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Aaron writes...

I asked these before, but they either vanished into the ether, or got pulled for reasons I can't figure out.

Just a couple of questions about Dracon.

1. What, roughly, is Dracon's ranking in the New York underworld? (Capo, Sub-capo, etc)
2. Is Dracon his own boss, or does he report to someone?
3. Is Tony's grandfather still an active participant in the "Family business" or is he retired now?
4. Does Tony have any family we haven't seen?
5. If so, are they active in the "Family business"?
6. Off subject, but have you caught any episodes of the Sopranos?

Greg responds...

1. This is another question I'd probably have to do more research on to NAIL down. Suffice it to say, that at one point he was one of only a few major operators in NYC. His powerbase has been devastated of course, since. "TURF" really wiped him out.

2. In theory, Dracon reported to the head of the Dracon family. In practice, he operated solo.

3. Dominic's sanity didn't do well, coming out of "SILVER FALCON" -- or at least that's what his lawyer said. He was retired. Came out of retirement for "Silver Falcon". Now he's in Bellevue.

4. Yes.

5. Some of them.

6. Yes. I've seen the whole first season. And the first five episodes of season two. I don't get HBO, so I have to wait and see it on video, (my brother records it for me).

Response recorded on April 07, 2000

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Aaron writes...

What division, roughly, does Elisa work in? Homicide, Narcotics, Missing Persons, etc. I'd have to guess Organized Crime, given her run-ins with Dracon, but we never really do find out much about Elisa's job. I realize that this is Gargoyles, not NYPD Blue, and what goes on in Elisa's personal life is much more important to our then her job, but it would be nice to know.

Awakenings memories: Hmmm, I caught it the first time around in '94, so they're a bit vague. All I really have is images, Goliath catching Hakon's sword, Demona's first appearence (Goliath may be bigger, but she's still scarier), etc. But even five minutes into the first episode, I knew I'd found something very different and very good. I was hooked.

Greg responds...

Aaron, to be honest, I'd have to do a bit more research into the workings of the NYPD to answer your question completely.

Maybe, "A FAN" or Airwalker knows this....

But I thought she was a Squad Detective, meaning she handles whatever comes her way, ala NYPD BLUE. According to that show, I there are also special squads like ANTI-CRIME, Missing Persons, etc.

If I had to pick one of the ones you listed above, then I would pick Organized Crime. But I'd still lean toward "ordinary" Squad Detective.

Response recorded on April 04, 2000

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Robby Bevard writes...

Inspired by my long ramble... The very first time we meet Dracon, it is quite clear that he and Elisa have some sort of prior relationship from before the series started. His calling her "Sugar" for instance. Exactly how did they know each other? Was it just through past dealing with her being a cop and him being a badguy? Their relationship seems too personal for that. Not that it seems that they dated at one point or anything,but there seems to be a back story. COuld you fill us in a little if there is one?

Greg responds...

There were prior cop/criminal run ins. Dracon was her Lex Luthor, so to speak. And no, they never dated, but I think there are some interesting stories in their pasts.

Response recorded on March 31, 2000

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Todd Jensen writes...

After reading your answer to ExoLex, I thought that I'd weigh in with my two cents. I wasn't at all bothered by the fantasy elements in the series (partly because I like myths and legends), and I did think that you did a good job of balancing it. I might add that what I really liked about it was that you actually got in a sense of the significance of the legends that you were drawing on.

Take your use of Merlin in "A Lighthouse in the Sea of Time", one of my favorite episodes. Lots of animated series out there bring King Arthur and Merlin in at some point ("The New Batman/Superman Adventures" did it with an episode pitting Batman against a pet demon of Merlin's named Etrigan, for example). But the episode actually tackled - successfully, IMHO - the meaning that the Arthurian legend has to us. Macbeth got that very eloquent and moving speech about the importance of Arthur and Merlin's achievements that so impressed Broadway, all about Arthur as "a king who ruled with justice and compassion". Merlin's scrolls turn out to contain, not his magical secrets, but something even more valuable - his eyewitness account of King Arthur's time. (I can't help wondering what impact the Scrolls of Merlin must have had on Arthurian scholarship in the Gargoyles Universe - finally, another eyewitness account to "Arthurian" Britain besides Gildas's "De Excidio Britanniae"! Hudson and Broadway were right to urge Goliath not to burn those scrolls!) And Merlin, in a sense, plays his role as tutor, from beyond the Crystal Cave, to Hudson and Broadway, just as he did to the young Arthur 1500 years ago, by teaching the two gargoyles the worth of reading (although Jeffrey Robbins should get part of the credit in Hudson's case, of course).

I did think, as well, that while more "fantastic" in some ways than the average animated action/adventure series set in the modern world (such as "Batman"), "Gargoyles" did feel in other ways more realistic. The New York of "Gargoyles" felt much more like a real modern-day city than do, say, Gotham City or Metropolis, even in the crime scene (the leading criminal figure in Manhattan being Tony Dracon, an "ordinary" mob boss, rather than somebody like the Joker).

Greg responds...

Thanks for the vote of confidence.

Of course, all that Arthur stuff meant a lot to me too. I wanted to really evoke Arthur and Merlin in "Lighthouse". Who better to do it than Macbeth?

And, yeah, I like to think that in the context of all our wierdness, that the series was grounded in a world that felt real.

Response recorded on March 19, 2000

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Greg Bishansky writes...

Have Dracon and Elisa met before "Deadly Force". For some reasons I see signs of a history between them.

Greg responds...

Yes. Too often.

Response recorded on March 03, 2000

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Chapter VIII: "Deadly Force"

Another ramble as I review the entire series. Comments welcome.

"Deadly Force". I have to admit. I never liked the title. It always sounded too generic to me. Michael Reaves pointed out how appropriate it was, but "Temptation" had already given me a taste for one word titles. I came to prefer those, unless I was given a damn good reason not to.

The third episode of our trio tryptich. Broadway. Broadway and Goliath. Broadway, Elisa and Goliath. But this episode represents so much more.

If you were watching the series in '94 during it's original run, and you didn't already think, "Hey, this is different." Then by the end of Act One of "Deadly Force" you knew. I don't know if there's ever been a cartoon like "Deadly Force". A mainstream media production. We had had up to that point a few fairly shocking cliffhangers, a few fairly shocking events, but what equals Broadway pulling that trigger, the suddenly "empty" kitchen and Elisa lying in a pool of her own blood as we fade to black and cut to a commercial?

Where do I start? With pride, I guess. I am extremely proud of this one.

Guns. My personal stance on gun control isn't an issue. Not in this episode. This is about something that I think every even vaguely intelligent person can agree on. Guns aren't toys. Guns aren't "cool", no matter how they're depicted in the media. Guns demand respect. Elisa is at fault. Broadway's massively at fault. Because neither held enough respect for the weapon. (Now one might argue that Elisa lived -- nominally -- alone. It didn't occur to her that she needed to be more careful with her weapon. But it should have. She's a cop. She should know better.) As I write this, as I watched the episode tonight, my head is of course filled with thoughts of the six year old boy who yesterday took his uncle's gun to school and shot a six year old girl, killing her. And I don't want to sound arrogant. But I am angry. And I feel like this episode could really help people. That parents should HAVE to watch this with their kids. Required viewing. And the fact that Toon Disney won't even air it...! I'm furious. Simply furious.

Guns are the least of it. We wanted to send a message about repercussions. Real world repercussions. I wanted our series to be ABOUT repercussions. Demona and the Captain betray Wyvern. There are repercussions. You can't fix things. You can't go back and change it. That's why time travel in the Gargoyles' Universe has such STRICT laws. Without those laws, you remove the dramatic law of repercussions. The real world law that actions have repercussions. This episode was our ode to repercussions. The guns were just our means to an end.

Still, guns would be our medium and the episode is laced with them. With gun imagery. With gun language (e.g. Chavez referring to Dracon's alibi: "He's bulletproof.", etc.). I don't think the episode is too pedantic. I hope it's honest. Probably the most dishonest thing in the story was that Elisa DIDN'T die. Forgive me for that. But I couldn't let her go just then. Still, I think we gave our audience a bigger scare in this one then in most of the other episodes combined. Maybe she would die. There's a sense of scary (again real world) vulnerability in this. And we tried to make her injuries and suffering as realistic as possible. We weren't doing E.R. (or St. Elsewhere, since E.R. didn't exist back then), but we did try to make the medical stuff play true.

All this makes me proud. Proud of what's on the screen.

But there's a whole other side to the making of this show that makes me proud. For what isn't visible on screen. For teamwork. This is a story that seemed to need to be told. Most of the springboards for the 66 chapters came from me, but this one was waiting for us. My bosses Gary Krisel and Bruce Cranston were behind the story from the start. Michael Reaves wrote an amazing script, and my God the thing is beautifully made. No one balked. Not our S&P executive. Not our bosses. No one. Think about how amazing that is? We had one of our young heroes pick up a very REAL gun and shoot our female lead in her own kitchen. That's pretty intense.

And fairly rewarding. Even our publicity department saw the value in this one. They got advance copies and sent them out. We had (always had) phenomenally good reviews. But this episode brought us praise from the kind of parents groups that most action cartoon shows usually fear. People got it. They got it. Dr. Madeline Levine wrote a book called "Viewing Violence". It's a fairly sobering study of the effect of modern media on impressionable minds. Disabused me of a few notions, I'll tell you. But she praises GARGOYLES, specifically this episode, in her book. People got it. But not TOON DISNEY people, I guess. They show a huge lack of respect for everyone who worked on that show. Everyone who did or might benefit from it.

(Re: The pool of blood. When it first came back from Japan, the pool of blood was much larger. We pulled it back by calling a retake. This wasn't cowardice on anyone's part. This was us trying to get our message across. We didn't want kids goofing on the pool of blood. Interested in the pool for the pool's sake, so to speak. We wanted enough blood there to make it real. To scare everyone. But we didn't want the pool to be distracting. And also we didn't want to imply that Elisa had already bled out.)

CHARACTERS

Broadway - First and foremost, this was still designed to showcase Broadway. All our nobler aspirations wouldn't matter if you walked out of this episode still thinking of the big guy as an eating machine and nothing else. So let's start by praising Bill Faggerbakke and voice director Jamie Thomason. Bill's performance is wonderfully poignant without falling into bathos.

And man, who is the scariest gargoyle when angered? Goliath? Demona? How about a vote for old Broadway? Guilt and anger tear him apart, and no one's safe. He PALMS Glasses for God's sake. He's young but maturing fast. I only had vague notions of Angela at this time. And I sure didn't know they were destined for each other. But I can see it here. The child who's done something so bad he's afraid to go home, ultimately taking responsibility for actions too horrible for most of us to face. Amazing strength of character.

Elisa - A secondary purpose (tertiary?) was to demonstrate that Elisa was a real human being, with real connections. A real life. She has a boss (introducing Maria Chavez), an apartment (introducing the loft), a cat (introducing Cagney). And she wasn't born a twenty-something police detective. She has a family. A father (introducing Sgt. Peter Maza), a mother (introducing Diane Maza), a brother (introducing Derek Maza) and a sister who's away at college (we even get a photo peak at Beth Maza). This wasn't some cypher who existed only to facilitate things for the Gargoyles. This was a woman whose life extended beyond their reach. A woman who now lived in TWO worlds. With two sets of hospital visitors.

Elisa's ethnic/racial make-up parallels actress Salli Richardson's, who has both African American and Native American ancestry. This is where serendipidy played a roll. We'd later get stories out of her multi-racial background. And it paralleled the inter-species romance we were preparing to build slowly. Sometimes, everything just goes your way.

Goliath - He says he'll find the man who shot Elisa and "Make him Pay". We didn't have to say "kill" there. Again, because this early in the series, we could all easily believe that Goliath could kill. And in fact, when Broadway tells Goliath that he "can't" kill Dracon, Goliath's response is: "You think not?" All the gargoyles had an edge of danger. We may have lost some of that along the way. It's natural. You get to know characters, you stop feeling tense around them. But here, both Goliath and Broadway go a little berserk. And we don't know how they'll act.

And Goliath already loves Elisa. It's so clear to me. The way he touches her hair. The way he reacts to her being shot. He loves her. He doesn't know it yet. But it is SO there. That moment when Goliath tells Broadway that they should go see Elisa, and Broadway is thrilled because he thinks that means that Elisa survived. And then Goliath stops. Because he realizes he isn't sure if Elisa is still alive. It slays me.

And meanwhile, Goliath is adapting fairly fast to the modern world. He clearly got his head around the idea that Xanatos was put away for possessing "stolen property", so he leaves the busted gun in Dracon's lap to make sure Dracon goes away too. He says as much. Not bad for a medieval gargoyle.

And this whole episode is a character-fest. Besides the above mentioned Family Maza, etc. We bring back Bruno, head of Xanatos' security. This was intentional. Establishing that the commandos from episode 2 were just Xanatos' security team being given an unusual assignment.

There's Dracon (pre-stripe) with Glasses and even Pal Joey. Rocky Caroll really brought Glasses to life. I like him. And Dracon, well, I just love his old-fashioned "noive". Calling Elisa "Honey" and "Sugar". Sending Glasses off to sell guns right in front of her. He's pretty fun in this episode.

Owen is incredibly cool. You can really see the Mr. Smithers influence in this one. Times ten. He fights, he negotiates. He manipulates. He's a phenomenal proxy for Xanatos. A true trickster with a low burning flame.

We also introduced Doctor Sato. I always planned on using him more. We just never found the story. Too bad. I liked him a lot.

And we cameo Matt. Originally, Chavez's driver was going to be Morgan. But we had already started work on "The Edge". We knew Matt was coming. So we decided to preview him here. Just a nice little touch for anyone paying attention.

MISCELLANEOUS STUFF

I'd love to know a little bit more about the movie "Showdown", a black and white western that was premiering in 1994. A score by Ennio Morricone (channeled through Carl Johnson -- a guy who doesn't get enough praise for the stunning work he did on the show). And the movie seemed to be a hit. Go figure.

And what about that movie theater. The balcony is closed. But they're storing bags of pre-popped popcorn. How old was that stuff?

Finally, Owen is very specific about the 37 missing weapons. Early on, I tried to keep count. To allow Broadway to eventually account for every one of those guns. But that was one detail that got away from me.


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Ed writes...

Glasses never really did much apart from carry out Dracon's orders. So a couple of Glasses questions.

1. Did you ever consider giving him a further role?
2. (And in case you try the annoying answer for question one) if so, what was it? ^_^
3. Does Glasses really feel that much loyalty to Dracon? That is, if he felt it was worth his while, would he be willing to help Brod or whatever? Dracon certainly seems to take him for granted a lot.
4. How far back do Dracon and Glasses go?

Greg responds...

1. Yeah. I liked Glasses a lot. I really like the name "Glasses".
2. I wanted to see him emerge as more of a leader than a follower.
3. I can't see Glasses going to Brod. If not Dracon, why not Glasses?
4. Early teens.

Response recorded on February 24, 2000

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Ed writes...

Is there an equivalent crime faction to Dracon's organisation in 2158? If so, are any relatives of existing people still operating? Dracons had 'owned' Manhattan's crime scene for three generations (I think that was the quote, I suppose it might have been more), so would they go forward?

Greg responds...

Yes.

Response recorded on February 24, 2000

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Derek writes...

Hi again Greg, sorry about my last Mega-post, I posted all those questions as a lump before you asked us not to, so sorry.
ANYWAY- Here's my question...

Where did Dracon's white streak come from? It wasn't there in DEADLY FORCE and then in THE SILVER FALCON, it was. Was there both a behind the scenes and a "real" reason for this like the change in the mutate's appearance? That's it, thanks.

Greg responds...

Yeah. Two reasons.

I felt that Dracon didn't look distinctive enough in his first appearance, so Frank and I discussed it and decided that Goliath scared him so badly it turned part of his hair white. We even considered doing the same thing to Glasses. The idea appealed to me on some level, but it just seemed to artificial. And in some ways Glasses already looked more distinctive. (I always loved Glasses.)

Response recorded on August 23, 1999


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