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Shan writes...

To my question about future occurences of Jeffrey Robbins you said:

>Yep. (And you worry too much. I'm not paying that close >attention.)

1. I'm glad Jeffrey wasn't a one-time character to you. Even as a teenager I wanted to see characters with disabilities in animation, to reflect the wide variety of people in society as a whole. My sister and I co-developed a series years ago where a visually impaired character was prominent (maybe someday we'll get to do somethin with it). Fifteen years after I first got seriously interested in animation, I've seen a wide growth in character ethnicity but still not much in this area. It's one reason I loved working on EXTREME GHOSTBUSTERS and having Garrett (voiced by Jason Marsden, also Pvt. Brutto from ROUGHNECKS) as our wheelchair bound hero who was such a good character you practically forgot about the wheelchair. Jeffrey's the same kind of character. While portrayed as the character is, ultimately you see the person.

To make this into a question, especially now that I realize that the elder Brutto in ROUGHNECKS ends up in a similar situation (not sure whose choice that was though): without forcing it into the story, would you be open to incorporating more characters with disabilities in animated series?

2. Me worry too much? I think there's a space in line for you behind my father and Kevin on that one. If Mom or my sister think it they're not saying. (In other words I get told that a lot.) Won't deny it. But you do I have to remember I didn't know you that well back then... much changes in a year.

Greg responds...

1. Absolutely. Robbins, of course, was never a one-shot character. For starters,even with TGC, he appeared twice. And I hate to take credit where credit's not due, but I actually do believe that bringing Sgt. Brutto back in a wheelchair WAS my idea. Certainly, I was the first to write him back that way in "Funeral for a Friend". Claw was mute. Renard was confined to a wheelchair. I'm not tooting my own horn here, I just think that maybe you're overlooking characters because they fit so naturally into the series that you forgot they were disabled. I also would love to do a hearing impaired animated character with Marlee Matlin doing the voice. She used to come into Rockets and I once had such a big crush on her that I swore that if she came in one more time, I'd ask her to marry me. (She must have sensed that cause she never came back.)

2. Uh.... (The big problem here is that you attribute better memory function to me than I actually have. What were we talking about?)

Response recorded on September 01, 2001