Fresh out of SVA, where I studied Art Direction & Copywriting, I landed a $212.50/week “Detail Assistant” position in JC Penney’s Ad Department, which produced a ton of print. I was shuffled around various divisions, until I settled into their newly formed commercial production department. The first spot I got my hands dirty on (literally) was “The JC Penney Tire & Underwear sale”. My task was to stack 200 radial tires as well as 1,000 packs of Men’s briefs on a white cyc. When all was in place and lit, the 70 something, Safari jacket clad director strode onto set. Seated on the camera dolly puffing a Salem poking out of a tortoise shell cigarette holder, he peered through his eyepiece and camera lens then said “Action”. The sheer power gave me goose bumps. The camera began its dolly across the tires and underwear landing on a small western set. A cowboy in a rocking chair yanked on his pant waist declaring, “If this is roughing it, give me more”. I was like What the Fuck does that mean?! Then, I saw the craft service table and thought, Wow, Peanut butter filled pretzel nuggets and Swedish fish! I stuffed my pockets thinking, I love this gig!

One year of 60 equally inane JC Penney spots was enough, so I accepted an associate producer position at the P&G loaded DMB&B, better known as DUM&B. It was basically a death camp for the Mad Men era drunks. I recall being instructed to set up meetings before the daily two-hour lunch break, because in the afternoon, the creatives could ignite with the strike of a match from the Vodka fumes seeping out of their skin. But, it was there I got indoctrinated into the world of animation. I was assigned the launch of the Crest Pump. I loved stop motion, and reached out to a then unknown company in D.C., Broadcast Arts, that had been doing the :10 second promos for MTV. The unusual spots were a hit. As a reward for the cool campaign, I was shown the door at the agency for “caring too much about the work”.

With Frozen Rhumba Punches and time on my hands, plus a steady flow of severance funds for the next 4 months, I came up with the idea to shoot a space adventure with live hamsters, gerbils and mice in a friend’s art studio in Soho. That plan went south when one night the hamsters devoured the 6 mice, stowing a tidy bone yard under the cedar chips. I returned the surviving, blood soaked rodents to the pet shop. Then, out of the blue, I got a call from one of the principals at Broadcast Arts (now moved to NYC, financed by the Crest Pump campaign), which changed everything. A young executive at CBS told them that the Crest Pump spots among other work, had caught Paul Reuben’s eye, and he wanted to develop a Saturday morning series with Broadcast Arts based on his stage act “Pee Wee’s Playhouse”. Since I had gone to see Pee Wee’s Big Adventure 5 days in a row, and was hooked on his HBO special, I was an expert on the man-child, plus, it didn’t hurt being an uber-nerd myself. I jumped at the offer to join the development team. After a 6 month creative binge, we had a definitive go by late spring. I wrote some show bits and produced two of the weekly, animated segments, “Life in the Fridge” (which I also wrote and storyboarded) and “Mutant Toyland”, which Paul Reubens didn’t renew for the second season because it scared the shit out of kids. I also got to direct Larry (Lawrence) Fishburne, do music with Mark Mothersbaugh, submit ideas to Paul Reubens and Phil Hartman and most impressive of all, had black forest ham & swiss sandwiches with extra mustard delivered to me daily by Rob Zombie. I remember the party for the show’s premiere, which aired on a September, Saturday morning at 11:00 AM. All I could think was, who the fuck is up that early?!

With Pee Wee’s playhouse under my belt, I considered a move to LA, as the show was moving out west for the second season. In the meantime, I needed work. Out of the Agency business for a year and not too keen to get back in after my sour experiences, I made a cold call to the one shop I heard was doing cool stuff. The Production Head of Chiat NY answered on the first ring. After explaining what I’d been up to, he asked that I come in. The following day I was handed a 2 Million dollar Reebok campaign due to my Pee Wee credentials. I never did ask how my animation experience related to the extravagant, 3 week, live shoot I was assigned. But soon came to realize, that that was Chiat’s brilliance. Mix the unexpected and see what happens, think outside the box. I’ve applied that approach to many of my productions after. I was teamed with the great ECD, Bill Hamilton (R.I.P.) and his partner Rick Boyko. This began a great, creative relationship with the amazing and chaotic shop. My freelance life had begun.

After two years of Chiat and mounting Tums bills, I was armed with a reel of some very different, award winning work. I free-lanced at a number of agencies on A & W, Volvo, Seaworld, Chase (9 spot, $3 mil campaign) & Bausch & Lomb shows before landing on staff at DDB, where I spent the better part of the next 6 years. I was assigned NY Lottery’s new “Hey you never know” campaign created by David Angelo. The lottery work garnered just about every award. At the end of the second year, after a 5-week Martel Cognac shoot/per-diem buster in Paris, I jumped at the opportunity to produce for Bill Hamilton again, this time on a number of Amex projects and the Optima card launch at Ogilvy. After a year, flush with dough, and a fridge full of Michelob Ultras, I thought I’d take the summer off. No such luck. On a NY sidewalk I bumped into John Staffen, the now, co-creative head of DDB. On the spot he made a freelance offer I couldn’t refuse, Total autonomy on both creative and production with he and ECD, Mike Rogers (John’s partner). This arrangement pissed off the rest of the agency, but whatever. I was on a production run that lasted 4 years, producing and sometimes creative on over 100 spots for The NY Lottery, Frito Lay, Bud Light, Hersheys, Michelin and Cigna. I was spending half those years in LA hotels. At The Mondrian on one of those shoots, sick in bed with a 104-degree temperature, the rodents from space paid a return visit. The mouse blood was hardly noticeable anymore.

While bedridden at the hotel watching a couple of bald chicks pummeling the living crap out of each other on Jerry Springer, I received a call from Mark Mothersbaugh. He had spoken to a top development producer at Nickelodeon, Mary Harrington, who he knew via the Rugrats series he composed the music for (Mary also produced Ren & Stimpy!). She was interested in hearing about the rodents from Space. I sprang out of the King bed to get to work. In a trippy, Nyquil & codeine induced haze I conjured up a stack of “Space Hamster” animated characters for a pitch to the network. My Compadre, Conky the robot, of Pee Wee’s Playhouse fame, who when not spitting out the daily magic word, was an Art Director, Designer, committed to putting the package together with me. A short time later, we had a development deal. A partnership agreement with Mark & Conky was sealed: it was time to move to LA.

So, I loaded up the truck and moved to Beverly, where meeting after meeting at Nick took place. Ultimately, the deal fell apart when Mary Harrington left Nickelodeon. Mothersbaugh had another one up his sleeve though. Film Roman, the production arm of The Simpsons took on Space Hamster, but now it needed to be sold to a network. No walk in the park. Amongst the many meetings, a few stood out. During the pitch to Saban, an executive we met with disclosed a project they had in development called “Bounty Hamster”. When I examined it closely, I realized it was from an animation company in London that I had discussed Space Hamster with. After revealing this tidbit, Bounty Hamster never saw the light of the Crab Nebula. At Disney, our EP from Film Roman yanked the recently dislocated arm of the development executive’s arm back out of her shoulder socket with a hardy handshake. She sat through the long meeting, wincing in pain. In the parking lot after, I got bitch-slapped for saying “Strap on Peanut” in the pitch. Don’t ask!

While the Rodent antics went on, I had been producing spots for Coke, Kia, Partnership & Scott’s, bouncing from Edge Creative, David & Goliath & Wolf group. During this period, John Staffen had anchored at Arnold Worldwide as ECD. He once again made an offer that was impossible to resist for what was to become the longest perma-lance gig of my career to date: 7 years. I worked bi-coastally, producing more than 60 spots, with heavy emphasis on animation, EFX, humor and a bit of fashion. The clients were GSK, Hersheys, Tums, Hasbro & Bermuda. With Difficult clients and endless Millward-Brown testing, my experience and skills were put fully to the test. I found I loved taking challenged creative, and figuring ways to deliver work the agency could be proud of.

Since the Arnold Gig ran it’s course a few years ago, I’m focused on the West Coast, producing both broadcast and content at Chiat/MAL, David & Goliath, Mirada (vfx producer) Omelet, Piston and Wunderman Thompson (NY) on Kia, CA Lottery, Apple, Midas, Target, Yakult, Sony and Newell brands. I’ve written 2 screenplays, photographed macro portraits of select toys from my ridiculous nerd collection, and spent free moments repurposing my Rodents into a CG feature presentation and script: Goddamn! Space Hamster will be produced or my name ain’t Herrminator!

References Available upon Request.