Danny Antonucci
Encyclopedia
Daniel Edward "Danny" Antonucci (born February 27, 1957 in Toronto
, Ontario
, Canada
) is an animator
,director producer and screenwriter
best known for his 1999 animated series Ed, Edd n Eddy
, which has ended its run, but airs on Cartoon Network
every weekday at 2:30 and 3:00pm EST. Currently, he is married and has two children, Tex and Marlowe.
immigrants to Canada. His experiences as the child of immigrant parents deeply influenced his later work.
Antonucci was fascinated by cartoons (and other animations) as a child and spent long hours drawing and trying to figure out how the pictures 'moved.' He performed puppet shows for cash, and made his first cartoon at the young age of 14.
Antonucci attended the Sheridan College of Visual Arts
but quit to take a job as an animator at Canimage Production, a division of Hanna-Barbera
. He worked on numerous shows, including The Smurfs, The Richie Rich/Scooby-Doo Show
and The Flintstones Comedy Hour. It was on the latter show that he worked with Tex Avery
.
Intending to move to Los Angeles
in 1984 to find more work, Antonucci landed in Vancouver, British Columbia. He landed a job at International Rocketship Ltd., animating short films and television commercials. His first effort was on the short film, Sandboxland.
, produced by International Rocketship, about a short-tempered butcher who swears at the meat he is cutting and gets extremely mad at the smallest mistakes. Antonucci says the short arose out of his own frustration at having to work in children's film for so long, and to try his hand at creating a full-fledged character on film. The short animated film screened at several film festivals in Europe, including the Berlin Film Festival, before gaining attention in the United States
at Spike and Mike's Sick and Twisted Festival of Animation. During his time with the Lupo cartoon, he also did the snoring noises to another International Rocketship released cartoon entitled "Dog Brain" which was written by fellow cartoonist J. Falconer.
The 'Lupo' character was eventually licensed by the Converse athletic shoe company. This led to additional work, including animated commercials for Levi Strauss & Co.
and MTV
. In 1993, still working for International Rocketship, Antonucci did a series of short commercials for MTV which depicted several brothers on a couch grunting. MTV commissioned a series, and The Brothers Grunt
began airing in August 1994.
On April 1, 1994, Antonucci started an animation company named A.K.A. Cartoon, which produced 'The Brothers Grunt' series. Altogether, 45 seven-minute episodes aired before the series went off the air in 1995.
Antonucci returned to doing commercials. Antonucci worked for MTV on its short-lived Cartoon Sushi
show in 1997, directing, writing and providing voices. He was also responsible for the title sequence of the same show.
(UPA) cartoons.
Seeking as wide an audience as possible, Antonucci shopped the show to Nickelodeon
, which demanded creative control
. Antonucci refused to give it, so he took the show to Cartoon Network
, which quickly picked it up. Cartoon Network also wanted Antonucci to show them more of his work, but CN decided to let Antonucci go at his own pace.
The show, Ed, Edd n Eddy
, premiered on Cartoon Network, January 4, 1999. The premise is that three pre-adolescent boys — named Ed, Edd (referred to by the other characters on the show as "Double D"), and Eddy (collectively known as 'the Eds') — hang around during the summer in their suburban neighborhood, Peach Creek Estates (in later seasons, summer ends and they have to return to their school, Peach Creek Jr. High). Led by the avaricious Eddy, the other Eds get caught up in various schemes to make money off their peers, so they can get jawbreakers. But Eddy's plans usually fail, leaving the boys in various predicaments. The characters almost never leave the neighborhood, and adults are nowhere to be seen. The Eds' parents' arms, and sometimes sillhouettes, appear occasionally in episodes, and it can be assumed that Eddy's Brother, who apppears in the series finale, is an adult. Occasionally, humorous satirical references are made to Canada in the show, since AKA studios is based in Canada. (In one episode, the Eds stumble upon a box of turkey basters at the local dump, and Eddy pawns them off to the neighborhood kids as "Canadian squirtguns", to which Ed replies "Canadians are weird!")
According to Antonucci, plots for 'Ed, Edd n Eddy' are taken from his own memories of suburban life and what it was like to while away idle summer vacations. He has described that he based several characters on other children he knew as a child, such as Johnny, who was based on a friend of his, and Jimmy, who was inspired by his cousin. He also based several stories on escapades his own two children have had.
Antonucci is a strong advocate of hand-drawn animation. The wobbling animation in 'Ed, Edd n Eddy' is an homage to the hand-drawn cartoons with a style that harkens back to cartoons of the 1930s-1950s; the show also utilizes non-repeating solid blocks of color and simple line, and little detail in the artwork is evinced, unless it is something which has the attention of the characters. In interviews, Antonucci says this is because children rarely pay attention to detail.
Ed, Edd n Eddy was Cartoon Network's sixth Cartoon Cartoon. It first aired in 1999 and has since attracted millions of fans worldwide. Originally, there were to be only four seasons; Cartoon Network, however, ordered two more seasons of 'Ed, Edd n Eddy', bringing the series length to six seasons. There are also three holiday specials for Halloween, Christmas, Valentine's Day, a special alien episode for the US event, Cartoon Network Invaded, and a 2009 made-for-TV movie entitled Ed, Edd n Eddy's Big Picture Show, in which Eddy's elusive Brother appears, becoming the only adult to ever appear in the show. Having reached its conclusion in 2009 with the movie, Ed, Edd n Eddy is the longest running original cartoon on Cartoon Network. Although it was already quite popular, it has garnered a huge cult following after Ed, Edd n Eddy's Big Picture Show, with many people creating parodies of the show on many video-sharing sites such as YouTube.
It has been rumored that Antonucci is working on another Ed, Edd 'n Eddy work but as of August 2011, nothing has been announced yet.
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
, Ontario
Ontario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
) is an animator
Animation
Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. The effect is an optical illusion of motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in several ways...
,director producer and screenwriter
Screenwriter
Screenwriters or scriptwriters or scenario writers are people who write/create the short or feature-length screenplays from which mass media such as films, television programs, Comics or video games are based.-Profession:...
best known for his 1999 animated series Ed, Edd n Eddy
Ed, Edd n Eddy
Ed, Edd n Eddy is an original animated television series created by Danny Antonucci and produced by Canadian-based a.k.a. Cartoon. It premiered on Cartoon Network on January 4, 1999. Ed, Edd n Eddy was one of Cartoon Network's longest running and most successful franchises and the longest-running...
, which has ended its run, but airs on Cartoon Network
Cartoon Network
Cartoon Network is a name of television channels worldwide created by Turner Broadcasting which used to primarily show animated programming. The channel began broadcasting on October 1, 1992 in the United States....
every weekday at 2:30 and 3:00pm EST. Currently, he is married and has two children, Tex and Marlowe.
Early life and career
Antonucci's parents were first-generation ItalianItaly
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
immigrants to Canada. His experiences as the child of immigrant parents deeply influenced his later work.
Antonucci was fascinated by cartoons (and other animations) as a child and spent long hours drawing and trying to figure out how the pictures 'moved.' He performed puppet shows for cash, and made his first cartoon at the young age of 14.
Antonucci attended the Sheridan College of Visual Arts
Sheridan College
Sheridan College Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning is a diploma and degree granting Canadian polytechnic institute with approximately 15,000 full time students and 35,000 continuing education students...
but quit to take a job as an animator at Canimage Production, a division of Hanna-Barbera
Hanna-Barbera
Hanna-Barbera Productions, Inc. was an American animation studio that dominated North American television animation during the second half of the 20th century...
. He worked on numerous shows, including The Smurfs, The Richie Rich/Scooby-Doo Show
The Richie Rich/Scooby-Doo Show
The Richie Rich/Scooby-Doo Show and Scrappy Too! is a package show produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions in 1980 for ABC Saturday mornings. The program contained segments from Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo and Richie Rich. The Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo shorts represents the sixth show in which...
and The Flintstones Comedy Hour. It was on the latter show that he worked with Tex Avery
Tex Avery
Frederick Bean "Fred/Tex" Avery was an American animator, cartoonist, voice actor and director, famous for producing animated cartoons during The Golden Age of Hollywood animation. He did his most significant work for the Warner Bros...
.
Intending to move to Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
in 1984 to find more work, Antonucci landed in Vancouver, British Columbia. He landed a job at International Rocketship Ltd., animating short films and television commercials. His first effort was on the short film, Sandboxland.
International Rocketship and MTV work
Antonucci's first solo work was Lupo the ButcherLupo the Butcher
Lupo the Butcher is a 1987 animated film directed and written by Danny Antonucci. Gary Lambeth is credited as being the ink and paint artist.-Plot:...
, produced by International Rocketship, about a short-tempered butcher who swears at the meat he is cutting and gets extremely mad at the smallest mistakes. Antonucci says the short arose out of his own frustration at having to work in children's film for so long, and to try his hand at creating a full-fledged character on film. The short animated film screened at several film festivals in Europe, including the Berlin Film Festival, before gaining attention in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
at Spike and Mike's Sick and Twisted Festival of Animation. During his time with the Lupo cartoon, he also did the snoring noises to another International Rocketship released cartoon entitled "Dog Brain" which was written by fellow cartoonist J. Falconer.
The 'Lupo' character was eventually licensed by the Converse athletic shoe company. This led to additional work, including animated commercials for Levi Strauss & Co.
Levi Strauss & Co.
Levi Strauss & Co. is a privately held American clothing company known worldwide for its Levi's brand of denim jeans. It was founded in 1853 when Levi Strauss came from Buttenheim, Franconia, to San Francisco, California to open a west coast branch of his brothers' New York dry goods business...
and MTV
MTV
MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....
. In 1993, still working for International Rocketship, Antonucci did a series of short commercials for MTV which depicted several brothers on a couch grunting. MTV commissioned a series, and The Brothers Grunt
The Brothers Grunt
The Brothers Grunt is an animated TV series that aired from August 15, 1994 to February 20, 1995 on MTV. The series was created by Danny Antonucci .-Premise:...
began airing in August 1994.
On April 1, 1994, Antonucci started an animation company named A.K.A. Cartoon, which produced 'The Brothers Grunt' series. Altogether, 45 seven-minute episodes aired before the series went off the air in 1995.
Antonucci returned to doing commercials. Antonucci worked for MTV on its short-lived Cartoon Sushi
Cartoon Sushi
Cartoon Sushi was an animation showcase program that aired on MTV from 1997 to 1998. It was produced by Nick Litwinko. As a collection of animation shorts, Cartoon Sushi was a spiritual successor to MTV's Liquid Television...
show in 1997, directing, writing and providing voices. He was also responsible for the title sequence of the same show.
Ed, Edd n Eddy
Feeling pigeon-holed as an angst-ridden, 'edgy' artist, Antonucci decided to produce an animated children's television show again. He resolved, however, to ensure that the series was produced in a way similar to the classic cartoons of the 1940s. Antonucci spent months designing the show's look in a style reminiscent of the old United Productions of AmericaUnited Productions of America
United Productions of America, better known as UPA, was an American animation studio of the 1940s through present day, beginning with industrial films and World War II training films. In the late 1940s, UPA produced theatrical shorts for Columbia Pictures, most notably the Mr. Magoo series. In...
(UPA) cartoons.
Seeking as wide an audience as possible, Antonucci shopped the show to Nickelodeon
Nickelodeon (TV channel)
Nickelodeon, often simply called Nick and originally named Pinwheel, is an American children's channel owned by MTV Networks, a subsidiary of Viacom International. The channel is primarily aimed at children ages 7–17, with the exception of their weekday morning program block aimed at preschoolers...
, which demanded creative control
Artistic control
Artistic control or Creative Control is a term commonly used in media production, such as movies, television, and music production. A person with artistic control has the authority to decide how the final product will appear. In movies, this commonly refers to the authority to decide on the final...
. Antonucci refused to give it, so he took the show to Cartoon Network
Cartoon Network
Cartoon Network is a name of television channels worldwide created by Turner Broadcasting which used to primarily show animated programming. The channel began broadcasting on October 1, 1992 in the United States....
, which quickly picked it up. Cartoon Network also wanted Antonucci to show them more of his work, but CN decided to let Antonucci go at his own pace.
The show, Ed, Edd n Eddy
Ed, Edd n Eddy
Ed, Edd n Eddy is an original animated television series created by Danny Antonucci and produced by Canadian-based a.k.a. Cartoon. It premiered on Cartoon Network on January 4, 1999. Ed, Edd n Eddy was one of Cartoon Network's longest running and most successful franchises and the longest-running...
, premiered on Cartoon Network, January 4, 1999. The premise is that three pre-adolescent boys — named Ed, Edd (referred to by the other characters on the show as "Double D"), and Eddy (collectively known as 'the Eds') — hang around during the summer in their suburban neighborhood, Peach Creek Estates (in later seasons, summer ends and they have to return to their school, Peach Creek Jr. High). Led by the avaricious Eddy, the other Eds get caught up in various schemes to make money off their peers, so they can get jawbreakers. But Eddy's plans usually fail, leaving the boys in various predicaments. The characters almost never leave the neighborhood, and adults are nowhere to be seen. The Eds' parents' arms, and sometimes sillhouettes, appear occasionally in episodes, and it can be assumed that Eddy's Brother, who apppears in the series finale, is an adult. Occasionally, humorous satirical references are made to Canada in the show, since AKA studios is based in Canada. (In one episode, the Eds stumble upon a box of turkey basters at the local dump, and Eddy pawns them off to the neighborhood kids as "Canadian squirtguns", to which Ed replies "Canadians are weird!")
According to Antonucci, plots for 'Ed, Edd n Eddy' are taken from his own memories of suburban life and what it was like to while away idle summer vacations. He has described that he based several characters on other children he knew as a child, such as Johnny, who was based on a friend of his, and Jimmy, who was inspired by his cousin. He also based several stories on escapades his own two children have had.
Antonucci is a strong advocate of hand-drawn animation. The wobbling animation in 'Ed, Edd n Eddy' is an homage to the hand-drawn cartoons with a style that harkens back to cartoons of the 1930s-1950s; the show also utilizes non-repeating solid blocks of color and simple line, and little detail in the artwork is evinced, unless it is something which has the attention of the characters. In interviews, Antonucci says this is because children rarely pay attention to detail.
Ed, Edd n Eddy was Cartoon Network's sixth Cartoon Cartoon. It first aired in 1999 and has since attracted millions of fans worldwide. Originally, there were to be only four seasons; Cartoon Network, however, ordered two more seasons of 'Ed, Edd n Eddy', bringing the series length to six seasons. There are also three holiday specials for Halloween, Christmas, Valentine's Day, a special alien episode for the US event, Cartoon Network Invaded, and a 2009 made-for-TV movie entitled Ed, Edd n Eddy's Big Picture Show, in which Eddy's elusive Brother appears, becoming the only adult to ever appear in the show. Having reached its conclusion in 2009 with the movie, Ed, Edd n Eddy is the longest running original cartoon on Cartoon Network. Although it was already quite popular, it has garnered a huge cult following after Ed, Edd n Eddy's Big Picture Show, with many people creating parodies of the show on many video-sharing sites such as YouTube.
It has been rumored that Antonucci is working on another Ed, Edd 'n Eddy work but as of August 2011, nothing has been announced yet.
Filmography
- The Adventures of Barfman (1971) (Director, Writer)
- Richie RichRichie Rich (1980 TV series)Richie Rich is an animated television series produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions that aired on ABC from 1980 to 1984. Based upon Harvey Comics' popular Richie Rich comic book characters, shared time slots with Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo, The Little Rascals, and Pac-Man over its original broadcast...
(1980) (Animator) - Heavy MetalHeavy Metal (film)Heavy Metal is a 1981 Canadian fantasy-animated film directed by Gerald Potterton and produced by Ivan Reitman and Leonard Mogel, who also was the publisher of Heavy Metal magazine....
(1981) (Animator) - The Smurfs (1981) (Animator)
- The Flintstones spin-off TV series (1981–1983) (Animator)
- Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-DooScooby-Doo and Scrappy-DooScooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo can refer to several versions of Hanna-Barbera's Scooby-Doo Saturday morning cartoon series:* Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo : half-hour episodes originally broadcast during the 1979 - 1980 television season...
(1979–1981) (Animator) - International Rocketship Ltd (1984–1994) (Animator Of Short Films)
- Hooray for Sandbox Land (1984) (Lead Animator)
- The Velveteen RabbitThe Velveteen RabbitThe Velveteen Rabbit or How Toys Become Real is a children's novel written by Margery Williams and illustrated by William Nicholson. It chronicles the story of a stuffed rabbit and his quest to become real through the love of his owner. The book was first published in 1922 and has been republished...
(1985) (Animator) - The Chipmunk AdventureThe Chipmunk AdventureThe Chipmunk Adventure is a 1987 American animated film featuring the characters from NBC's Saturday morning cartoon Alvin and the Chipmunks. The Chipmunk Adventure was directed by Janice Karman from a screenplay by Karman and Ross Bagdasarian Jr....
(1987) (Assistant Animator) - Lupo The ButcherLupo the ButcherLupo the Butcher is a 1987 animated film directed and written by Danny Antonucci. Gary Lambeth is credited as being the ink and paint artist.-Plot:...
(1987) (Director, Writer, Composer) - MTV IDs (1989–1993) (Lead Animator, Director)
- Dirty Deposits (1993) (Animator)
- The Brothers GruntThe Brothers GruntThe Brothers Grunt is an animated TV series that aired from August 15, 1994 to February 20, 1995 on MTV. The series was created by Danny Antonucci .-Premise:...
(1994–1995) (Creator) - Lupo's Nightmare (1995) (Director, Writer)
- Cartoon SushiCartoon SushiCartoon Sushi was an animation showcase program that aired on MTV from 1997 to 1998. It was produced by Nick Litwinko. As a collection of animation shorts, Cartoon Sushi was a spiritual successor to MTV's Liquid Television...
(1997) (Animator) - Ed Edd 'n Eddy (1999–?) (Creator, Writer, Director)
- Ed, Edd n Eddy's Big Picture Show (2009) (Director, Producer, Writer)