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The Star Online

Michigan native Butch Hartman remembers wanting to create cartoons as far back as kindergarten.

"When I was in kindergarten, the teacher asked the class to draw a picture of her. She liked my drawing the most. She hung it up on the wall and made a big fuss over it. I realised art was a good way to get attention and I was hooked," says Hartman.

He pursued drawing through high school and then attended California Institute of the Arts to study animation. Although he was interested in acting, Hartman decided on animation as a career after working freelance as an assistant animator on An American Tail during his senior year at the institute. Upon graduation, he worked as a character designer and storyboard artist for Marvel Productions.

In 1991, he joined Hanna-Barbera and for six years did storyboard work, directed cartoons and created his own shorts for What A Cartoon! He also wrote and directed episodes of Dexter's Laboratory, Cow & Chicken and Johnny Bravo before churning out three shorts - Pfish & Chip, Hillbilly Blue and Gramps.

After Hanna-Barbera, Hartman began working on Nickelodeon's Oh Yeah, Cartoons! He created a new short for Nickelodeon, The Fairly OddParents, which was developed into an animated series. His latest creation, Danny Phantom, will premiere on Nickelodeon Asia in the second half of the year.

"I've been doing animation professionally since 1986," says the 38-year-old in a recent interview at Nickelodeon Studios, Los Angeles.

To be an animator, one should have a good sense of humour and be a good actor besides the ability to draw, according to Hartman.

"Someone who wants to animate and bring drawings to life should be a good actor, and be able to put their acting into their drawings because these are drawings that move and they have to act like you.

"I'm a very hyper person, so all my characters are very hyper. Some guys I know are heavy and their characters are slow and heavy. So a lot of what you are goes into your drawings."

Working on a cartoon series involves teamwork, and it always begins with a story idea. Brainstorming for ideas for each episode of The Fairly OddParents begins by finding an "issue" for the main character, 10-year-old Timmy.

"It's a bunch of us sitting in this room and coming up with ideas. We ask ourselves: What is Timmy's problem today?

"In one of our stories, his parents have too many rules: he has to eat spinach, take a bath, and go to bed at a certain time. He has all these rules, and he wishes his parents didn't care anymore.

"Then his parents don't have rules. They let him eat candy for dinner, not take a bath, and go without a haircut. Eventually he starts to smell bad because he doesn't take his bath, and his friends don't want to hang around him anymore.

"So Timmy learns that, with no rules, the house could turn into a big mess. He realises that rules are every important," says Hartman.

"We had another episode where Timmy goes into his comic book to meet his favourite superhero, The Crimson Chin, the guy with the big, red chin," adds Hartman, pointing to a poster of The Crimson Chin on the wall. (The Crimson Chin is voiced by Jay Leno, The Tonight Show host.) "That was something I always wanted to do when I was a kid."

After the creative team has settled on the main issue, they then come up with the jokes and lines for Cosmo and Wanda, the magic-working couple who "adopt" Timmy and use magic to help him in his battles against his two-faced babysitter, Vicki.

While Timmy is named after Hartman's youngest brother, the character Danny Fenton - aka Danny Phantom - reflects Hartman when he was a teenager.

"Danny is pretty much me at age 14 -- a skinny, black-haired kid in high school. That's what I always wanted to be in high school -- a kid with super powers -- but I never was," laughs Hartman.

"He's not only a freshman, he's a nerd, and now he's got super powers. He doesn't know how to control them yet, so what is he going to do with all that?"

Does Hartman inject any messages into his cartoons?

"When the kids watch my shows, they should just have fun," says the father of two daughters aged eight and six. "I'm out there to entertain the kids first, make them have a good time, make them want to come back and watch it again.

"I just want to grab them and not let them go for half an hour, then I'll let them go, and they can come back if they want to. But I don't want them to get bored, that's why everything is cut so fast. But there's no message, no moral, really.

"But I do put a lot of love in my shows and that'll come through, hopefully."

- By EVELYN LEN

'The Fairly OddParents' is aired over Nickelodeon (Astro, Channel 60, Singapore) on Saturdays and Sundays at 9.30am and 5.30pm.

A sneak preview of 'Danny Phantom', the newest Nicktoon, will be shown on the same channel on June 6, 2004 (time to be confirmed later), just before the screening of the Nickelodeon 17th Kids' Choice Awards. Regular weekly episodes, as yet unscheduled, will begin in the second half of the year.

Both interviews were arranged by Nickelodeon Asia prior to the 17th Kids' Choice Awards held on April 3, 2004. The trip to Los Angeles was sponsored by Singapore Airlines.