The creator can thank a trip to the zoo for this character outline. In the original pitch to Nickelodeon, Murray described his character as a 20 year old male scrub wallaby, who was “a young anthromorphic Woody Allen, who has just moved away from home into a surrealistic adult world.” In this sketch, he described the character as somewhat spacy and “naïve to the new chores of life.” The show was Put together by an all-star team. Another one had no dialogue, just pantomime … so Steve Hillenburg, Doug Lawrence, and I were able to do a lot of weird things we couldn’t have done today.” 3. Nothing held us back," Murray said in the book Not Just Cartoons. "Once we did a four-minute episode.
The newbie animator was hesitant, because children’s television was not very good quality in the '80s, but reluctantly agreed.
ROCKO MODERN LIFE ANIMAL MOVIE
Simensky and the Nickelodeon team were enthralled by the movie and asked Murray if he would like to develop an original series. A copy of his film My Dog Zer-about a man with a dim-witted dog-found its way to the desk of Linda Simensky, the head of animation development at Nickelodeon.
The first three shows in development were Doug, The Ren & Stimpy Show, and Rugrats.Īt the same time, Murray was creating short animated films and sending copies to various people in the media. The fledgling kids' channel was aiming to produce edgier, higher quality content than what other networks were creating for kids.
Nickelodeon opened Nickelodeon Studios in 1990, and the following year started producing its own cartoon shows (known as Nicktoons).