Category: Thundercats

I turned Jules down because my last fee had been toward $50,000 – cash – for an Italian outfit; but Jules was persistent: “Just get over here,” he said. “What else are you doing?”

Indeed, what else was I doing – other than lying around in gorgeous Portugal?

A few days later I was lying on an uncomfortable bed in a crappy NY hotel and wondering what the hell I had done and how little Rankin Bass must think of me to put me up in such a dump. I went to the office in a dark frame of mind and reacquainted myself with Lee Dannacher, whom I had met briefly during Dorian.

She was Rankin Bass’s gofer, anchor, priceless resource – often, between productions, their only employee. A wonderful and ultimately tragic figure without whom I don’t believe a single episode of ThunderCats would have been produced. When I arrived, she was managing the writers, overseeing the art, editing the storyboards, recording the voices, ramrodding the animation taking place in Japan. Actually, doing just about everything and without, even then it seemed to me, much respect being shown her. At this distance, I truly believe that the intense pressure she endured for those years greatly contributed to her early death.

I owe Lee more than I can ever explain. More than I ever let her know. Perhaps more to the point ThunderCats owes her and it’s a disgrace that she never saw a dollar of the participation agreement she signed. Nor did I, by the way, but for every dollar I never received, she should have received ten.

Day one, they introduced me to the show: Len Starr’s bible, some Mike Germakian designs and a couple of scripts which didn’t impress me. Day Two, “Get started.” And so I began to write my first animated script and the first thing I ever wrote for the kids’ audience. It appeared as Episode 15, The Time Capsule. Not my finest work!

An aside: investigate ThunderCats on Wikipedia and similar resources and  – in my opinion – 50% of the information is bullshit and almost none of it gives sufficient credit to the driving forces that developed the show: Len Starr, Mike Germakian, Lee Danacher and Jules Bass himself. None of them save Jules received anything like the rewards they deserved but, probably more important to them, none of them received the credit they deserved.  I find it very interesting that the various subsequent attempts to capitalize on the original… subsequent series, movies, etc., never involved the original team which made the show a huge international success. None of them, in my view, really understood ThunderCats. But that’s this business. As William Goldman said, so often quoted ‘No one knows anything.’ Least of all I.

More next week…

Digressing: I was in Portugal, at one of Jerry Mason’s famous library shoots. Jerry was a good friend, a talented no-nonsense advertising and sports photographer who would have been a lot more visible and successful had he thrown the temperament and indulged in the bullshit of so many celebrity photographers of that time. Every year, at least once, Jerry assembled a team of models and took them to an exotic or interesting location where he shot stock pictures which photo libraries sold for ads and promotions.

This year he chose a beautiful castelo with terraces, patios and a huge pool. I lazed around while Jerry, his assistants and the models went to work. An aside: Jerry was a funny, charming personality, not excessively educated academically but worldly wise and dialled in.  He had served his National Service in the navy and, I believe, came to photography by accident. He wore cowboy boots, a Western-buckled belt, had  a slight overbite and an almost spectacular nose. Nothing in his appearance hinted at the extraordinary charisma that charmed us all and bewitched so many beautiful women. He was a gentleman, great company, generous and always optimistic. I miss him.

Jerry and the models were somewhere on the property quick-changing an astonishing range of costumes, some classic and some provocative, and I was lounging by the pool with a drink. The phone rang in the house. I ignored it. I had joined the party at the last minute and no on knew I was here. Actually, divorced and between relationships, I was renting the small apartment above Jerry’s London studio, which we nicknamed The Transit Lounge because so many of us passed through it from one life to another. I only mention this because very few people knew where I was parked. The ringing phone, therefore, would not have been for me.

But it was, one of Jerry’s harried assistant telling me that Jules Bass was on the line.

My first thought was how the hell did he know where I was – and how did he get the castelo’s number (a mystery I never solved and for some reason I never asked Jules); my second thought was what could he possibly want?

I had met Jules a couple of years earlier when I was contracted for seven days to rewrite a Movie Of The Week Rankin Bass had sold – a take on The Sins Of Doran Gray where Dorian was a female model and the picture was her showreel.

Jules had hired a friend of mine to direct. He had wanted to modify the screenplay and recommended that I do the work. I too was not impressed by the script but had no idea what I could do with it in seven days. However, Jules and the director weren’t really looking for my ideas.  Jules and my friend descended on each page as it emerged from the typewriter and as often as not would have notes scribbled all over it before I had finished the next page. I’ve never seen the movie but if it’s any good, none of it is my responsibility. That’s how I met Jules, who was very hospitable and introduced me to sushi, for which I am almost as grateful as I am for ThunderCats.  And the director introduced me to Gregory Peck, for whom I wrote a Capra-eque monologue. What an amazing experience for a neophyte.

Jules called:   “We’ve sold an animated show and I need some scripts.”  Me:  “Jules, I don’t know anything about animation.”  It was true. The only animation I had ever written was for a Firestone tire instructional, funnily enough directed by the same friend who brought me into Dorian. “Just get over here.” “I can’t ‘just get over’ there. I have stuff I have to do here.” “What stuff?” And, come to think of it, what did I have that I couldn’t put aside? “Come over and see how it goes.” Put like that, it seemed like a trip of a couple of weeks and who would pass up a free two weeks in New York? But one last question: “How much are you paying?”

“Two thousand dollars for 30 minutes. 20-23 on the page.”

I turned him down.

More next week…