You don't expect everyone out there watching to believe that this cartoon is real, that this drawing has really come to life. But on some level, you do. You try to cast a spell. You want the world to feel real. It's a nerdy pursuit.

Almost any problem, whether it's telling a family story, or telling a network-quality story, or answering a network note, becomes essentially instantly solvable, because you have a bunch of brains sitting in a room.

You can make a little thing feel like a big thing. To me, it's all tone. Tone is the most important thing in the world. Then character, then story, or something like that.

I tend to think of all new voices as a potential for failure, and all the people I've worked with before as the greatest potential for success.

You don't expect everyone out there watching to believe that this cartoon is real, that this drawing has really come to life. But on some level, you do. You try to cast a spell. You want the world to feel real. It's a nerdy pursuit.

I would never want to be a trend-spotter, in any field. I just think I would be bad at it. I have very limited range, in terms of the tone of the show, that I'm capable of making.

It's hard enough to do a good show, but it seems like not enough to want to do that.