One, Two, Three

Seff, 

That's all I hear in my head now: One, Two, Three... (higher! ONE TWO THREE!!!). Thanks a lot Doug and Vic! 

What a show! Megan was so funny! She brought some ENERGY! And Larry Charles? Awesome Show Producer Jon Mugar texted me: Well that made my week... It was so cool to hear him talk about our work in those terms...  So many people that work on our shows are responsible for the way he feels about them that I feel a little guilty having him single me out, but I'll take it!  

 It's still annoying how the Zoom feels glitchy and choppy - BUT! Eric Notarnicola was over yesterday to record a SOLO YEARS Episode (coming soon) and he took a look at the massive, literal web of connections going on and spotted an issue in the wiring of one of the Ethernet cables which could be causing a slow down on the zoom line..  we haven't fixed it yet but it should be sorted by the time we're back Live. The saga continues! 

Speaking of Eric, here's some breaking news some of you may have sniffed out already: This Friday Adult Swim is going to run a Decker Marathon to celebrate July 4th and they will kick it off at midnight with THE ANIMATED ADVENTURES OF JACK DECKER! 

Here's the deal folks: After the last batch of Decker aired we faced the usual confusing silence from Adult Swim about making more... Ratings were good, show is cheap to make, we love it... But there was no word for a while. After pressing and pressing, Mike Lazzo suggested it may work better as a cartoon? We were like, "OK sure, let's try it!" (in the back of my head, I thought, "nah, it's great the way it is")  We went through many versions of what a Decker Cartoon would/could/should be. Essentially it was a struggle to figure out "Why?" The Meta concept of Decker seemed to run at odds with how cartoons would be made in the real world. Gregg and I invented a false narrative that Axiom's family had connections with an Italian animation company and that it was this mess of foreign companies taking a nearly worthless property and exploiting it for children't Saturday morning cartoons...  We also loved the idea of using it as a way to introduce the fabled Tripp Spencer character and making him so indistinguishable from Kington, playing on one of our favorite joke formats in Decker: The laziness of its creators. 

Ultimately though,  my instincts were right: It's fun and it's really cool to look at and everyone did a great job but it just wasn't strong enough to warrant making a series of it.  It's fine with me. I don't love the Animation process from a creative perspective - Too many things have to get locked in  too early in the process - There are too many subtleties in the live action version (performance choices, aesthetics, set design, graphics, SVX etc) that get lost in Animation -   Hey it's OK, as Larry Charles said, failure is an important key to being a great artist. 

We would still love to make more live action Decker (we have a mountain of ideas) and feel like if we were still making it there's a good chance we would have accidentally already aired a season concerning a Chinese Hoax Virus or some shit like that... so maybe this marathon will drum up some interest in that. Or maybe you will LOVE the Cartoon and DEMAND we make 100 episodes of that! I doubt it though :) 

Finally, apologies for my rant on office hours about "the comments" I got riled up (was it the dead debate that soured me?) There was a well written comment  on the After Hours post from Patriot Edwin which made some good points, and sure,  I do want this space feel welcoming and lively...  and you should be able to freely comment and communicate with us and to the extent I have the time and interest is what you have the say I will be responsive... I love when people post links or suggestions because by and large this is a community of some pretty funny, smart and well rounded people and I am extremely grateful I don't seem to be cultivating a den of rats and shitheads!  I just thought it's worth pausing and considering how we comment and post online from time to time... I wrote a pretty heartfelt ode to one of my heroes and someone who's famously overrated to many, and even vehemently disliked, so it's not controversial to find that some people don't share my feelings - but maybe not every post needs to be a space for debate? Does that make sense?   In short, keep it positive gang! The 'net is FILLED to the brim with negativity and "snark" and maybe we can try and keep our  little page here be a supportive and encouraging environment... but also, please make fun of me too? 

I'll miss you next week.  Please keep safe and wear a fucking mask ok? 

PS. I'm LOVING a show on Amazon Prime called Patriot  from a few years ago... It's quickly rising to an ALL TIME GREAT SHOW in my opinion.  peace and love, peace and LOVE!