Greg responds...

Demona is always alone, even in a crowded room. But basically, the answer to your question is a story (actually many stories) for another day.

Greg responds...

From the beginning, yes, though that doesn't mean he wasn't physically attracted to her.

Greg responds...

"Faeries" is one name. The Fair Folk is another. So is Dark Elves.
Changelings. Fae. The Children of Oberon. The Third Race. The Aesir Gods. (The Vikings took certain very powerful Children of Oberon to be gods. For that matter, so did the Egyptians. So did at least two Native American tribes and the Hauka tribe of Nigeria. (At least, that's how we played it in the GARGOYLES Universe.)) The generic name doesn't matter so much. Because it changes depending on who you're talking too.
As to their immortality, it depends on how you define it. Certainly they are extremely long-lived. Certainly they are difficult -- but not impossible -- to kill. Certainly, they are almost all shape-shifters, so no matter how old they are, they can always look as young as they desire. So, again, it depends on point of view.

Greg responds...

[Questions numbered to make life easier. As usual, no other editing.]

1. Hi? Uh, hi back to you.
2. The development team? None. Well, me. Keep in mind, the team that developed the show was largely not the same team who produced the first two seasons. The unsung (read largely uncredited) people who worked on the development of the series included the following:
Greg Weisman - Director of Series Development (Greg went on to be Supervising Producer of GARGOYLES.)
Bob Kline and Dave Schwartz - Development Art Directors (Bob later became a Producer/Director of GARGOYLES in its second season.)
Paul Felix and Greg Guler - Development Artists (Greg became lead character designer for GARGOYLES in its second season.)
Fred Schaeffer, Paul Lacy, Kat Fair, Cindy Chupack, Ellen Gurney - Development Associates.
(I hope I'm not leaving anyone out; we had a lot of development
associates at Disney, and I'm not 100% sure if any of the others worked
on GARGOYLES specifically.)
Also Gary Krisel and Bruce Cranston - my bosses, who were very involved in
developing the show.
And Tad Stones - who provided some important conceptual advice.
After the show was developed and sold, we began assembling a production team for the first season, most of which was pre-produced and produced in Japan.
I was still a development executive at the time. I asked to be switched over to Producer, but my bosses wanted me to prove that I could do the job while I simultaneously held down my Executive slot. So that's what I did.
We went through a couple of writers who didn't work out, and then Michael Reaves was brought aboard as writer and story editor.
In Japan, Kazuo Terada, Saburo Hashimoto and Takamitsu Kawamura were brought on as directors. Kazuyoshi Takeuchi was our lead character designer. And that's just the tip of the iceberg in terms of Japanese talent that worked on the show. (But I don't want this answer to turn into me just rewriting 66 episodes worth of credits down here.)
Back in L.A., Frank Paur was hired as our producer. Jamie Thomason was brought on as voice director. Laura Perrotta was our production coordinator. Dave Witting was our production assistant. Denise Byrne was our script coordinator. And Carl Johnson was our composer. Again, a lot of other people were involved, but that was the basic team for the first thirteen episodes.
Some of you may have noticed that I don't have a credit on the episodic television version of "Awakening". That's because, I was still officially an executive, and Disney executive's don't receive credit. The decision to allow me to officially move over from Executive to Producer came after the pre-production of the first season was completed. In fact, it came during post-production. As a matter of fairness, it was decided that any work that I had done as an executive would still not be credited. Frank Paur posted the five part "Awakening" by himself, while I posted the "Movie Version" for our Disneyworld Premiere. So I was credited as co-producer on the "movie" (which later became the home video) and on the other 8 episodes of the first season. Co-producer because I hadn't participated in pre-production except as an executive. I received no credit on any of the five parts of the television mini-series "Awakening" because my pre-production contributions were as an executive and
my post-production contributions were minimal, because I was busy on the "movie".
The second season was a whole other story. We did 52 episodes and the crew expanded geometrically. Most (though not all) of our pre-production was brought back to the U.S. We added Bob Kline and Dennis Woodyard as Producer/Directors. Lisa Salamone was brought on as Associate Producer.
(Laura Perrotta left Disney around this time.) Tom Pniewski was added as another Production Assistant. Greg Guler became our lead character designer. Butch Lukic, Patrick Archibald, Doug Murphy and others were brought aboard to storyboard and design, etc.
I officially shared producer credit (later supervising producer credit) with Frank. Michael remained a story editor and Brynne Chandler Reaves, Cary Bates and Gary Sperling were added as additional story editors. Lydia Marano became a regular writer on the series. My assistant Monique Beatty made the move with me and joined the Gargoyles team as a script coordinator.
Since I was no longer an executive, new executives were assigned to oversee the show. Jay Fukuto was director of current programming. Initially, he had Ellen Gurney watching the show. Later, my former development associate Kim Christianson took over. Adrienne Bello was the S&P executive from day one.
Again, refer to episode credits for a fuller listing of people.
GOLIATH CHRONICLES was a whole different animal. I wrote and story edited one episode only. Jamie Thomason remained the voice director. Denise stayed on as script coordinator. Tom Pniewski was promoted to Production Coordinator or Manager (sorry, Tom, I get those credits mixed up). Cary Bates wrote a couple episodes. Lydia wrote one. Another of our writers, Adam Gilad wrote one. Jay and Kim were still overseeing the scripts, but otherwise Pre-Production and Post- Production were moved to Nelvana in Canada. A new Supervising Producer, Scott Thomson was brought in. A new story editor, Eric Lewald, was brought in. Officially, I was a consultant, but I had my consultant credit removed, because I felt I hadn't been consulted enough
to earn that credit. I believe Frank Paur may have consulted a bit as well, but I'm not sure. For the most part, it was a complete turnover in creative personnel. I've always thought that hurt the show.
But there were also other problems that I've gone into before, (and this "answer" has gone on long enough). I should say, however, that Goliath Chronicles is probably still an above average cartoon show. Any problems with it are probably relative.
3. When Gary Sperling and I were working on the episode "Turf" we realized that we needed to know who, if anyone, Angela would wind up with. We talked about it. In some ways, Brooklyn did seem like the obvious choice, but it soon became clear that he was the wrong choice. It had to be Broadway.
Nothing else made sense. There are some subtle clues in "Turf". For example, Broadway never refers to Angela as Angie in that episode, despite the fact that he had been the first one to call her that in "The Gathering, Part Two". By "Turf" he had already realized she didn't care for the nickname. Lex and Brooklyn didn't figure it out until she told them (at high volume).

Greg responds...

1. Yes.
2. Brendan & Margot were in "Awakening". They had lines. They were in the script. The animation is done last. In other episodes we began using them as background characters. That became amusing to us. So we kept using them as recurring. We made a particular effort to parallel their appearance in "Hunter's Moon" to their original appearance in "Awakening". Later, I decided to make more use of Brendan & Margot in the third season -- develop them beyond their cliches, which is why Margot had such a prominent role in "The Journey". But then I didn't do the rest of the third season, so I had no control over how Margot was used or how Brendan wasn't. But the animators only put in the characters we told them to use. As far as I know.
A LITTLE BACKGROUND (aka GREG'S ABOUT TO RAMBLE):
"Once upon a time their were three brothers..." PART ONE
The year is 954. The King of Scotland, Maol Chalvim I, is 66 years old. He is very ill.
He has two sons. They are half-brothers. (Maol is the father of both, but they had two different mothers, both of whom died in childbirth.) The eldest son, Duff, is 42 years old. The youngest, Kenneth, is 22 years old. Despite the twenty year age difference, they are the best of friends.
Maol Chalvim also has a new, young wife. Very young. And very pregnant.
She is 18 years old, and her name is Katharine.
On his deathbed, Maol begs his sons to support each other and to protect his third wife and their child. The brothers vow to do just that. Duff assumes he will be the new king. Kenneth assumes he will be Duff's strong right arm.
Indulf has other ideas. Indulf is a 50 year old nobleman and is, himself, a descendant of kings. He has a 32 year old son named Culen, and hopes to launch a dynasty of his own. While Duff and Kenneth wait by their ailing father's bedside, Indulf makes alliances. While Duff and Kenneth close their father's eyes for the last time, Indulf gathers his troops. While Duff and Kenneth take their father to be buried on the holy Island of Iona, Indulf has himself crowned King on the Lia Fail at Scone.
Needless to say, Duff and Kenneth aren't too pleased. They prepare for battle, but Indulf pulls his trump card. He has Katharine. And he will kill her if they raise a sword against him. Bound by their vow and their sense of honor, Duff and Kenneth retire to a family stronghold and wait.
At Edinburgh, Katharine gives birth to a boy. She names him Malcolm, (which is a more modern variant on the name Maol Chalvim). Indulf is now willing to return Katharine to her step-sons. But the babe will stay in his custody as insurance. For obvious reasons, Katharine chooses not to leave.
TO BE CONTINUED...

Greg responds...

As usual, I've added numbers to your questions to make them easier to answer. No other editing was done.
1. Thanks for not breaking the rules. Jade & Turquesa eventually returned to Guatemala after dropping the plants off in Avalon and making a couple of other quest-type stops. I had plans for Zafiro to come in search of the Sun Amulet, which is still in Broadway's possession.
2. I'm glad your glad, but let's take everything one step at a time.
Nothing much has been done on the movie yet. We'll see how truly involved we are when the thing gets rolling.
3. Where? In the movie? If we had done more episodes? I guess the answers probably yes, either way.
4. I didn't exactly decide. I realized Owen was Puck about 12 hours after I decided to put Puck into the series. At almost the exact same time, Lydia Marano and Brynne Reaves realized the same thing independently. That confirmed we were on the right track.
5. I've answered this fully elsewhere. My favorite single episode is "The Mirror", but I like all 66 that I worked on, particularly the multi-parters.
6. I'm not going into this now.
7. Maybe.
8. That was a joke.
9. Yes.
10. Mortal Sorcery. Fae magic. Talisman magic. Location magic. Ghostly illusions and telikinetics. Just to name a few.
11. Until they die.
12. Gargoyle hatchlings are taught in the rookery that there are three races. Gargoyles. Humans. And Oberon's Children. The fae are the third race from the Gargoyle point of view. (To themselves, I'm sure the fair folk feel that they're number one.)
13. Why would they? Why give up something with long-term income potential?
And by the way, who exactly is lining up to buy the rights? No one with nearly enough money, I'll tell you that.
14. Sort of. Xanatos' orignal name was Xavier, which we dropped because of Professor X from the X-Men. But I still wanted a name that had that same kind of sound to it. It's a subjective thing, but I liked it. I thought of Thanatos, which is the name of the Greek God of death, which seemed cool. X and TH sounds are often exchanged. So I tried Xanatos.
Everyone liked the sound of it. Later, I checked the phone book, and the name was there, (different first name though). It all seemed to fit. The name David was chosen because Goliath's name was Goliath. The hero/villain role reversal of David & Goliath was too perfect to resist. I have on occasion abbreviated the above story by simply saying I found it in the phone book. But usually I only do that when someone says the name sounds phony or cartoony.
15. It wasn't planned. I think I've answered this, but who remembers?
Marina nailed her audition right out of the gate. Jonathan had a more competitive field, but after a few false starts he got the job. After that, it was natural when we were casting new characters to think about the gang from the various Trek shows. Michael, Brent, Nichelle, Colm, Kate, Le Var, etc. They did great work for us.

Greg responds...

You didn't. But that's o.k. Dakota was a bland comedy heroine who was transformed into a much more interesting comedic traitor and villainess named Demona. The reason for the name change is probably obvious: Demona sounds more villainesque than Dakota, which is kinda generic, and certainly has no particular gargoylean feel to it. 6-10-97)

Greg responds...

No spin-offs were planned for Demona, though I had hopes to tell more flashback stories about her life. She would have remained a recurring character in GARGOYLES and she would have been a regular in both DARK AGES and FUTURE TENSE. And she would have appeared at least once in TIMEDANCER.
All of that is moot for now, but maybe someday...
I basically enjoy villains a lot. I think the villains in our show were very unique, particlarly Demona and Xanatos. Much of Demona's character came so easily and fit together so well, I hesitate to take credit for it. Demona was out there in the mist ready to be revealed to the world. At any rate, I certainly must share credit with everyone else who worked with the character, in particular Michael Reaves, who wrote "Awakening". Still, from the beginning of our second phase (read non-comedy) development, we already knew Demona was a traitor who had meant well initially but could not face up to her own guilt. Though I hadn't worked out all the details of "City of Stone" from that early point of pre-Awakening development, I also knew that she had not slept through the centuries as Goliath and the others had. She would have had to live through 1000 years of persecution and prejudice. I knew that she was Goliath's lost love. How he viewed her defined both who she was
and who she wasn't. I knew she was a tragic figure. I didn't want the audience to forgive her actions, but I did want them to understand.

Greg responds...

It depends. Outside of the series, different artists have interpreted their talons/claws differently. I'd have to say, all of those interpretations aren't cannon. On the series, Frank Paur had the designers make the claw an integral part of each finger or toe. It made for cleaner animation, but you'd have to ask Frank for a definitive anatomical description.
A FEW ADDITIONAL WORDS FROM GREG
Today is Monday, June 9th. On Friday, June 6th, I logged onto Gore's chatroom. It was fun, but I must admit that I felt rushed. Part of the problem was that just as I was scheduled to log on, I got an important phone call that I had to take. That meant I was late getting to the room, and I never had time to get settled. Another problem was technological.
Everything was moving very slow for me at this end. Maybe, it's my computer. Maybe it was heavy traffic to the site. I'm not sure. But today JEB sent me a transcript of the questions and answers, and I realize that I missed a ton of questions which had scrolled off the bottom of the room by the time the page reloaded to my screen. Sorry about that. If I missed your question, ask it again here. But the result of all that rushing and missed postings was that I didn't really get to "chat" with you. I just answered questions at a faster speed than I do here at ASK GREG.
I'll try the chat thing again sometime, I promise. But all this led me to realize something else. Answering questions is only part of what I want to do here. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the question/answer thing. All the details, all the plans for the future. But I'd also like to discuss the show with you guys. Discuss the episodes we already made. The characters, the themes, etc. Occasionally, I lurk in the comment room, but I almost always have to vacate fast, because someone invariably posts an original notion, like a "What If" or something. That's appropriate to the comment room and I WOULD NOT want to see that change, but unfortunately, it keeps me out.
So let's turn ASK GREG into a bit of a comment room also. Feel free to post your reactions to a given episode. Sometimes I'll respond. Sometimes, I may not. But I'd like to hear what you have to say. And you never know, it might inspire me to relate some behind-the-scene story and/or some tidbit of the Master Plan and/or what was going through my head at a given time and/ or what I think of the episode in hindsight. I'm not suggesting we quit with the questions, but I think adding this aspect to the page would be more fun for me, and I hope, ultimately, more interesting for you.
A few brief groundrules:
1. Don't forget the old groundrules. They still apply.
2. Let's limit discussions to the first two seasons of Gargoyles and also "The Journey" from the Goliath Chronicles. I'm not saying that the other 12 Goliath Chronicle episodes aren't cannon, but since I had almost nothing to do with them, I'm not going to be able to respond effectively to them.
Anyway 66 episodes worth of material should keep us busy enough.
3. This is not supposed to take the place of the existing Comment Room, obviously. For starters, this page doesn't "move" fast enough for ongoing (or even cogent) discussions. But a comment here or there, and my response to it, might spice up this page a bit.
Anyway, let's give it a shot.

Greg responds...

I don't know. I'd have to go through every episode to answer that question.
Any specific buildings you're curious about?

Greg responds...

1. I wanted Elisa to have a partner, but it was Michael Reaves who basically originated Matt. I wasn't watching X- Files much in its first couple of seasons, so Mulder definitely wasn't in my mind. You'd have to ask Michael if he had Mulder on the brain when he came up with Matt's conspiracy- hunting mentality.
2. One town, as I recall. It was wiped.
3. Yes, Macbeth was always Macbeth. And he was included because he fit. He filled a short-term role, AND he was perfect for our long-term plans. I've read and seen Shakespeare's MACBETH so many times, I can't say if any one line influenced me so much as my entire reading of the character did. His weariness, however, was again, logical and right to the character we had "created". Nothing else made sense.

Greg responds...

Owen never hit Oberon with it, though he did use it on Talon once.
Originally it was put in to deepened the mystery of who Owen was. What kind of man would react so casually to such a drastic change? I also felt it was a kind of clue to Owen's true identity. Now, it's largely a reminder of what Puck has lost to stay in the mortal world; a disability he lives with and a weapon he occasionally makes use of.

Greg responds...

(Numbers have been added to your comments/questions to make my life easier.) 1. Who?
2. I've been asked to attend, and if we can work out the details, I'll be there.
3. Lots of interesting stories that you just wouldn't be able to get enough of.
4. No one offered to make an animated feature. But the guys at Touchstone were interested in making a live-action movie. Who am I to say no?
Actually, no one. I have no control over what Disney does with the property.
5. You've raised two different points. Animation was done at a number of different studios. Our best work was done by Walt Disney Japan's in-house teams. Second best work was done by other Japanese units. Third best by KoKo in Korea. That was all great stuff. The rest ranged from O.K. down to poor. Your second point was about storylines, but I think it's interesting that you credit better animated episodes with having more interesting storylines. You're not alone, I've noticed in general that fans of the show seem to like the stories of better animated episodes and dislike the stories of poorly animated episodes. My guess is that at least to some extent, the animation is creating a bias negative or positive. The reason I feel that way is because, with the exception of the multi-parters, I never knew which studio an episode was going to go to when creating our stories. I never knew whether it was going to get great animation like "The Mirror",
"Future Tense" or "M.I.A." or whether it was going to get lousy or mediocre animation like "Monsters" or "Vendettas". We wrote the best 66 episodes we could. I find it hard to believe that the best stories just coincidentally happened to go to the best studios. Some stories certainly turned out better than others, but evidence suggests that animation quality had a larger subliminal effect on which stories people liked than anyone realizes.
6. First off, I don't have a lot (read any) control over this situation. I hope the live action movie is great. They are planning to use some CGI, although I don't think even they know how much yet. But mostly, I'm not worried about the look. Hollywood movies invariably look great. I'm hoping for a good story that is faithful to the spirit of the GARGOYLES property, if not the details.

Greg responds...

Good question, Greg. NO, YOU CAN'T. It's probably right most of the time, but as far as I know no one involved with the show approved the close captioning, and I know of at least a couple of examples where it was dead wrong. Particularly on the spelling of names. That suggests to me that whoever wrote the captions didn't even have access to the scripts. I'm guessing he or she simply listened to the episodes and wrote down what they heard (or thought they heard). That means the "guesswork" known as close captioning has no more authority than what your own ears reveal. If you have any specific questions about dialogue or name spelling, don't check the captioning. Ask Greg.

Greg responds...

I think I've answered this but it's faster to type it in again then it is to check: EYRIE BUILDING. (I think Michael Reaves came up with that name.)

Greg responds...

1. Hee hee hee.
2. Always.

Greg responds...

Sorry, but I didn't save that info. It must be on file somewhere, so why don't you try writing a polite, typed and carefully proofread letter to Nielson. (And no, I don't know their address, but a good reporter should be able to find it. :))

Greg responds...

Mutual self-interest.

Greg responds...

1. Hey, Xanatos. I'd rather call you Greg, but I'll respect your wishes.
I added numbers to your questions to make this easier to read. No other editing. Hope you don't mind.
2. The Illuminati had their reasons.
3. No.
4. "Beth Maza" and I are trying to work out the details for me to be there.
We don't have it nailed down yet, so I don't want to make any promises. But we're trying, and it looks likely. Hopefully, I'll see you there.

Greg responds...

1. Most (though not all) of the Shakespeare was me. Beginning with Macbeth. We were looking for an immortal Scottish hunter. Macbeth had the name recognition. It felt like the kind of thing Stan Lee would have done in the early sixties at Marvel. Plus I love Shakespeare. The other things flowed from that rather smoothly. The Weird Sisters were obvious. Puck, Oberon and Titania likewise. Marty Isenberg & Bob Skir, the writers on "Legion" created an Othello/ Desdemona/Iago/Cassio set up (with Goliath in the Cassio role). I'm still not 100% sure if Marty and Bob did that on purpose, because per our rules, none of the other characters were named in their original outline for the story. In order to relieve some of the stress on our all-too-human brains, I suggested the Shakespearean names for internal use in order to keep all the characters straight. With more episodes, we would have included more Shakespearean characters. But I think that covers it for now.
2. NO. NO. NO. First off, Nelvana did none of the animation on the first two seasons. (Frankly, they didn't do any animation production for the third season either. They just handled pre-production.) The original background in front of the clock tower was a mistake. A MISTAKE. It was supposed to be a flashback to the moment when Demona first broke the gate and gave her piece to Goliath at the castle. A wistful memory. The mistake with the clock tower background came in too late to fix in time for the first airing. Maybe too late for the second too, I can't remember. But eventually, we got the correct background back from overseas and cut it in. Our intent never changed. Pragmatic realities dictated the two versions you saw. Sorry if that's disappointing.
3. Both.
4. There is a tradition of triple goddesses connected to the phases of the moon. It seemed to me that the Weird Sisters fit that tradition.
5. Demona and Macbeth. And the Archmage.
6. Elisa/Goliath from the start, and we never wavered. Demona's journey to some kind of redemption is another subplot, (if possible an even slower one then Goliath and Elisa's journey to finding each other). Sometimes, these subplots are going to intersect. But again, our intent remained constant.
7. I can't answer any questions about any Goliath Chronicle episodes except for "The Journey". Didn't work on them.
8. Again, I had little to do with Goliath Chronicles. But I doubt there was any executive pressure. Your questions suggest a clear bias toward wanting Goliath and Demona to reunite. All I can say is it wouldn't happen if the show was under my watch. As far as I was concerned we put any real chance of that to rest with "Vows". Someday, Goliath and Demona might have eventually reached some kind of detante. But Goliath's destiny is with Elisa. IMHO.

Greg responds...

1. Griff and Leo were involved in the 40s, but by the 90s Una and Leo were mates.
2. Yes. Yama means "the Mountain". Gary Sperling told me what all the names mean, but I don't remember the others. Sorry.
3. Sure.
4. Not that I know of.
5. Not really.
6. Probably.
7. You're welcome.

Greg responds...

First and foremost, you write. Then write some more. Then do a little writing. Read a lot. Write some more. Read some more. Read a lot. Write a lot. Study story structure. Study great literature. Study myth and legends. Joseph Campbell. Listen to how people talk. How they really talk. Learn your craft. Get a kick-ass education. Write. Read. Write.
Get copies of animation (or other television) scripts. Learn the format.
Write spec scripts for shows that you like. Try to use those specs to get an agent. Then your agent can use those specs to get you work. Write more specs. If you can't get an agent, send the specs to production companies that you admire. Don't send a Batman spec to Warner Bros or a Gargoyles to Disney. Legally, they can't risk reading those. But you can send Batman to Disney and Gargoyles to Warners. (I know it sounds weird. There's a real good reason for this, but it's a whole other question, so for now just trust me.) Actually, you shouldn't be writing a Gargoyles spec at all, since that show isn't producing new episodes now. You don't want your spec to come off as yesterday's news. Keep reading. Keep writing. Try writing a pilot script and a short bible for an original series. Try using those to get an agent or work (any work, you need credits on your resume.) Oh, yeah.
PROOFREAD. PROOFREAD. PROOFREAD. Read your own work aloud, you catch more mistakes that way. Read. Write. Write some more. Get used to a lot of rejection. A LOT OF REJECTION.
That's the best advice I can give you except this: writing for television is an extremely difficult career to break into, let alone succeed at; so if you don't really have a PASSION for it, then do something else. You'll need that passion to see you through a lot of dark times. If you can be happy doing anything else, then do that other thing. Otherwise, good luck.

Greg responds...

1. Sevarius.
2. Yes.
3. Michael Reaves came up with the name "Sevarius". I don't know if it had a meaning to him. Initially, I wasn't sure if I liked the sound of the name. It sounded cliched to me at first, though I was at a loss to explain why. Later, it seemed perfect for the character. I was wrong on that one, so I'm glad I deferred to Michael.
4. Uh.... Sorry. I can't think of anything that hasn't been asked. But I'm sure you guys'll come up with something.

Greg responds...

1. I've answered this. The short answer is yes. For a longer answer look at the archives for this page.
2. They were (usually) a tremendous amount of fun. The most fun part of the job, frankly. You get to be there as actors bring your characters to life with their voices. I sat second chair to our fantastic voice director Jamie Thomason, so I got to pretend I was helping. Plus most of our actors were a complete joy to work with. Particularly our regulars: Keith, Jeff, Bill, Thom, Ed, Brigitte, Salli, Frank, Marina and Jonathan. Laura San Giacomo, Peter Scolari, Sheena Easton, Jim Cummings, Morgan Shepard, Kath Soucie and John Rhys-Davies were also great fun people to work with and talk to. (Actually, I'm nervous about leaving people out. Most everyone was great.) Anyway, yeah, it was a lot of fun. It WAS also work. Some sessions lasted for hours and could be grueling. But mostly it was a hoot.

Greg responds...

The future is hazy. I'll consult Puck later (not that he can be trusted).
As to the past, I've worked on a number of animation projects, most of them as a development executive. These include (in no particular order) Gummi Bears, Duck Tales, Winnie the Pooh, TaleSpin, Rescue Rangers, Duck Tales the Movie, A Goofy Movie, Mighty Ducks, Bonkers, Goof Troop, Darkwing Duck, Aladdin (series), Little Mermaid (series), JEM, Timon & Pumbaa, Schnookums & Meat,
Raw Toonage, Marsupilami, Quack Pack, etc. Some of these I had a lot to do with, others I had almost nothing to do with.
I also worked for DC Comics for some time. The main thing I did was CAPTAIN ATOM. But I worked as a writer or assistant editor on DC Challenge, Tales of the Teen Titans, Justice League of America, Justice League, Justice League International, All Star Squadron, Infinity Inc, Young All Stars, Titans Spotlight, Silverblade, Watchmen, Secret Origins, Millenium, Who's Who, etc.

Greg responds...

1. Katana.
2. Xanatos and Goliath will never be totally in synch, but Xanatos no longer desires to be at odds with the gargoyles. That doesn't mean that occasionally they won't wind up at odds.
3. Meet? Sure.

Greg responds...

Macduff was Duncan's lieutenant in 1040. He was knocked out by Demona, allowing Macbeth to go one-on-one with Duncan.

Greg responds...

It's on Central Park South. At least it is in my Manhatten.

Greg responds...

The question you should ask yourself is whether ANY of Disney's animated series from that era of the Disney Afternoon received MORE promotion.
Personally, I don't think so. Other producers complained that they didn't get as much of a push as Gargoyles did.
Now you could argue that Disney didn't promote any of their shows enough.
But keep in mind that promotion costs a LOT of money. It just wasn't money they felt like spending at the time.

Greg responds...

A one time deal. Elisa's humanity and Goliath's gargoylity make up one of the series prime dynamics. Any permanent alteration of that would have been a betrayal.

Greg responds...

1. Uh, draw a lot? Seriously, I'm not an artist or animator, so I'm not the guy to ask. But I guess you could try to get into to an art school which has an animation department and a history of industry recruitment.
2. Yes. In my mind, at least.

Greg responds...

About 90 years worth of stuff.

Greg responds...

Thanks.

Greg responds...

1. I did.
2. In my mind, he never abandoned his old tricks. But some of his goals and priorities have changed a bit.
3. I don't think the show ever even implied that. The Coyote was "joined" to Peter Maza when he danced the part of Coyote in a kachina ceremony.
4. Sorry. Not in the mood today.
5. Depends who you ask.
6. Yes.
7. They can be killed. Or destroyed. They might age very slowly. Hard to tell, since they can alter their forms to suit their vanity.
8. Which legends specifically?

Greg responds...

She caught him off guard. Then he turned to stone, so there wasn't much time to react.

Greg responds...

Loin cloths were there from the beginning. No one wanted to see Goliath twisting in the wind, so to speak.
I think Gary Krisel came up with the idea of "cloaking" the wings when they were at rest. I resisted that notion at first, but I soon became a convert.

Greg responds...

Sigh, I've answered this before too. Gargoyles has one good shot at coming back. If and when the live-action movie is completed, interest in the property might be revived and Disney might consider bringing the show back.
If that happens, then I want to have a few surprises left.

Greg responds...

Yes.
(Seems like a good time to remind you guys to check the FAQ for ASK GREG before re-asking old questions. It's fine to reask something I've dodged.
Or to get more specific in your question. But try not to ask the same question over.)

Greg responds...

More of the same, plus more of the different.

Greg responds...

Islands or the New World? What's the connection between those two?
Guatemala isn't an island. I guess the answer is no, because I don't get the question.

Greg responds...

1. I knew that one of those eggs from the first episode was a child of Goliath's and Demona's. I didn't give too much thought initially to who that child was. Later, it became clear that she would be a female. A female who was in many ways Demona's opposite (hence the name Angela) but in other ways very much like her mother. The positive side of Demona, so to speak.
2. I'm not sure.

Greg responds...

You seem to know Diane pretty well. What's her excuse? :)
Are you sure that Cuchullain and his "hound" weren't actually combined and confused in the legend? Are you sure our version wasn't the true truth? :) :)
To be honest, I'm not that familiar with the Cuchullain legends, so I didn't double check Diane, Peter and Michael's version. Also I asked for some changes from their early drafts. They told me they had problems with some of the changes, so we compromised. (Or at any rate, we found something that I liked which they didn't object to.) Maybe they compromised too much, I don't know. But I do take full responsibility for what got on the screen.
Ultimately, I was the guy in charge of story, so the buck stops with me. I just wasn't aware we were making serious errors. I'm still not. Where did we go wrong, besides adding a gargoyle beast to the legend (a logical extension in our series)?

Greg responds...

I believe I said that we had no censors. And I didn't say "marriage ceremony", I think I said "commitment ceremony". I don't know exactly what I would have done, if I had been given enough episodes to get to this issue.
I have no reason to believe that it would have been even vaguely controversial. But rest assured, when I felt the time was right, Goliath and Elisa would have had some sort of clear moment of commitment. I don't think it would have been a traditional marriage ceremony (not because of censorship, but because that doesn't feel right to me vis-a-vis the two characters), but you'd have gotten the message. Trust me.

Greg responds...

1. I've answered this one too. The short answer is Goliath, but they're all my children, and I love them all.
2. I've answered this too, but see below.
3. Faulty assumptions. Who doesn't get the short end of the stick sometimes? Lex? Goliath? Broadway? Demona tricked Brooklyn. Goliath lost his clan and castle. The Pack tried to kill Lex. Broadway shot Elisa accidentally. Bad stuff happens. Particularly to cartoon characters.
Was Brooklyn "forced" into leadership? I suppose you could look at it that way, but don't forget he WANTED it. It's a lot of responibility, but even now, I don't think he'd give up being Goliath's Second-In-Command gladly.
And Brooklyn never lost Maggie or Angela. He never had them. Hell, he never KNEW them. He was in love with their looks, their seeming availability. He had crushes. Broadway, on the other hand, understood Angela inside and out -- her fears, her desires, her moods. He's a more sensitive guy. He sees inside people. Brooklyn doesn't. Or at least he didn't. When Brooklyn does truly fall in love for the first time, he'll know the difference immediately. It will be real, not superficial. It will be lasting.
Gargoyles mate for life. Brooklyn won't be an exception. He just hasn't met the right girl yet.
So when you ask me why I'm "doing" this to him, I don't know how to respond.
Either you go inside the show and realize that this is his life. He has to go through the bad stuff in order to learn enough to appreciate the good. Or you remain outside the show and realize that this is storytelling. We put characters through paces. We challenge them. We watch them overcome odds.
If everyone's lives were always perfect, it would make for boring television.
4. I have no idea. Sorry.

Greg responds...

Not in the sense you mean.

Greg responds...

I wrote and story edited one episode, the first one, "THE JOURNEY".
Otherwise, I was not involved. I was paid as a creative consultant, but I asked Disney to remove my consultant credit from the end credits of the last twelve episodes, because I felt I hadn't earned it. Eric Lewald, Jay Fukuto and Kim Christianson consulted me a bit on those episodes, but not much.
They followed some of my negative recommendations, that is they chose not do some things that I recommended against, but they rarely did any of the things I suggested that they should do. So I felt I had made no positive contribution
to the show that would appear on screen. Thus I felt I didn't deserve screen credit. So if you're looking for my credit on Goliath Chronicles, look fast at the end of "The Journey" and then forget about it.
As to the "story"... well, I think I've answered this, but maybe not here.
Basically, it's a decision I regret, but at the time it made sense. Disney offered me the opportunity to story edit the thirteen Goliath Chronicles episodes they were doing. I agreed to do one, while we worked out the details. But we never could work out those pesky details. It was not about money. We never got that far in the conversation, and they met my fee for "The Journey", so I don't think that would have been a problem. The problems were creative control and resources. Disney didn't offer me the opportunity to produce Goliath Chronicles. They were, in essence, asking me to take a demotion. Also, at the time, they were going to pre-produce the show at DIC and refused to guarantee me any creative approvals over DIC's work. They also presented me with an impossible schedule. (The first script was due before they made the offer to me. I'm not kidding.) I felt like they were asking me to preside over the demise of the show. So I passed.
Then after I passed, things changed. They switched from DIC to Nelvana.
They gave new Producer Scott Thomas all the approvals that they wouldn't guarantee to me. They gave new Story Editor Eric Lewald a schedule that was much more realistic. I felt, well, screwed.
But even so, I shouldn't have passed. I missed out on the opportunity to tell twelve more of my stories. To let the series go out on a note of my choosing as opposed to someone else's. Eric's a very good guy, but GARGOYLES was my baby, and I should not have abandoned it. Live and learn.
O.K. Now I'm really not gonna answer this question again.

Greg responds...

Yes.

Greg responds...

No. It was a reference to the legend of King Arthur and the Holy Grail. We did have a Python reference from "Holy Grail" in "Future Tense" when Xanatos says to Goliath's head, "What are you going to do, bite my kneecaps off?" A famous line from a funny movie.

Greg responds...

What list? What was the source? What was the date on it? You haven't given me enough information. But I can say that as far as I know, Disney isn't planning anymore Gargoyle related filmed entertainment except for the live- action movie in development at Touchstone Pictures.

Greg responds...

1. I've answered this one too, but it's a short question so

Phoebe - Blonde hair;

Seline - Black hair;

Luna - Silver hair.

There was no brunette.
3. Female Gargoyles only lay one egg every twenty years max.

Greg responds...

Yeah, I pretty much loved Shakespeare from my earliest exposures. I still have a crush on Olivia Hussey.
Macbeth was the first Shakespearean character we included, and he just seemed too perfect NOT to include. We needed an immortal and dangerous Scotish King with maximum name recognition. Who else was there? His inclusion led to all the rest. But frankly, it was inevitable given my interests. Besides, as I mentioned above, to me these stories really exist out there, waiting to be plucked down. IT HAD TO BE MACBETH, etc. Cuz that's the way it happened.

Greg responds...

1. I knew early on that I wanted to do a World Tour Story set in Arizona that focused on Elisa and Peter's Native American Heritage. I knew that story would involve the Coyote Trickster. But the specific connection wasn't decided on until Brynne, Lydia and myself started working on the that specific premise/outline/script. Why? On a very real level, we had no choice. It was the "truth", obvious once we delved into it. Plus, it made a good story and would lead us to more and more interesting things.
2. Beth's mother is a professor who specializes in African Studies, specifically African myth and legends. Beth is following in her mother's footsteps, but with the twist that she is specializing in Native American Studies, her father's heritage. She chose Flagstaff, at least in part, because that's the college nearest to where her father grew up.
3. Yes, Elisa went to Columbia on a partial scholarship. That's where her mom teaches. She majored in Psych. By the way, Derek went to Columbia also. He majored in African-American Studies.

Greg responds...

1) What happened when?
2) Control. Mostly. Plus they know some things.
3) Ever? Sure.
Hey, Luke, I don't mean to single you out, but it's time to point out again, that vague questions demand vague answers. Also, if you ask me a question so large that my only choices are to answer coyly or to write a novel- length response, you're going to get coy almost every time. Sorry.

Greg responds...

1. Something that made her smile. :)
2. Gargoyles, fae, humans, plants, animals. It's the same deal. The gargoyle race was "created" by the same thing that created the human race and most everything else. What was that, you ask? God? Evolution?
Both? I'll leave that to everyone's personal belief system.
But don't give Oberon the credit. For purposes of this discussion, he's just one of the created. Hardly the creator.

Greg responds...

1. I've answered the Weird Sister thing. Check the ASK GREG FAQ archives.
2. The Archmage is dead. Of course, so was Hakon.
3. In 994, Demona and Goliath were both 56 years old chronologically (twenty- eight biologically, i.e. in human terms.) In 1020, Demona was 82 (or 41) and aging prematurely because of the extremely difficult life she was leading. In 1040, Demona was 102 (51) until she recieved Macbeth's youth in magical trade. He was 35 (35) so she became 102 (35). He became 35 (51).
They've been stuck at those (biological) ages ever since.
4. It's hard to say. Gargoyles have always led lives of such intense conflict that it is extremely rare for a gargoyle to die of old age.
In fact, it's rare for them to get very old at all. Hudson, thankfully, is a marvelous exception. On the other hand, their daily healing is a big plus, so I'm figuring they'd wind up on the high end of what a human can accomplish. I tend to believe that a gargoyle maxes out at 180 to 200 years old (or 90 to 100 biologically) assuming they escape a violent end or a magical reprieve. Same for a Gargoyle Beast.

Greg responds...

Keep in mind, that most of the fae can take on any form that strikes their fancy. Appearances can be deceiving.
But yes, there is a relationship. With a few exceptions, the current New Olympians are descendants of a group of very mortal "gods and monsters" who chose to retire from humanity and set up shop on New Olympus. These original Olympians were the mortal children of human-fae liasons. (There's more to it than that, but that's the short answer.) Fox and Alexander are basically New Olympians. Sort of. Not really. But you get the idea.
Among the exceptions that I mentioned are the New Olympian Gargoyles, who have full New Olympian citizenship, but are descended from gargoyles, not from humans or fae. Another obvious exception is the robot Talos, who was built centuries ago and has been rebuilt and upgraded more times than anyone has bothered to count.
[Now what's fascinating to me is that I actually answered that question and didn't get cute or evasive. All of the above is info that I hadn't planned on revealing, but, hey, catch me at the right moment and I might even tell you that Brooklyn's kids are named NASHVILLE and TACHI. Doh!]

Greg responds...

Well, the immediate inspiration for the Sisters was obviously Shakespeare's Weird Sisters from MACBETH. But a surprising number of cultures have myths of a triple goddess, generally associated with fate and/or the phases of the moon. As I recall, Seline (or Selene) was the name of the Greek goddess of the moon. Luna was a roman name occasionally used for the same goddess.
Phoebe means "bright" (in its feminine form). It was a epithet occasionally used almost as an adjective to describe Artemis (or Diana), the goddess of the hunt, who was also often associated with the moon, just as her twin brother Phoebus Apollo was often associated or confused with Phoebus Helios the god of the Sun. In fact, I had a wealth of names to chose from.
So I finally just picked three that seemed to work well together.
I had many plans for the clones and the Sisters. Too much to relate in this Q&A format.

Greg responds...

Uh, if I understand your question...
We made 65 episodes of GARGOYLES. Thirteen in the first season. Fifty-two in the second.
Thirteen episodes of GARGOYLES: THE GOLIATH CHRONICLES were made. I only worked on the first one.
That totals to 78 episodes, 66 of which I was involved in.

Greg responds...

From Brooklyn's point-of-view he was gone for forty years. Sometimes he'd bounce into a time period for a few seconds, sometimes he'd be there for years. That being the case, I had a lot of villains planned. Some you know already and some new ones as well. If you're asking whether there would have been one villain who appeared in literally every episode, the answer is no.
But I did have plans for a couple of different antagonists who he'd have faced in more than one era.

Greg responds...

You're mistaken. Brooklyn asks Lex who Macbeth is. Lex remembers Goliath talking about a play called "Macbeth" by "some new writer named Shakespeare." To them, Shakespeare was new because he was born centuries AFTER the 990s.

Greg responds...

A third sigh. Time travel. A working paradox. The Archmage never did die.
Goliath, Hudson and Demona thought he had died, because they saw him fall down into the pit. But before he actually died his "future" self appeared and rescued him. Later, his future self made sure that the rescued self knew how and when to go back in time to rescue the original self, thus completing the perfect circle. The working paradox.

Greg responds...

I hate to say this, particularly since I've said it before, but the ratings on GARGOYLES were never spectacular. NEVER. They were better than GOLIATH CHRONICLES (relatively), and good enough to chalk the show up as a hit. But it was a single. Not a home run. Not even a double. We regularly got trounced by Power Rangers.
Again, the best shot for new episodes for the show is the live-action feature film currently in development at Touchstone. If that movie gets made it might reawaken interest in the show, particularly if fandom has kept the flame alive.

Greg responds...

1. I'm sure I've answered this one -- in detail. But, sigh, the answer is BOTH. Why do you assume these things are mutually exclusive?
2. Dead.
3. I did.
4. Quite separate, I'd guess.
5. No. Well, they may be distant cousins, I suppose, but that's it.
6. Did I give that away? Another sigh. Well, yeah. When the old Olympians decided to retire from the human world and set up shop on New Olympus, they invited the Olympian clan of Gargoyles to join them. Some did. Some did not. The descendents of the gargoyles who did go with them still live with the descendents of those old Olympians.
7. Yes.
8. No. It's a new character. You can't guess it, unless you're psychic.
9. North Dakota.

Greg responds...

There are no episodes that I wish I hadn't done. There were reasons, short- and long-term for every single one. Some episodes don't look very good, and I think the bad animation hurt everyone's overall impression of those episodes' stories. I obviously wish we had brilliant animation on every episode.
Of couse, some episodes were better written than others, but on the page they were all decent scripts. Sometimes we intentionally made unusual change of pace story choices to shake things up. "The Mirror," "Future Tense," "Avalon, Part II," "Night of the Panther," "Vendettas" and "Revelations" are a few examples of this. It's for you all to decide how successful we were.
But I'm very proud of all the stories we told and fairly proud of how all the episodes turned out, given the various constraints (mostly time constraints) that we were under.
There was some great material that didn't get into some episodes because I'm pretty notorious for delivering long scripts. None of it was essential, but some of it was great stuff that I wish you guys could have seen.
There were two story beats I missed until too late, and it really drives me crazy, even today. One was in "The Hound of Ulster". Cu Chullain's armor and bones should have been in the chamber where Banshee imprisoned Elisa, Goliath and Angela. The other was in "Grief". I should have let Coyote kill Elisa, Goliath, Angela and Bronx in the mastaba. If I had been paying attention, I would have noticed that with Anubis imprisoned, the heroes could not die. It would have been much more effective and would have tied in cleaner with the story than what we did do. A horrible missed opportunity. Oh, well.
As to my favorites, well it's hard. My single favorite episode is "The Mirror". Great animation, a great premise, a great story, great character work and....IT'S FUNNY. I'm proud of that, because I got some flack from people who didn't get it in script. They thought it was too complicated.
But the conceit played clear and well on screen, and the jokes still play great.
After "The Mirror", I immediately think of our multi-parters. "Awakening" got it all started and has some gorgeous stuff in there. "City of Stone" really expanded our whole universe and has some of our most honest emotions in it. Plus the Scotish History and Shakespeare and the whole stone human premise stuff is all great as far as I'm concerned. "Avalon" is more rocky, but I'm fond of it. "The Gathering" was hell to produce but had these great revelations in there. Titania's so good at the end there it still makes me smile. And "Hunter's Moon" really tied everything up wonderfully, with great animation, a powerful story, some terrific character work and an ending that left us open to do more, but could still be viewed as the end of a novel.
What next? There are some obvious choices. Although I think it's interesting that the first ones that my mind goes to tend to be the ones that had the best animation. "High Noon," "Future Tense" and "M.I.A." for example, though all also have other reasons why I like them so much. M.I.A.
has Douglas Bader in it and was sort of written for my father. Bader was/is a real hero to my dad. My whole family went with Sir Douglas and his wife to Disneyland once when I was a kid.
"Deadly Force" was probably our most important story. A very powerful episode. "A Lighthouse in the Sea of Time" was another powerful one, but it suffered from having mediocre animation.
I have a personal fondness for "Vendettas" and "The Journey". I like Vinnie a lot more than most of you. Plus I voice directed Vendettas and personally wrote the script for Journey, so I'm even less objective about those two than I am about the rest. Still, I do believe that if either episode had had the kind of animation that "The Mirror" had you'd all like them a lot, lot more.
"Vendettas" in particular depended on comic timing that the animators didn't give us. I also tell myself that Journey would have been better if I had produced it. At least, I wouldn't have messed with my script, reordering scenes and making dumb errors like having Goliath glide off at the end of the episode after making a huge deal over the fact that his wing was injured and he couldn't glide.
How many have I listed? Twenty? Thirty? I could easily keep going.
There's something I like in every single episode. It's like choosing from one's children.
So I'll just shut up now.

Greg responds...

Depends on a lot of factors. Wind currents, etc. Basically, there's no one answer to that question. And I'm not capable of doing the math.

Greg responds...

1. I had many stories planned. I'm not going to tell them here and now.
"The Director" was Robyn's boss -- Mr. Duval's primary nemesis, and a man after Xanatos' own heart. We did a five minute Leica Reel to try and sell the show. In the reel, the Director was voiced by William Devane, who would have also done the voice if we had gone to series.
2. We "only" had 78 episodes (and I only had 66). Not every thread was able to be serviced without the opportunity to tell more stories. Xanatos likes to acquire worthwhile things. He acquired the Eye of Odin for his collection before he even knew it had magical powers. The virus was a powerful weapon to add to his arsenal. Eventually, he would have found a use for it. Maybe he already knows what that use will be.
3. We had eight regulars, or eleven if you count Owen, Xanatos and Demona.
That doesn't count recurring characters like Fox, Matt or Morgan. Plus a huge cast of now-familiar faces. Not all the regulars got into every episode. (Even Goliath skipped out on four of them.) So by definition, Jason would only have been able to stop by occasionally. But he would have stopped by. I think Elisa still has feelings for him. She would have helped with his rehab, help him adjust to life in a wheelchair. He would have attempted to redeem his younger brother. Etc.
4. There are a lot of ifs to that question. If I had had the chance to do more GARGOYLES, but not TIMEDANCER or FUTURE TENSE, then I might have eventually moved some of my 2158 material up to the twentieth century. But, no, in my mind, Nokkar didn't resurface until 2158.
5. I think I've answered this one.
6. The other three would have left Avalon, with Oberon's permission... and a very specific purpose.

Greg responds...

1. I don't know all the details, but he does have options scroll on his internal visor. He can activate them using internal sensors. He trained a long time to use the suit proficiently. And it's tailored to him specifically.
2. Which answer do you want? Obviously, we reused some model sheets, but it's also possible that a gargoyle who once visited or lived in Wyvern was part of Demona's gathered clan. That gargoyle mated with a female gargoyle at Wyvern, resulting in an egg that grew up looking remarkably similar to his biological father. Uh, how's that?
3. No.
4. Yes and no.
5. It's not a matter of "cooling down". Having made his decision, Oberon would need to be convinced to reverse that decision. Forever is a long time, but let me put it this way: in 2158, Puck will still be living as Owen in the mortal realm.

Greg responds...

They ran into Brooklyn who helped them escape from Constantine before accidentally transporting them to the late 1970s.

Greg responds...

1) It depends what you mean. TIMEDANCER was a spin-off that I suggested to Disney that they chose not to make. It was also a single episode that I suggested to Eric Lewald for GOLIATH CHRONICLES that he also chose not to make. I've posted some tidbits about what I had in mind here on "ASK GREG" and in Gore's chatroom. Plus there's an e-mail floating around about my "Master Plan" that I once sent to someone. Ask about it in the Comment Room, and I'm sure someone can give you a link. Basically, TimeDancer is about Brooklyn's adventures in the time stream with the Phoenix Gate.
I'm also aware that there is a fanfic TimeDancer being prepared. I have nothing to do with it, and as far as I'm concerned it's not cannon. But I wish everyone who's working on it well.
2) Again, it depends what you mean. As far as I know, neither Gargoyles or The Goliath Chronicles will be on the air in the U.S. come the fall. If I hear different, I'll let you all know.

Greg responds...

1. 20 grand. He invested it well. He built up his company, which is a conglomerate into a lot of different things, including robotics, genetics, media, construction, defense, etc.
2. I really love them all. But the show would never have existed in the form you all know if not for Goliath. He's the prism, the anchor, the beacon.
3. I'm very proud of GARGOYLES. It's far from perfect, and there are still a lot of things I'd fix if I could, but overall it's the show I wanted to produce. GOLIATH CHRONICLES is a different story. I didn't really work on that beyond story editing "The Journey". I regret that now, but I made the best decision I could make with the information I had available at the time.
4. It's not a crown. It's decorative jewelry. She thinks she looks good in it. Do you care to tell her otherwise?

Greg responds...

1. I'm sure I've answered this. Artus and Gwenyvere are Samson's older biological siblings.
2. "A biological system"? I'm not sure what that means. As to whether Demona would have another kid, the answer is maybe.
3. Yes, she's physically capable of conceiving.
4. No spells. But not everyone got a good look at the combatants. Most were kept at a considerable distance. It was snowing. Visibility was lousy. Cars were flying. When that fire hydrant went off, it further obscured things. Matt got an eyeful, and I'm sure you know he didn't forget it for a second. A few other people probably saw something. But they had no proof. And the clan flew off.

Greg responds...

In them? I'm not sure what you mean. As a lark, I did perform one short bit of voice acting in "Awakening, Part Two". I was the commando who sarcastically said, "Nice mask."
If you're asking if I worked on any of them, then the answer is yes. I created the series (with considerable help) and produced the first 65 episodes with Frank Paur (with even more help). I supervised the writing and story editing of these episodes and provided all of the springboards (again with help).
I wrote and story edited the 66th episode, "The Journey", though I did not produce it. I voice directed everyone's favorite episode "Vendettas".
I was, however, not involved in producing the last twelve episodes of GOLIATH CHRONICLES.
I identify with all of the characters, at least to some extent.
Some of Vinnie's farewell lines in "The Journey" were very intentionally written as my goodbye to the characters and fans.
I'm the oldest of three kids. Robyn is the middle sister. Jon is the younger brother. My wife's name is Beth. My daughter Erin did the voice of Alexander Xanatos in "The Journey". Many of my family's birthdates were used as significant dates in Thailog's life in "Double Jeopardy".
All in all, I guess you could say I was "in" a few episodes.

Greg responds...

Both. We knew who Brooklyn, Lexington and Broadway were when we started. We knew there potential. We knew Lex was technology-minded. (There was a scene in Michael's original Awakening script where Lex admired a Viking catapult.
Unfortunately, it was cut for time.) We knew Brooklyn would develop into a leader. We knew he was a swashbuckler at heart, on the prowl for love and adventure. We knew Broadway was a sensitive soul, who valued others and could see their essence. I also knew that Broadway was illiterate. I knew that all three had and have a lot to learn about themselves and the world.
Still, knowing all that, a lot of their development was left to serendipity.
The voice actors helped steer their characters without trying. The artists did the same.
When Angela was first introduced, I didn't know who she'd wind up with. But while Gary Sperling and I were working on TURF, we decided that we needed to know. It became immediately obvious to us that although all three young warriors would pursue her (almost automatically), only Broadway would see her for who she really was. Not just a pretty gargoyle. Not just Goliath's daughter. But an individual with strengths and fears of her own. Notice that in TURF, Broadway is the only one of the three who never calls her "Angie". Though he was generally as lost in the competition as the other three, he was still sensitive enough to her body language to have ALREADY recognized that she didn't care for the name.
But I digress. Basically, we strived to evolve all the characters. Not just the Trio. Of course, the guy who changed the most was Xanatos. But even a mope like Vinnie got a chance to evolve. This was all very conscious. I took my lessons from the first five seasons of CHEERS. From HILL STREET BLUES, ST. ELSEWHERE and MAGNUM P.I. Shows like these really explore the potential of series television. What a waste not to take advantage of the format. I hate status quo television. Human beings change with time and experience, why shouldn't characters in series televsion, even if they are Gargoyles? It's very gratifying that you noticed and appreciated our efforts. Thanks.

Greg responds...

I appreciate the praise and your intentions, Paul. But, there are two roadblocks to doing what you suggest.
(1) I already don't have the time. I'm a professional writer/producer. I may not be working on Gargoyles right now. But I do have a job (two jobs actually). Plus a wife and two kids that I love to spend as much time with as possible. Plus family, friends and other interests. I can't afford to spend the necessary time to produce materials when I don't have any realistic expectation of payment. At least not now.
(2) I'm a horrible self-starter. I work very efficiently with a deadline.
Without one, I'm horribly lazy. I've been working on the Encyclopedia for years. I could easily have had it finished by now, but I still have seven more episodes worth of material to enter because there's no rush or need.
Don't despair, however. I have a lot of notes. And a fairly good memory for this kind of thing. If the opportunity ever does present itself, I'll still be primed to tell these stories.
Again, if there's a millionaire and/or publisher out there who feels like paying me to finish any of these projects on a deadline, just let me know.

Greg responds...

1) Not Renard or Vogel.
2) Less than a year.
3) You're right. (See, you don't need me.)
4) Largely against their will.
5) It wasn't months. But he might have had one or two stops.
6) Is Puck immortal? Define your terms. Owen is certainly mortal. But everytime he transforms into Puck and then transforms back, Owen is recreated anew. Puck obviously remembers to include Owen's stone hand for perverse reasons of his own, but I wonder if he remembers to include all the aging that Owen had done since his last transformation back and forth?
Perhaps that slips Puck's mind, and perhaps he always recreates Owen at the same age Owen was when Puck originally fashioned the identity. Only time will tell.
7) Alex, at least, will be quite long-lived -- but whether that will be due to science or sorcery I'm not saying.
8) Griff phoned them long distance.
9) Over the centuries, he studied.
10) Again, I'm not inclined to tell entire stories in this format. Sorry.
11) A "werehuman"? Doesn't that translate "man-human"? Well, never mind.
I know what you mean. Demona learned in "The Mirror" that Puck is more trouble than he's worth. And she shortly learned that there were certain advantages to Puck's gift/curse.
12) In my mind, it was Gregarino. (That's a joke. Sort of.) 13) Yes.
14) Long-lived.
15) I was consulted. I had plans to take over the writing of the book in its second year, and I did write one issue (a missing World Tour story set in the Himalayas and featuring Coldstone), but the book was cancelled before even that one story could get published. My luck.
16) Yes. Especially for Rory and Molly.
17) O.K., I know I've answered this. Please check the archives for this page.

Greg responds...

1) The Eyrie Building.
2) It's not a real river, of course. It's a glorified fountain.
3) Pretty darn tall.
4) Pretty much. The "Eye" was the idea of Patrick Gilmore and his gang at Disney Interactive. They were working on the Gargoyles Computer Game and had created the Eye for that. I liked the idea, and we ran with it. Serendipity played a big part in how we wrote our scripts, but I do believe that we had a unique group of writers, editors and producers poised to make the most of any good idea.
5) I don't know who wrote them. Although, I should say that some of that kind of stuff was given to me or Frank Paur to approve. Some of it.
Sometimes to Frank. Sometimes to me. Sometimes to both of us. Sometimes to neither. We didn't get a lot of consistency.
6) I don't know. I prefer our titles, but theirs don't bug me that much.
7) I thought I answered this, but I can't remember, so here we go again.
We had a World Premiere Screening of Gargoyles at Walt Disney World at the multiplex on Pleasure Island. This was for press and for local kids who were brought in from local schools to fill two movie theaters. We felt that our original five-parter worked great as a mini-series but that it lacked energy when played over two and a half hours on the big screen. So, while Frank Paur worked with one editor to edit the five separate episodes, I worked with a different editor to edit all five episodes down into one eighty- five minute movie. This was done simultaneously, because we had to prepare for the television premiere and the World Premiere simultaneously; they were only a week or so apart.
After the editing was done, the two versions were mixed separately as well.
Frank and our sound supervisor Mark Von der Heide supervised the sound mix for the five episodes at Advantage Audio, where all the rest of the original 65 episodes were eventually mixed. The folks at Advantage are wonderful and did their usual great job. I supervised the mix of the "movie" version at the Walt Disney Studios with Disney's feature film sound people. They also did a great job (in my opinion). But keep in mind, that they were mixing for the big screen. This edited "movie" was never intended for video release.
Never intended for television speakers. I don't know whether that makes a difference or not.
At any rate, there are certain editing and sound choices that I like better in the "movie" version, while there are other choices from the episodes that I much prefer. There wasn't time or money to collate all the best choices into one version.
Later, when HOME VIDEO decided to release their version of the pilot, they were very pleased to hear that we possessed a version that was already edited together without commercial breaks, teasers, etc. I tried to tell them that they were offering LESS for the money by putting out a version that had LESS material than the version that had aired. But they felt that they were adding value with the other stuff they had on and with the tape. A board game, a promotional piece, etc. They didn't feel like spending the extra money to format the episodes into one two and a half hour piece.
8) It's flatish. It's size alters depending on the animators' mood, I guess, but basically it should be about the size of Goliath's hand.
9) The clan would have grown over time. Brooklyn would have returned from his TIMEDANCER adventures with four new members, for example.
Coldstone and Coldfire would have returned eventually too. Whether they would have stayed forever is another story.
10) Lex listened outside their window.
11) It wasn't destroyed.
12) It was an old clock. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes not. Lex fixed it occasionally, but never for very long. I had a story in mind about that, but I never got around to it before we blew the thing up.
13) Emotional trauma.
14) Fang's for sure, if I had done BAD GUYS. Claw's probably.
15) It was in the Labyrinth. And it doesn't really matter whether Xanatos would have looked there, as long as Puck believed that Goliath would buy the Labyrinth as a rebel base. Goliath did buy it. But if he had questioned it, Puck would have made up some excuse and had one of his "characters" use that excuse to convince Goliath. Just like he did when Goliath brought up Demona and Thailog's pairing. Puck/Owen hadn't known about that, so he had "Brooklyn" give the Clone Wars excuse to explain his oversight.
16) I doubt he could be bothered to repair all the damage.
Whew.

Greg responds...

1. I don't know.
2. No.
3. Perhaps. I know Sevarius would like to try.
4. That depends what you mean. Could they give each other physical pleasure? Certainly; there are a lot of ways to make love. Do Gargoyles have the same "parts" as humans? Basically, yes. Are they exactly the same? No.
5. Six months to a year.
6. Ten years. And that's not an average. It's ten years flat out, unless there was some kind of magical interference (e.g. the eggs that were taken to Avalon where time passes more slowly).
7. No.
8. A gargoyle female (with sperm from a male) can only lay one egg, once every twenty years. It's one of the reasons that Gargoyles are not a prolific race.
9. It's a biological factor, though there are cultural traditions that have become connected to the timing of mating, laying and hatching over the years. (By the way, Gargoyles have sex more than once every twenty years, but they do not reproduce anymore frequently.)
10. Gargoyle eggs have soft shells when they are laid during a night ritual, but they turn hard at sunrise and stay hard for ten years -- night and day.
11. Hatchlings nurse.
12. Expect hatchlings in 1998 in Ishimura, Guatemala, outside London, etc.
13. Angela won't be fertile again until 2007. And, no, she didn't lay any eggs on Avalon.

Greg responds...

1) Yeah. The language thing. Well, you got me. We knew we had a problem with the Gaelic to Modern English thing in "Awakening", but we obviously didn't want to deal with it. It is one of the reasons Scotland was chosen in the first place. I wanted a country where English was presently spoken, so that the "error" wouldn't be smacking the audience in the face. England was obvious, but I wanted something that felt rougher around the edges. Scotland summonded the right feeling for me. So we went with Scotland, crossed our fingers and ignored the Gaelic problem, which worked all right with most people. Sorry, it didn't work for you.
As to the World Tour, that is less problematic, so it surprises me that you had more of a problem with it. We toyed with the idea of using sub-titles and dealing with the language barrier in four episodes: "Golem", "Bushido", "Eye of the Storm" and "The Green". Some of us felt the episodes would be enriched by the inclusion, but others disagreed. Particularly my bosses, who pointed out that the youngest members of our audience didn't know how to read and would be missing out on any subtitled dialogue. I felt we could make things clear enough for that percentage of the audience, but there were other arguments that did weigh in very strong for me. 1) It would bog down the stories, wasting precious screen time on problems of objective communication.
2) It would involve substantially more work for my writers, story editors, board artists, film editors, post supervisors etc. Not that we hid from hard work, but we were on a very tight schedule, and this issue didn't seem to merit the extra effort.
3) English, in the modern world, is such a universal language, it doesn't at all bother me that the citizens of Ishimura, Prague, Guatemala and Norway spoke it.
I didn't much like that they spoke it among themselves, however. So even after we had decided against dealing with this (our Gaelic decision, perhaps setting a precedent), we revisited the problem after we did the voice recording of "Bushido". Frank Paur, who had initially felt that we shouldn't deal with the language barrier, changed his mind. He didn't mind that Kai spoke English, but he didn't want Kai (or anyone else) to start speaking English until he heard Goliath and/or Elisa and/or Angela speaking English. At which point, Kai (and the others) would start speaking English out of courtesy. I agreed that that would make the episode better. Problem was, we had already held the voice recording. Rerecording would have doubled that episode's voice expenses. I was prepared to do this and make up the money somewhere else, but my bosses still weren't to thrilled with the idea and said no.

Greg responds...

As soon as I find a publisher willing to publish it. Know anyone?

Greg responds...

1) In "Awakening", the first time Elisa met Goliath was after he saved her life. So she was more inclined to listen to what he had to say.
But remember, a few minutes earlier she was about to shoot Bronx. In "Sentinel" Goliath appeared to be attacking her and/or kidnapping her.
That's a very different dynamic.
2) In my mind, he starved to death in the Hotel Cabal.
3) What doesn't he do?
4) Some did. Some didn't. Some reported what they saw, but they had no proof. Gargoyle sightings in Manhattan became something of an urban myth between "Awakening, Part One" and "Hunter's Moon, Part Three". Everyone had a cousin who had a dentist who had a patient who had seen one.
5) Well, most of the old knights are long dead.
Merlin's in his Crystal Cave, of course. But where and what is the Crystal Cave, and if they find it, how will Arthur and Griff get Merlin out, and if they manage that, what kinda mood will Merlin be in?
6) I didn't work on that episode. Ask Scott Thomas.

Greg responds...

I don't have a publisher. I don't know of any publishers interested in releasing any Gargoyles-related material right now. I wish I did. I'd love to publish the Encyclopedia (complete with Timeline). Or a Making of Gargoyles Book or a Gargoyles Companion book or whatever. I'd love to write novels based on the series or its (never seen) spin-offs. I've said this before, so I'm guessing we don't have any interested publishers lurking out there.
I do occasionally check out Web Sites, or at least I used too. It began to get too dangerous, since I do not want to be exposed to original material relating to GARGOYLES such as pictures of original characters or fan fiction.

Greg responds...

We put a lot of Shakespeare into the series. Some of the Macbeth stuff came from Shakespeare. (The Weird Sisters certainly.) But much of the Macbeth history was taken from actual history as opposed to Shakespeare's version of the legend. In quite a few ways, our Macbeth is historically more accurate than Will's. I'm kinda proud of that.

Greg responds...

Gargoyles was intentionally written for the widest possible audience. We felt it worked on many levels. We hoped that kids would like it as well as teens and adults.
(Basically, we all just put together the kind of show we'd like to watch.)

Greg responds...

Connected? I'm not sure what you mean.

Greg responds...

The recording would work as well as viewing the broadcast for anyone who saw it before Xanatos set the sky aflame. The question is whether the recording could start the trouble over again after the sky was done burning. I really hadn't thought of that, but I have to assume the answer is no. Because a lot of people own VCR's, and if that would have worked, we'd certainly know about it by now.

Greg responds...

No. Oberon is not Sevarius. Sevarius is not Oberon.
And while I'm here: Bronx is not a dog. A dog is not Bronx. Bronx is a Gargoyle Beast. So's Boudicca. Gargoyle beasts and dogs have a few superficial traits in common, but truly a better comparison would be:
A gargoyle is to a beast as a human is to a chimpanzee.
And even that comparison isn't totally accurate. The lifespan of a gargoyle beast is the same as that of a gargoyle.

Greg responds...

I love this question. I don't know if you'll love the answer. Demona isn't sure. Neither is Macbeth. They haven't been hit by something as catastrophic as a beheading (or whatever). Neither, at this stage, are that eager to test it. Now you might ask, why haven't they been hit by something that blatant. Good luck, or is the spell itself somehow preventing anyone from succeeding in that fashion (in a similar way that Goliath was prevented from returning Griff to Una in 1940)? Puts a wicked grin on my face just thinking about it.

Greg responds...

A very good question. In my dreams, Disney comes to me and says "We want to honor the Gargoyles show by letting you do whatever you want at any budget." In that (completely divorced-from-reality) scenario I fix any little niggling things that bother me in the first 66 episodes, completely ignore everything after Journey and restart there.
But realistically, that's preposterous. GOLIATH CHRONICLES was out there on the air. "The Journey" was one of those episodes. How can I keep one of them as cannon and ditch the rest? I think I'd have to include Goliath Chronicles, but I'd do my best to minimize the "damage" to my plans. The "acceptance" in "Angels" would not be complete. It would be one step in a continuum. Basically, I'd have to force myself to rewatch the last 12 Goliath Chronicles. Identify anything that seemed problematic and deal with each of these things on a case-by-case basis.

Greg responds...

Canmore had many children. Not all of them became king. In "City of Stone, Part Four" Canmore thought it was over. But he was wrong.

Greg responds...

Maybe a little of both.

Greg responds...

Another question to complex to answer here. Sorry.

Greg responds...

You don't sound like a dope. It's a good question, but a thousand and one years is a long time and so there isn't one simple answer to the question. Sorry.

Greg responds...

The terrorist was hitting the bank to get money to fund her cause. That cause wasn't mentioned in City of Stone, because it didn't matter there. The terrorists' role was representative (of Demona). But that specific terrorist would have reappeared in BAD GUYS and her cause would have been revealed there.

Greg responds...

Yes.

Greg responds...

1. Well, you can ask me not to say "a lot", but it won't change much. I'm not going to sit down today and write a novel-length response to a question that took you ten seconds to type in. Leave it at this, Macbeth was on the side of the Allies.
2. Very good question. She died in 971. She had no name. She was a fierce warrior and a lovely individual.
3. He's afraid of things he can't control. He's afraid of death. (I can relate. I just seek for immortality in a different way. Through my writing and through my children. As long as I'm remembered, I live on. That's something David hasn't fully learned yet. But he's getting there.)
4. Not yet.
5. Well, I had a lot of plans for them in BAD GUYS. (There's that "a lot" phrase again.) Matrix had a lot to learn, and Dingo had a lot to redeem. And working for Robyn Canmore wasn't going to be a piece of cake either.

Greg responds...

At sunrise (more or less), the entire gargoyle body turns into an organic substance that resembles stone, placing the gargoyle in a state of suspended animation. The body does function to some degree. The organic "stone-like" substance absorbs solar energy. The internal biological clock continues to function. Healing takes place. Dreaming too. But to a large degree, a daytime gargoyle is for all intents and purposes a stone statue.
At sunset (more or less), the transformation reverses from the inside out, leaving only a shedable outer layer of "stone" that cracks off as the gargoyle awakens.

Greg responds...

No hope for a fourth season for this coming fall. But maybe some day.

I've been invited to come speak at the Gathering. I'm going to try to make it. Otherwise, I have no official connection to it.

Greg responds...

Because Goliath was the main character. Lex got his episodes, and he would have gotten more. But when you have a large ensemble cast, it's hard to give everyone enough moments in the sun, (so to speak).

Greg responds...

TIMEDANCER was a proposed spin-off series that would have starred Brooklyn.
Disney didn't go for it. I suggested that the idea be incorporated into GOLIATH CHRONICLES. I laid out a story for an episode. It never happened.
They went another way, a totally other way, and wound up with that RUNAWAYS episode of Chronicles.

Greg responds...

The notion of a universe of characters inspired me, ala Simpsons or Yoknapatawpha. Not any of the specific characters.

I'm not that familiar with Azrael. Is he the guy who was Batman for awhile?
I hated the notion that someone other than Dick Grayson might take over that role, so I didn't bother to read any of that.

I haven't sat down and counted all the Hunters. I won't pretend I know every detail about every Hunter. At least, not yet.