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Speaker 1: You're listening to Math and Magic, a production at my

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. When we first got to MTV, you actually

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Speaker 1: were the guy who inspired us to do animated logos.

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Speaker 1: I said, well, what are we going to do in

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Speaker 1: between the videos and the VJs? Are we gonna do jingles?

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Speaker 1: Went oh, no, we can't do jingles? And I said,

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Speaker 1: well what do we do? He said, how about this?

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Speaker 1: Imagine It's like a picture of a cow, you know,

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Speaker 1: a drawn cow. I said, yeah, he said, and all

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Speaker 1: of a sudden, an X comes down and cuts the

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Speaker 1: cow's head off, and it falls to the ground, and

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Speaker 1: you see the veins coming out and the blood spurting out,

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Speaker 1: and the cow vomits, and in the vomit is the logo.

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Speaker 1: I went, oh my god, I can do anything I want.

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Speaker 1: I am Bob Pittman. And this is Math and Magic

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Speaker 1: Stories from the Frontiers and Marketing, where we or the

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Speaker 1: insights side of marketing the creative side, and how they

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Speaker 1: come together to create the truly remarkable ideas and successes. Today,

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Speaker 1: on this episode, we have someone who is a true iconoclast.

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Speaker 1: Somebody would call him a Frankie creative genius, Fred Cyber.

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Speaker 1: Welcome Fred, Fred and I were part of the birth

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Speaker 1: of MTV. Were at the first twenty four hour day

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Speaker 1: movie pace service the movie channel before that, playing around

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Speaker 1: with the concept of making a channel the thing instead

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Speaker 1: of just letting the shows set the image of the network.

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Speaker 1: Bred and I also shared roots and radio as our start.

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Speaker 1: Fred gets most of the credit for the original groundbreaking

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Speaker 1: look unfield of MTV. He also helped Jerry Laborn when

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Speaker 1: she created the first tween a network, which is Nickelodeon.

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Speaker 1: I can still remember when he pitched the brand image

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Speaker 1: for Nickelodeon and it was like orange, that's it Orange,

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Speaker 1: And of course, all these years later it was as

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Speaker 1: impactful as the look of MTV. Bred went on to

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Speaker 1: do so much more in branding, network creative and a

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Speaker 1: major career and a major influence and animation from his

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Speaker 1: time as the head of Hanna Barbera to his own Frederator.

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Speaker 1: He also discovered and developed some great talent one of

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Speaker 1: his superpowers. We're here to get into all that and more,

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Speaker 1: but first, Fred, we're gonna do you in sixty seconds.

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Speaker 1: Just give us quick reactions, just to warm us up. So, Fred,

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Speaker 1: do you prefer cats or dogs? Dogs, hoodies or button downs?

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Speaker 1: Button downs? Power puff Girls or Johnny Bravo. Oh, definitely

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Speaker 1: power puff Girls. Mets are Yankees, Martha Quinn or Nina Blackwood,

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Speaker 1: Martha cup Or Cone Cone Disney or Hannah Barbara Barbara.

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Speaker 1: For sure, it's about to get harder. What's your favorite city?

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Speaker 1: New York City? Favorite cartoon? Bugs Bunny. What would you

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Speaker 1: eat for your last meal? Probably the same thing I

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Speaker 1: eat for my first meal, some yogurt and some chicken.

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Speaker 1: And you've always eaten met since I've known you. Smartest

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Speaker 1: you know? Bob Pittman, Oh, right, childhood? He wrote, that's

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Speaker 1: tough too. I don't know my parents. I guess first

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Speaker 1: job working in my parents pharmacy. Favorite book, Dashell Hammett

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Speaker 1: anything that he wrote. Quote to Live by something by

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Speaker 1: Winston Churchill about success is after a lot of failures?

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Speaker 1: Worth bad or fashion trend you've participated in? Probably my

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Speaker 1: khakis and white button down shirts. You've never changed. God

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Speaker 1: bless you. Who would play you in a movie? Everyone

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Speaker 1: says that I look like the late Harold Remus. What

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Speaker 1: would be the title of your memoir? He tried really hard,

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Speaker 1: proud professional achievement. There's nothing I've ever done that I

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Speaker 1: didn't have a great time doing it. So how about

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Speaker 1: this creating the catalog for a jazz label called Mosaic Records.

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Speaker 1: God bless you. What's your favorite ice cream flavor? A

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Speaker 1: mixture of vanilla and chocolate yogurt flavor? Plain? Best live

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Speaker 1: concert b B King at the Fillmore East done? Excellent?

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Speaker 1: Was that was a good set of questions. But before

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Speaker 1: we go back to your beginnings, let's talk about people,

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Speaker 1: because I do think this is one of your superpowers.

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Speaker 1: Let's talk about people who you hired, mentored, or help develop.

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Speaker 1: Seth McFarlane from Family Guy, famed Judy McGrath who went

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Speaker 1: on to be CEO of MTV Networks, who, by the way,

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Speaker 1: has been here. She said. The interview went is what

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Speaker 1: music do you like? She said somebody? You said wrong

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Speaker 1: And the rest of the time you talked and she

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Speaker 1: got the jobs she said Bruce Springsteen and I said wrong.

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Speaker 1: And Foley who helped build Showtime Programming and they headed that. Well,

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Speaker 1: you developed her? Why we all did? But all did?

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Speaker 1: But you know, you've had a really great track record.

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Speaker 1: How do you spot talent? You know, it's a really

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Speaker 1: mystical process. When you asked me to come and talk

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Speaker 1: to you about working with you. I said, you know,

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Speaker 1: I only watched TV. I don't make and you said,

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Speaker 1: come talk to me anyway, and we had a quick

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Speaker 1: cup of coffee like at the Four Seasons or something

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Speaker 1: like that, and I didn't think another thing about it

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Speaker 1: until you called and said you're hired, and it was like,

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Speaker 1: I wonder why. And I think that almost everybody that

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Speaker 1: I've met with it's that same kind of process. Basically,

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Speaker 1: it's having a conversation with somebody and go, you know,

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Speaker 1: I just want to spend more time with them. And

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Speaker 1: it really comes down to did they say something or

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Speaker 1: did we have a dialogue that made me go, boy,

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Speaker 1: I would really like to help this person. So how

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Speaker 1: do you empower them to develop breakthrough not ordinary ideas.

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Speaker 1: What I feel like I've done is one let people

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Speaker 1: know that my major goal at work is to have fun,

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Speaker 1: because I think you can make money from having fun.

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Speaker 1: The second thing is to provide structure in a way

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Speaker 1: that doesn't seem overly structured. You know, in my TV days,

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Speaker 1: it was making sure that spots were thirty seconds and

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Speaker 1: not a second longer or shorter. When you and some

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Speaker 1: of our other colleges say it doesn't matter how long

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Speaker 1: they are, Like, I don't know, discipline seems like a

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Speaker 1: good idea. Or when we made cartoons to begin with,

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Speaker 1: and I was in love with Looney Tunes, I said, well,

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Speaker 1: it's making the same length as Looney Tunes. They said why,

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Speaker 1: I said, because Looney Tunes are the greatest cartoons ever made.

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Speaker 1: What I found over the years is that by giving

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Speaker 1: people structure and almost nothing else other than sort of

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Speaker 1: a philosophy of where you'd like them to go, if

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Speaker 1: they don't want to be there, they leave, they quit.

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Speaker 1: They don't vibe with you one way or the other.

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Speaker 1: And if they do, they've sort of accepted the structures

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Speaker 1: and the strictures, and as long as I don't over

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Speaker 1: note them. In our business, it's all about the notes

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Speaker 1: that you give and all that type of stuff. In

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Speaker 1: the cartoon business, I just would say to people, well,

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Speaker 1: what cartoon do you really want to make? If you

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Speaker 1: have one you really want to make, will do it.

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Speaker 1: And if you tell me you have fifty you want

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Speaker 1: to make, I don't want to do it. It means

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Speaker 1: you don't care about anything. So I'm just looking for

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Speaker 1: people who care about something. When you were talking about Judy,

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Speaker 1: and I asked her who she liked, and she said Bruce,

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Speaker 1: And I said, wrong, because I don't have a good

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Speaker 1: thing about Bruce. The fact she cared, you know, the

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Speaker 1: Bruce haters are coming after you right now. I believe me,

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Speaker 1: They've been coming after me my whole life. The fact

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Speaker 1: that she cared meant all the difference to me in

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Speaker 1: the world, not that I agreed. You've got these people.

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Speaker 1: How would you describe your coaching technique getting the best

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Speaker 1: out of people? I asked them to tell me what

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Speaker 1: they want to do. The way that I sort of

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Speaker 1: think about it is there's a big circle of ball,

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Speaker 1: and everything in it in that ball is what I love.

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Speaker 1: And then they have their own circle in their own ball,

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Speaker 1: and it's everything that they love. And I said, why

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Speaker 1: don't we just like find the places where we touch,

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Speaker 1: just where we kiss, and then we're both gonna be really,

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Speaker 1: really happy. And the only thing I want is like

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Speaker 1: for us all to be happy. Well we've been able

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Speaker 1: to do for a living over our lifetime is kind

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Speaker 1: of magical in that I think that what I've done

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Speaker 1: my whole life is make people happy. The people that

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Speaker 1: I work with want people to be in love with

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Speaker 1: the work that they do because people are really passionate

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Speaker 1: about their work. I never hired anybody who actually knew

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Speaker 1: what they were doing, that had on it before. That

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Speaker 1: was one of our hallmark. We had these creative promo departments.

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Speaker 1: Once people came in and started saying, well, I worked

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Speaker 1: on promos over here, like, I didn't want to hire them.

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Speaker 1: If they were a wonderful writer, that was great. If

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Speaker 1: they were wonderful director, that was great. One of the

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Speaker 1: earliest people I hired had just come out of film

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Speaker 1: school and his first job was cutting negatives film negatives

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Speaker 1: at a porno place. I'm like, okay, fine, you know,

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Speaker 1: like whatever, So let's jump back a little bit. I

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Speaker 1: want to get some insights from your youth about you.

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Speaker 1: Your parents were both pharmacists, owned the pharmacy and Long Island,

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Speaker 1: you worked there, and you were going to Columbia to

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Speaker 1: become a pharmacist. Yeah. Anything in that, what is it

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Speaker 1: tell us about you? I have no idea other than that.

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Speaker 1: I was very influenced by my parents. Everyone in my

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Speaker 1: family are pretty much scientists. There's biochemists, there's neurosurgeons, there's

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Speaker 1: other pharmacists, chemists, and I decided at six I was

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Speaker 1: going to be a chemist, and you know, I would

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Speaker 1: blow up the basement with you know, experiments and all

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Speaker 1: that type of stuff. But when I was twelve, a

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Speaker 1: lightning bolt struck that changed my life. It's like this,

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Speaker 1: you know the Beatles movie that's just come out yesterday.

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Speaker 1: It was like that, And in fact it was the Beatles.

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Speaker 1: It was the day they went on Ed Sullivan, and

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Speaker 1: my life changed. I went and bought a guitar, taught

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Speaker 1: myself guitar. I was already a musician, I started bands,

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Speaker 1: I did all the things that everybody did. But I

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Speaker 1: was a chemist and I was a science math kid,

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Speaker 1: and I went to college for that. And I'm in

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Speaker 1: a zoology class one day where you know, we had

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Speaker 1: been dissecting frogs great and the next week we're going

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Speaker 1: to dissect rats. So I get there and all the

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Speaker 1: rats are alive. And the first thing the zoology teacher

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Speaker 1: said is now I'll show you how to kill the

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Speaker 1: rat before you dissect it. And I looked at my

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Speaker 1: lab partner and I said, you know, I like the

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Speaker 1: Beatles more than this. And I walked out and I

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Speaker 1: walked right to the college radio station. My path changed instantly.

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Speaker 1: So your parents, who are the pharmacists. What do they

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Speaker 1: say this, Oh, great, Fred, you're leaving this wonderful career

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Speaker 1: to go be a radio something. We did not have

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Speaker 1: a decent conversation for the next ten years. Actually, really yeah,

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Speaker 1: they were very, very upset. When they became less upset

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Speaker 1: is when I went to work in radio and I

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Speaker 1: was forced to wear a suit to work, and they thought, oh,

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Speaker 1: it'll all be okay. Well, actually, just make you feel better.

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Speaker 1: My parents told me for the first ten years I

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Speaker 1: was where I can get out of radio. That's a

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Speaker 1: crazy business. Go back to college, man, each college should

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Speaker 1: be a normal kid. And then about in my thirties

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Speaker 1: sometimes they said, gosh, I sure, I'm glad you didn't

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Speaker 1: listen to us exactly. Well, I finally said to my folks,

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Speaker 1: I'm doing everything you taught me, all the ways you

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Speaker 1: taught me to do it. I just took my own

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Speaker 1: path in doing it. And they finally sort of calmed down.

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Speaker 1: And even though pretty much for my entire career until

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Speaker 1: I started making cartoons, they had no idea what I

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Speaker 1: did for a living. After you're leaving this possible career

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Speaker 1: as a pharmacist, you eventually wound up as the promotions

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Speaker 1: director at a country music station w h N in

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Speaker 1: New York. One of your great supporters, who I had

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Speaker 1: worked with and who I love dearly, Dale Pond, recommended

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Speaker 1: you to me pre MTV. It was in the early

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Speaker 1: days of pay TV. You came over to join us

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Speaker 1: in the cable revolution, at the beginning of the cable

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Speaker 1: network space. Why did you make that jump? Well, you

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Speaker 1: know this is gonna sound flattering. I did it completely

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Speaker 1: because of you. Dale had left the country music radio

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Speaker 1: station and left me alone. And the guy I was

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Speaker 1: working for at that time in radio, I had no

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Speaker 1: respect for whatsoever. Pretty much anything I did, he told

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Speaker 1: me it wasn't any good. So you called me one day,

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Speaker 1: you said you want to be in televisioned and no,

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Speaker 1: You said, okay, come have coffee with me. I went

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Speaker 1: to Dale's files and he had files on everyone in

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Speaker 1: the business, and there was one article about you about

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Speaker 1: your promotion at w NBC. We're w NBC and we're

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Speaker 1: gonna make you rich. And I thought to myself, you know,

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Speaker 1: this guy is younger than me and I've heard of him.

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Speaker 1: So that's you know, one check. So we go, we

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Speaker 1: have the coffee and I walk out and I called

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Speaker 1: my best friend and I said, this guy that I

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Speaker 1: just talked to is so much smarter than my boss

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Speaker 1: in radio. He goes, what do you think about that?

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Speaker 1: I said, well, here's what Dale talk me. Doesn't matter

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Speaker 1: what the job is, work for the smartest person you

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Speaker 1: can find. And at the time you were the smartest

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Speaker 1: person I could find. That's what that's flattering. So any

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Speaker 1: career lessons and that for the folks listening, go work

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Speaker 1: for the person, not the job. I tell people that

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Speaker 1: all the time working for smart people. Has always worked,

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Speaker 1: working for Ted Turner, working for Scott Sasso, working for you.

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Speaker 1: I would go in at ground level at a job

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Speaker 1: and I always came out at the top floor, and

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Speaker 1: then I go off on my own for a while,

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Speaker 1: and then when I screwed that up, I go back,

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Speaker 1: you know, to a job. We started experimenting with network

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Speaker 1: branding with Movie Channel, although the Movie Channel has been

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Speaker 1: lost in history, so it's really some pioneering work done there.

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Speaker 1: How would you describe that. I mean, that was very

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Speaker 1: early and we were about the only people that were

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Speaker 1: doing that approach to let's make the network the star,

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Speaker 1: not the program. The stuff in eighty when we started

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Speaker 1: together May eighth. Wow, what a memory. Yeah, the average

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Speaker 1: home in America had to annals of television. I lived

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Speaker 1: in New York City, so we had seven, but you know,

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Speaker 1: the average home had two. However, in the same town

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Speaker 1: that had seven TV stations, they were about seventy seventy

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Speaker 1: five radio stations. And over the years before radio had

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Speaker 1: learned to compete because they only each had a sliver

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Speaker 1: of the thing. And what that effectively came out to

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Speaker 1: is they each had personalities. You and I had either

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Speaker 1: the benefit or the curse of having come out of

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Speaker 1: that business where we had to compete like crazy. At

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Speaker 1: a television station, they just turn on one light switch

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Speaker 1: and the other switch opens a hole in the ceiling

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Speaker 1: and money drops on their head. Because it was just

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Speaker 1: easy to make money in television. So we started from

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Speaker 1: the premise that you had to have a personality. It

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Speaker 1: turned out that in television that was called an innovation.

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Speaker 1: And by the way, we were probably about thirty years

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Speaker 1: too soon. Yeah, but indeed that was the demise of

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Speaker 1: TV as we know it, when the loyalty was to

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Speaker 1: the program, not the network. When you asked me to

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Speaker 1: come back and work on Nickelodeon. There were only thirty

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Speaker 1: cable networks, which we thought was amazing, and that Nickelodeon

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Speaker 1: was number thirty and people are like, what do you

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Speaker 1: mean only thirty? What you know? And and there I

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Speaker 1: have to tell you what. At MTV time, I was

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Speaker 1: so freaked out that there were thirty that the resulting

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Speaker 1: work came out because I was like, oh my god,

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Speaker 1: Oh my god, what are we gonna do to stand out?

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Speaker 1: What are we gonna do to stand out? And a

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Speaker 1: lot of it just came out of the panic of

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Speaker 1: getting lost in the mush, So let's move on to

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Speaker 1: starting MTV. The board would not approve the idea, but

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Speaker 1: I did get us a budget to develop it in

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Speaker 1: that period. Did you ever think we weren't going to

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Speaker 1: get approval to launch MTV? How did you believe in it?

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Speaker 1: Truth be told. When you first told me about it,

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Speaker 1: I thought it was the dumbest idea in the world.

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Speaker 1: Because I was a music guy and I had seen,

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Speaker 1: you know, a few crummy music videos. I hadn't really

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Speaker 1: thought about it too much. And then luckily somebody played

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Speaker 1: me a music video that made, you know, the little

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Speaker 1: light go off. I don't know whether it was blind

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Speaker 1: faith or I was too naive to know that you

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Speaker 1: had to have faith, like you told me it was

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Speaker 1: gonna happen. Was it youth totally? Totally. I was just

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Speaker 1: talking with Alan Goodman, my soon to be partner at

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Speaker 1: that point, and he said, you know, we didn't really

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Speaker 1: know what was going to happen, but you looked at

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Speaker 1: all the other people that were around you and it

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Speaker 1: just had to happen. I think that's really true. Well,

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Speaker 1: you know, we went to the head of Warner Communications

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Speaker 1: and American Express that on the joint venture Warner m

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Speaker 1: X where we got started, and we got a meeting

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Speaker 1: with Steve Ross, who was the CEO of of Warner,

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Speaker 1: along with his deputies David Horowitz, et cetera. And we

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Speaker 1: got Jim Robinson and his deputy Louke Gershner from American Express.

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Speaker 1: I don't know if you remember, but we were worried

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Speaker 1: that when we showed these videos too, from American Express

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Speaker 1: called so he said, let's find the tamest one. I

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Speaker 1: think we found Olivia Newton John as THEDO to talk

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Speaker 1: about the launch of of MTV we if you remember,

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Speaker 1: but in the meeting, they said, do you have to

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Speaker 1: play that kind of stuff, implying Olivian Newton John was too.

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Speaker 1: But to their credit, Jim Robinson's the first one to say, Okay,

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Speaker 1: I'm in from my half. Howbout Steve? So we locked out.

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Speaker 1: Let's go to the launch of MTV and talk about

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Speaker 1: some of the things that really, I think still stand

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Speaker 1: out today. The logo. We had no money for a logo.

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Speaker 1: I was probably the cheapest man in the world and

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Speaker 1: had expectations you could create a lot out of nothing.

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Speaker 1: Well we had, we really started, but not like venture

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Speaker 1: capital guys. Well again, here's the metric I use. A

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Speaker 1: guy comes to see me for a job in the

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Speaker 1: promo department from CBS Channel two in New York, and

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Speaker 1: I said, how much do you get paid? And he

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Speaker 1: was getting paid twice as much as I was. That

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Speaker 1: was the metric. We all earned intern wages. If somebody

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Speaker 1: had a dollar and we were asked him to spend

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Speaker 1: ten cents, we knew they'd be bad. We found people

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Speaker 1: that had a penny and we gave him the dime.

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Speaker 1: They thought they had all the money to people all

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Speaker 1: the time. Absolutely, Just hold on a second, because we've

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Speaker 1: got so much more to talk about. We'll be back

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Speaker 1: after a quick break. Welcome back to Math and Magic.

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Speaker 1: We're here with Fred Cyberg. So talk about the logo.

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Speaker 1: You set out, you got the mission. You and I

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Speaker 1: had these discussions. I've naively said, we'll do our own

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Speaker 1: Star Wars logo because everybody has a Star Wars loging

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Speaker 1: and you go to bob ours will look cheap. You said, look,

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Speaker 1: if we do something no one's ever seen before, they

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Speaker 1: won't know it's cheap. So tell me about the logo. Well,

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Speaker 1: the logo itself actually came about because I was too

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Speaker 1: scared to go to someone famous. I wanted to go

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Speaker 1: to Milton Glazer, who was one of the most famous

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Speaker 1: graphic designers of the last fifty years. And I was like, oh,

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Speaker 1: well he's gonna be really expensive and we'll get all

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Speaker 1: the credit. And I wanted a little credit, you know,

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Speaker 1: at least. So my childhood friend who I've known since

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Speaker 1: I'm four years old, a guy named Frank Olinsky, had

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Speaker 1: just started a little design firm behind find a tie

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Speaker 1: Chee studio above Bigelow Chemists on Sixth Avenue. And Frank

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Speaker 1: had been the guy, because he's a year older than

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Speaker 1: me who would always introduced me to every new rock band.

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Speaker 1: He introduced me to the Monkeys, he introduced me to

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Speaker 1: the Mothers of Invention, to the Who, to Jeff Beck,

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Speaker 1: and I knew that Frank loved music. So I go

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Speaker 1: down to his little tie chee studio place and I go,

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Speaker 1: will you guys design a logo for this rock channel

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Speaker 1: we're starting? And they're like yes, And they didn't ask

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Speaker 1: me anything. They didn't ask me how much they were

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Speaker 1: going to get paid or anything like that. And this

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Speaker 1: was right after you sent out the first memo in June,

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Speaker 1: and boy do I wish I had that memo. So

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Speaker 1: for a year they designed logos and I just rejected everything,

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Speaker 1: probably five hundred designs. So finally they come in the

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Speaker 1: office one day. We're actually going to go on the

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Speaker 1: air soon, right, and we still don't have anything, and

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Speaker 1: they bring up pile and I'm like, no, no, I'm

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Speaker 1: going through the whole pile. And at the bottom of

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Speaker 1: the pile is a he's of tracing paper. Remember that,

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Speaker 1: you know the paper you could see through and it

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Speaker 1: was all wrinkled and they had flattened it out. It

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Speaker 1: was just like a sketched TV. I went, okay, that's

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Speaker 1: the one. I can see Frank like growling kind of

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Speaker 1: He and I now disagree. But what I had heard

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Speaker 1: is that the woman. There's three partners, and one of

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Speaker 1: them wasn't really a designer. She was a production manager

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Speaker 1: and she had done it, and Frank saw it and

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Speaker 1: hated him, threw it in the garbage. She fished it

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Speaker 1: out and put it at the bottom of the pile.

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Speaker 1: He says, that's not true, but you know, maybe it

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Speaker 1: was good story. The only reason I said yes is

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Speaker 1: that Dale had taught me one lesson about design. You

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Speaker 1: need to dominate the space, and that big block g

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Speaker 1: M was the only thing they showed that when you

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Speaker 1: put it on a TV screen, filled the whole scream. Okay,

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Speaker 1: we dominate the space, and in a world of thirty channels,

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Speaker 1: and in a day when the screen was square exactly right.

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Speaker 1: So then I go, oh, you know, we need official colors.

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Speaker 1: You know, a logo is supposed to be a thing

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Speaker 1: that you make and it never changes. So they come

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Speaker 1: to my office with about ten different boards. Everything was

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Speaker 1: on boards in those days, and then a little board

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Speaker 1: where Frank had illustrated ten or twelve of them on

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Speaker 1: acrylic overlays. So I put all of the boards up

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Speaker 1: on my pegboard and couldn't decide. And this went on

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Speaker 1: literally for like weeks and weeks and weeks, and finally

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Speaker 1: we had to do something. And I looked at them.

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Speaker 1: I'm just staring at all of them. They were all like,

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Speaker 1: really kind of cool, and I said, why don't we

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Speaker 1: just use them all at once? All the time. I

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Speaker 1: don't know who I was talking to, and I was

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Speaker 1: like what I said, Well, we're television, we move, shouldn't

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Speaker 1: the logo move? And to be honest with you, that

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Speaker 1: was my first real revelation that I was in television,

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Speaker 1: that we had come up with an idea that only

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Speaker 1: worked in television. The other thing you did when you

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Speaker 1: did those promos, the great stuff, you laid the music

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Speaker 1: bed down first and cut the music, and everybody else

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Speaker 1: in that era people forget this. They don't realize that

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Speaker 1: was an innovation that everybody else did the video first

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Speaker 1: and then rolled to music undress. So I got that

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Speaker 1: all from Dale. I was an audio guy, and I

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Speaker 1: was a really good audio guy. I was a mixer

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Speaker 1: and all that engineer. And when we started making our

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Speaker 1: first radio spots, we would film country music stars. And

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Speaker 1: then he said, we'll go to the audio studio and

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Speaker 1: cut the audio track. And I went, well, the video

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Speaker 1: guy tells me, no, you have to first do the picture.

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Speaker 1: And then he goes, Fred, we own the audio studio.

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Speaker 1: It's free. If you get it right in the audio studio,

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Speaker 1: then the three hour video studio will go much faster.

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Speaker 1: By the time we got to MTV, I realized that

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00:21:54,640 --> 00:21:58,760
Speaker 1: he was absolutely right. I was hiring basically kids, you know,

427
00:21:59,520 --> 00:22:02,760
Speaker 1: one just out of school, and we didn't have any money.

428
00:22:02,840 --> 00:22:05,520
Speaker 1: Now fast forward twenty years. I go to MTV one day.

429
00:22:05,520 --> 00:22:08,600
Speaker 1: I'm running their online business for a little while, and

430
00:22:08,680 --> 00:22:10,880
Speaker 1: I go, who's the promo department now? And they tell

431
00:22:10,920 --> 00:22:12,960
Speaker 1: me and I go down and I introduced myself to

432
00:22:13,000 --> 00:22:16,560
Speaker 1: a couple of people in the one you what what

433
00:22:18,240 --> 00:22:21,520
Speaker 1: you're the one? Well, what are you talking about? They said,

434
00:22:22,160 --> 00:22:25,280
Speaker 1: they make us do the audio first, we're filmed. People

435
00:22:25,359 --> 00:22:29,280
Speaker 1: like why. So twenty years later they were still doing it.

436
00:22:29,640 --> 00:22:33,159
Speaker 1: But boy, what it did is it brought rhythm and energy.

437
00:22:33,600 --> 00:22:37,520
Speaker 1: It brought the backbeat of rock and roll into those spots.

438
00:22:37,640 --> 00:22:41,320
Speaker 1: Everything was beat. You know, I'm in radio. I love audio.

439
00:22:41,680 --> 00:22:45,359
Speaker 1: People don't realize how much of your emotion is not

440
00:22:45,440 --> 00:22:47,680
Speaker 1: driven by what you're looking at. That's what you're hearing.

441
00:22:48,119 --> 00:22:50,000
Speaker 1: I used to joke all the time that we could

442
00:22:50,080 --> 00:22:53,000
Speaker 1: make the spots black and they would have the same

443
00:22:53,040 --> 00:22:55,880
Speaker 1: effect horror films. You go in the next room, listen

444
00:22:55,920 --> 00:22:59,119
Speaker 1: to turn off the sound. It's not very scary. So

445
00:22:59,240 --> 00:23:00,800
Speaker 1: let me. I'm not to spend all of our time

446
00:23:00,840 --> 00:23:02,840
Speaker 1: on MTV, but I want to hit one other thing here.

447
00:23:03,400 --> 00:23:06,440
Speaker 1: The cable operators wanted us to pay them. As you say,

448
00:23:06,480 --> 00:23:09,120
Speaker 1: we had intern wages and no money. So our good

449
00:23:09,119 --> 00:23:12,040
Speaker 1: friend Mao Stunts, who actually had a Harvard MBA, said

450
00:23:12,200 --> 00:23:15,600
Speaker 1: we should use consumer pull. What the hell is consumer pull?

451
00:23:15,880 --> 00:23:20,280
Speaker 1: And he goes will get the consumer to demand it. Great,

452
00:23:20,640 --> 00:23:23,960
Speaker 1: So you and Tom Preston came over to my apartment

453
00:23:24,040 --> 00:23:28,440
Speaker 1: one night to show me a Cable Brats spot. Embedded

454
00:23:28,480 --> 00:23:31,160
Speaker 1: in the Cable Brats was this memorable line, I want

455
00:23:31,160 --> 00:23:34,240
Speaker 1: my MTV. The actual spot said they grew up with

456
00:23:34,320 --> 00:23:37,240
Speaker 1: rock and roll, they grew up with television. Now they

457
00:23:37,320 --> 00:23:42,560
Speaker 1: want their MTV. George Lois, who never saw something that

458
00:23:42,600 --> 00:23:48,359
Speaker 1: he couldn't copy, had already copied a famous TV commercial

459
00:23:48,440 --> 00:23:51,240
Speaker 1: from the fifties called I want my Mapo for a

460
00:23:51,320 --> 00:23:58,399
Speaker 1: really horrendous tasting. He had sports stars like Mickey Mantel

461
00:23:58,480 --> 00:24:02,520
Speaker 1: and Joe Namath crying like I want my babo, and

462
00:24:02,760 --> 00:24:06,159
Speaker 1: he redid it with Mick Jagger and you know whoever,

463
00:24:06,240 --> 00:24:08,639
Speaker 1: David Bowie and Pete Towns and all that type of stuff,

464
00:24:09,240 --> 00:24:12,960
Speaker 1: and they showed us this spot. So we went and

465
00:24:13,000 --> 00:24:15,480
Speaker 1: we pitched it to you. I think you saw the

466
00:24:15,480 --> 00:24:18,399
Speaker 1: feeling of it right away. I remember going into our

467
00:24:18,400 --> 00:24:21,480
Speaker 1: boss's office and saying, but HBO spending ten million dollars

468
00:24:21,480 --> 00:24:23,800
Speaker 1: a year in advertising goes you're lucky. You have to

469
00:24:24,680 --> 00:24:27,200
Speaker 1: somehow or other. The people in the media business didn't

470
00:24:27,200 --> 00:24:31,680
Speaker 1: actually believe in advertising as the weirdest thing. And so

471
00:24:31,800 --> 00:24:33,240
Speaker 1: I went to Dale. I said, look, we only have

472
00:24:33,280 --> 00:24:39,679
Speaker 1: two million dollars. Dale was this brilliant hybrid of a

473
00:24:39,800 --> 00:24:44,240
Speaker 1: strategist and a creative guy. And as a strategist, what

474
00:24:44,400 --> 00:24:47,160
Speaker 1: he understood is that we had no money to spend

475
00:24:47,359 --> 00:24:52,919
Speaker 1: on this app. And he did an incredible data dump

476
00:24:53,240 --> 00:24:58,680
Speaker 1: of where could MTV be put on against how much

477
00:24:58,800 --> 00:25:03,280
Speaker 1: media cost in particular market, and he did three or

478
00:25:03,359 --> 00:25:06,960
Speaker 1: four or five cross tabs to figure out the most

479
00:25:07,280 --> 00:25:11,520
Speaker 1: likely places that if we put on these spots that

480
00:25:11,600 --> 00:25:15,160
Speaker 1: we would get people calling and making the cable operators insane.

481
00:25:15,280 --> 00:25:18,639
Speaker 1: And that's exactly what happened. He literally took what Mayo

482
00:25:18,800 --> 00:25:22,000
Speaker 1: said and put on the beginning of the spot. He

483
00:25:22,080 --> 00:25:26,359
Speaker 1: had Pete Towns in doing it. America demand your MTV.

484
00:25:27,240 --> 00:25:29,679
Speaker 1: Then people go, I want my MTV, I want my MTV,

485
00:25:30,080 --> 00:25:32,760
Speaker 1: and then Pete Towns and again with a telephone going

486
00:25:33,119 --> 00:25:38,360
Speaker 1: call your cable operator and say I want and God knows,

487
00:25:38,440 --> 00:25:43,800
Speaker 1: I think we made customer representatives from all over America crazy.

488
00:25:43,840 --> 00:25:46,199
Speaker 1: Within four weeks, I had a guy stopped me at

489
00:25:46,200 --> 00:25:48,240
Speaker 1: a cable show cable operator and said, I hate you,

490
00:25:48,720 --> 00:25:50,960
Speaker 1: and I go, why why do you hate me? And

491
00:25:51,040 --> 00:25:54,480
Speaker 1: he goes, because my phone rings all day with those

492
00:25:54,520 --> 00:25:56,200
Speaker 1: people saying I want my m t BA can't get

493
00:25:56,200 --> 00:26:00,000
Speaker 1: any work done. Demand is bad. We reverse that demand

494
00:26:00,080 --> 00:26:01,959
Speaker 1: end curve. And by the way, I just sort of

495
00:26:01,960 --> 00:26:04,160
Speaker 1: flip it. A couple of years, one of the major

496
00:26:04,200 --> 00:26:06,960
Speaker 1: cable operators decided they were going to take MTV off

497
00:26:06,960 --> 00:26:09,480
Speaker 1: the air. And you called up and you said, we

498
00:26:09,560 --> 00:26:11,840
Speaker 1: need new spots, and I went, what's that. You said,

499
00:26:11,960 --> 00:26:14,200
Speaker 1: we have to get people to keep them from turning

500
00:26:14,200 --> 00:26:16,960
Speaker 1: off MTV, And we went and filmed a lot of

501
00:26:17,040 --> 00:26:20,600
Speaker 1: rock stars, half in shadow and all in black and

502
00:26:20,600 --> 00:26:24,800
Speaker 1: white going there trying to take away your MTV. And

503
00:26:24,840 --> 00:26:27,800
Speaker 1: we put those on the air, and lo and behold,

504
00:26:27,840 --> 00:26:30,680
Speaker 1: they did not cancel our channels. God bless him. So

505
00:26:30,800 --> 00:26:33,919
Speaker 1: let's jump to Jerry Labor. Let's jump to Nickelodeon. You

506
00:26:33,920 --> 00:26:37,080
Speaker 1: mentioned Nickelodeon was number thirty. It was a toddler's channel,

507
00:26:37,440 --> 00:26:41,960
Speaker 1: invented to help Time Warner Cable get some cable franchises.

508
00:26:42,080 --> 00:26:45,119
Speaker 1: It's exactly the way that Netflix uses kids on their

509
00:26:45,160 --> 00:26:48,240
Speaker 1: service now. It is a come on that no family

510
00:26:48,280 --> 00:26:52,800
Speaker 1: can resist and for us had basically no value. We

511
00:26:52,880 --> 00:26:55,359
Speaker 1: have this idea, we're gonna turn into a tween channels. Actually,

512
00:26:55,440 --> 00:26:57,760
Speaker 1: Jerry said, this is great. An old school teacher, I

513
00:26:57,840 --> 00:27:01,320
Speaker 1: got a great idea. We relaunched it to that point.

514
00:27:01,400 --> 00:27:04,760
Speaker 1: Only MTV had an image as a network and your mission.

515
00:27:05,040 --> 00:27:07,399
Speaker 1: You need to do with Nickelodeon what we did with MTV.

516
00:27:07,640 --> 00:27:11,080
Speaker 1: How on earth did you end up with Orange? After

517
00:27:11,119 --> 00:27:14,720
Speaker 1: the MTV logo thing, which was really the most visible

518
00:27:14,800 --> 00:27:18,680
Speaker 1: manifestation of the creative work, designers came out of the

519
00:27:18,680 --> 00:27:22,320
Speaker 1: woodwork wanting to work with us. We found somebody up

520
00:27:22,320 --> 00:27:24,560
Speaker 1: in Boston, a guy called Tom Corey and his partner

521
00:27:24,600 --> 00:27:26,320
Speaker 1: Scott Nash. We asked him to come up with some

522
00:27:26,359 --> 00:27:28,120
Speaker 1: ideas for logo. So they came up with a bunch

523
00:27:28,119 --> 00:27:31,600
Speaker 1: of things, and all of them were pretty standard logos,

524
00:27:31,760 --> 00:27:34,439
Speaker 1: truth be told, I picked a really standard one. We

525
00:27:34,440 --> 00:27:36,680
Speaker 1: were about to go in and pitch it when Alan said,

526
00:27:36,760 --> 00:27:40,520
Speaker 1: you know, our thing is this moving logo, and they

527
00:27:40,560 --> 00:27:43,360
Speaker 1: have one here. Why didn't we pick that? I said, well,

528
00:27:43,359 --> 00:27:46,920
Speaker 1: it's orange. It's only one color. And so we called

529
00:27:46,960 --> 00:27:50,160
Speaker 1: Tom and we go, how come like orange? Like you said?

530
00:27:50,200 --> 00:27:54,040
Speaker 1: He goes, well, you know this is the color. It's

531
00:27:54,240 --> 00:27:58,639
Speaker 1: uh pantone O to one and it is not found

532
00:27:58,640 --> 00:28:01,800
Speaker 1: in nature. Anything we put it on it will stand

533
00:28:01,800 --> 00:28:04,919
Speaker 1: out from that. So we go in to pitch it

534
00:28:04,960 --> 00:28:08,160
Speaker 1: to Jerry and her team and she's like, but you're

535
00:28:08,200 --> 00:28:11,040
Speaker 1: the MTV guys, how come we don't get lots of colors?

536
00:28:11,280 --> 00:28:14,320
Speaker 1: And I think you said probably something similar and we

537
00:28:14,520 --> 00:28:19,520
Speaker 1: just o and I think we just tap danced really

538
00:28:19,560 --> 00:28:23,200
Speaker 1: hard and at that point you were willing to give

539
00:28:23,280 --> 00:28:26,600
Speaker 1: us our heads. And the thing that was really brilliant

540
00:28:26,600 --> 00:28:30,520
Speaker 1: about their solution is that it wasn't an orange logo.

541
00:28:31,200 --> 00:28:35,359
Speaker 1: It was white type that was always exactly the same.

542
00:28:35,440 --> 00:28:37,760
Speaker 1: One of the key elements of the logos. You have

543
00:28:37,840 --> 00:28:42,160
Speaker 1: to have something that is fixed. But the orange thing

544
00:28:42,600 --> 00:28:46,120
Speaker 1: ended up being thousands of different shapes around it, and

545
00:28:46,160 --> 00:28:49,160
Speaker 1: sometimes they were real shapes, like a boy riding a

546
00:28:49,200 --> 00:28:52,640
Speaker 1: bicycle or a girl's head, and sometimes it was just

547
00:28:52,720 --> 00:28:57,000
Speaker 1: an abstract design, a blob, a splat color burst, you know,

548
00:28:57,080 --> 00:29:00,600
Speaker 1: or something like that, and we realized that we could

549
00:29:00,640 --> 00:29:05,480
Speaker 1: have fun using it. The thing about designers is they

550
00:29:05,520 --> 00:29:08,560
Speaker 1: hate the work that anyone else has done. So you

551
00:29:08,800 --> 00:29:11,440
Speaker 1: give them a logo that somebody else designed, the first

552
00:29:11,480 --> 00:29:14,239
Speaker 1: thing they're gonna want to do is change it. And

553
00:29:14,280 --> 00:29:17,120
Speaker 1: what we did with MTV is basically the m became

554
00:29:17,160 --> 00:29:20,240
Speaker 1: a canvas for artists, so that any artists could put

555
00:29:20,280 --> 00:29:22,560
Speaker 1: their own imprint on it and not feel like it

556
00:29:22,640 --> 00:29:26,920
Speaker 1: wasn't theirs. And the shape thing at Nickelodeon gave every

557
00:29:27,040 --> 00:29:30,360
Speaker 1: artist a chance to be themselves and it worked. We

558
00:29:30,400 --> 00:29:33,080
Speaker 1: wanted these networks to feel like a human. We wanted

559
00:29:33,080 --> 00:29:36,560
Speaker 1: to have a personality. So let's jump we've talked about

560
00:29:36,640 --> 00:29:39,440
Speaker 1: Fred Cybert maybe two point oh, let's go to Red

561
00:29:39,480 --> 00:29:42,880
Speaker 1: Cyber three point oh animation. You went on to be

562
00:29:42,920 --> 00:29:45,840
Speaker 1: president of Hanna Barbera. You had your own animation studio,

563
00:29:46,080 --> 00:29:49,520
Speaker 1: you began this living expert on animation. How the hell

564
00:29:49,560 --> 00:29:52,560
Speaker 1: did you get interested in animation? Where did that come from? Well?

565
00:29:52,600 --> 00:29:55,680
Speaker 1: I always love cartoons as a kid, the exact same

566
00:29:55,680 --> 00:29:57,640
Speaker 1: way that several years later I fell in love with

567
00:29:57,760 --> 00:30:00,160
Speaker 1: Rock and Roll. I remember buying a Bugs Bun t

568
00:30:00,280 --> 00:30:01,880
Speaker 1: shirt when I was in college and thinking it was

569
00:30:01,920 --> 00:30:04,840
Speaker 1: the coolest thing, you know, in the world. When we

570
00:30:04,880 --> 00:30:08,720
Speaker 1: first got to MTV, you actually were the guy who

571
00:30:09,000 --> 00:30:12,440
Speaker 1: inspired us to do animated logos. I said, well, what

572
00:30:12,440 --> 00:30:14,400
Speaker 1: are we going to do in between the videos and

573
00:30:14,440 --> 00:30:17,800
Speaker 1: the VJs? I said, are we gonna do jingles? He went, oh, no,

574
00:30:17,880 --> 00:30:20,760
Speaker 1: we can't do jingles. And I said, what do we do?

575
00:30:20,840 --> 00:30:24,440
Speaker 1: He said, how about this? Imagine It's like a picture

576
00:30:24,480 --> 00:30:28,120
Speaker 1: of a cow, you know, a drawn cow. I said yeah,

577
00:30:28,320 --> 00:30:30,800
Speaker 1: he said, And all of a sudden, an X comes

578
00:30:30,840 --> 00:30:33,360
Speaker 1: down and cuts the cow's head off, and it falls

579
00:30:33,400 --> 00:30:35,360
Speaker 1: to the ground, and you see the veins coming out

580
00:30:35,360 --> 00:30:38,480
Speaker 1: and the blood spurting out, and the cow vomits, and

581
00:30:38,520 --> 00:30:41,960
Speaker 1: in the vomit is the logo. I went, Oh my god,

582
00:30:42,000 --> 00:30:45,280
Speaker 1: I can do anything I want. This is the most

583
00:30:45,320 --> 00:30:49,200
Speaker 1: exciting moment of my life, and we started hiring animators

584
00:30:49,200 --> 00:30:51,800
Speaker 1: to do all that stuff. So in that process I

585
00:30:51,840 --> 00:30:54,480
Speaker 1: started talking to lots of people who did animation. I'm

586
00:30:54,600 --> 00:30:56,400
Speaker 1: sort of a curious guy, and I just asked them

587
00:30:56,440 --> 00:31:00,160
Speaker 1: a million questions and a few of them started telling

588
00:31:00,240 --> 00:31:02,720
Speaker 1: me how the cartoon business works. So I started reading

589
00:31:02,720 --> 00:31:06,160
Speaker 1: books about the history of the cartoon business. So one day,

590
00:31:06,360 --> 00:31:08,960
Speaker 1: Nickelodeon comes to me, takes me to breakfast and said,

591
00:31:09,000 --> 00:31:12,240
Speaker 1: you know, we've been licensing all of our programming. I

592
00:31:12,240 --> 00:31:15,080
Speaker 1: said yeah. They said, you know, it's getting really expensive

593
00:31:15,120 --> 00:31:17,720
Speaker 1: because the more viewers we get, the more they want

594
00:31:17,760 --> 00:31:20,920
Speaker 1: to charge us. And you know, our most popular cartoon

595
00:31:21,080 --> 00:31:24,440
Speaker 1: is this thing from England called Danger Mouse. We think

596
00:31:24,480 --> 00:31:26,680
Speaker 1: we are going to pay enough that we ought to

597
00:31:26,680 --> 00:31:28,800
Speaker 1: start thinking about making our own. I said, oh great,

598
00:31:29,520 --> 00:31:33,880
Speaker 1: and they said what should we do? Silence? I go

599
00:31:34,560 --> 00:31:36,640
Speaker 1: what They said, Well, what do you think we should

600
00:31:36,680 --> 00:31:39,360
Speaker 1: do for cartoons? I said, why are you asking me?

601
00:31:40,080 --> 00:31:42,760
Speaker 1: Will you do our animation? I said, well, one I

602
00:31:42,800 --> 00:31:46,320
Speaker 1: don't animate to anything, and two I essentially take your

603
00:31:46,360 --> 00:31:49,280
Speaker 1: logo and wiggle it for ten seconds. Please. So well,

604
00:31:49,320 --> 00:31:53,120
Speaker 1: you're the only person I know, I said, okay, Well

605
00:31:53,160 --> 00:31:55,640
Speaker 1: I think you should make cartoons the way Looney Tunes did,

606
00:31:55,720 --> 00:31:58,640
Speaker 1: and I just start improvising and they didn't want to

607
00:31:58,640 --> 00:31:59,920
Speaker 1: do it the way that I wanted to do it.

608
00:32:00,040 --> 00:32:02,240
Speaker 1: And you know, me like, if they don't take my idea,

609
00:32:02,240 --> 00:32:04,800
Speaker 1: I get really upset. And as a consultant, they never

610
00:32:04,920 --> 00:32:09,000
Speaker 1: quite take your idea. So long story short, I helped

611
00:32:09,000 --> 00:32:12,000
Speaker 1: them make a deal on a library of cartoons, and

612
00:32:12,040 --> 00:32:14,240
Speaker 1: I wanted a bonus, and they wouldn't give me the bonus,

613
00:32:15,360 --> 00:32:17,560
Speaker 1: and I got so mad that I just started complaining

614
00:32:17,560 --> 00:32:19,920
Speaker 1: to everybody. And one of those people I complained to

615
00:32:20,040 --> 00:32:24,280
Speaker 1: with Scott's ass of the president of Turner Entertainment. He said,

616
00:32:24,320 --> 00:32:27,480
Speaker 1: how did you do that deal? You make logos? I said, yeah,

617
00:32:27,480 --> 00:32:29,000
Speaker 1: but it was logical. I did X, Y and Z.

618
00:32:29,160 --> 00:32:30,680
Speaker 1: You know. All that time was fine, and they were

619
00:32:30,720 --> 00:32:34,320
Speaker 1: Hanna Barbara cartoons. Eighteen months later, he calls me up

620
00:32:34,360 --> 00:32:36,640
Speaker 1: and he said, hey, you know, we just bought Hanna Barbera.

621
00:32:36,920 --> 00:32:38,800
Speaker 1: I said, yeah, I heard I read in the paper.

622
00:32:38,800 --> 00:32:41,760
Speaker 1: He goes, why don't you come round Hanna Barbera. I'm like,

623
00:32:42,120 --> 00:32:45,520
Speaker 1: huh what I said, Look, I don't know anything about cartoons,

624
00:32:46,120 --> 00:32:48,440
Speaker 1: be just don't worry about it. It's a disaster there.

625
00:32:48,800 --> 00:32:51,240
Speaker 1: You can't go wrong. If you don't make a hit,

626
00:32:51,240 --> 00:32:53,280
Speaker 1: they haven't had a hit since the Smurfs, nobody will

627
00:32:53,320 --> 00:32:55,240
Speaker 1: blame you. And if you do have a hit, everyone

628
00:32:55,240 --> 00:32:58,160
Speaker 1: don't think you're a genius. So here was the kicker.

629
00:32:59,040 --> 00:33:01,640
Speaker 1: I literally look at my watch, and on my watch

630
00:33:01,680 --> 00:33:05,720
Speaker 1: are four Hanna Barbera characters, completely by coincidence. It's ten

631
00:33:05,840 --> 00:33:08,280
Speaker 1: thirty five in the morning. I said, I have ninety days.

632
00:33:08,320 --> 00:33:11,400
Speaker 1: I have to wind down the agency's will wait the

633
00:33:11,440 --> 00:33:13,480
Speaker 1: first time I walk in the Hanna Barbara building, I'm

634
00:33:13,480 --> 00:33:17,000
Speaker 1: president of the company. I made two cartoons, full series,

635
00:33:17,400 --> 00:33:22,440
Speaker 1: ten million dollars disasters. They fail like immediately, two Stupid

636
00:33:22,480 --> 00:33:28,040
Speaker 1: Dogs and Swat Cats the Radical Squadron. Okay, yeah, So

637
00:33:28,400 --> 00:33:31,440
Speaker 1: I go back to Ted Turner. I go, Ted, I

638
00:33:31,480 --> 00:33:33,240
Speaker 1: know I'm out of budget, but I need another ten

639
00:33:33,280 --> 00:33:37,920
Speaker 1: million dollars. He goes what I said, Well, you know,

640
00:33:37,960 --> 00:33:40,160
Speaker 1: I I gotta get you some hits. I need another

641
00:33:40,160 --> 00:33:41,640
Speaker 1: ten million dollars. What are you gonna do with the

642
00:33:41,640 --> 00:33:44,360
Speaker 1: ten million dollars? I said, I'm gonna make forty eight

643
00:33:44,360 --> 00:33:47,640
Speaker 1: short cartoons, because well, you just had two failures, Like,

644
00:33:47,680 --> 00:33:49,360
Speaker 1: what makes you think you're gonna where. I said, Ted,

645
00:33:50,360 --> 00:33:52,320
Speaker 1: if I do something forty eight times, don't you think

646
00:33:52,320 --> 00:33:55,600
Speaker 1: I'll do something right? And you know the natural entrepreneur.

647
00:33:55,720 --> 00:33:58,680
Speaker 1: And Ted was like, you're right, go for it. And

648
00:33:58,760 --> 00:34:02,520
Speaker 1: that was that. And the hits were Power Puff Girls,

649
00:34:02,880 --> 00:34:08,200
Speaker 1: Dexter's Laboratory, Johnny Bravo, Courage, The Cowardly Dog, Cow and Chicken,

650
00:34:08,880 --> 00:34:13,160
Speaker 1: and I Am Weasel. So you're at Hanna Barbera. You

651
00:34:13,239 --> 00:34:16,000
Speaker 1: now have a hit. Now you begin to think you're

652
00:34:16,040 --> 00:34:19,920
Speaker 1: a animator. Actually, to be honest with you, I figured

653
00:34:19,920 --> 00:34:22,239
Speaker 1: that animation was sort of a sideline that I was

654
00:34:22,239 --> 00:34:24,160
Speaker 1: going to do for those years, and that was gonna

655
00:34:24,200 --> 00:34:27,480
Speaker 1: be it. Ted announces one day that he's selling the company,

656
00:34:27,600 --> 00:34:30,360
Speaker 1: and he's selling at the time, Warner I'm one of

657
00:34:30,360 --> 00:34:32,840
Speaker 1: those guys that runs around the edge of the field

658
00:34:32,840 --> 00:34:34,960
Speaker 1: to get to the goal, like I can't run through

659
00:34:35,000 --> 00:34:37,920
Speaker 1: the scrum, and Warner Brothers was a scrum and it

660
00:34:38,000 --> 00:34:40,960
Speaker 1: just wasn't the right fit for me. And I figured

661
00:34:41,000 --> 00:34:42,719
Speaker 1: I'd come back to New York and go back to

662
00:34:42,760 --> 00:34:45,120
Speaker 1: doing the things that I had done in TV. Somehow,

663
00:34:45,160 --> 00:34:49,640
Speaker 1: I didn't know how. Somewhere between Judy McGrath herb Scandal

664
00:34:49,719 --> 00:34:53,000
Speaker 1: was running Nickelodeon and Tom Freston, who was running MTV Networks.

665
00:34:53,400 --> 00:34:54,840
Speaker 1: They said, hey, well, why don't you come back and

666
00:34:54,880 --> 00:34:56,360
Speaker 1: be a consultant. I said, I'm never going to be

667
00:34:56,400 --> 00:34:58,480
Speaker 1: a consultant again, but I gotta make things like I'm

668
00:34:58,520 --> 00:35:01,120
Speaker 1: a maker. They said, okay, well you can make cartoons

669
00:35:01,120 --> 00:35:03,719
Speaker 1: for Nickelodeon as long as you come and consult with

670
00:35:03,800 --> 00:35:05,799
Speaker 1: us once a month. I'm like, okay, I could do that,

671
00:35:05,880 --> 00:35:07,520
Speaker 1: and I don't care if you listen to my ideas.

672
00:35:07,920 --> 00:35:13,080
Speaker 1: And I started Frederator. You know in rest his history,

673
00:35:13,280 --> 00:35:17,480
Speaker 1: So this is a podcast about math and magic. How

674
00:35:17,480 --> 00:35:19,600
Speaker 1: do you use both? I didn't know what to do

675
00:35:19,680 --> 00:35:21,920
Speaker 1: for m TV because I was the head of promo,

676
00:35:22,560 --> 00:35:26,160
Speaker 1: but we had no shows. And in television promos are

677
00:35:26,719 --> 00:35:29,839
Speaker 1: watch Bill Cosby in a very special episode Thursday at eight.

678
00:35:30,080 --> 00:35:33,000
Speaker 1: We didn't have that. I remember actually going out with

679
00:35:33,080 --> 00:35:35,080
Speaker 1: Dale and we go out to the beach and I'm

680
00:35:35,120 --> 00:35:37,600
Speaker 1: against it, and I just said walk with me, and

681
00:35:37,640 --> 00:35:40,040
Speaker 1: we walked back and forth on the beach for five

682
00:35:40,120 --> 00:35:43,120
Speaker 1: or six hours while I tried to figure out what

683
00:35:43,160 --> 00:35:46,760
Speaker 1: the promo should be. And I realized that the problem

684
00:35:46,920 --> 00:35:50,440
Speaker 1: that MTV had was twofold. One is nobody knew what

685
00:35:50,480 --> 00:35:53,720
Speaker 1: the hell it was, and so telling them to watch

686
00:35:53,800 --> 00:35:56,440
Speaker 1: this or watch that wasn't gonna be very useful. So

687
00:35:56,520 --> 00:35:58,719
Speaker 1: I realized I had to tell them a story. But

688
00:35:58,760 --> 00:36:01,720
Speaker 1: I also realized something else that we had learned in radio,

689
00:36:02,320 --> 00:36:04,840
Speaker 1: which is at the end of every song, people have

690
00:36:04,880 --> 00:36:08,240
Speaker 1: a reason to tune away. So that meant in MTV

691
00:36:09,040 --> 00:36:13,840
Speaker 1: every three minutes people could leave. The ratings. Lesson I

692
00:36:13,880 --> 00:36:17,799
Speaker 1: had learned was time spent listening was more important than

693
00:36:17,840 --> 00:36:19,800
Speaker 1: how many people listen, because if you can get somebody

694
00:36:19,800 --> 00:36:22,440
Speaker 1: to listen for fifteen minutes for a few songs and

695
00:36:22,480 --> 00:36:25,400
Speaker 1: through the commercial, you made more money. And if they

696
00:36:25,480 --> 00:36:28,239
Speaker 1: listen that long, more people were going to listen. So

697
00:36:28,280 --> 00:36:31,960
Speaker 1: I realized that at MTV our job was actually not

698
00:36:32,920 --> 00:36:36,279
Speaker 1: be cool. We knew how to be cool, not be

699
00:36:37,000 --> 00:36:40,080
Speaker 1: crazy and creative, though we were going to do that anyway,

700
00:36:40,320 --> 00:36:42,360
Speaker 1: not tell people what time the shows. Wrong, it was

701
00:36:42,400 --> 00:36:45,799
Speaker 1: to get them to listen longer, time spent viewing. So

702
00:36:45,840 --> 00:36:49,080
Speaker 1: fast forward Nickelodeon. One of the great things about Jerry

703
00:36:49,120 --> 00:36:51,239
Speaker 1: is she was very research crazy, and she said, we

704
00:36:51,280 --> 00:36:54,879
Speaker 1: don't understand why no one watches. As you remember, one

705
00:36:54,880 --> 00:36:57,000
Speaker 1: show had a rating and everything else had hash marks

706
00:36:57,040 --> 00:36:59,920
Speaker 1: basically zero, and I said, well, what do you know

707
00:37:00,440 --> 00:37:02,880
Speaker 1: should Well, here's what we know. We can't figure it

708
00:37:02,880 --> 00:37:08,480
Speaker 1: out of everyone who has cable tunes into Nickelodeon once

709
00:37:08,520 --> 00:37:13,040
Speaker 1: a week and stays for less than six minutes. I said, oh, okay,

710
00:37:13,080 --> 00:37:14,640
Speaker 1: so that's the problem to solved. You what do you mean,

711
00:37:15,000 --> 00:37:16,880
Speaker 1: I said, we just have to get them watching longer.

712
00:37:17,400 --> 00:37:20,080
Speaker 1: We go back and we work out a promotional clock,

713
00:37:20,239 --> 00:37:23,040
Speaker 1: because the way Nickelodeon did it was like nuts. It

714
00:37:23,120 --> 00:37:25,080
Speaker 1: was well, if you have a minute here, we'll put

715
00:37:25,080 --> 00:37:28,240
Speaker 1: a promo, and if there's not another minute for two hours,

716
00:37:28,280 --> 00:37:30,799
Speaker 1: then we'll do it. There was no organization, and as

717
00:37:30,800 --> 00:37:34,799
Speaker 1: you well know, with media, a dependable, organized wheel makes

718
00:37:34,840 --> 00:37:37,239
Speaker 1: all the difference. So I go back to Jerry to

719
00:37:37,320 --> 00:37:40,959
Speaker 1: the next meeting. I said, Jerry, I found twenty five

720
00:37:41,040 --> 00:37:44,920
Speaker 1: million dollars for you to market. What are you talking about?

721
00:37:45,600 --> 00:37:47,600
Speaker 1: I said, Well, the whole deal is this time spend

722
00:37:47,640 --> 00:37:50,520
Speaker 1: viewing thing. We worked out a clock and there's gonna

723
00:37:50,560 --> 00:37:52,479
Speaker 1: be two minutes of promos an hour, and they're gonna

724
00:37:52,480 --> 00:37:54,480
Speaker 1: be distributed this way. We'll have to recut some of

725
00:37:54,480 --> 00:37:56,680
Speaker 1: the shows, but we we have no new shows. We

726
00:37:56,680 --> 00:37:59,880
Speaker 1: have to do that too. Well, where's the twenty million dollars?

727
00:38:00,040 --> 00:38:02,640
Speaker 1: And I said, well, you're right, for your spots are

728
00:38:02,719 --> 00:38:05,600
Speaker 1: five a piece, and if you add up how many

729
00:38:05,760 --> 00:38:07,600
Speaker 1: there are over the course of year, it's twenty five

730
00:38:07,640 --> 00:38:10,560
Speaker 1: million dollars. And we're going to use them like an

731
00:38:10,560 --> 00:38:15,120
Speaker 1: ad campaign, not like a television channel. We have a

732
00:38:15,160 --> 00:38:18,120
Speaker 1: story to tell. I don't care about your shows. The

733
00:38:18,160 --> 00:38:20,600
Speaker 1: only thing I care about is your kids that watch

734
00:38:21,040 --> 00:38:24,239
Speaker 1: them and the story that we are telling them. I

735
00:38:24,239 --> 00:38:27,000
Speaker 1: remember having a fight with my accountant at MTV at

736
00:38:27,000 --> 00:38:29,040
Speaker 1: the time and him screaming about how much money you

737
00:38:29,040 --> 00:38:31,960
Speaker 1: were giving us, and I said, would it surprise you

738
00:38:32,000 --> 00:38:35,280
Speaker 1: to know that I not only know how much every

739
00:38:35,400 --> 00:38:38,359
Speaker 1: second of video costs, but I can tell you how

740
00:38:38,360 --> 00:38:42,160
Speaker 1: many times that second will run in a year. Fast forward.

741
00:38:42,160 --> 00:38:45,040
Speaker 1: He's my CFO. Now. We've been friends ever since because

742
00:38:45,480 --> 00:38:49,520
Speaker 1: counting Dale Palm taught me another lesson when in doubt,

743
00:38:49,560 --> 00:38:55,160
Speaker 1: count and counting together with a creative approach, makes for

744
00:38:55,600 --> 00:38:58,480
Speaker 1: as you say here, math and magic. I almost want

745
00:38:58,480 --> 00:39:00,640
Speaker 1: to end the show on them. It's a great way

746
00:39:00,640 --> 00:39:01,719
Speaker 1: to do I don't want to ask you just a

747
00:39:01,760 --> 00:39:05,120
Speaker 1: couple of more things, though we're talking about creativity, talk

748
00:39:05,160 --> 00:39:07,920
Speaker 1: to me about the role of the old dogs like

749
00:39:08,080 --> 00:39:10,759
Speaker 1: us and creativity. We sort of know the power of

750
00:39:11,000 --> 00:39:13,399
Speaker 1: young fresh thinking. We were that once upon a time.

751
00:39:14,040 --> 00:39:15,600
Speaker 1: Do you think there is a role there is this

752
00:39:15,640 --> 00:39:18,399
Speaker 1: a young person's game. I think there's always a role

753
00:39:18,440 --> 00:39:21,800
Speaker 1: for anybody who gives a crap one way or the other.

754
00:39:22,360 --> 00:39:24,560
Speaker 1: I decided a long time ago that I have three

755
00:39:24,640 --> 00:39:27,479
Speaker 1: rules for myself that you know, have not always made

756
00:39:27,520 --> 00:39:30,160
Speaker 1: me wealthy, but they worked out really nicely. Which is

757
00:39:30,200 --> 00:39:31,799
Speaker 1: my first rule is I want to have a good time.

758
00:39:32,360 --> 00:39:34,480
Speaker 1: My second rule is I want to make some money.

759
00:39:34,800 --> 00:39:36,759
Speaker 1: And my third rule is I want to stand the

760
00:39:36,760 --> 00:39:39,359
Speaker 1: people that I work with. And I figure, at any point,

761
00:39:39,400 --> 00:39:41,920
Speaker 1: if I get two of those things, like, I'm onto something.

762
00:39:42,520 --> 00:39:45,680
Speaker 1: There was a period of time where I was still

763
00:39:45,760 --> 00:39:47,960
Speaker 1: fresh enough to that work that we had done in

764
00:39:48,000 --> 00:39:51,480
Speaker 1: the early eighties that when I would meet with a

765
00:39:51,520 --> 00:39:53,080
Speaker 1: new team of people, I go, well, you know, what

766
00:39:53,160 --> 00:39:55,120
Speaker 1: we did at MTV was this, and what we did

767
00:39:55,120 --> 00:39:57,880
Speaker 1: at Nickelodeon was that. And I realized I was starting

768
00:39:57,920 --> 00:40:00,160
Speaker 1: to be the get off your long guy, you know.

769
00:40:00,960 --> 00:40:03,560
Speaker 1: And I decided instead that what I needed to be

770
00:40:04,360 --> 00:40:06,719
Speaker 1: was what people had been with me, which is the

771
00:40:06,800 --> 00:40:10,680
Speaker 1: favorite uncle. I would go through the point of view

772
00:40:10,719 --> 00:40:13,000
Speaker 1: that I had and why I had that point of view,

773
00:40:13,000 --> 00:40:15,520
Speaker 1: because it's still as fresh in my mind today as

774
00:40:15,560 --> 00:40:18,040
Speaker 1: it was, you know, thirty years ago, forty years ago.

775
00:40:19,080 --> 00:40:23,080
Speaker 1: I realized that people need room to be themselves. The

776
00:40:23,120 --> 00:40:25,279
Speaker 1: way I call what I do now is I'm the

777
00:40:25,320 --> 00:40:28,360
Speaker 1: bumpers in the bowling alley. You might not get a strike,

778
00:40:28,840 --> 00:40:31,560
Speaker 1: but you'll never get a gutter ball, And by never

779
00:40:31,600 --> 00:40:34,000
Speaker 1: getting a gutter ball, you have the confidence to be

780
00:40:34,040 --> 00:40:37,440
Speaker 1: able to do something wonderful. The first person that I

781
00:40:37,480 --> 00:40:40,160
Speaker 1: brought into Nickelodeon was a guy that you know called

782
00:40:40,200 --> 00:40:43,200
Speaker 1: Scott Webb, who had been a movie channel producer for us,

783
00:40:44,080 --> 00:40:46,080
Speaker 1: and he made a bunch of promos and he comes

784
00:40:46,120 --> 00:40:48,120
Speaker 1: and shows them to me and I go, what the

785
00:40:48,160 --> 00:40:51,520
Speaker 1: hell are you doing? He goes, well, this is what

786
00:40:51,600 --> 00:40:54,200
Speaker 1: they wanted. I said, I didn't hire you to do

787
00:40:54,239 --> 00:40:57,000
Speaker 1: what they wanted. If they knew what they wanted, they

788
00:40:57,000 --> 00:40:59,920
Speaker 1: wouldn't have hired me, and I wouldn't have hired you. Now,

789
00:41:00,040 --> 00:41:02,440
Speaker 1: you better start doing the things that you believe in,

790
00:41:03,280 --> 00:41:05,799
Speaker 1: not the things that they believe in. And from that

791
00:41:05,920 --> 00:41:08,239
Speaker 1: day on, he not only was brilliant, but the thing

792
00:41:08,320 --> 00:41:10,400
Speaker 1: that very few people know about Scott Is. He was

793
00:41:10,520 --> 00:41:15,520
Speaker 1: legally blind but became the worldwide creative director of Nickelodeon

794
00:41:15,520 --> 00:41:19,279
Speaker 1: while being legally blind. Why because what we gave him

795
00:41:19,320 --> 00:41:22,640
Speaker 1: the opportunity to do is what he had always imagined

796
00:41:23,080 --> 00:41:25,360
Speaker 1: rather than what he was told to do. To me,

797
00:41:25,640 --> 00:41:28,480
Speaker 1: that's our role. Our role is to give people the

798
00:41:28,600 --> 00:41:32,080
Speaker 1: room to screw up. Because if you let them screw

799
00:41:32,160 --> 00:41:35,279
Speaker 1: up and they're good, the next time, it won't be

800
00:41:35,280 --> 00:41:37,560
Speaker 1: a screw up, it'll be a home run. Let's move

801
00:41:37,640 --> 00:41:41,000
Speaker 1: to the way we always end this podcast. This is

802
00:41:41,000 --> 00:41:44,560
Speaker 1: about math and magic, the two keys that come together

803
00:41:44,600 --> 00:41:47,640
Speaker 1: to make great marketing and products. And there are experts

804
00:41:47,640 --> 00:41:53,960
Speaker 1: and icons in both. Your favorite math person, del Pon,

805
00:41:54,760 --> 00:42:00,000
Speaker 1: your favorite magician, the Beatles, Red cyber Genius and friends.

806
00:42:00,360 --> 00:42:02,640
Speaker 1: Thanks Bell, Thank you, Bob, thanks for having me. I

807
00:42:02,760 --> 00:42:06,839
Speaker 1: really appreciate it. Here's a couple of things I take

808
00:42:06,880 --> 00:42:10,200
Speaker 1: away from Fred Cyber. One, when it comes to logos,

809
00:42:10,280 --> 00:42:16,160
Speaker 1: Fred's philosophies dominate the space. Two, Fred's secret to great

810
00:42:16,239 --> 00:42:18,640
Speaker 1: hiring is to determine in the interview whether he wants

811
00:42:18,640 --> 00:42:21,200
Speaker 1: to spend more time with the candidate. It's such a

812
00:42:21,239 --> 00:42:24,040
Speaker 1: simple metric, but if he hears them say something intriguing

813
00:42:24,440 --> 00:42:27,000
Speaker 1: or wants to help them grow. It's an easy decision.

814
00:42:27,640 --> 00:42:30,480
Speaker 1: Three On the flip side, one of Fred's keys to

815
00:42:30,520 --> 00:42:33,239
Speaker 1: success has been figuring out who to work for. In

816
00:42:33,360 --> 00:42:36,480
Speaker 1: his words, doesn't matter what the job is, work for

817
00:42:36,480 --> 00:42:39,319
Speaker 1: the smartest person you can find. It's what made him

818
00:42:39,320 --> 00:42:41,680
Speaker 1: take the leap from radio to television and then to

819
00:42:41,760 --> 00:42:47,680
Speaker 1: working cartoons for Ted Turner. I'm Bob Pittman. Thanks for listening.

820
00:42:53,760 --> 00:42:56,320
Speaker 1: That's it for today's episode. Thanks so much for listening

821
00:42:56,320 --> 00:42:58,800
Speaker 1: to Math and Magic, a production of I Heart Radio.

822
00:42:59,200 --> 00:43:01,960
Speaker 1: This show is hosted by Bob Pittman. Special thanks to

823
00:43:02,040 --> 00:43:04,960
Speaker 1: Sue Schillinger for booking and wrangling our wonderful talent, which

824
00:43:05,040 --> 00:43:08,920
Speaker 1: is no small feat Nikkiatore for pulling research, Bill Plax

825
00:43:09,000 --> 00:43:12,400
Speaker 1: and Michael Asar for their recording help, our editor Ryan Murdoch,

826
00:43:12,520 --> 00:43:16,120
Speaker 1: and of course Gayle Raoul, Eric Angel, Noel Mango and

827
00:43:16,200 --> 00:43:19,200
Speaker 1: everyone who helped bring this show to your ears. Until

828
00:43:19,280 --> 00:43:19,759
Speaker 1: next time,