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Todd Jensen writes...
I noticed that in #3 and #4, we got to see a lot of familiar faces from the "minor characters", more than we usually saw in the average episode of "Gargoyles" in its first two seasons. These two issues, put together, included the following cast members (all ones from the first two seasons) besides the clan, Elisa, and the Xanatoses (including Owen): Matt Bluestone, Officer Morgan, Phil Travanti (in the sense that he showed up as Morgan's partner in a couple of episodes such as "Temptation", though unnamed), Margot and Brendan, Agent Hacker, Jason Canmore, Demona, Al, the Mutates (except for Fang), the Clones, Castaway, Thailog, Billy and Susan and their mother, Jeffrey Robbins, Gilgamesh, and Judge Roebling. Perhaps it's only my imagination, but this seems like a larger cross-section of the characters than I remember seeing in the televised episodes.
Does this have anything to do with the fact that you're now telling the story in the medium of a comic book, which means that you don't have to worry about paying voice actors and can thus freely bring more people into each episode? Or is this merely the result of the accumulation of characters in the original 65 episodes? ("The Journey", even in its televised form, itself had a substantial cast, including, alongside the clan, Elisa, the Xanatoses and Castaway, the following figures: Travis Marshall, the Jogger, Vinnie, Sarah Greene, Matt Bluestone, Banquo and Fleance, Margot, and Macbeth.)
Greg responds...
It's really a combination of both. As I work on Spider-Man now, I have an on-going fight budgetarily as to how many characters I can put in any given episode... or rather how many actors I can hire. (It helps some when actors double up. For example, if I've got Brooklyn in an episode, I can get Owen for free. But if I also need the Magus, then Jeff Bennett get's a small additional payment. But if I ALSO need Bruno, then Jeff gets a FULL SECOND payment, as if I had hired a second actor to play Bruno. If I also want Matrix, I can get him for free with Bruno. If I also want young Macbeth, though, I need to make a second small additional payment. But if I ALSO need Vinnie, then I'm paying Jeff the same as three full other actors. And so on, heck with folks like Jeff or, say, Kath Soucie, this thing could go on ad infinitum.)
So, yeah, there is a certain liberation that comes with all the voices being in our heads and not behind actual microphones.
Beyond that, there's the scope thing. Look at Joss Whedon's new "Hey, no limits on my special effects or cast of thousands" Buffy comic. Same thing to some extent. I want the scope of the comic to be larger, because that's one of the strengths of that particular medium.
And still, part of it is VERY organic to the universe that we so carefully built through 65 television episodes. Nothing is wasted, and even the smallest character often inspired story ideas for me. (And I've had a decade to muse on all their stories, so frankly things are way MORE planned out now than they were back in the day, when we did plan ahead, but when our deadline pressure on the writing side was so incredibly crushing that often we were lucky as much as we were smart.) So it's natural that more and more of them will begin to have larger and larger roles. Some will whisp away for many issues and reappear when you least expect them. Others will be a constant presense. Others may not survive. Such is life...
Gerin writes...
Hi Greg,
thanks again for taking the time to communicate with the community. Today, I have a few questions about the gargoyle designs:
1) On the show, the further the show progresses, the more varied the gargoyle design becomes. Originally, the gargoyles have a rather human look, but with time some of them cross the border to animalic. I'm thinking about the London Gargoyles in particular. How did these character design decisions, for example for lion-, eagle- and horse-heads and the bird wings, come about? Did you, the production crew, argue about such designs among each other? Or was it something that everybody accepted immediately?
2) I believe I remember a piece of promotional art that features Bronx with very small wings on the back. Why was it decided to remove those wings?
3) For the show, when you came upon a story that involved new gargoyles, what was the design process? Was there a lot of moving-sketches-back-and-forth, approving and rejecting designs, or were you usually contend with the first design you got?
4) Unfortunately, so far I have only seen the covers of the comic. But I wonder: why has the change to a bare-midriff look for Angela been made? Was it just a hunch of the artists, or were there more serious thoughts behind this?
Thanks in advance for answering and all your work.
Greg responds...
1. I don't remember any fighting over the London designs. MANY, many "gargoyles" in England are based on heraldic forms, and that's what we followed. It all fits into our backward extrapolation for why humans started sculpting faux gargoyles to safeguard their buildings.
2. Bronx never had wings. Bronx did have ears that acted as tiny wings and allowed him to hover a few inches off the ground. It was a comedy-development holdover, and Frank Paur jetissoned it when he came aboard.
3. Some of each.
4. It was a discussion between Greg Guler and myself to consciously make her look a bit sexier and more grown up, as she embarked on a more adult relationship with Broadway. And if her new look called up memories of Demona... well, so much the better.
Jonny Modlin writes...
Hi Greg,
Where is Buena Vista Home Entertainment located in? Thank you.
Greg responds...
Burbank.
Gerin writes...
Hey Greg,
thank you very much for communicating with fans for all these years. Really cool!
Was so glad to read you liked "Firefly" and "Serenity". So, my questions:
1) Did you ever meet Joss Whedon? If yes, do you know if saw "Gargoyles"? Did he like it? I'd ask him myself, but there is no "Ask Joss", and it would be interesting to know if you two ever talked about your shows.
2) I realize "Gargoyles" and "Firefly" differ in almost every regard, but I'm still aching to understand why my favourite shows always get axed prematurely. So, do you see any similarities between the two shows? Any common ground regarding their discontinuation other than their ratings not living up to expectations? Why is it that these shows did not catch on more? Is there something you and Joss maybe learned from it?
3) How would you explain that "Firefly" got a movie, whereas the "Gargoyles"-movie hasn't been made (yet)? Was it luck, was it that Disney would never let go of a property the way Fox has for "Serenity"?
Thanks for your time, all the best, can't wait for the comics to appear in Europe.
Greg responds...
1. I've never met Joss Whedon. But I'm a huge fan of his. I doubt I'm on his radar though. Though it's nice to IMAGINE he's a fan.
2. Um, Gargoyles did NOT get axed prematurely. Elsewhere on this site, probably in the FAQ, you can read about all the reasons why the series was not renewed for a fourth season (or rather a second season of Goliath Chronicles). But we did 65 episodes of Gargoyles (not counting TGC). That's a FULL order.
3. DVD sales mostly. Joss Whedon being Joss Whedon too. But mostly they had stellar DVD sales, we did not.
Matt writes...
How does the writing process differ between the comic and the show? Since you guys often butted heads over ideas for the show, and ultimately ended up making good decisions, do you feel that being the sole writer of the comic loses that synergy?
Greg responds...
Probably. That's inevitable. But there's still quite a bit of collaboration with the various artists on the book, and that helps.
And frankly, no one else has been as immersed in this as I have been, so at this stage I might chafe a bit more than I did back then, when we were ALL coming to it fresh.
Todd Jensen writes...
You've mentioned before that Vinnie's departure for Japan and his parting words to Goliath in "The Journey" (back when it was a television episode) were in part an allegory for your leaving "Gargoyles" (and Disney). I noticed that his farewell to Goliath was also in #2 of the Gargoyles comic. Did it feel odd to you to write those words again, knowing that this time around, your situation was the opposite of Vinnie's (and of your situation when you were writing them the first time), that instead of leaving the gargoyles, you were returning to them?
Greg responds...
Only if I made the effort to think about it, frankly. The truth is there are little inspirations to all sorts of things throughout Gargoyles. But once it becomes part of the canon, it is what it is. So long ago, I internalized Vinnie's departure as part of the tapestry. And the behind the scenes reason why I did it became less important than the effect it had on his character and the rest of the highly interconnected Gargoyles Universe.
Vaevictis Asmadi writes...
Hello Greg!
I haven't got the newest issues of the comic yet, I have to wait until they are available on Amazon. But in the meantime I wanted to write while the queue is open.
I watched Gargoyles when I was a kid and I really liked it, especially the mythology and medieval history episodes such as City of Stone. At the time, although I enjoyed City of Stone (and it is still my favorite episode) I thought it was peculiar to depict Macbeth as the hero. Of course, now I know that City of Stone is actually more historically accurate than Shakespeare's play.
Unfortunately I only saw a few episodes before it was cancelled/moved, and I didn't remember much of it. I'd pretty much forgotten about the show years ago, until I went to the Gargoyles panel at Convergence last year and was reminded about it. That panel was a good idea to tell people about the DVDs and comic, and to encourage old fans to get back into the show. But unfortunately for me, I hadn't known yet about things like Owen/Puck which you revealed at the panel.
I've gotten the two DVD sets so far (with some help from my parents) and having watched all the episodes so far, plus the rest on Toon Disney, I have to say how great a show Gargoyles is/was. It's like the old Batman and X-Men shows in being much more than just a cartoon. Of course the major draw for me is the gargoyles themselves which are a very interesting and appealing race, and visually pretty awesome. I've always loved the way gargoyles look, physically. I especially like their feet and talons, for some reason. Wings are also good. I also remember how I was very happy when Goliath came to Avalon and discovered that the species was not extinct after all. I love that the gargoyles from different parts of the world are the sources of various mythical creatures, and I'm very curious what the Chinese, Korean, New Olympian, and Loch Ness gargoyles look like.
I'm looking forward to getting a hold of issues 2 and 3 so I can get up to date but I also have some questions about the Gargoyles universe that are not answered in the archives. The setting is a pretty interesting one and I'm curious about some things. I don't want to flood the queue all of a sudden so I'm only starting with a single question:
Why did you choose to make the gargoyles an entirely "natural" species instead of being inherently magical like the Third Race? (natural is in quotes because, I suppose magic is a natural part of the Garg universe) What I mean is, why did you choose to have biological explanations for their evolution, wings, stone sleep, and great strength, instead of using magical explanations? Was it just more to your taste or was there a more specific reason, thematically or within-the-setting, that you didn't want them to be a magical species?
(I'm not trying to say your biological explanations don't work, I'm just curious about your choice from a thematic point of view)
Greg responds...
We didn't want to make them inherently magical for a number of reasons. We didn't want them to be a "created" race. Creatures that could be woven and unwoven by magic. Or brought to life from stone and returned to unlife from stone. You get the idea. We wanted, in essence, to put them on equal footing with humans in terms of inheriting the Earth, so to speak. Creationists or Evolutionists or IntelligentDesignists or whateverelseists should see Gargoyles and Humans as equivalent. Whatever method was used to create humans (choose your poison) is the same method that was used to create Gargoyles.
There's an essay by Stephen J. Gould called something like "Equality is a contingent fact of human history". It's just worked out biologically that all sentient creatures are the same species Homo Sapiens Sapiens. But how would we deal if there were another species...? Gould probably influenced me more than I realized, come to think of it.
Anonymous writes...
I know you've stated multiple times that in the original sort of series outline, Broadway was going to be a female named Coco, but that got changed due to several different factors (fear of showing an overweight female, target demogaphic, action figures, etc). After you decided to change Broadway's gender, was there ever any move/idea to make any of the other Manhattan gargs (Brooklyn, Lex, Bronx, or Hudson) female? If so, why didn't it happen?
Greg responds...
There was no thought to do that.
Dr.No writes...
Hi Greg, I just bought the season 1 DVD because I had found a new interest in the show after reading some stuff on the internet. I was a fan of the show when I was younger and like some other animated series now on DVD that I have, I appreciate the show more now then I did back in 94. Ramblings aside, My question is if by some miracle you got the chance to do a continuation to the series, would you approve if someone changed the designs of the characters to be more streamlined so the animators overseas could stay on model more consistantly. I hope to hear back and I'll get season 2 soon(Y).
Greg responds...
Not if I could help it. I think our designs were fairly streamlined. Frank Paur saw to that. We did get off model sometimes, but no more than any show. Generally, I think we rocked. If it ain't broke, etc.
Osman Rashid writes...
I notice that in many, many tv shows--when you consider their history --as in, all that has happened to the characters/all the adventures had--the totality is simply ridiculous. Even that show on FOX called "24"--which prides itself on being highly serialized--suffers from this problem. One of the reason's I loved Gargoyles was that the show's sense of history never seemed ridiculous. How did you and your writers manage to avoid this problem?
Greg responds...
Have we?
Well... I guess part of the plan was to present the show in real time. It may feel more believable because we're not forcing a lifetime of events into an artificial time frame. Maybe.
Or maybe it helps that we have such a large ensemble cast. Because events aren't all heaped onto a single character, but spread out among the cast, it helps. Maybe.
Krista writes...
How do Goliath and Angela and Elisa communicate with the Guatamalen clan and the Japanese clan? Are they all speaking English? It would make sense (sort of) if all gargoyles understood each other... but then Elisa talks with them also... could you help me here?
Greg responds...
The short answer is that they're all speaking English. This was a production choice made at the beginning of the World Tour by Frank Paur. Later, Frank changed his mind, and we tried to convince our bosses to let us redo some stuff -- especially in "Bushido". But our bosses vetoed the idea of us going OVERbudget for the sake of putting some dialogue in subtitles, which at least a percentage of our audience couldn't read.
Since then, other ideas have occured to me...
Todd Jensen writes...
Thanks for the "Cloud Fathers" ramble, Greg!
I will confess that I can't remember from my first-time viewing whether I was surprised or not by the revelation at the end that Carlos Maza had passed on. However, I do find myself wondering, whenever I watch it on tape now, whenever either Elisa or Beth asks Peter if he wants to "go visit grandfather" while he's in town, how many first-time viewers did suspect that Carlos was dead, and how many were surprised.
Arizona, incidentally, now has a little more personal significance to me than it did when the episode first aired; my mother and stepfather moved there a few years ago (they live in the Phoenix area). They've sometimes mentioned Flagstaff in conversations with me, but haven't as yet mentioned anything about sand-carvings of Coyote or Kachina dancers. :)
Xanatos's "cliched villainy" line is a particular favorite of mine; only Xanatos would make such a remark! Though the bit where he admits that he has no desire to kill Goliath or any of the other gargoyles - this is just a necessary part of his coyote-trap - definitely stands out to me as well. You don't see the main antagonist saying that to the hero too often in an animated adventure series!
I liked the touch of the Cauldron of Life being incorporated into Coyote 4.0. (As I mentioned once in chat, it reminds me a bit of the scene in "Camelot 3000" where Mordred incorporates the Holy Grail into his armor.) The mention of the iron obviously was a foreshadowing of what was coming in the very next episode. (Was Xanatos's follow-up remark of "Ironic" intended as a pun, by the way?)
I also got a kick out of the mild confusion over "Which Coyote are we talking about here?" - the best part of all being when Coyote the Trickster threatens to sue Xanatos for trademark infringement. (And Xanatos's response that he's a "trickster at heart" rings true to me - the man's living proof that you don't have to be a Child of Oberon to be a trickster. He fulfills the archetype just as surely as Puck, Raven, and the rest do.)
I hadn't noticed the similarity of the Coyote robot to Wile E. Coyote until you mentioned it here at "Ask Greg" (not in this ramble, but in earlier answers to questions), but I certainly see it now. (Though, judging from the name of a certain merchant in "Vendettas", Coyote the robot isn't the only "Gargoyles" character to be influenced by Wile E. Coyote!)
So the multiple trickster story was what you'd originally planned for the Puck-and-Alex story before you decided to merge it with the Cold Trio for "Possession"?
Thanks for another enjoyable ramble, Greg.
Greg responds...
I'm not sure the iron/ironic thing was an intentional pun. But it was so long ago, I may have forgotten.
The Multi-Trickster story was indeed slotted for our 64th episode... with Reckoning planned as our 65th. Then at some point, we learned that Hunter's Moon would not be a direct to video, but would instead have to be folded into our regular series. So HM1-3 became episodes 63-65. Reckoning was moved back to 61, so that we'd have at least a little Demona distance between Reckoning and HM. And then we had to combine a few springboards to make room for Hunters Moon. (For example, Vendettas was a combo of two springboards: (1) Vinnie's Vendetta and (2) Hakon & Wolf's Vendetta.)
So another couple of springboards we combined were the Multi-Trickster story and the Coldtrio story. Cary Bates and I worked the combo for some time, but we finally RAN OUT OF TIME. We were on deadline, and we just couldn't crack a story with so much going on. So we simplified back down to one Trickster, i.e. Puck.
Chris Roman writes...
Greg, as a fellow Disney-ite (well, currently on 'hiatus' as Disney waits to see if American Dragon does well), I was disturbed by your recent complaint about heading up the writing staff of WITCH, but it being 'non-union'. How does that work? Didn't Disney hire you to write for the series, or did the French animation company officially hire you? Isn't this something you could bring up with Steve Heulett and the Union?
Just concerned about Disney's apparent disdain for following Union protocols of late...
-Chris Roman
Greg responds...
Hey, Chris.
I was hired by SIP Animation in Paris. They are my bosses. Thus the show is non-union... and there's nothing TAG can do about it.
Disney subcontracted production of the series to SIP (which they partially own). This, I'm sure, was done for financial reasons, in particular the subsidies that the French government provides for "European content". (WITCH was originally created as a comic book in Italy by Disney Publishing Italy.) The fact that the series would then be non-union was, I believe, a financial bonus for Disney.
Joey Conaway writes...
Hey Greg I bought the GARGOYLES DVD today and I have enjoyed it already here is my question
to ya
How long did it take yall to do the animation and get the voice overs
for Disney at that time please let me know thanks
Greg responds...
It took ten months for every step. (It's called a ten-month sliding schedule.)
That is we had ten months to write the scripts. Ten months to record the voices. Ten months to storyboard. Ten months to animate. Etc. But all of those various "ten months" overlapped. The whole process was probably more like 14 months.
Entity writes...
Mr. Weisman, I watched "The Edge" today and found myself amazed by how well you and the writers (in this case, Michael Reeves) pulled off your surprise endings. They were always shocking without feeling 'cheap.' This is because they always make perfect sense in the context of the episode, once you know what's really up. I think the way you accomplished this, without resorting to manipulative or dishonest tactics, was to make the viewer feel like he was in control. For instance, in "The Edge," the viewer is happy to believe Xanatos has created a new, more advanced Steel Clan robot. That would have been a cool plot development in and of itself, and something the viewer felt he grasped better than the gargoyles did. In "The Price," the viewer knows that Macbeth is immortal, while the gargoyles do not, so he feels more in control than the gargoyles. Perhaps this even results in a sort of gracious laze-of-mind in the viewer, by which you and the writers used the gargoyles' naivete, both of the modern world and of the show's arching plot, as a way of lulling us into a false sense of security. Was this a conscious tactic? Is it something you and the show's writers saw yourselves pulling off or was it business-as-usual? Is such stuff taught in television writing classrooms? I've never seen another show pull off its surprise endings quite as remarkably as Gargoyles. The very first time you pull one off is "The Thrill of the Hunt," an episode that could well have ended, just as "The Edge," after the gargoyles turned to stone. But like "The Sixth Sense," you kept going, and in the process, turned what would have been merely "good" stories into great ones. These episodes and the others like them were not created for the sole purpose of their surprise endings. They were flesh-and-blood stories that you and the writers ended with surprises nonetheless. Most of the praise for Gargoyles goes to its multiethnicity, its voice cast, its music, its gothic atmosphere, the dialogue (which you claim was sixth-grade level, but I've never read a newspaper article as verbose as Goliath), and all deservedly so, but one of the most enduring aspects of all were the shock endings.
Greg responds...
I'm glad that stuff works for you. It worked for us.
The main drive behind endings like that was a desire not to undercut our lead villains. Villains get tiresome when they lose all the time. And heroes are pointless if they lose all the time. (It's fun and dramatic and right to have both sides lose occasionally. But if either side loses ALL the time... well then where's the drama?)
But if a hero wins the battle and then we secretly reveal (in our patented Xanatos tags) that he may still be losing the war, then that keeps both sides interesting.
So it's not shock value for shock value's sake. But it lead us down a path that gave you the surprises you enjoyed. It forced us to always look BEHIND the obvious. Forced us to work harder. Then, I think the trick is to play fair. We may not reveal all, and -- your right -- our characters (human and gargoyle alike) may make incorrect assumptions about the situation, but all the clues are there from the moment the "PREVIOUSLY ON GARGOYLES..." starts to roll. (In fact, sometimes I feared that too many clues were planted.) By playing fair you get that double whammy at the end... both the surprise but also the "Of course..." That feeling that it's right. That it's not cheating. That in fact nothing else could possibly make sense.
Perhaps the ultimate example of that was the Owen/Puck revelation.
As for whether that's taught in writing classes? None specifically that I've taken. I've touched on it, here and there, in a couple of the classes that I've taught over the years. But I don't think I've ever focused a lesson plan on this point either. It's very much at the fine tuning end of the spectrum. Not something you'd get into in a survey course.
snoop g'rgg writes...
Subject:controversial scenes
Greg did you ever recieve a lashback from some of the episodes Disney aired during its run ala Eye of the Beholder Fox's brief nude scene, Elisa removing her bottom gown (On this note some perves were ready to see Elisa in her panties, Which thank God you guys place a mini skirt instead also I bet you'll anticipated parent viewers on the The Mirror episode where Goliath falls showing under his loincloth and finally were you taking a risk on the Hunter's Moon episode where Elisa gives Goliath a kiss?
Greg responds...
I think the Fox thing was a bit of a risk, though none of the other things you mentioned. (You're exagerating the loincloth bit where we had full wrap-around, so to speak.) But no, there was no "lashback" at all about these scenes or episodes.
The only thing that comes close to what you are describing is the episode "Deadly Force". We had no outcry over it at the time, quite the reverse, we received a lot of praise for it. But later, Toon Disney refused to air it for years because of the realistic depiction of violence (the exact thing we were praised for). I'm told they do air it now though.
Todd Jensen writes...
Just so that I've gotten this straight - so in the very first outline for "Mark of the Panther", it was were-jaguars rather than were-panthers? I'm glad that that was changed; since jaguars live in South America rather than Africa, it'd be pretty strange seeing one (ordinary or were) showing up in Nigeria.
Greg responds...
Yep, and that's why the change was made of course. We got the beast wrong. So we fixed it.
Joey writes...
If Gargoyles hadn't (temporarily) ended when it did, would it still be going or would you have run out of material by now? 10 years is a lot of episodes. How many eps per season would there have been anyways? 13, 52, or somewhere in between.
Greg responds...
Well, there are SO many "ifs" in your hypothetical question, I don't know how to evalute the specifics. But I am QUITE confident that I would not have run out of material by now. The new comic book can easily go twice that long assuming sales support us.
As for how many episodes per season, that's a financial question, not a creative one. We didn't do 13 in season one and 52 in season two for creative reasons, but for financial ones. Likewise the decision to make 13 in Season 3 (Goliath Chronicles) was again financial. So in the intervening seasons, the answer is zero per season, for what Disney perceived as financial reasons. So how to evaluate financials for a hypothetical non-existent season is impossible.
DPH writes...
How exactly did you come to realize that Puck and Owen were the same person?
Was it because you looking at who Puck had served and needed somebody?
Greg responds...
I can't believe I haven't answered this before here. But since Todd didn't field this one, I guess I haven't... or at least not here at ASK GREG.
Anyway... No.
We always knew there was something special about Owen, but didn't know what it was at first. Then when we first started working on "The Mirror" and created Puck, it suddenly occured to me that Puck was Owen. An epiphany. I immediately called Brynne Chandler Reaves and Lydia Marano. The conversation went something like this...
Greg: "I just realized: Owen is Puck!"
Brynne & Lydia: "We know!"
It was just so right. The references in "The Mirror" to Puck "serving the human" and in "City of Stone, Part One" to Owen being "the tricky one" were put in post-epiphany.
Rhonda writes...
Hi Greg,
I have been a huge fan of Gargoyles for years. It still remains my favorite TV series of all time. One of the reasons I was so pulled in was the intricate storyline. I love the way we were clued in, little by little, to what happened in the past, real identities, and real motives of the characters. My favorite moment was when Owen was revealed to be Puck. I literally fell off my chair!
I've always wondered how far in advance you would plan out the episodes. It seems like you must have had the entire storyline in your head before you sat down to write a single one. Or were these things thought up as you went? (Maybe one day you just thought, "Wouldn't it be cool if it turned out that Owen was really Puck?"). Did you come up with Demona and MacBeth's entire storyline in the very beginning?
Thanks in advance. I truly hope that I can have the pleasure of enjoying new Gargoyles episodes some day in the future.
Greg responds...
Not everything was figured out from day one, no.
For example, while working on "The Mirror" it suddenly occured to me that Owen was Puck. Note the phraising. It wasn't: "Wouldn't it be cool if it turned out that Owen was really Puck?" It was more like: "Oh my God, Owen IS Puck."
I immediately called writer Lydia Marano and Story Editor Brynne Chandler to tell them. They're response: "We KNOW!!"
That's when you know a show is working... when the characters tell you there truths. When it all just feels right.
Much of course, was planned out in advance. I didn't have all the details down, but in "Awakening" we knew that Demona was lying about sleeping for a thousand years. Certainly by "Enter Macbeth", I knew the broad strokes of Macbeth and Demona's relationship.
We did have a plan.
I still do for that matter.
GargFan1995-present writes...
Hi, Greg!
I was wondering if there were any plans to release the Mighty Ducks series (which you worked on), the Aladdin series (which you worked on), or the Tail Spin series (which you worked on) onto DVD. What's the latest word at Disney about that?
Greg responds...
I have no idea about the if or whens of these series being released on DVD. Keep in mind, I don't actually work at Disney anymore. Haven't since 1996.
For the record, none of these three series were shows I had that much to do with.
I led the original development team on Mighty Ducks, but then I moved over to do Gargoyles, and I had nothing to do with the production of the series and its simultaneous redevelopment.
On TaleSpin, I was a junior creative exec giving notes on stories, trying to be helpful. I also did the voice of one of the Pandas of Panda-La: "Father, the rockets aren't working!"
On Aladdin, I was involved with the development of the series, particularly with "The Return of Jafar". I had little to do with the production on this one either. (Although a bit more than Mighty Ducks.)
French Kitty writes...
First of all, I just want to say that Gargoyles is the BEST cartoon series ever made! You and your working crew did an amazing job at bringing it to life.
So, yeah. My question:
Why doesn't Elisa ever change her clothes? I know she changes clothes and her closet is probably filled with a lot of black T-shirts and a lot of blue jeans, but she would have looked great in the outfits from the comics. Or at least something similar.
But nonetheless, I LOVE the show and I am crossing my fingers for more episodes!
I also can't wait for the DVD to come out! I am SOO buying it! Thanx for your time. >^-^<
Greg responds...
Well, she did change her clothes occasionally. La Belle Elisa dress that she wore on Halloween and "Eye of the Beholder". The tough girl outfits she put together for "Protection" and "Turf". The clothes she wore briefly in episodes like "Hunter's Moon, Part One" and "Eye of the Storm". The dress she wore in "The Journey". There may be a couple of more examples that I can't think of at the moment.
The short REALITY answer is that redesigning new clothes for her every episode would have been prohibitively expensive and cause multiple animation errors overseas. So we limited her wardrobe changes to situations where story called for it.
Think of her standard outfit as a dramatic conceit.
Within the show, I just think that's a look she's comfortable with. I pretty much where the same outfit everyday myself. Tennis shoes, jeans and a t-shirt. Of course I don't wear the same t-shirt everyday. I have black t-shirts, white t-shirts, red t-shirts. And most of them have some kind of decal or design on them. But...
Anyway, the plan for the comic book is to start giving her a wider variety of costumes. But we still love that red jacket, blue jeans and black t-shirt. So that won't go away.
Z writes...
Greg,
You have said that you thought of the Timedancer spinoff too late in the game to consider producing it, which brought this to my mind.
I'm trying to get a feel for how much of the Gargoyles storyline you already had thought out when you began producing the show vs. how much was you came up with as the series progressed.
When you producing the first episodes, did you have a lot of the specific details of the storyline, villains, or episodes already prepared in your mind (i.e. the World Tour, the existence of the Third Race, Angela choosing Broadway, Elisa and Goliath becoming romantically close, Demona's 1000 year history, etc.)?
Or was it more like you had some vague ideas for villains, and some general episode premises, but left the door open for creativity down the road?
Or did you just have a general idea of a groups of protagonist gargoyles who wake up 1000 years later in Manhattan, fight bad guys, and alter to the new world?
I'm just trying to get a feel for how much was thought out from the beginning and how much was created as the story developed. Thanks for your time.
Peace
Greg responds...
Really, I'm not trying to dodge the question, but the answer is "ALL OF THE ABOVE."
There were certain things I had a clear vision of in my head from day one. Other things came to us as we went, but we still had planned out way in advance of when we sat down to write the specific episodes. And still, we left ourselves open to new ideas and serendipity, etc.
Tami writes...
About the episode, "Deadly Force"...if I remember correctly, there was actually two verisons to it. The first time I saw the episode, it was a lot more intense with surprising amount of blood. But the next time I saw it again I was startled to see the subtle but noticeable changes in it....the blood are mostly removed, some animation (like Goliath's eyes...he blinked once in the first verison, but not the second verison) and even the positions Goliath and Brooklyn took up guarding outside Elisa's hospital room were changed (in the first verison, they took on more menacing poses as they turned into stone, but in second verison they merely crouched looking dull and unexciting.)
Sooooo....I'm really curious, what prompted the sudden changes, and why? I've been wondering about it ever since. (Personally, I thought the first verison was the best I ever seen.)
Thanks for your taking time to read this...
Greg responds...
The blood was not "mostly removed"... but the puddle of blood was changed after the first airing so that it didn't look (incorrectly) as if Elisa had bled out in the first few seconds after being shot.
There were, as you noted, other retakes (corrections) which were not ready in time for the first airing, but which were inserted before the second airing. Note: THIS is not the stuff of censorship AT ALL. This was the producers (Frank and myself) correcting errors. And stuff like this happened in nearly every episode, not just "Deadly Force".
Drew Lung writes...
Hello, I'm a long time fan of the show, 'Gargoyles', and have a few questions.
What inspired 'Gargoyles' in the first place?
How did you get such a unusual idea for a tv series noticed by producers?
Were any of the characters replacements for original concepts you may have had early on?
Do you remember any ideas that didn't soar? (no pun)
And what other tv shows have you taken part in?
Sorry to ask so many questions, but I'm curious.
Greg responds...
1. Actual Gargoyles. Also Hill Street Blues. Gummi Bears. Etc. Check out the Archives here at ASK GREG.
2. You've got it backwards. I was an executive at the time. I hire the producers. This time I hired myself. As for how I sold the idea, that took some effort, three pitches, two years and a lot of help from my development team, my colleagues and my bosses, Bruce Cranston, Gary Krisel and Jeffrey Katzenberg. Michael Eisner finally approved us to series.
3. I'm not sure what you mean. As many fans know, the show was originally pitched as a comedy, and every major character except Goliath and Angela (and maybe Bronx), had an antecedent in the comedy development. Demona was Dakota. Xanatos was Xavier. Brooklyn was Amp. Broadway was Coco. Lexington was Lassie. Owen was Mr. Owen. Hudson was Ralph, etc. In later pitches, we did add addtional characters that went through a few changes before they actually hit the screen. Catscan became Talon. C.Y.O.T.E. (or some such acronym) became Coyote, etc. The New Olympians were added in from their own development. And so on...
4. Yes.
5. Lots. Some much more than others, but an incomplete off-the-top-of-my-head list would include: Gummi Bears, Winnie the Pooh, DuckTales the Movie, DuckTales, Talespin, Rescue Rangers, Marsupilami, Bonkers, Goof Troop, Raw Toonage, Aladdin, Little Mermaid, Return of Jafar, A Goofy Movie, Bionicle Mask of Light, Atlantis: Milo's Return, Men in Black, The Batman, Hercules, Buzz Lightyear, Max Steel, Gargoyles, Alien Racers, W.I.T.C.H., Invasion America, A.T.O.M., Mighty Ducks, Kim Possible, Quack Pack, Goliath Chronicles, Roughnecks: Starship Troopers, 3X3 Eyes, Ikkei Tossen, Jem and the Holograms, etc.
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