Dime-A-Dozen Project #16 - Ruby, Galactic Gumshoe

Dime-A-Dozen Project #16 Ruby Galactic Gumshoe is a brief recounting of my effort to pitch and produce an animated project of the ZBS Foundation produced Adventures of Ruby: Galactic Gumshoe, a series of Sci-FI Fantasy audio adventures. ZBS Foundation is a non-for-profit organization that has been produce quality audio entertainment since the 1970s. I came across Ruby from an ad in the old Comic Buyers Guide, for the cassettes of Ruby's first stories, which aired on Public Radio stations across the country. I fell in love with the characters, the writing, music, and audio production.

I was inspired by Ruby and thought it would make a great animation project. While working in the animation business, I wanted to pitch original ideas and properties of others worthy of better exposure. Rudy was one of those properties. I did some concepts of the characters and wrote a brief series proposal to pitch to Disney TV Animation, where I was Co-Producer/Director on Disney's Gargoyles series. Disney passed on Ruby, so I set out to secure the rights myself, with the help of my agent, at the time.

I contact ZBS and they informed me the media rights for film and TV projects were sold to a Los Angeles producer, Lex Nakashima of LX Ltd. They were very helpful and encouraging, even sending me a copy of the original Ruby script. I contacted and met Lex was kind enough to give me a shoot at pitching Ruby around to studios, since his own efforts were in a dormant state. Once the rights were secured, I did a storyboard and animatic of the first Ruby story, to support the written proposal. I also, used the images from the animatic to made a Dragonfly Flipz book. Unfortunately, after several years of trying no project could be secure. (it didn't help my last pitch meeting was cancel as it fell on 9/11/ 2001, yes that 9/11) My agreement with Lex ended and last i heard another producer had taken the rights. That was well over 12 years ago, and I haven't seen any mention of a Ruby project. So, Ruby enters my Dime-A-Dozen Project archive.

Happily, ZBS Foundation is still going strong. i still hope someone makes a Ruby movie or TV series someday. This video is the latest installment of my Dime-A-Dozen Projects, so named from a conversation with creative friends of mine as we lamented that when we were working full-time for someone else, like Disney, Warner Bros , and Sony, we get these (in our minds) original million dollar ideas, that would, somehow, turn into "dime-a-dozen" ideas when we were out of work and on our own. I have tons of unfinished projects in the form of character sketches, incomplete written outlines, half drawn comic pages, and full illustrations. You get the idea, a "dime-a-dozen" idea. I'm feeling the need to catalog for my own sanity and for a simple record to leave my kids, and as I said above, along the way rekindle my creative juice and start drawing again. Enjoy.

Thundercats Tuesday - TC 124 -126, Ma-Mutt's Confusion, Shadowmaster, and Swan Song.

This week's Thundercats Tuesday, features TC# 124 - 126, and includes a personal milestone and highlight of mine.  TC # 125, Shadowmaster was my first scriptwriting assignment.  Plus, I got to design the new characters for the episode, including, of course the Shadowmaster character.  My original plot outline for the story was totally overwritten.  (I'll touch on that, later in this post)  Only the  smart editing of the talented Peter Lawrence, story editor, saved me from embarrassing myself.  I'm eternally indebted to producer, Lee Dannacher, and Peter for giving me the chance to write for the Thundercats.

Let's start with TC# 124 - "Ma-Mutt's Confusion.

The Babylonian Barbarian Boiler is my all time favorite Thundercat prop design.  The scene of Mum-Ra running back and forth with the bucket reminds me of the famous Disney's Sorcerer's Apprentice scene from Fantasia.

 TC # 125 - "Shadowmaster"

 The original plot for the Shadowmaster had enough story elements for three shows.  I introduced a parallel group of Thundercats-like heroes, in the ShadowRealm, called LightLancers.  The LightLancers were defeated,  and disbanded by the Shadowmaster, and their world plunged into darkness.  The lone dispirited LightLancer at first challenged Lion-O, but Lion-O enlisted him to defeat the Shadowmaster.  In doing so, The Lion-O helped the LightLancer regain his power to regroup his companions and restore the land.  This sub-plot was in addition to the main Claudus storyline.  So, yeah, there was no way this could fit in a 1/2 hour show.  Thanks goodness for Peter's editing.

 Brute the Shadow beast was an example of over designing a character.   The multiple heads was a little much for the time the Beast was on the screen.  I'm happy the animation team give it a shot.

 I always wondered if many Thundercats fans caught my homage to Star Wars with the final scene of the episode with Claudus and Jaga, just like the Darth Vader and Obi Wan shot at end of The Return of the Jedi.

TC # 128- "Swan Song"

Swan Song saw the return of Two-Time, the two-head robot, and his flying ship Domedown.

Only four more episodes to go.  But find some extra item to keep Thundercats Tuesdays going.  Enjoy.

Thundercats Tuesday - TC # 120 - 123

Here's this week's Thundercats Tuesday enter features four stand alone episodes.  The production numbers for the shows are TC #120, 121,122, and 123.  These shows were light on new character designs, and other designs, too.  Sometimes it is good to conserve you production budget by re-using characters, props, and backgrounds.  This is easier to do with shows, like Thundercats,  that have a deep stock of established characters and backgrounds.

First up, TC #120 - "Malcar".

 

 Those were tablet that were to be in the tomb of Malcar showing other wizards, but they didn't make it into the episode.  The "punny" names were my idea.

 TC #121  - "Helpless Laughter"

 

 These are the Evil Lily pads from TC # 117 - "Frogman"

TC # 122 - "Cracker's Revenge".

 Here's Capt. Bragg and Crownan.

 Capt.Cracker from the first season.

 Mandora, form the first season, also.

 Here's are-use of the Bragg's circus train.

 Even the Luna-Taks are in this episode.

Not sure this made it into the show.

 TC #122 - "The Mossland Monster".

 Here's a Stone cat  Giant from TC #111 - Return to Thundera Part 1

Like I said, these episodes featured lot of established characters.  Let me know in a comment,  who are your favorite support characters in the Thundercat's series, other than the main Thundercats.  Mandora is one of my favorites.  Thanks for dropping by.  Enjoy.