The early seasons of 'The Simpsons' had a great deal of heart. That's what I'm trying to pull from, the kind of stuff that goes straight to kids' hearts. When they're watching, they don't necessarily know why they love something.
Fred SeibertI come from a time when pop music was the coin of the cultural realm and in a certain way was the only coin of the realm; movies didn't matter as much, and not TV - it was all about pop music. In the era when I started - which was the early '60s - it was all about singles leading to albums.
Fred SeibertIf you mentioned Hanna-Barbera to people, they said, "Oh yeah, Flintstone, Yogi, Scooby-Doo, Jetsons," and that was pretty much it. We have characters with very high recognition factors and great films, but no organized plans for really making the most of them and increasing their value.
Fred SeibertIf you were to look at an old 'Betty Boop' cartoon or an 'Out of the Ink Well' animation, there are many things about 'Adventure Time' that really remind you of that, even though it doesn't look like any of those cartoons.
Fred SeibertMy background is that I've spent a lot of time marketing entertainment. One of the old saws in package goods is you can take something that is popular and you can make it more popular. But if you take something less popular, you can't automatically market it into the same success as something that's already popular.
Fred Seibert