Dark Wings and Other Things

Tad Stones, Part Two

By Wolfen Moondaughter
November 20, 2017

Part One.

ST: Which series overall was your favourite to work on? What was your favourite episode of those you wrote and/or produced? Your favourite heroes and villains?

TS: The two favorite shows of my career are Darkwing Duck and Hellboy Animated. I worked so many hours a week on Rescue Rangers, there's probably a lot Tad's Stream of Consciousness stuff in there. Darkwing is built to my taste. My goal was to create a 22-minute Disney / Warner Bros short and add Disney heart. And then I slathered on all my love from the Silver Age comics I grew up with, especially the Julius Schwartz era of crazy covers and concepts. Hellboy Animated gave me a chance to write real, supernatural stories in animation, and I loved that character from the beginning.

But I can't really pick out individual episodes. I like "That Sinking Feeling ", with Professor Moliarty attempting to shift the position of the moon to cast the earth in shadow and make it more suitable for mole people. It was the actual pilot of the series in that it was the first script written to display the tone, relationships and bendable reality that I wanted in the series. Plus, it got excellent animation from our Australian studio. I liked the Twin Peaks parody, "Twin Beaks", for its weirdness. But all the episodes went through me in some way. I really liked the episodes that played with the format, like "Comic Book Capers", which had a story that changed depending on which of the characters were writing the fictional Darkwing comic book. And Carter Crocker created a wonderful villain in Splatter Phoenix, in "A Brush with Oblivion", which sent the characters in and out of classic paintings. My favorite villains were Megavolt and Bushroot, who were somewhat sympathetic, which added richness to their storylines. I wish we had done that with more of our villains.

ST: Is there a Disney Afternoon show you would have liked to work on but didn't? What about any non-Disney animated shows -- any in particular you've watched and thought it would be fun to work on?

TS: Not really. I enjoy creating a universe. Unfortunately, the company wanted more feature spinoffs and because I had a feature background, I was put on those. In Buzz Lightyear of Star Command, I finally got the chance to do a science fiction series. However, the stories were run by Bob Schooley and Mark McCorkle, who were brilliant but made me realize how much I missed that aspect of the process. So I don't look at other shows and think about working on them. I'd rather be inspired by them and go off in a new direction. For instance, I think the new DuckTales is much better and more ambitious than the original but I have no desire to work on it. I may feel different if they launch a new Darkwing Duck series.

ST: There was a rumour of a new Darkwing TV series, but I've since heard that the rumour is unfounded. Maybe it just hasn't been optioned yet? So you might come out of retirement for that if it happens after all, as consultant or something?

TS: Disney has noticed that in all the excitement about DuckTales, people keep bringing up Darkwing. I don't know if it has an official development number but I know they guys have a huge story they'd like to tell but are limited by the fact that they're doing DuckTales, which you can't change into someone else's show.

Sure, I'd like to have some sort of minor consultant role on a new Darkwing series that doesn't require me coming into the office every week. Preferably a role with a huge paycheck and free toys attached. But I'd be the one pushing them to go in new directions, not hanging onto the original. Like DuckTales, the show should be a new interpretation of the character, like a new Sherlock Holmes or James Bond. No matter how much they might change him, I think he'd be closer to my version of Darkwing Duck than the Rescue Rangers were to the original chipmunk shorts.

ST: Darkwing being a satire of superhero stories, and Hollywood being fond of litigation, did you run into difficulties with copyrights or trademarks? Did Disney give you special guidelines for the show, or ever tell you that you couldn't do this or that?

TS: No. I don't think we did anything that even came close to being a problem. Look at the history of comics. How many "guys who run fast" have there been? The Flash, Whizzer, Johnny Quick, Quicksilver, Lightning, the Human Top, Max Mercury and probably a dozen more before you get to Sonic the Hedgehog. There were no up-front rules to follow other than the legal guidelines that every TV series must follow. In Aladdin we had Genie do a two second morph where his pointed ears grew and his eyes went white as he called himself a creature of the night, a force for justice. I think we stopped short of having him say, "I'm Batman." But, although we followed the rules, the lawyers didn't let us do it.

ST: You've been quoted as believing Darkwing and DuckTales were actually different universes -- what about DuckTales and Goof Troop and Quack Pack? Were they meant to be the same or separate universes from each other?

TS: The DuckTales / Darkwing Duck alternate universe idea was that we ignored DuckTales continuity when we brought over Gizmoduck and, of course, we redesigned Launchpad and subtracted IQ points. We didn't express that at the time. Fans went nuts saying they were in the same universe because characters crossed over. Those fans evidently don't understand the definition of an "Alternate Universe". But geez do I love them for caring. All those others were definitely definitely in different realities -- although they weren't my shows, so who knows? I can state categorically that the new DuckTales is a brand-new universe, and that a lot of what people are calling out as Easter eggs are actually bread crumbs. St. Canard, Duckburg, Spoonerville and Cape Suzette are all part of that world. However, it's a new universe, so I don't know what the new versions of those towns would look like. I am a huge fan of what those guys are doing.

ST: Tell our readers why they should tune in to the new show.

TS: It is a great comedy adventure written with a modern sensibility. Where Darkwing Duck eschewed continuity, Matt Youngberg and Frank Aragones embrace theirs eagerly. The guys are playing the long game, laying in seeds for stories that will play out in the second or third season. Plus, they are letting the characters change in the series. I've already seen people jump to conclusions about the way characters will act or how the plot will unfold because of a comic story they've read or something they've heard at a convention panel. Remember, these guys are not just solving mysteries, they're rewriting history!

ST: There's already a great interview out there about your involvement with the Hellboy franchise. Can you tell us now what would have happened in the unreleased animated film, The Phantom Claw? And who is your favourite character in the franchise besides Hellboy?

TS: Hellboy Animated: Sword of Storms played with the short stories that were a part of Hellboy's early years of publication. Hellboy Animated: Blood and Iron played with Hellboy's Central European heritage of vampires and witches. Those productions overlapped. There was no learning curve of what worked and what didn't. There was a break before we wrote the third movie so we knew what to avoid and what to play out. It would have been Nazis, cyber-apes, floating heads in jars, undead armies, basically the mad scientist side of Hellboy. And it would have been awesome. But that's all I can say. I promised Mike I would not put the script on the internet.

ST: Any thoughts about the reboot of the live-action Hellboy? Would you be interested in producing animated films tied with the new live-action film in some capacity?

TS: A Hellboy animated series would be tempting. That's how the original projects started. But I doubt I'd be asked. Mike Mignola remains a huge influence on my creative life even though I haven't had an extended conversation with him in years. But Hellboy deserves what DuckTales got, younger creators who go back to the roots of Mike's comics and create something fantastic in the universe of the new films. That's exciting to me.

ST: Tell us about your involvement with the Turok franchise.

TS: Mike and I wrote The Phantom Claw, but before we could go into production, management wanted me to head up the Turok movie first. The plan was to jump back on Hellboy afterwards. But the company was sold to Starz Entertainment, who didn't want to finance their own productions. That meant no Hellboy. Classic Media had the rights to the Dell Comics version of Turok, which had nothing to do with the video game, futuristic, cyber-dinosaur version of the character. The old comic Turok was an indian who dipped his arrows into the juice of poison berries and killed dinosaurs. Mike Mignola said, "No. Turok was an indian who dipped his arrows into the juice of poison berries, killed a dinosaur, then made boots from its hide so he could run across molten lava!" That's why I loved working with Mike.

Turok would be their first non-kid property and they wanted to go violent. Very violent and bloody. The script was more a story of two men, each with a reason to hate the other It wasn't the pulp adventure with dinosaurs that I would've loved. I pushed for more dinosaurs but had no hand in writing the script. It remains the most violent project of my career, certainly the goriest. Ironically, Classic Media was sold to an English company who specialized in G-rated properties, so Turok became a very small release.

ST: Tell us about the Netflix series you worked on, Kulipari: An Army of Frogs.

TS: I was hired to direct a series of DVDs based on the first book of a trilogy by Trevor Pryce, an ex-NFL player who grew up with this weird world of frogs in his head. However, the writers on the project, while great to work with, had never written a screenplay before. One was the co-writer of the trilogy with Trevor. So I ended up rewriting each script in a blisteringly short amount of time. Because the DVD market is continuing to weaken, the production company approached Netflix to pitch it as a series instead. They were very interested, and so we divided up the movies and used the remaining episodes of the season to cover the second and third book of the trilogy.

Although I was not creating my own universe and was locked into an existing storyline, it was an entirely different kind of project for me. I really enjoyed working with the characters and playing with the visuals. It turned out to be popular enough that Netflix ordered a second season, but by then I had officially retired.

ST: Was there much difference working with an internet streaming company as opposed to network television?

TS: The biggest difference was that they liked what we were already doing and gave no notes. In fact, I requested guidelines from them at one point because our hero had to kill the protagonist with a knife and there was no way to write around it. Everything went smoothly with them. In fact, I never met a Netflix executive while on the series. The most fun I had was working with Cartoon Conrad, an animation studio in Nova Scotia. I got to see pencil tests of all the episodes, a luxury I hadn't experienced since my time at Disney Feature Animation. I had regular Skype calls with the director and once "met" with their effects department so that a mystical character could be designed with their strengths in mind. A super, super bunch of artists.

ST: If you could redo a series from your past, which would it be and what, if anything, would you change?

TS: I wouldn't want to do it now, but if I could get into younger Tad's brain to give him a nudge here and there, it would be Darkwing Duck. I'd make the comedy funnier and the adventure side more dramatic. I'd also give every villain a multifaceted personality so we could play out more stories with them. That was the reason that Bushroot had more stories than say, Liquidator, who was just a couple of gimmicks.

ST: Company websites always have notices saying not to send them unsolicited ideas -- understandable, but then, my question is, how does one get one's foot in the door to write for animation? Where does one start, and what are the steps, both to join an established series and to pitch something of one's own?

TS: I'm afraid most of my advice is three decades old. I'm not sure how it works now. It doesn't work like it did then. You need to write sample scripts. They shouldn't be from the show where you're submitting your work. Have lots of samples. You don't have to submit them all.

ST: I saw on your blog that you've been developing an original comic --the #drawlloween pics you've done of the characters are adorable! Tell us about it.

TS: Here's my challenge. I didn't give up a well-paying career in animation for a non-paying career in comics. I started out thinking a need to produce a graphic novel that's the equivalent of an animation pilot and three episodes. But that's a full-time job. I'm supposed to be retired! So I'm down-sizing my dreams to something much smaller that I can sell at my table at conventions, sort of the Disney Afternoon show I never got a chance to do.

It's a science fiction adventure comedy of a kid and his monsters set on a lost planet that's the galactic equivalent of Atlantis. The kid is in the Gosalyn / Calvin mold. He accidently reactivates the former guardians of the planet, heroic looking avatars of animal, vegetable and minerals. But instead of titans, he gets toddlers, creatures even more trouble than he is. But the reactivation has also alerted the galaxy to the planet's location. Now it's the center of a sort of gold rush, and not all of the "rushers" are nice people. It's up to Rocket Wylde and the Zydatars to protect the planet.

But right now, I have Darkwing Duck and Rescue Rangers art to create in order to help a local charity. People bid online and then donate the winning amount directly to the charity. I then swallow the postage and send them the artwork. But meanwhile, I'm always thinking of Rocket Wylde.

ST: If you had the chance, what advice would your retired self give yourself when you were just starting out in animation?

TS: Brush your teeth more and floss twice a day.

Tad Stones @ Twitter
Just a Tad — The blog of Tad Stones.