Raph's Girl
03-31-2005, 11:18 AM
http://www.comics2film.com/FanFrame.php?f_id=12317
Once, in a simpler time, he was just the pet dog of a little boy named Kal-el. Add a rocket, a yellow sun, and a hefty dose of fate, and starting Monday on Cartoon Network, he’s Krypto the Superdog, star of his own animated series, and, audience acceptance willing, the new star of playground talk of pre-schools everywhere.
First appearing in Adventure Comics #210 in 1955, Krypto was the comic book answer to Laika and her comrades in the Soviet space program of the 1950s. Originally, as the story goes, Superman’s father, Jor-el sent Krypto up in a test rocket, to see if his plans for a rocket escape from Krypton’s imminent demise would work. (Yes – Superman’s father sent his son’s pet on a test flight, where the Russians used strays…but let’s not dwell on that.)
Krypto had many appearances throughout the Silver Age and later, and more recently in the comics, has seen a return to DC’s current Superman mythos, where he makes the Fortress of Solitude his home.
Superman’s pet also had a brief appearance in the current wave of DC animation prior to this, showing up in the background, playing with baby Kal-el in the first episode of Superman: The Animated Series.
But this time, it’s all his show. The new series is divided into two 11-minute stories in each episode, and will be a part of Cartoon Network’s new lineup of programming aimed at the pre-school crown, Tickle U.
We spoke with Scott Jeralds, one of Krypto’s Supervising Producers and Director
“Cartoon Network was looking for a property to introduce to the younger set to kind of get them into superheroes,” Jeralds said. “Krypto was pretty much the logical choice. If you look back at the Silver Age comics, the Krypto stories were kind of the tag-ons to the Superman/Superboy legend that were there to spark the interest in the other characters. That’s not saying that they were throwaway stories, but they were kind of for a younger set, even back then.”
When the property came into Cartoon Network, it underwent an evolution from its first conception, according to Jeralds. “At first it was Krypto and the Super Pets, where they would take a lot of the pets from other DC characters. It moved through a couple of different designers as well, and by the time it came to me, stylistically, I’m into the older Hanna-Barbera stuff like Atom Ant, Secret Squirrel, Frankenstein Jr. and the others. That was the stuff that really got me wanting to draw when I was a kid, and made me want to get into the business, so when I draw, that’s kind of the style I gravitate towards.
“They kind of wanted a different look than what was out there, so I gave it a go in my style. It wasn’t necessarily ‘different,’ but rather it was something that people really hadn’t seen in thirty years or so. Even though it’s had a resurgence in reruns, that Hanna-Barbera look is still a style that’s relatively rarely seen these days. For this generation, that’s grown up on Rugrats and Spongebob, Powerpuff Girls, Dexter’s Lab and things like that, Krypto’s style has a very familiar feel, and people like it – they can’t put their finger on why it’s familiar, but it’s somehow familiar.”
While the main look of the characters in Krypto is a nod to Hanna-Barbera, the backgrounds intentionally were created to evoke a feeling of Golden Books in design and color, with their own H-B twist. “I did go back and look at Frankenstein Jr. and The Jetsons for the futureistics,” Jeralds said. “We made Metropolis look like a modern city but with a generic feel, so that you don’t know what time period this takes place in, exactly.”
So – setting up the story, yes, this is the same Krypto that was seen in the first episode of Superman: The Animated Series, albeit, Krypto’s series differs in tone slightly from Superman.
Speaking of the Man of Steel, Krypto isn’t about Superman and his dog romping through the solar system. In the series, Krypto stays with a nine year old boy, Kevin, who found the stray dog, shortly after his rocket landed on earth.
“In the first episode, we play to the reason why Kevin has Krypto and why it’s okay with Superman,” Jeralds said. “I don’t want to give anything away, but Superman and Kevin come to an agreement where Kevin can watch out for Krypto and Krypto can stay with Kevin. Of course, Superman can always come and visit Krypto – it’s still his dog, but they were separated when he was little, and he rediscovers him, but Superman is all grown up by that time, and is a superhero. Trust me; it’s a real touching moment when Superman comes by in the first episode to check in on his dog. The kid wants a dog and he finds one – it’s just that his dog has super-strength, can fly, and has x-ray vision, heat vision and everything else.”
While Superman is referred to quite a good deal in the series (and there are reasons why he can’t show up more than he does, according to Jeralds), the series is set squarely in the DC Universe, and that’s something Jeralds and company play up with the likes of Ace, the Bat-Hound, Streaky the Super-Cat, the Dog Star Patrol, the Joker’s Hyenas, Lex Luthor’s Iguana, and of course, Red Kryptonite.
“I think the older fans watching this, perhaps over the shoulders of their kids, will get a big kick out of our references back to the larger world the series takes place in,” Jeralds said. “It’s got something of a Rocky and Bullwinkle feel in that you can watch it on two different levels. I think so, anyway.
“When we set out to make this show, it was labeled as a pre-school show. But if you think of Atom Ant, Frankenstein Jr., and The Impossibles as a pre-school show, okay, it fits right in there. If you don’t think of those shows that way, well, okay, it’s not a preschool show. The only thing that’s very ‘pre-school’ about it is the theme song, which is very young and very boy-band catchy in its feel. As the show evolved, I don’t think we wrote for a preschool audience – we ended up writing a show that does hearken back to what kids’ cartoons were years ago – a villain of the week, and Krypto dealing with it. There are some episodes that skew a little younger, but we’re not talking down to kids at all.”
And going back to those guest-stars, Jeralds pointed to Krypto’s pals as another element of the show that gives it almost a Silver Age feel. “Ace the Bat-Hound will be used in about ten episodes, and we have Streaky the Super-Cat, but we played him to where he gets his powers from Krypto – there’s a duplicating ray that ricochets off of Krypto and hits Streaky. So, Streaky has Krypto’s powers, but not quite to the same extent. We have the Dog Star Patrol which DC was really happy for us to do anything with – they were kind of a legion of pets that showed up with the Legion of Super-Heroes in the Silver Age. We took them, redesigned them, and put them in. We made a few changes along the way as well – the comics had Prophetic Pup, but here, she’s Brainy Barker, an afghan who gives the group their orders. Krypto will team up with them on occasion.”
So, given the cast and the mission to make the series one aimed at a younger audience, how do you tell a good Krypto story? Jeralds’s rules are simple – just make it entertaining.
“There’s some moral stuff that comes out – it’s kind of hard to do a dog and boy show without having some kind of moral lesson in the end, I guess, but we’re just trying to make them entertaining stories,” Jeralds said. “My whole mantra about cartoons is just keep them moving. Krypto’s not your typical cartoon that you can find these days, showing kids in a schoolyard, bouncing a ball and talking for 30 minutes. This moves – it keeps going. Each episode is broken into two 11 minute segments, and it doesn’t stop until the 11 minutes are over. They’re paced pretty well, I think.
“Story-wise, we have dog and boy stories – we’ve got one where Krypto and Kevin switch personalities thanks to Red Kryptonite. There’s an episode where Bat-Hound gets sprayed by the Joker’s Hyenas, and keeps laughing and Krypto has to try and keep him together. Bat-Hound, as you can probably imagine, is very solemn, very straight and no-nonsense, just like his master - although, Ace would never refer to Batman as his ‘master.’ He’s his partner. All the other animals have masters, but Ace is very adamant about that – Batman is his partner, not his owner. There’s also a story where Krypto loses his powers through Red Kryptonite, and Ace has to teach him how to use all the gadgets that he uses to capture bad guys.
“It’s pretty straight superhero stuff. We’re not trying to preach to kids, we’re just trying to entertain them.”
26 episodes of Krypto are already in the works, each, in Jeralds’s view, holding fast to what makes a good cartoon about a boy and a super dog. “The Silver Age and the Hanna-Barbera stuff are our guiding stars. We’re not trying to reinvent the wheel here – we’re trying to make good cartoons, like the ones that we all remember as kids, things that haven’t been seen for a while. We’re trying to do that story-wise as well – we’re not trying to teach any lessons, we’re just trying to entertain, and to me, that’s what cartoons are about.”
Raph's Girl note: I have NO clue when Luthor got an Iguana but his name is Ignatious and is main super villian in this series.... :lol:
Once, in a simpler time, he was just the pet dog of a little boy named Kal-el. Add a rocket, a yellow sun, and a hefty dose of fate, and starting Monday on Cartoon Network, he’s Krypto the Superdog, star of his own animated series, and, audience acceptance willing, the new star of playground talk of pre-schools everywhere.
First appearing in Adventure Comics #210 in 1955, Krypto was the comic book answer to Laika and her comrades in the Soviet space program of the 1950s. Originally, as the story goes, Superman’s father, Jor-el sent Krypto up in a test rocket, to see if his plans for a rocket escape from Krypton’s imminent demise would work. (Yes – Superman’s father sent his son’s pet on a test flight, where the Russians used strays…but let’s not dwell on that.)
Krypto had many appearances throughout the Silver Age and later, and more recently in the comics, has seen a return to DC’s current Superman mythos, where he makes the Fortress of Solitude his home.
Superman’s pet also had a brief appearance in the current wave of DC animation prior to this, showing up in the background, playing with baby Kal-el in the first episode of Superman: The Animated Series.
But this time, it’s all his show. The new series is divided into two 11-minute stories in each episode, and will be a part of Cartoon Network’s new lineup of programming aimed at the pre-school crown, Tickle U.
We spoke with Scott Jeralds, one of Krypto’s Supervising Producers and Director
“Cartoon Network was looking for a property to introduce to the younger set to kind of get them into superheroes,” Jeralds said. “Krypto was pretty much the logical choice. If you look back at the Silver Age comics, the Krypto stories were kind of the tag-ons to the Superman/Superboy legend that were there to spark the interest in the other characters. That’s not saying that they were throwaway stories, but they were kind of for a younger set, even back then.”
When the property came into Cartoon Network, it underwent an evolution from its first conception, according to Jeralds. “At first it was Krypto and the Super Pets, where they would take a lot of the pets from other DC characters. It moved through a couple of different designers as well, and by the time it came to me, stylistically, I’m into the older Hanna-Barbera stuff like Atom Ant, Secret Squirrel, Frankenstein Jr. and the others. That was the stuff that really got me wanting to draw when I was a kid, and made me want to get into the business, so when I draw, that’s kind of the style I gravitate towards.
“They kind of wanted a different look than what was out there, so I gave it a go in my style. It wasn’t necessarily ‘different,’ but rather it was something that people really hadn’t seen in thirty years or so. Even though it’s had a resurgence in reruns, that Hanna-Barbera look is still a style that’s relatively rarely seen these days. For this generation, that’s grown up on Rugrats and Spongebob, Powerpuff Girls, Dexter’s Lab and things like that, Krypto’s style has a very familiar feel, and people like it – they can’t put their finger on why it’s familiar, but it’s somehow familiar.”
While the main look of the characters in Krypto is a nod to Hanna-Barbera, the backgrounds intentionally were created to evoke a feeling of Golden Books in design and color, with their own H-B twist. “I did go back and look at Frankenstein Jr. and The Jetsons for the futureistics,” Jeralds said. “We made Metropolis look like a modern city but with a generic feel, so that you don’t know what time period this takes place in, exactly.”
So – setting up the story, yes, this is the same Krypto that was seen in the first episode of Superman: The Animated Series, albeit, Krypto’s series differs in tone slightly from Superman.
Speaking of the Man of Steel, Krypto isn’t about Superman and his dog romping through the solar system. In the series, Krypto stays with a nine year old boy, Kevin, who found the stray dog, shortly after his rocket landed on earth.
“In the first episode, we play to the reason why Kevin has Krypto and why it’s okay with Superman,” Jeralds said. “I don’t want to give anything away, but Superman and Kevin come to an agreement where Kevin can watch out for Krypto and Krypto can stay with Kevin. Of course, Superman can always come and visit Krypto – it’s still his dog, but they were separated when he was little, and he rediscovers him, but Superman is all grown up by that time, and is a superhero. Trust me; it’s a real touching moment when Superman comes by in the first episode to check in on his dog. The kid wants a dog and he finds one – it’s just that his dog has super-strength, can fly, and has x-ray vision, heat vision and everything else.”
While Superman is referred to quite a good deal in the series (and there are reasons why he can’t show up more than he does, according to Jeralds), the series is set squarely in the DC Universe, and that’s something Jeralds and company play up with the likes of Ace, the Bat-Hound, Streaky the Super-Cat, the Dog Star Patrol, the Joker’s Hyenas, Lex Luthor’s Iguana, and of course, Red Kryptonite.
“I think the older fans watching this, perhaps over the shoulders of their kids, will get a big kick out of our references back to the larger world the series takes place in,” Jeralds said. “It’s got something of a Rocky and Bullwinkle feel in that you can watch it on two different levels. I think so, anyway.
“When we set out to make this show, it was labeled as a pre-school show. But if you think of Atom Ant, Frankenstein Jr., and The Impossibles as a pre-school show, okay, it fits right in there. If you don’t think of those shows that way, well, okay, it’s not a preschool show. The only thing that’s very ‘pre-school’ about it is the theme song, which is very young and very boy-band catchy in its feel. As the show evolved, I don’t think we wrote for a preschool audience – we ended up writing a show that does hearken back to what kids’ cartoons were years ago – a villain of the week, and Krypto dealing with it. There are some episodes that skew a little younger, but we’re not talking down to kids at all.”
And going back to those guest-stars, Jeralds pointed to Krypto’s pals as another element of the show that gives it almost a Silver Age feel. “Ace the Bat-Hound will be used in about ten episodes, and we have Streaky the Super-Cat, but we played him to where he gets his powers from Krypto – there’s a duplicating ray that ricochets off of Krypto and hits Streaky. So, Streaky has Krypto’s powers, but not quite to the same extent. We have the Dog Star Patrol which DC was really happy for us to do anything with – they were kind of a legion of pets that showed up with the Legion of Super-Heroes in the Silver Age. We took them, redesigned them, and put them in. We made a few changes along the way as well – the comics had Prophetic Pup, but here, she’s Brainy Barker, an afghan who gives the group their orders. Krypto will team up with them on occasion.”
So, given the cast and the mission to make the series one aimed at a younger audience, how do you tell a good Krypto story? Jeralds’s rules are simple – just make it entertaining.
“There’s some moral stuff that comes out – it’s kind of hard to do a dog and boy show without having some kind of moral lesson in the end, I guess, but we’re just trying to make them entertaining stories,” Jeralds said. “My whole mantra about cartoons is just keep them moving. Krypto’s not your typical cartoon that you can find these days, showing kids in a schoolyard, bouncing a ball and talking for 30 minutes. This moves – it keeps going. Each episode is broken into two 11 minute segments, and it doesn’t stop until the 11 minutes are over. They’re paced pretty well, I think.
“Story-wise, we have dog and boy stories – we’ve got one where Krypto and Kevin switch personalities thanks to Red Kryptonite. There’s an episode where Bat-Hound gets sprayed by the Joker’s Hyenas, and keeps laughing and Krypto has to try and keep him together. Bat-Hound, as you can probably imagine, is very solemn, very straight and no-nonsense, just like his master - although, Ace would never refer to Batman as his ‘master.’ He’s his partner. All the other animals have masters, but Ace is very adamant about that – Batman is his partner, not his owner. There’s also a story where Krypto loses his powers through Red Kryptonite, and Ace has to teach him how to use all the gadgets that he uses to capture bad guys.
“It’s pretty straight superhero stuff. We’re not trying to preach to kids, we’re just trying to entertain them.”
26 episodes of Krypto are already in the works, each, in Jeralds’s view, holding fast to what makes a good cartoon about a boy and a super dog. “The Silver Age and the Hanna-Barbera stuff are our guiding stars. We’re not trying to reinvent the wheel here – we’re trying to make good cartoons, like the ones that we all remember as kids, things that haven’t been seen for a while. We’re trying to do that story-wise as well – we’re not trying to teach any lessons, we’re just trying to entertain, and to me, that’s what cartoons are about.”
Raph's Girl note: I have NO clue when Luthor got an Iguana but his name is Ignatious and is main super villian in this series.... :lol: