Chowder Returns This Week!

Thursday night will premiere a new episode titled "The Party Cruise." Mung just wants to go fishing but ends up on a cruise ship piloted by Reuben. It was boarded by Chris Reccardi and William Reiss.


You might have seen the press releases of the new shows coming to Cartoon Network. There's a big shift in what this network will be next year, and we don't know if we'll still be a part of it. There will be new Chowders airing until the end of the year, but right now we're winding down production. People get laid off starting at the end of next week. We could still be picked up, but it would be hard to reassemble the crew in its current form. If this really is the end, then it's been a good run and we've had a lot of fun. I hope you all continue to enjoy the show.



EDIT: This will be the only week with a new Chowder episode until June. We'll be back soon with lots of goodness.

Batman Adventures : TURDFOOT!

When I'm out walking my dog, he has a habit of doing the butt scoot when he poops. That's where he slowly walks forward as poops come out, like he's an asphalt machine laying pavement. One day as he was laying his stinky asphalt, he stepped in an older turd left by some other dog. It stuck to his foot like a big turd shoe.


Needless to say he got a good hosing down before he was let back in the house.

Team In Training

A friend of mine is participating in Team in Training, an organization that raises money for Lukemia and Lymphona research and services. She's been working hard but still needs some donations to meet her goal. I know no one has a ton of money right now, but if each person who reads this, each person who buys a cup of coffee or a smoothie or a donut each day gave $5 (tax-deductible!) her goal could be reached in no time. It's a very worth-while cause. Very few of us get to feel like heroes, but this is actually a way in which you can help save a life, make someone's day a little easier, and make someone's struggle a bit less daunting.

Here's a link to her page.

We're also gathering some original artwork to be auctioned on ebay. I'll post those auctions as soon as they're up.

I hope that you can donate. Whether or not you can, I hope you will pass this information on to others who may be able to.

Thanks to those who've already given. I really do appreciate it.

Chowder DVD Vol.2

It's out now and has the next 5 half-hours on it! In the original widescreen format, I'm told!

Here are the episodes:
The Wrong Address & The Wrong Customer
Burple Nurples & Shnitzel Makes a Deposit
Gazpacho Stands Up & A Taste of Maripan
The Puckerberry Overlords & The Elemelons
Sniffleball & Mung on the Rocks

New Batman Adventures

Batman made a full and speedy recovery from his surgery. Since then, he's been settling into life here and mellowing out a bit. The only thing is he's taken his name a little too much to heart. I live in the canyons and Batman, like his 60's TV show namesake, thinks it's fun to scale along the side of steep cliffs. He literally dangles from his leash while I desperately hang on, trying not to fall over the edge.


This is him being a good boy. I did discover that it's hard to get dog slobber out of upholstery.

New Chowder this Week!

This Thursday night there's a new Chowder and Flapjack, so be sure to tune in at 8pm (Pacific) and see the return of Marzipan's finest, the Marzipan City Police Department. And in the second story, The Shopping Spree, there's a very special surprise!

In April we'll have 4 weeks of new episodes. And then around the end of June, you'll get a new episode every week until the end of the year. So hang on.



EDIT:
The next premiere date keeps changing. It looks like the month of April now. I'll post info as it gets closer.

The Batman Adventures

Things have been very busy lately. I moved, got a dog, and am doing a freelance Chowder board on top of my executive producer duties. All at once! Remind me never to do this again. I always say I'll never do another board, then months later, I'm craving the chance to write one. This one should be fun, if I can ever finish it: Gazpacho takes the kids scouting and nearly gets them all killed.

So this new dog... I've always loved dogs but haven't had once since I was a kid. I finally have the space for one so I went on Petfinder.com to find a rescue. All I knew was I wanted an older, mellower dog. Nothing too small, but not too big. And I came across BATMAN.

The name instantly caught my eye. Batman is a 60 lb, five-year-old bull terrier/American Staffordshire terrier mix. He came neutered, microchipped, house-trained and crate trained. He's super-sweet and 10x awesome. We love him to pieces.


But he's got jaws like a trash compactor. He can destroy a rawhide bone like nothing I've ever seen.

One week after we got him, he got terribly sick. He was barfing nonstop and spraying diarrhea all over the yard. The worst part was when he exploded stinky butt blood fluid in the laundry room. I felt like I had walked into a scene in Resident Evil.



So after an emergency operation, we discovered he swallowed something he shouldn't have and it got stuck in his intestines. The offending culprits turned out to be a chunk of tennis ball and some rope from a toy. I know what he won't be playing with anymore!



When he came home, he had to wear the dreaded cone for a bit.And like all dogs forced to wear silly hats, it made him miserable. Of course, I probably wasn't helping by saying things like:


Now he's doing a lot better and seems more like his old self. After all, you can't kill the Batman!

More adventures to come...

deviantART Scammer

December has been an unusually busy month. I'll post about some of it soon. But thanks to the people who tipped me on to this:

There's someone posing as me on devinatART.
http://greenblatt.deviantart.com
This person has uploaded art from this blog and, worst of all, is asking for donations.

DO NOT GIVE.

It's not me. I would never, ever ask for your money. Just enjoy the show we all work so hard on. That's all I'll ever ask from anyone.

And the email they posted (greenblatt@hotmail.com) is not a valid email to reach me at. It's this impostor.

I've written to deviantART and asked them to take the page down. So spread the word.

And the real way you know it's not me... I don't celebrate Christmas. I'm Jewish. So epic fail, dude.

Knishmas!

The Chowder holiday special Hey, Hey It's Knishmas airs this week, Thursday at 8pm. I'm very proud of how it turned out and I hope everyone out there enjoys it. I think we've made a good, classic holiday story with a weird Chowder twist. One of our color stylists had a book of vintage Christmas wrapping paper and, as you can see, we went bonkers using them as patterns.





And here's the opening city pan, beautifully painted by Joe Bingelli. Enjoy it now before it gets covered up by the titles.

ASIFA Auction

If you live in NY and like animation, go to the ASIFA art auction tonight. It's hosted by Tom Warburton, creator of Kid's Next Door. Check out all the info at his blog. There's lots of art from Cartoon Network creators and other awesome artists. Here's a doodle I donated. See if you can find the rest of the cast hidden in there:

Chowder Comic

DC's monthly Cartoon Cartoon comic book featuring different Cartoon Network shows just ran their first Chowder story! I wrote it and, rather than typing it up as a script, scribbled it up as a rough layout. So here are the roughs I submitted, including the cover sketch. The comic should be available in stores now.

Also be sure to watch a new Chowder this Thursday night at 8pm. There'll be no new Chowder next week because of Thanksgiving, but tune in the following Thursday, December 4th, for our big holiday special!

New Chowder Tonight!

Beginning this week, there will be more than a month of new Chowder premiers! Tonight's episode is one of my favorites, Panini for President/Chowder's Babysitter. The artwork above is from a deleted scene.

And get ready for our big holiday special in mid-December, Hey Hey It's Knishmas! It turned out great. I'll post more about it as we get closer.

Oh, and be sure to grab the Chowder vol 1 DVD! It has the first five produced half-hours on it (10 stories total), each presented in their original wide-screen format. You'll see more picture than was shown on broadcast, plus an animatic for Chowder's Girlfriend.

Chowder Marathon

Catch a full day of Chowder, this Sunday starting at noon on CN.

Real World Food Counterparts

I've been asked if all the characters on Chowder are named after food. Yes they are. Usually when I come up with a character for the show, I make a list of foods and try to find the name that seems to fit. And for those of you who were curious, here are the real world equivalents:

MUNG DAAL
Mung Daal is a thick, spicy stew made with the mung bean, sometimes spelled as "moong dal." The bean is used in a variety of Asian cooking. If you've had bean sprouts, then you've eaten mung beans. Originally Mung was going to have an Indian accent, but I decided against it early on.

Here's a picture of the bean.

And here's a picture of the finished daal dish.



ENDIVE
Endive is a type of chicory: a bitter, leafy vegetable. Belgian endive is considered kind of fancy. Combine bitter and fancy and it seemed to fit the character of Endive pretty well.



GAZPACHO
Gazpacho is a cold, uncooked tomato soup, sometimes chunky almost like a salsa. I dunno why it suited the character, but it fit right away.



GORGONZOLA
A veined, Italian bleu cheese. I hate bleu cheese. It's one of the few foods I dislike. So it seemed appropriate to use for a character that didn't get along with Chowder.

Underfist this Weekend!

Art by Maxwell Atoms.

If you like Billy and Mandy, be sure to watch the spinoff special "Underfist" this Sunday night at 7pm.

It was a real labor of love by Maxwell Atoms. If you look hard enough, you can see his sweat in it. There's even a B&M marathon leading up to it featuring all the Underfist heroes: Fred Fredburger, General Skarr, Hoss Delgado, Jeff the Spider, and Irwin.

Visit Maxwell Atoms' blog for more info.

The Arborians

Well unbeknownst to me, a new episode aired last week. Luckily if you missed it, they've got it up on the CN website.

Watch the full 11 minute episode here! There's a sneak peek at "Underfist" there as well. It airs this Sunday, October 12 at 7 pm. Be sure to watch it!

Arbor was played by Ron Perlman. He was awesome! And the best part was the Nicky Jones (who plays Chowder) was speechless to be in the same room with Hellboy!

Nine more!

Well we got picked up for 9 more half-hours. We're all very excited, but not sure what to make of that number. It's not a full season, but it keeps us going. New Chowders will air this November, right around the election. In fact, we're premiering with an election-themed episode, "Panini for President."

There's a Chowder DVD coming out in November as well. I'll post more info as I know it.

Here's a piece I drew early on for an internal Cartoon Network calendar. The painting he's chewing on is temporary placement art.


Thanks to those who came to the SF talk last week! And thanks to Martine at the Commonwealth Club and Travis at the Apple Store for putting it on.



Oh, and comments have been turned off for a while.

Friday in San Fran

Live in San Francisco? Have nothing to do Friday night? Then stop by the downtown Apple Store at 7 pm. I'll be giving a talk about Chowder courtesy of the Commonwealth Club. Why the Apple Store? I guess because they agreed to host it. And since Chowder is on itunes, it's sort of cross-promotion.

Location: Apple Store, One Stockton St.
Time: 7 p.m.
Cost: FREE

P.S.
Please keep the comments civil and under control. If it isn't about a post or a question you have, then save it for a forum. And I promise I'll try to answer some frequently asked questions soon.

ComiCon 2008 - The Video

Here's a video with highlights from the Con. You'll even see me and my chest make a little cameo. Plus you'll get peeks at some voice actors and awesome costumes. It's like being there with but with 80% less farts to walk through!

ComiCon 2008

The con was fun as usual, even thought it was a bit crowded. Nothing in particular stood out to me this year, but I did snag a few good books and t-shirts. There's a really great collection of Jules Feiffer comic strips from the Village Voice that Fantagraphics is putting out. The Chowder signing and panel went very well. Thanks to everyone who showed up! We had a lot of great questions and enthusiastic fans.


Here are some Chowder fans waiting in line. Thanks for the drawing Cammiluna!


Some fan art.


Here's me, Tara Strong (Truffles) and Dwight Schultz (Mung).




And here's a little treat we found...

Never leave the con without some Enchanted Wood!!!