When I got out of college I worked for DC comics. I worked on staff there and I also freelanced for them for about a decade. I spent two years on staff as an editor right out of college. I'm from Los Angeles and I came back here after a couple of years in New York, to go to Graduate School at USC. I wasn't thinking specifically about animation although while I'd worked at DC.
Greg WeismanI had studied William Shakespeare in Oxford, England and I had this sort of high faluttin' education but I had also worked in comic books. So, I wasn't too proud to work in something like cartoons.
Greg WeismanWe had 10 months, sliding schedule to do 52 episodes. After you get over the shock of the size of the number, the job became one of expansion.
Greg WeismanI've been fascinated with gargoyles since I was a kid. I took a high school trip to Europe, the 8 countries in 5 weeks kind of trip. Even then I collected postcards of gargoyles. Then I sort of forgot about it. You flash-forward a few years and I'm at Disney, we're looking for an idea to base a show on. I was running series development at the time at Disney TV Animation. And we came up with the Gargoyles comedy series. Which didn't sell!
Greg WeismanSometimes when you're in the midst of something you don't always appreciate it while you're doing it. Gargoyles was an exception to that. At the time, I knew we were doing something kind of special. Something that might not be repeatable. It turned out to be, professionally.
Greg WeismanWhat goes through one's head when Disney asked for 52 more shows? I remember seeing that in the supplemental features...When they first said "52" I literally laughed, I thought they were kidding. They said, "Well, how many do you think could do?" And I said, "Well, we've got 6 scripts in the works, so 6 obviously we could do. We did 13 last year, I think we could do 13 this year without a problem." I said, "If we really pushed it, I think we could do 18." And they said, "What about 52?" I started laughing but they were serious and eventually they did get the 52 episode order.
Greg Weisman