invader_zim little wonder i want a taco! ...please? 020309 ... donaldson I had a coupon! 020309 ... little wonder i baking a cake! 020309 ... little wonder oops i'm i'm i'm i'm I'M not i 020309 ... silentbob Zim: GRR!!! HELP ME!!!! Grr: HI!!!!! i watched two episodes today. 020310 ... little wonder just reading that made me laugh i worship jhonen, i do 020310 ... good people i have a MIGHTY NEED!! to use the restroom once again 020310 ... Casey "Grr! Where is the locator chip!" "I took it out." "WHY?!" "To make room for the cupcake." "DOOM!" 020310 ... little wonder that's one of my favourites... but my very favourite is when Gir becomes the brain in the house. 020310 ... silentbob i assumed his name was grr. is it Gir or Grr? 020310 ... little wonder it isssss GIR! i did not know this until a few weeks ago, when i read something about it. ohhh and they have gir dolls. i will do anything for one. i will also do anything for a pregnant armadillo. 020310 ... silentbob would you even *gasp!* Pay money!!?? that's probably all you'll have to do i saw them too. they made me smile 020311 ... little wonder yes that is probably what i will do... i thought i'd throw it out there anyway though. 020311 ... little wonder i love-ed you piggy! i love-ed you!! [crysobcrysniff] 020325 ... little wonder I made it myself! 020404 ... silentbob i love you! 020404 ... Casey GIR, give me more piggies! I require PIGGIES!!! 020404 ... silentbob loves you casey gets extra cool points cuz he watches 020405 ... ItGirl YAY!!!! We're doomed... I wanna be a mongoose. Can I be a mongoose dog? AWWW... I wanted to explode. Where did the last piggy go? I like you! I'm gonna roll around the floor for a little bit... kay? I love the little tacos... I love them good. Keep it down. You wanna wake up the whole planet? I DO!!! I'm running! I'm running! Wheeee heeee heeee heee!!! I'm naked! I wanna watch the scary monkey show. I like madness! I left that at home. You left what at home? The guidey chippy thingey. WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?? To make room for the cupcake. I misses cupcake. WHOOO. I like destroying! My tacquitos! My tacquitos! TACQUITOOOOOOOOOOS!!!! Won't the 'sploding hurt? But if the big explodie goes fast won't it get all bad? TACOOOOS!!! Do a lil dance! moosey fate... say moosey fate I need tacos. I need them or I will explode. That happens to me soemtimes. 030714 ... Princess Lola jhonen_vasquez is liqued crack 030715 ... misstree "i'm gonna sing the doom song now!" -gir reality the way that i understand it says that, some indeterminate but not too large amount of time ago, a number of the cartooning crews that drew for nickelodeon banded together in an attempt to unionize... nickelodeon responded by cancelling their shows, rather than allow a union... invader zim was one of those lost in this horrific purge... and since nickelodeon owns the rights to it, they're not allowing anyone else to put out new episodes, either... despite the utter fucking brilliance of this show, and the number of souls that i would send screaming to hell just to have a gir. not 100% on the facts, and too work-bound to check up on them. 031003 ... Cherry_Springwater I must KILL the baby to preserve our secret! 031003 ... gir From the Writers Guild of America website, October newsletter. http://www.wga.org/pr/1001/membernews1001.html Jay Lender, writer on SpongeBob SquarePants, speaks to those on the picket line. PHOTOS BY SCOTT ROEBEN In late August, the WGAw filed its third unfair labor practice charge in two months against Nickelodeon Animation Studios, Inc. (a Viacom subsidiary) for retaliating against employees of animated series seeking union representation and coverage by the Guild's contract (MBA). The latest charge asserts Nickelodeon illegally reduced the benefits of writers on the television show Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius in retaliation for their activities in seeking WGAw representation. The Guild held an informational picket at Nickelodeon Animation Studios headquarters in support of the writers on August 30, 2001 in Burbank, California. "This action by Nickelodeon is the latest round in the company's escalating efforts to deny the benefits of the Guild's contract to these writers," said Paul Nawrocki, Assistant Executive Director of the WGAw. "These writers are seeking the basic rights that artists in this industry gained 60 years ago. Viacom owns a number of other companies that are signed to the Guild's MBA, and, if necessary, we will carry this struggle into those unionized sectors of the company." The unfair labor practice charges followed a Writers Guild petition for certification of representation with the U.S. National Labor Relations Board after Nickelodeon Animation Studios ignored a demand for recognition by the writers of six Nickelodeon animated programs (Invader Zim, SpongeBob SquarePants, Constant Payne, Hey Arnold!, Fairly Odd Parents and Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius). An overwhelming majority of the writers on the six shows have signed authorization cards designating the Writers Guild as their collective bargaining representative. The WGAw filed the first charge on June 29, 2001, after the company ordered its employees to provide statements to agents of the NLRB in support of the company's legal position. The employees were not informed that such statements are voluntary under the law and that no reprisal would occur if they declined to participate. The local office of the NLRB sent the first charge to NLRB headquarters in Washington, D.C., for further investigation and review. The WGAw filed its second charge with the NLRB on August 9, 2001, after the company issued a rule restricting the employees from posting union material on company bulletin boards and removed the boards. Employees have a right to engage in such activity under federal labor law. The day after the Guild filed this, the company rescinded the rule and restored the bulletin boards. The second charge remains under investigation by NLRB Region 31. The Guild has successfully organized the writers of every network primetime animation program and is expanding its efforts to provide representation for animation writers in the cable industry. 031003 ... more An interview from warner brothers toonzone with Micah Wright. He worked on Zim, and is trying to get his own show produced, called Constant Payne.: The WBAA: What was the real reason Constant Payne was not picked up by Nickelodeon? Micah Wright: The answer to that depends on who you ask and on what day you ask it. Nickelodeon has made it very clear to me that they did not pick up the show because they were unhappy with my attempts to unionize their studio. These people make $800 MILLION Dollars PER YEAR off of cartoons and they pay the writers who make them NOTHING. It's not fair and they know it, but they'd rather fight to keep from paying us anything extra than to share the money fairly. Not picking up Payne was their way of showing their displeasure with my questioning of their greed. They also took steps to try and destroy my career... they put out word to their fellow toadies at other studios that I was "trouble" and not to hire me. Really juvenile stuff when I look back on it, but I sure hope I never run into some of those executives... I'll have some rather choice words to say to their cowardly, backstabbing, blacklisting suckholes. Additionally, it now looks that Nickelodeon is getting out of the animation production business... they are buying shows from other crappier animation houses rather than producing good shows at their in-house studio. They canceled Zim, Spongebob, and Hey Arnold. They canceled the 2nd Hey Arnold movie (which, I hear they might resume if the first one does Gonzo business). The Nicktoons studio is just about shut down and various executives have been heard shooting their mouths off that they want to convert it into a live-action facility with lots of office space for executives. The WBAA: What does the future hold for Payne? Micah Wright: "The rights to the characters have reverted back to me. Nickelodeon isn't willing to let anyone else make a show unless they pay Nick for the pilot. In today's timid animation market, that's essentially a kiss of death with American Producers. I'm currently lining up foreign financing for the show... it may end up being series of films, rather than a tv show." The WBAA: What has been your past experience with Nick? Micah Wright: "I worked at Nickelodeon for seven years... I wouldn't have done that if it wasn't a good job. Unfortunately, over time the visionary people who built that channel into what it was left and they were replaced with dead-brained execu-dolts with MBAs and no creativity anywhere in their bodies. Nickelodeon is dead to me now... the cancellation of Invader Zim was a bright sign showing that they had lost their way. The show wasn't a big hit after two weeks so the bean-counting execudrones decided that it had to go. This is typical of dumb exec thinking: it takes time to build a hit. The ratings of Zim have gone steadily up, and up, and up. Meanwhile the other show they premiered at the same time, The Fairly Odd Parents, had a HUGE premiere and its ratings have steadily gone down, down, down. The execs who inherited a phenomenally successful channel have forgotten three lessons that they would know if they had been around when the channel was NOTHING:" 1) "Cartoons BUILT that channel. Rugrats and Ren & Stimpy made them what they are, but now all they want to do is more live-action. They don't understand animation, so they don't like to make it." 2) "Rugrats took SEVEN years to become a hit," 3) "Different is Better. All the Nick execs say now is "we need a show like Powerpuff Girls" or "find us a new Spongebob" instead of thinking "Hmm, Spongebob, Rugrats, Hey Arnold and Ren & Stimpy were successful because it was different than anything else on TV... maybe we need something that's radically different!" No, they just cancel Zim because it's "too weird" and then replace it with the execrable "Butt Ugly Martians" and expect that kids will just accept this cruddy replacement. They're wrong. My prediction for Nick is that they're the #3 kids' network in five years." The WBAA: What other cartooning projects are you currently involved with? Micah Wright: "TV Animation seems pretty dead right now... everyone has cut back on their production slate, and most of the people who are making product seem to be going for the cheapest, weakest stuff they can find. Since no one seems very committed to doing quality animation right now, I've stepped out the animation world for the time being. I'm currently writing a Mature-Readers comic for Wildstorm Comics. "Stormwatch: Team Achilles" is about a group of human special-forces soldiers who kill super-powered criminals for the United Nations. I've also been commissioned to work on a new videogame where the producer is trying to merge the very disparate world of interactive gameplay with standard narrative structure without having a bunch of boring cut-scenes that the player skips through... this is a really exciting job for me. Videogames are now a bigger business than TV and Film put together... this is where the future of entertainment lies, especially for younger kids. When I talk to kids, the feeling I get is that they are rejecting animation and TV in lieu of videogames... why watch a boring episode of Max Steel when you can BE Max Steel in a videogame? Especially as the graphics get better and better and the videogame producers commit to making narrative STORY a bigger highlight of their games. Unless the animation producers get on the ball, they're going to find themselves in the uncomfortable position of not having any viewers at all." The WB Animation Archive would like to thank Micah Wright for the interview as well as some exclusive artwork. Interview by Duncanzits on June 18th, 2002 031003 ... Kristopher Zim: "Gir! Our mission is not worth jeopardizing over tacos!!" *Gir-House stops* Gir-House: "Maybe you're right. Maybe I'll get a giant burrito too!!" *Gir-House continues, smashing a gas truck and rearing back like a horse* Gir-House: "BURRRRRRRIIIIIIIITOOOOOOOOO!" 031007 ... CheapVodka I like his work with JTHM the best 031007 ... kookaburra I WANT INVADER ZIM BACK!!!! (sobbbb) it was only there for a year after i got cable...but what a loverly year it was... 040430 ... kookaburra but now its coming out on dvd. yay! 040705 ... unhinged when when when? 040807 what's it to you? who go blather from