I have always loved Genndy Tartakovsky. A name, along with other greats such as Craig McCracken, Friz Freleng, Chuch Jones, John K., and many others, seared into my head as a child.
Anyhow I happened along an article about JJ Abrams and Genndy doing a Samurai Jack film. I followed it to Genndy Tartakovsky's Wikipedia page. On there I saw the article "What Made Him The Cartoon Genius He Is Today?!". I wanted to read it really badly. Unfortunately it was stored on GeoCities which, if you were not aware, has recently been closed down. I really wanted to read the article so I searched the internet's various caches, eventually finding it hidden away on the wayback machine. I read it, and it doesn't include the amazing secret to being awesome as I had hoped it would from the title. It does have some insights thought, so I thought I would put the original article up here to make it a bit more accessable and hopefully easier to find for other hoping to read it too. So here it is:
Just What Made Him The Cartoon Genius He Is Today?!
Written by Paul Senior
Note: "Genndy" is pronounced with a hard "G" sound.
The supervising producer/director of Dexter's lab was born in Moscow, Russia in approximately 1970. Father was a dentist who defected with his wife and two boys {Genndy and older brother Alex} to the USA in 1977. Landing in Columbus, Ohio they eventually settled in Chicago.
As soon as they arrived, Genndy began collecting comic books {The very first one was a copy of DC's Super Friends, based on the TV show}, which he still collects to this day. His favorites were Marvel comics such as Captain America, The Avengers, The Fantastic Four, Thor, Spider-man and Daredevil. He enjoyed the typical Marvel soap opera plots, where the Guest Hero would fight the Regular Hero, them they would team up and whup the Bad Guys. He began drawing cartoons with his brother, Alex stopped drawing and became a computer scientist. Young Genndy would also spend lots of time watching television, "When I first discovered television here, I watched it non-stop,morning, after school, at night-I couldn't get away from it." Genndy picked up the English language quicky as a result. Some of his favorite cartoons were Hanna-Barbera's "Dynomutt" {1976-9} and "Captain Caveman" {1977-?} Interestingly, Frank Welker performed the voice of Dynomutt, much later he would voice "Monkey" for Genndy. Amazingly he also cites the situational 70's comedy "Three's Company" as an influence on his story-telling. As Genndy grew older his fascination with animation grew, he studied cartoons and made his own flip-books.
He decided to pursue a career an animation, beginning study at Columbia College in Chicago. He then moved to Los Angeles, California to attend Valencia's Cal Arts in 1990. It was at this time that Dexter's laboratory was born as one of his two student films. His first paying work was a two minute cartoon for a multi-media play that involved puppetry, video, animation and live action called "Stumpy’s Gang." He then found work as an in-betweener on "Batman:The Animated series","Tiny Toons", and "The Critic". His formulaic work on the latter show served to sharpen his personal style. Genndy then worked for Hanna-Barbera on "Two Stupid Dogs", for The Cartoon Network. A producer at H-B asked for Genndy's student demo tape, which included the early two-minute version of Dexter. He pitched H-B with a seven minute storyboard and they bought it for their new "World Premiere Toons" show. After a positive reaction they picked it up for 52 half-hour episodes in mid 1996, with the first episodes airing later that year. Genndy is working with CalArts compadre Craig McCracken on his show "The Power Puff girls", which premieres November 18 1998 on the Cartoon Network.
Genndy's older brother Alex is part of his model for Dexter, Genndy would foil his plans Dee-Dee-style. According to Wired magazine, he creates Dexter's adventures solely for his own amusement."I'm not being sincere if I do it for other people." he says. He is obviously fond of the "new wave" of animation as opposed to the Disney-style traditional approach. He takes a very active role in the show, as well as creating it and it's characters, he contributes story ideas, writes scripts, produces storyboards, directs the animation, directs the dialogue in the studio, all the way through supervising returning artwork and editing. He also drew the first Dexter comic in DC's "Cartoon Network Presents #1", and wrote the "Dial "M" for Monkey" story in "Cartoon Network Presents #4" He is also co-writing and pencilling the Dexter's lab mini-series.
Genndy is single and lives in California. He draws 60 hours a week in his cluttered studio in the H-B lot. He eats too many burritos and has a permanent dent in his finger from drawing. He likes the new Superman cartoon. Genndy's favorite Dexter episodes are "Old Man Dexter", and "Hamhocks and armlocks".
