt that
childhood friendships must evolve or die. Brooklyn, Lex and Broadway
couldn't go through life as The Three Musketeers. By sending Brooklyn away
for five minutes of Broadway's life, but forty years of Brooklyn's it would
demonstrate that although the trio would always be the best of friends, the
days of being joined at the hip were quite, quite over.

Greg responds...

She was fated to a lot more self-delusion, but eventually she would have had
a true epiphany. And two more great loves. (Aren't I a stinker?)

Greg responds...

I've answered that question a lot. Gore, maybe you could repost that long
message I sent you to the AskGreg Archives. You know the one where I
list the factors why the show was cancelled and explain what steps might
be taken down the line. It's been passed around a lot, but some people may
not have seen it.

The short answer to your question is to keep the flame burning and hope the
live-action movie spurs renewed interest.

Greg responds...

Well, first of all I'd have them discuss it.

Then come to the conclusion that it was impossible.

Then I was going to send them on a Halloween double date. Goliath with
Delilah. Elisa with either Morgan or Jason (I hadn't decided). The date
would have made it clear that no matter how impossible their relationship
seemed, they would just have to find a way to make it work.

Eventually, there would have been some kind of commitment ceremony. I don't
know if you'd call it a wedding per se, but the purpose would have been clear
enough.

I know more, but that's enough for now. (Boy, this is my day to be coy.)

Greg responds...

I once said that given enough time and episodes, Gargoyles would have
included every legend ever. I was scoffed at. Completely scoffed at. But I
meant it.

Greg responds...

Well, I'm not going to give these all away right now, but I'm feeling
obnoxious, so I'll give you some useless clues just to drive you crazy.

Keep in mind that there were once hundreds of clans, but most of them died
out by the end of the middle ages. We're talking about new and/or surviving
clans, not every clan that ever existed.

The first Eight existed at the time of "Awakenings" (1994).
1. London - Most of the clan actually lives on an estate just outside
London.
2. Ishimura.
3. Guatemala - down to only four gargoyles, but poised for a
comeback.
4. No way you could guess this one. I don't think there are any
clues in the show's content.
5. Ditto.
6. This one could be guessed by a sharp viewer who understands the
way we planted clues in the show. For example, Elisa and Matt's
first conversation in her car, re: the Illuminati, Loch Ness
Monster, etc.
7. Ditto.
8. Avalon - formed after the eggs hatched on Avalon. Duh.

Two more existed (barely) by the end of "The Journey" (1996).

9. Manhattan - Our guys, of course, as a start.
10. Shouldn't be too hard to guess. Though "Goliath Chronicles" might
be a trifle distracting. Two more existed by 2158.
11. This one would take some extrapolation, but it's possible it could
be figured out if the life-purpose of certain existing characters
were followed to their logical conclusions.
12. This would also take some extrapolation. Think "nostalgia".

Two more clans would be formed in the years that follow.

13. Very tough to guess, but possible via the same kind of thinking
as #6.
14. Even harder to guess, but an absolute natural.

Anyone who can guess 8 out of 14 is a true fan.

Anyone who can guess 10 is a true fan with too much time on his or her hands.

Anyone who can guess 12 is a true fan with too much time and a lot of
intuitive ability.

Anyone who can guess all 14 is just a psychic freak.

Greg responds...

Some things have already come true. Alexander was born. The Clock Tower was
destroyed. Other things have already been proven untrue. Primarily, Goliath
did return to Manhattan before 2036. As for the rest, well, ask me some
other time.

Greg responds...

He survived. The Thailogs of this world always survive.

Greg responds...

1. No.

2. Disney would NEVER consider selling the rights.

3. Michael Reaves and I are officially co-producers on the movie. I'm not
sure what that means exactly yet. But we are being kept abreast of things.

Which brings me to my first set of as promised RAMBLINGS.

RUMORS AND THE MOVIES
I'm relatively new to the internet, but I've just been appalled by the way
people clearly start rumors based on nothing with the
explicit purpose, to my thinking, of misleading dedicated fans. Does this
make them feel superior? Why aren't they ever called to account for it?

For example, who started the Jean-Claude VanDamme rumor? Ask yourself where
you first saw it. Track down who told you. Ask that person who told him or
her. When you find the guy or gal who first stated that Mr. Van Damme was
going to be in the GARGOYLES live-action movie, mark him down on some kind of
list as untrustworthy.

Anyway, here's what's going on with the Live-Action Feature, in development
at Touchstone Pictures, as of 4-10-97.

There are NO ACTORS attached. NONE. Not Jean-Claude. Not Jonathan Frakes
or Marina Sirtis or anyone. No one. It's way too soon.

Tom Jacobson is the producer. Dean Devlin is the writer. They are the only
two people currently attached to the project. The only ones. (Besides
Michael and myself, in our minor roles as co-producers.)

The script is supposed to come in from Dean by the end of this month.
GOLIATH is the lead character. Other gargoyles will appear but this is
basically Goliath's movie. Saying anything else before the first draft is
even completed is folly. If someone claims to know more, and he or she isn't
Dean Devlin, then I'd take the info with a boulder of salt.

Anyway, end of ramble.

Greg responds...

Frank doesn't work at DreamWorks anymore, so I don't know when I'll next talk
to him, but when I do, I'll let him know you guys want him to show. Maybe
we'll set up a special "Ask Frank" day or something later. Angela, I'm a
writer, not an artist, so I don't have a lot of advise to offer to
animators. Learn your craft. Compile a portfolio. Hustle yourself some
work. I know that's not much, but I hope it helps.

Greg responds...

Again, no censors. One very understanding lady. I think while I was at
Disney, we received two letters of complaint about the show. Both had
nothing to do with content. In fact, it was clear from the content of the
letters that neither complaintant had ever watched an episode. They objected
to the show's Satanic content, basing their objections on the way the
Gargoyles looked in the commercials or opening titles.

Actually, we were expecting a flood of this type of mail. It never came.

Greg responds...

O.k. I can only speak to Gargoyles, not to the Goliath Chronicles. We had no
censors on Gargoyles. We did have an executive in charge of Broadcast
Standards and Practices. Her name was Adrienne Bello. (Still is,
actually.) She loved the show and is a personal friend. She understood that
some things were necessary to story, and that in context they wouldn't be
that bad. Duncan's magical death wasn't problematic. But we weren't allowed
to stab him, because we didn't want anyone getting a kitchen knife and
imitating that. Fox and Xanatos did live together at the Eyrie before they
got married, but they also had separate bedrooms until they got married. I'm
not saying nothing ever happened between them, and certainly we were walking
a line, but I think we were always responsible to the young end of our
audience. Adrienne allowed us to do this without compromising the shows
integrity.

Greg responds...

Disney's Gummi Bears. Hill Street Blues. Yoknapatwpha County, i.e. the
complete works of William Faulkner. The Complete works of William
Shakespeare. The Simpsons. Various comic book universes. The novels of
Tony Hillerman. Lots of myth, legends, etc, which I have always been
interested in. Plus the input of all the other talented people who put the
show together with me. I was not a one-man band here.

Greg responds...

Depends on how you define "mortal".

Greg responds...

Yes. Magic isn't an exact science. There are glitches. If Demona gets
angry enough, we get a glitch.

Greg responds...

Magic powers the Phoenix Gate. The idea for the gate came to me in a fevered
dream (well, actually in an editorial panic), while we were working on
"Vows". We new we needed a maguffin for that story. Something that both
Xanatos and Demona would want to get from Goliath. Something that Goliath
associated with his love for Demona, but didn't know the true nature of.
Originally there was no time travel in that episode. Then I came up for with
the idea of the Gate for the maguffin. I squashed the entire episode into
Act One, so that we could have two acts of time travel. That's one reason,
why that episode might seem a little rushed. It really should have been a
two-parter.

Greg responds...

Ah, the mystery of genetics....

Greg responds...

We had very specific plans for Yama. I had a few ideas for Sora and Zafiro
as well. And we had long term plans for all of the surviving clans. There
were ten clans at the time of "The Journey". Although some of those clans,
were either in pretty sorry shape or just beginning. I had planned on having
fourteen clans eventually.

Greg responds...

I've been fascinated by Gargoyles since at least my college days. But
someone else at Disney made the suggestion to do a show about Gargoyles.
That's all they gave me. That one word. Gargoyles. I ran with it. Though
I had a LOT of help. It was a real team effort.

Greg responds...

I like cartoons. I always have. But I don't know if I was inspired to work
in animation. As I was finishing graduate school, I began looking for jobs.
Disney TV Animation offered me one. So I took it. Sorry, it's not much of a
story.

Greg responds...

A lot.

Greg responds...

The magus comes up? I'm not sure what you mean. The Magus was a human
being. He trained under the Archmage, after Demona gave up being the
Archmage's apprentice. The Children of Oberon have a lot of stories. I'm
not going to tell any here. Not today, anyway.

Greg responds...

Macbeth was reading Merlin's writing. Merlin sealed those scrolls with his
own hand. Macbeth wasn't even born when Arthur first surfaced. To Macbeth,
Arthur was a great and legendary king.

Greg responds...

Whoah, slow down there. Demona came to America for many of the same
reasons most immigrants came. There's a story behind it, but I'm not
ready to give that away yet. As I've mentioned once or twice before, Demona
and Xanatos were introduced by Owen/Puck, who had met Demona centuries
before. The Weird Sisters kept a careful watch on Demona, but largely stayed
out of her life. With two exceptions.

Greg responds...

After events in "City of Stone", Demona was persona non grata in Scotland.
She began to travel a lot. She also began to study sorcery. To accumulate
wealth. Her immortality allowed her to make long term plans. To gather
materials that might not be of use to her now, but might be very useful
later. The reason she was in Italy was to steal the Medici Tablet, which
contained a powerful magical spell. Too powerful for her to control during
the fifteenth century. But she had time.

Greg responds...

Basically, she survived. She gathered the tattered remains of the various
clans of Gargoyles in Scotland. She became their leader. She stole food to
survive, and she wasn't very careful about the humans, innocent or otherwise
that got in her way. After the original Hunter surfaced, she alternated
hunting him and being hunted by him. She hid. It was a miserable existence.

Greg responds...

You're mistaken. She doesn't smash Brendan & Margot. All those Stone
Statues look alike. That's my answer, and I'm sticking with it.

Greg responds...

The character of "Elisa Chavez" was created before Salli was cast. We had a
basic look for the character, but no final models. After Salli was cast, we
asked her what her ethnic background was. (African-American largely, but
also Native American.) That seemed like an interesting background for Elisa,
so we changed her name to "Maza" which means "iron" in the Navajo language
(or at least that's what I was told by my assistant). We gave Elisa an
African-American mother and a Native American father. Then we asked Salli if
we could give photographs of her to our character designers. She said yes,
and they adjusted our existing models to look a bit more like Salli. So her
"look" was inspirational rather than, say, "traced".

By the way, we obviously reused the Chavez name for Elisa's boss Maria.
Two other discarded Elisa last names that were reused are (Maggie) Reed and
(Matt) Bluestone.

Greg responds...

That wasn't a scientific estimate. It also depends on how you define an
in-joke. It amused me to have Xanatos quote Hamlet and Monty Python in the
same scene in "Future Tense". Is that an in-joke? Probably not. It's part
of Xanatos' personality. I'd have to watch the episodes again. Maybe when
the questions calm down, I'll do that. Watch one episode per week and write
up whatever thoughts come to my head as I'm watching. Post them as ramblings.
I'll include any in-jokes I remember. Maybe. We'll see.

Greg responds...

Ages in parenthesis represent biological age when that age differs from the character's chronological age.

As of December 31, 1996:
Hudson - 1118 (59)
Goliath - 1058 (29)
Trio - 1038 (19)
Angela - 952 (21)
Bronx - 1018 (9)
Demona - 1058 (35)
Coldstone - 1058 (28)
Macbeth - 991 (52)
Xanatos - 41
Fox - 30
Alexander - not yet 1
Elisa - 28
Talon, Dracon - 26
Beth - 21
Katharine - 1020 (62)
Tom - 1010 (52)
Gabriel, Ophelia, Boudicca - 952 (20)

Greg responds...

Yeah. Titanium mesh. That's the ticket. C'mon, do you really want to see
Broadway's loincloth get shredded? It's a family show, after all.

Greg responds...

Delilah was programmed, just like the others, but Thailog added some special
instructions to her programming. I don't particularly agree with your
assessment, though I do think his "death" would have left a void in her
life, a void she might seek to fill.

Greg responds...

They are married.

Greg responds...

It's complicated, but basically, Oberon owed someone a favor.

Greg responds...

Actually, our gargoyles were frozen in stone in 994. Oberon banished his children in 995. There is a connection though it's not directly causal.

Greg responds...

When was Merlin mentioned in Oberon's presence? I don't remember that.

Greg responds...

I'm allowed to talk about anything I'm in the mood to discuss.

Xanatos went through a protracted, gradual change over the course of 65 episodes. Hopefully, you all thought it was organic and believable. But I never said he had stopped scheming. (Keep in mind, I had nothing to do with how he was portrated in the last twelve episodes of CHRONICLES.) I don't even believe that his goals have changed that much. But his priorities have definitely shifted, plus he gained a great deal of self-knowledge and a clearer view of what matters most in life. First and foremost, his family.
Second, true friends (or at least allies) that you can really count on. He has learned that you have to give if you ever hope to take. (But that doesn't
mean he's done taking.) As to his plans, I still think he wants immortality, so that's not over. And I felt he needed to deal with the Illuminati, who are likely to expect things from him that he's not prepared to deliver. Don't expect his methods to change much.

As to the why, well, frankly, the character demanded it. The relationship with Fox manifested itself to the pleasant surprise of everyone involved. We were all even more surprised (David included) to find out that he actually loved her. Every other step along the way was a natural outgrowth of the revelation that he was capable of love. His father influenced him as well.
Though he'd be loathe to admit it, David cares what his Petros thinks of him. It wasn't an accident that Petros was invited to his wedding.

Greg responds...

Nought.

Greg responds...

The short answer is that Macbeth & Demona asked for it. The Sisters weren't enforcing their will on the mortals, (well, they were, but Mac & D didn't know it), they were simply granting a request.

Actually, they were aiding Demona & Mac's desire to trade youth for power.
They then slipped the link in by using a specific magic spell for the youth transfer that included the immortality link. Sneaky, huh?

What you need to understand is that Oberon isn't constantly watching. His magical dictate hangs in the air around them. If they can create a justification in their own minds, no matter how superficial, they can magically get away with a hell of a lot. There's a risk involved. What if Oberon found out later? Would he care or regard it as insignificant? Would he buy their justification? Depends on his mood, probably. He's not exactly Mr. Consistent-Letter-Of-My-Law. As it is, I don't think he has found out, at least not so far.

(By the way, the reason that Demona is perpetually 35 years old is because Macbeth was 35 when they made that trade. He couldn't give her youth that he himself no longer possessed.)

Greg responds...

1. Yes.

2. Both.

3. Marriage, etc.

4. Yes.

(That was easy.)

Greg responds...

1. I guess I could.

2. I've no legal roadblocks preventing me from telling you anything and everything. But GARGOYLES does have a chance to come back, and I don't want to give away all my secrets just in case it does.

3. You wouldn't catch up to 2158 until 2158, I guess. But the (rejected) plan was to do a spin-off series set in 2158.

Greg responds...

I love Carl's music, but I wouldn't hold my breath for the CD. You don't see a lot of CD's for animated series scores out there. (SIMPSONS being a notable and hilarious exception.) If enough people send requests to Disney Records, if they believe that they could make money off of Carl's work, then trust me they would release it. But it would take a LOT of letters from a lot of different people from across the country.

Greg responds...

1. Yes. A lot. I've been writing stories since at least 2nd Grade.
English has always been my favorite subject. I took eight full years worth of English courses during my six years of junior high and High School.
(Including AP English, American Literature, Modern American Literature, Creative Writing and Advanced Creative Writing.) I took a lot of history as well. I also took a Popular American Literature course at UCLA while I was still in high school.

I received a Bachelors Degree in English with an emphasis in Fiction Writing from Stanford University. (Coursework there included: The Short Story, Fiction Writing, Poetry Writing, Detective Fiction, Eighteenth Century Views of Women in Literature, Milton, Conrad & Faulkner, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Western Culture, Reflections on the American Condition, more Fiction Writing and Authorial Voice, among others. I also took courses in acting, dance, economics, physics, calculus and computer science, among others.
Plus I did a ton of theater -- on stage, back stage and behind the scenes.) I was a t.a. for Ron Rebholz's Shakespeare class. And I taught a seminar on the Mythic Hero in Modern Literature. At Stanford's Programme in Oxford, I took courses on the English Novel, Shakespeare and British Architecture.

I later received a Masters Degree from U.S.C.'s school of Professional Writing with an emphasis in playwriting. (Coursework included: Humor, Playwriting, fiction writing, screenwriting, etc.)

And after all that, I took a seminar on Story Structure from Robert McKee.

2. Yes. Although, I know a lot of myths and legends already, I still did research, or the other writers and story editors did. My assistant Monique Beatty did a lot of research for me, as did my good friend Tuppence Macintyre. Frank Paur also contributed a lot of research. The other producers, storyboard artists and designers also did tons of visual research.

3. While I was still at U.S.C. I started interviewing for jobs informally. I wanted to be a writer, but I also wanted to be able to pay my bills. Just before I graduated, Bruce Cranston offered me a job as a "Staff Assistant" in T.V. Animation's development department. One week after I started, Disney sent Bruce to Europe for six months and I was in effect the acting head of the department. It gave me the unique opportunity to show what I could do.
When Bruce got back, I was promoted. I moved slowly but steadily up through the executive ranks, until I developed GARGOYLES, at which point I chose to change careers (or rather to pursue the career I originally set out to get) and became a writer/producer.

4. She has a family now.

5. None that I'm currently aware of, but I reserve the right to discover otherwise later.

6. They wear a different style of glasses. Vogel wears a bowtie, Owen wears a regular one. They have different hair color. There may be subtle differences in their facial structure, but depending on the animation, that tends to be less than consistent. We strived to make them look very reminiscent of each other.

Greg responds...

It was a very strange little two-parter.

[You guys should see me now. I keep typing things and erasing them. I'm really not sure I want to reveal this. I guess I still hope to do it someday, and I don't want to blow out the shock value. But another part of me kinda wants to reveal it. But not today. Sorry. Ask me again later.]

Greg responds...

I would absolutely LOVE to continue the saga in prose. Any publishers out there listening?

Greg responds...

I'm not sure I agree with your assessment of the Oberon/Puck dynamic in Midsummer. Do Owen and Oberon really look alike? I don't really see it.
Although, I think it's funny, because for months (between the first airings of "Awakening, Part Two" and "Avalon, Part Three") all I heard was how much Owen looked like the Magus.

Greg responds...

1. No. He's a New Olympian.

2. The term "Oberon's Children" refers to all the fair folk, including Puck and even Oberon. But Puck was also Oberon's personal servant. Was.

Greg responds...

I think she loves it. She wants her father to be happy, and whatever hopes she might have for Demona's redemption, they don't include a reconciliation with dad. And Angela loves and respects Elisa tremendously. Besides, when she first met Goliath and Elisa, they were already a couple, and everyone knew it, except maybe for Goliath and Elisa.

Greg responds...

I don't work at Disney anymore, but I can all but guarantee you that your "pal" is shining you (or at least passing on bad info). There are, as far as I know, no plans to make a direct to video. And I have friends at Disney and a very well-connected agent who would let me know if those plans existed.

Keep in mind that "City of Stone" and "Hunter's Moon" were both originally planned as direct to videos. "City of Stone" was rejected because the powers-that-be felt it focused too much on the series' villains and not enough on the heroes. "Hunter's Moon" was rejected months later because those powers made a strategic decision not to do a direct to video for Gargoyles. They felt it wouldn't sell enough units to justify the cost and/ or opportunity cost. (I'm not saying I agree, but that's what they decided.) So I can't imagine what could have happened between then and now that would change their minds. The ratings failure of GOLIATH CHRONICLES? I don't think that would do it.

Demona doesn't blame all her misfortunes on Goliath. Just some. Mostly she blames humanity. As to Goliath and Demona getting back together... well, I think that ship has sailed. Goliath loves Elisa now. And it's a more honest and mutual love, less naive, if slightly more impossible.

Greg responds...

NO ONE GOT TO SEE THE "FIRE IN THE SKY". Nobody. They were all frozen in stone. The terminal condition of the spell doesn't require a visual trigger. It just has to happen. So...

You live in Washington D.C. You turn on your cable box and channel surf around the dial. Once, twice. Man, there is NOTHING on. Wait a minute.
What the hell is that? Is that make-up on that woman? Or is that CGI? It looks so real, you really cannot tell. What language is that? Great looking monster, but nothings happening. So you shut off the t.v. You've got a date tonight, so you get in the shower as the sun sets. Suddenly the water is freezing. You leap out of the shower, with shampoo still in your hair.
Great. Just great. You glance at the clock to see if you've got time to run to the gym and shower there. 5:41 AM? WHAT???? You run out of the bathroom. Your answering machine light is flashing. You press the button.
That's your date on the line, pissed off about being stood up. You're freaked to say the least. Eleven hours of your life, just gone.

And so on... Basically, once Xanatos met the terminal condition, the spell is broken. Anyone effected by it is cured, no matter how far away they are.

Greg responds...

I'm not restricted from saying anything by Disney or anyone -- other than myself. There are two reasons (or three) why I'm not always forthcoming.

(1) I may get to do GARGOYLES again someday. I hope so, anyway. So let me ask you all a question: Do you guys really want me to reveal all the secrets? Would you still be as involved in new episodes if you ABSOLUTELY KNEW that they held no surprises.

(2) If I never get to do GARGOYLES again, I may canabalize some of my Gargoyles ideas and use them in a new project. (I probably shouldn't admit that, but it's true.) I wouldn't want people watching my new stuff and being able to predict outcomes and/or feeling like it was second-hand stuff because I mentioned it in passing on the www.

(3) I'm not in the mood.

I already am quite sure that I've given away more than I practically should have. But truthfully, it's hard to resist. I so want to formulate and tell these stories, I can't resist dropping clues.

I have occasionally stopped by Gore's chatroom. I generally announce it in advance, and I always use my own name.

Greg responds...

Hi.

1. No. Not really, though certain elements of it might have leaked into our reality. Like Alex's name and the destruction of the Clock Tower.

2. With my mind.

3. Maybe.

4. Which time?

5. Which time?

6. Depends on how you define "immortal".

7. Nokkar. A few others.

8. Good question. I had a story in mind for the third season where Renard would finally succumb to his illness. I planned on doing research for that story, but since I didn't do the third season, I never got around to doing the research. I was going to start by researching Multiple Sclerosis, but allow me to make this clear: I would not have used that or any disease before making absolutely sure I had my facts straight. Also I would not have made up an illness.

9. Alliances come and go. At Wyvern, Prince Malcolm and Hudson came to their initial arrangement in 971 when Malcolm's half-brother Kenneth II was crowned king of Scotland.

10. Time will tell. Or I will. Someday. Not now.

11. Ditto.

Greg responds...

Good question. Keep in mind that magic isn't an exact science. The Weird Sisters told Macbeth and Demona that "When one lives both live." Demona used the magic Praying Gargoyle statue to insure she would survive the fullfillment spell. So would Macbeth have survived? Probably. She knows about the mortality link. She would not want his death at her hands if that resulted in her own. Towards Macbeth, her impulse should not be murderous by necessity. And mindset has a real effect on magic results. However, Demona isn't the most stable and rational of characters. She certainly has murderous feelings toward Macbeth. And if their linking spell "perceived" the death of all humanity as a successful attempt to kill Macbeth, then it might very well have killed her as well. Did she consider this? Maybe.

Maybe it was a risk she was willing, even eager to take. Maybe somewhere underneath it all, she's a bit suicidal. Could she die with the idea of leaving behind a human-free "paradise" where her daughter could live in safety? Remember, Moses led the Israelites to the Promised Land, but he was not allowed to enter it himself. Maybe that's how Demona felt about it.

Then again, maybe not. Very provocative question.

Greg responds...

1. The Grimorum burnt up when the Eye of Odin was removed from the Archmage. Since the Grimorum was part of the Archmage at the time, the Archmage burnt up with it. So yes, he's really dead.

2. Princess Elena died before "Long Way To Morning". Malcolm died before "Awakening". I have ideas about their demises, but I don't feel like revealing them yet. Sorry.

3. Whew. A lot of questions for one number. I added letters to make them easier to answer.

(a). They may have killed a gargoyle here and there, but largely they were on a very specific Demon hunt.

(b). Partially, although gargoyles were nearly extinct by the time of "Awakening" let alone "City of Stone".

(c). Yeah, that too.

(d). We know she did.

(e). It's always been "the main reason", but she didn't need the Hunters to start believing that. Remember Hakon?

(f). Remember Hakon?

4. I have no idea -- though I tend to doubt it.

Greg responds...

1. No.

2. No. Angela and Broadway are already a couple. And Gargoyles mate for life. Besides, Angela and Gabriel think of themselves as sister and brother. Ophelia and Gabriel are a couple.

3. Biologically, yes. But to a gargoyle, Gabriel is as much Goliath, Demona and Coldsteel's child as he is Coldstone or Coldfire's.

4. Yes. See the answer to question 3.

Greg responds...

1. The movie has no script yet. No director attached. No casting done at all. So when you ask if there's a chance, the answer is "Yes". Is there a chance they won't appear in the film? "Yes." Is there any way for me to weigh the odds at this early stage? "No." 2. As for Patrick Stewart, we originally had him in mind for a couple of different parts in the series, but he was too expensive. (He makes a lot of money in commercial voice overs.) His agent didn't want to make an exception that would allow other companies to desire the same exception. It was a wise decision financially, but we felt we really were a special case. So we considered asking Jonathan or Marina to personally ask Patrick if he would do a voice for us. But we decided that that wasn't fair to Jonathan, Marina or Patrick. We didn't want to put any of them in an awkward spot. I'm glad we refrained.

Greg responds...

No. Or at least, not to my knowledge. I've never heard of what you're describing before now. I've been to Chicago twice in my life, and I don't recall ever having seen it.
Bob Kline did the earliest development design of that castle atop the skyscraper, and he never mentioned any Chicago building.
I can't remember who first came up with the notion. It might have been Bob or me or any of a number of people who were working in or around the development department at that time.

Greg responds...

1. I'm not telling yet.

2. Figurative.

3. "Completely" is a big word. But for all intents and purposes he's over her. But it's a very complex kind of over.

4. I hope so. I'd sure love to write one. But no one's approached me.

5. The movie (and any revived series) will, I assume, be targeted to the same group it's always been targeted to. That is, the widest possible audience. Or to put it another way, we wrote what we liked, and hoped everyone else liked it too.

Greg responds...

No. I made that up. But it made sense to me. It was an extrapolation backwards from the legends that did surround gargoyles. From the notion that gargoyles and chimeras, etc. were put on castles and churches to scare away evil spirits. Why would people think that a monstrous stone creature would act as a protective talisman? Why wouldn't you assume the opposite? I extrapolated backwards and came up with what you saw. After the fact, my co- workers and I found a number of parallel motifs all over the world, which is one of the factors that inspired us to do the WORLD TOUR episodes. One story that we could never quite crack was a Scarecrow story. Gargoyles and Scarecrows seem to me to have a lot in common. The problem was that Batman has a Scarecrow villain that's been used in 100 ways over the years (heck, I used him in a CAPTAIN ATOM story myself) and we could never quite come up with anything that seemed unique enough to make the grade. But someday, I'll crack it.

Greg responds...

"Hunter's Moon, Part Three" was designed to be a final episode OR a turning point, depending on whether we got a renewal. (The same had been true for "Reawakening" a year earlier.) When I realized that they were going to do 13 more, but that I'd only be involved in one of those 13, I made an effort to create yet a third episode of open-ended closure. A chance to say goodbye to the fans and most of the lead characters, before I journied off to other adventures. So I wrote, "The Journey". Vinnie's voyage to Japan was written to parallel my voyage to DreamWorks (although at the time I didn't know where I'd wind up working). I intentionally created new elements to the series. Mr. Duval. The Quarrymen. Etc. I pushed relationships forward. I wanted to be true to the series even in my final farewell, so I felt it was important to keep it evolving right up through the end. But it was written as a goodbye.

Which doesn't seem like an answer to your question. But it's really the best answer I could give without more information from you. There are tons of loose ends that I wish I were able to tie up or at least continue working on. I've got story ideas into the 22nd century (and back as far as the first century), so I wasn't short on material. But I wouldn't want to rush things unnaturally, just cause I was only going to get one more chance at bat. That's a great way to strike out, I figure. In this hypothetical scenario, how many episodes would I have in my new last chance? If it was only one, I'm not sure what I'd do. There's so much in Goliath Chronicles that I didn't like, I'd have to spend sometime putting band-aids on the series to get it back to a place I was comfortable moving forward from. A lot would also depend on the when. I'd like the series to continue (as it has so far) in more-or-less real time.
If my next shot at writing this was in the year 1999 I'd probably be telling different stories than if my next shot was in 2007.

How's that for a preamble? Basically, I regret not having done the last 12 Goliath Chronicles, not because I missed out telling any one specific story, but because I missed out telling 12 more stories, missed out weaving 12 more naratives into the Gargoyle Tapestry. 66 isn't bad. But 78 would have been better.

Greg responds...

1. She could definitely get sick. But the condition wouldn't be fatal. Of course, Gargoyles have a fairly substantial immune system of their own. Most sicknesses don't last past sunrise. A lot of the fun of Demona's present condition (a gargoyle with TWO magical spells that have a physical effect on her) is that these are all unanswered questions UNTIL we do the story that demonstrates the answer. Even Demona doesn't know for sure how her body will react.

2. I like them all. But it's hard to top the top two. Xanatos & Demona. I immodestly believe that in these two we created two of the most original, well-thought out and complex antagonists you'll ever see anywhere. I'm also quite fond of Macbeth and various other antagonists who aren't always villainous. Owen/Puck is a lot of fun. The Archmage was great fun for me.

Sevarius wound up being a hoot, etc. And Thailog, well, what can I say?

Greg responds...

Xanatos knew Owen was Puck. Years before, Puck had offered Xanatos a choice, remember? Xanatos did not tell Demona about Puck's secret identity. Yes, I had plans for the Labyrinth Clan.

Greg responds...

By now, Jade and Turquesa have indeed returned to Guatemala. And yes, I was talking about the Mayan Clan's rookery, where their eggs should be hatching sometime next year.

Greg responds...

Note, as usual, I've added numbers to your questions. GENERAL REQUEST: If you're going to ask multiple questions in one post, please NUMBER THEM for me.

1. Xanatos wanted to create his own brand of Gargoyles.

2. Too long to relate here.

3. What weren't?

4. It depends what you mean. They aren't all literally his biological children. In fact, most of them aren't. They are his children in the sense that he is their lord and protector.

5. Individually?

6. Most of the characters that you know from Greek Mythology were the ancestors of the New Olympians.

7. Significance?

Sorry, if my answers aren't that helpful, but you've asked a unique combo of vague questions (#4, 5, 6, 7) and HUGE questions (#2, 3, 5). If the question is too big, I'm not likely to answer it in this format. If the question is less than clear, then I'm not always sure HOW to answer it.

Greg responds...

1. They had no choice. Also, the trio were pretty young, making adaptation less difficult.

2. Goliath felt that at least some Gargoyles would have to continue to live in the real world if humans and Gargoyles were ever going to learn to live in peace. The trio could have chosen to leave, especially after hearing about Angela's sisters, but they all three had lives in Manhattan, and weren't that eager to depart, especially so soon after being reunited with Goliath, Elisa and Bronx (and Angela).

3. I doubt any company is entertaining any serious interest in the show, because they KNOW that Disney would never sell it to them.

4. It's been a while since I saw FIRST KNIGHT. I don't remember who you're talking about. Still, the answer's almost definitely no.

Greg responds...

1. Yes, I know.

2. There's a whole clan of Gargoyles living on a secluded country estate just outside of London proper. Leo and Una are the only two that actually live in the city.

Greg responds...

She wouldn't, I suppose. But that's a HUGE "if". HUGE.

Greg responds...

At least some of the effects will be CGI. Other options are being "considered", but no decisions have been made. (The movie doesn't even have a director yet.)

My opinion on what method would be better would be uninformed, particularly with regard to cost.

Greg responds...

It was in the Clock Tower, when the Tower was destroyed. In my mind, Broadway or Elisa later went back to successfully retrieve it.

Greg responds...

They've grown some since their first appearance in "Awakening, Part One".
They'd continue to grow as they got older.

Greg responds...

Hey, Ricardo. Unfortunately, I've just received your questions here in August and our chat was obviously sometime in June. So I don't remember the specifics of our previous discussions. Nevertheless, I'll do the best I can with these new answers:

1) No, not in the sense you mean. I keep trying to clarify this. Nothing legally binds me. I'm just taking common sense precautions to protect myself from a potential lawsuit. But the truth is, I don't mind. I have my own ideas about and for the GARGOYLES. They range from silly little things right on through to the pornographic. Reading other peoples takes on them, no matter how well done, would make me feel strange. Like someone's messing with my toys. That's not to say I begrudge people the opportunity to write fanfic based on the show. I'm flattered by it. But I have no burning desire to read it.

2) Fox will still answer to Janine, but she did legally have her name changed to Fox and that's who she considers herself to be. David calls her Fox. As for the other Packers, I never said they legally changed their names to Wolf, etc. I doubt they'd bother, frankly. I haven't bothered to give any thought to Wolf, Jackal or Hyena's real names. Coyote is Coyote of course, plus whatever number incarnation he's on. (That's an Ultron-V inspiration by the way.) Dingo's name is Harry Monmouth, unless I use that name somewhere else first.

3) I've never noticed any difference in his voice for that character from one episode to the next. Certainly, there was no intentional change.

4) I had ideas for Beth.

5) Yes, it's still around. It seems to specialize in bio-engineering, but I'm guessing it'll soon have it's hands in many different pies.

6) Yes, she very much does. We had to cut (for time) a tiny little partial scene near the end of "Hunter's Moon, Part Three". It comes right after Xanatos and the gargoyles fly off from the cathedral in David's helicopter, heading toward the Eyrie. Matt orders the cops to hold their fire. And then we dissolve to...
______
INT. HOSPITAL CORRIDOR - NIGHT

An exhausted Elisa sits on a bench opposite a guarded hospital room. Robyn, no longer in armor, but handcuffed and under police guard herself exits the room and approaches Elisa. Elisa raises her head. Robyn doesn't look happy.

After that silent exchange, Elisa and Jason have their scene beside his hospital bed. [Note the above scenelet was cut before it was sent overseas for animation. There's no lost footage.]

Of course, if the "BAD GUYS" spin-off had been approved, Hunter/Robyn would soon be out of prison and working for the mysterious Director.

7) Forever's a long time. Brooklyn still has some maturing to do. Plus some Timedancing. The Demona he meets in 2158 isn't going to be the same Demona he knew. As for "Future Tense", Michael, Robert, Marty and myself were simply going for shock value by pairing Demona and Brooklyn. So was Puck.

8) Fox and Xanatos have both "softened" some. That is, their priorities have changed. Love and family mean a lot more to them than either ever thought possible. But that shouldn't change their basic personality types or their M.O.s. The thing I most disliked about the Goliath Chronicles episode "Ransom", was that Fox was acting so wildly out of character. In my mind, Fox is just as tough as she ever was.

9) No. I don't think so. Certainly not Delilah. Brentwood might be good with technology, but don't expect a lot of similarities in personality.

10) I'm not sure what you want to know about Thom. He's a talented guy and extremely nice. He was a regular on one of the night time soaps, (Falcon Crest, I think, but I'm not sure). He's the voice of Snap (as in Crackle and Pop) and he was the voice for Felix the Cat. He's currently doing a voice for DreamWorks "Invasion: America" series which will premiere in January '98.

As for Brigitte, I wasn't familiar with her work until after she was cast as Angela. She auditioned for our voice director Jamie Thomason, as did a lot of talented actresses. Jamie narrowed down his choices to a half dozen great picks. Frank Paur and myself just thought that Brigitte had a certain timeless and placeless quality to her voice appropriate to a character raised on Avalon. She also had a nice range from naive ingenue to fierce gargoyle warrior. Her growling was a bit weak at first, but she caught on fast.
She's also an extremely nice person. But I didn't know that when we cast her.

Jamie cast Haunani Minn as Sora based on his reading of the script and a little bit of verbal descriptions from me. That recording is the one and only time I've worked with Haunani, since that's the only episode that Sora appeared in, but she seemed nice and she did a great job. Hope that helps.

11) All right, first off, the clan didn't know about the link at all until the "Avalon" trilogy. So at the time of "The Price" they had no idea. As for "The Reckoning" you need to keep two things in mind, one is that during the heat of battle and under death-defying and traumatic circumstances, it's hard to remember that a flesh and blood gargoyle has a touch of immortality.
Also, the gargoyles aren't exactly masters at magic. They don't know the extent of the spell or how thoroughly it might or might not work. Angela ASKS if Demona could have survived. She's not sure of the answer. Goliath responds that he doesn't know for sure either. He's not saying she's dead.
He's simply acknowledging that he can't know for sure. If we (the writers) emphasized their lack of expertise for the sake of upping the drama, I make no apologies. I don't see any inconsistencies.

12) When we got around to it. I like her a lot, but she's pretty far down on the screen time food chain. Some people complained that Lex didn't get enough screen time. We had a large cast. Goliath was the lead. Elisa was the second lead. Brooklyn, Lex, Broadway, Angela and Hudson were the main support characters. Next comes Bronx, I suppose. Major players like Xanatos, Demona and Owen/Puck. Fox, Matt and Alexander. Recurring villains like Thailog, Macbeth, Sevarius. Recurring allies like Talon, Maggie, Coldstone and Coldfire. The list is fairly endless. There are a number of characters I'd like to spend more time with: Chavez, Jack Dane, Vinnie, Jeffry Robbins, Morgan, Jason Canmore, Dr. Sato, Brendan & Margot etc. But it's tough to fit them all in.

13) Yes.

14) Under the Weird Sister's spell. Maybe en route to Avalon.

15) Yes.

16) She really, really hates her guts, and did so in "Temptation" as well.
If you listen carefully, you'll hear Demona struggle to make that admission in Elisa's favor. She only says that because she's trying to get Brooklyn on her side, and she knows that Brook likes Elisa. She doesn't share Brooklyn's feelings about the detective.

17) Both, of course.

18) "A Lighthouse in the Sea of Time" was, I believe a Brynne Chandler Reaves title (or maybe Lydia Marano). I think Brynne got it as part of a quote from the work of the late Barbara Tuchman, though Brynne's research indicated that the phrase did not originate with Tuchman. The written word is elegantly evoked in the title, which of course, was entirely appropriate to the episode.

"Ill Met by Moonlight" is a Michael Reaves title and a quote from William Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream". Oberon says to Titania: "Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania". He's annoyed with her because she has a young boy, a human changeling, that she won't turn over to him. They're at odds and he isn't pleased to see her. Just as, in our episode, he's not pleased to see the gargoyles and humans when he returns to Avalon. Generally, I tend to favor one word titles (or one word plus the determiner "the"), but I specifically remember Michael saying he had a title he knew I'd like because it came from Shakespeare. (Everyone knows I'm a Shakespeare nut.) The funny thing was that my first reaction wasn't positive. I thought it was kinda hard to read. But it was so perfect, I talked myself out of that objection. However, everytime someone writes it as "I'll Meet by Moonlight", I wonder if my initial reaction wasn't correct.

I'm not 100% positive but I think "Long Way to Morning" was one of mine. I just liked the sound and the exhaustion it evoked. And it seemed perfect (in different ways) for both our main story and our flashback story in that episode. Hudson had to keep Goliath alive until they turned to stone in the morning. And Hudson had to recover the Grimorum before morning or the Prince would die. The resolution of both stories would take the whole episode.

"Legion" was also one of mine. I remember an old t.v. miniseries based on Mary Shelley's FRANKENSTEIN. At one point, the "monster" is put under hypnosis and speaks in the voices of all the various people who made up his bodyparts. That was Coldstone to a tee. The "Legion" name itself is a biblical reference to a demon named Legion or (interpreted another way) a legion of demons who possessed some poor biblical guy.

"Shadows of the Past" was a Michael Reaves title. I was tempted to shorten it to "Shadows", given my above stated preference for one-worders, but Michael's version seemed much more evocative of what was plaguing Goliath in that episode. In this case the word "shadows" does double duty. It represents Goliath's tortured memories, as well as the ghosts or SHADES who are haunting him.

"The Reckoning" was one of mine. Originally, the "Hunter's Moon" trilogy was supposed to be a direct to video movie. Back then, "The Reckoning" was scheduled to be a two-part series finale. A final reckoning, so to speak that would give us some open-ended closure before leading us into the video release of "Hunter's Moon". Long before "The Reckoning" was written, we found out that the "Hunter's Moon" video wasn't going to happen. So we broke it into three episodes and added it to the end of our schedule.
Unfortunately, that meant we had to cut three other stories out of our schedule. First, we cut "Reunion" (the original title of "The Gathering") down from a two-parter to a single episode. Then we combined Vinnie's pie- story with the Wolf/Hakon revenge story. Then we combined Puck's training Alex story with the Coldstone/Robot story. Then we realized that there was no way that the now retitled "The Gathering" was going to fit into one episode. So we brought that back up to two and reduced "The Reckoning" down to one, all before a single word of the latter story had been written.
Through all this, the original title stuck. It's not quite the final reckoning I originally invisioned, but it's still a reckoning for Thailog and Demona's relationship and most particularly for Demona and Angela's relationship. So I felt it still worked.

Greg responds...

Good question, Todd. I think Macbeth would have quickly had the marriage annulled.

Greg responds...

1) The Sisters used the events of "City of Stone" to weaken Macbeth and Demona's wills. They took them at extremely vulnerable moments when they willingly abandoned control of their own destinies out of despair. It's a tiny loophole, but that's all the Sisters needed. As I'm sure you've noticed, Oberon isn't exactly a stickler for the letter of the law.
2) Jeff, I'm not entirely sure. We were a long way from any equivalent to Goliath being an "in-law". Goliath and Elisa had not even discussed their relationship. They'd never even gone out on a date (though they'd certainly had some romantic moments). I don't like to plan characters emotional responses too far in advance, but my gut reaction is that the guy who would have the most trouble with it would be Derek. Beth would get it. Peter would be wary. Diane would want to make sure Elisa fully understood what she was sacrificing. But I think Derek might have a real problem with it.

Greg responds...

You make some good points, Entity, but I'm not sure they're convincing.
Chronicles was hardly a spin-off. It was intended as a third season, until Disney/ABC decided to try and market it differently. So they changed the title (slightly) and the opening "titles" (which isn't that big a deal, series do that all the time, as I'm sure you know, we made some changes to the opening titles between the first and second seasons as well), and they added Goliath's opening narration. But it's still Gargoyles.
Says so in the title. It aired on national network television and may be in rerun syndication some day. It seems to me that it would be a tad confusing to disinclude episodes that some viewers might have seen, or literally might be able to watch on another channel. The excuse that I didn't have anything to do with them might carry some weight with you, me and others like us. But the majority of the audience cares about characters, not creators. The distinction would be lost on them. And I'm still left with the dilemma over "The Journey", an episode I wrote and which I certainly think of as canon.
How do I make the distinction to the average viewer that one episode from chronicles is canon and the other twelve aren't? Plus, I don't really want to be a primadonna about this stuff. A lot of people worked very hard on the Chronicles. If I had a chance to do more episodes, being human (and not a bit exhaulted) I'd certainly weigh my work over theirs, but I think it's cheating and petty to pretend it never happened.