Transcript
Susan Kim: You are listening to OnWriting, a podcast from the Writers Guild of America East. In each episode, you’ll hear from the union members who create the film, TV series, podcasts, and news stories that define our culture. We’ll discuss everything from inspirations and creative process, to what it takes to build a successful career in media and entertainment. I’m Susan Kim. I write documentaries in Kids TV and I’m also co-chair of the Writers Guild East Animation Caucus.
Today I’m thrilled to talk with seasoned children television writers, Geri Cole and Bob Mittenthal. In our interview, we discuss balancing entertainment and education in children’s storytelling, embracing restrictions in creative ways, from budget limitations to writing for puppets, and the ongoing fight for union coverage in animation.
Geri Cole is a full-time staff writer and lead interactive narrative designer for Sesame Street, co-chair of the WGAE Black Writers Salon, she’s won five Daytime Emmys, a Writers Guild Award, a Producer’s Guild Award, and an NAACP Image Award. You can also find Geri buying yet another vintage leather jacket. It’s a problem. Trying to convince you to come to an oyster happy hour. Ooh. Or stopping in the middle of the street to pet all the dogs.
Bob Mittenthal has had a long career as writer and producer. Credits include Double Dare, KaBlam, and Bossy Bear. He created such shows as Welcome Freshmen, Think Fast, and Make the Grade. Other shows include It’s Pony, Welcome to the Wayne, the Loud House, the Adventures of Pete and Pete, and the Naked Brothers Band.
Bob Mittenthal: I would’ve won a lot of awards too, but Geri won everything.
Geri Cole: I mean, I think some of those shows are awards in themselves.
Susan Kim: There you go, you guys, you’re both walking awards. All right, well thanks for being here in this nice, cool conference room. We’re just going to talk a little bit about craft, and then we’re going to talk about the industry and stuff. Whenever I ask this question I enjoy this question, which is basically what’s the favorite thing you’ve written for kids TV? Bob, you go first because Geri is guzzling here soda.
Bob Mittenthal: That’s such a hard question because the thing that I really love about my job is being part of great teams. I’m the consummate team player. And everything I work on, it is just so much fun, I’ve had very few bad experiences working on shows. It’s Pony was an amazing experience because I worked with this creator named Ant Blades, it was in the UK, who was just so brilliant. Ant had never written a show before and I had been doing it for 30 years and I felt like I was learning something new every day. Welcome to the Wayne was an amazing experience just because it was such a great bunch of people to work with. Bossy Bear was the same way. KaBlam was fantastic. I got to work with Will McRobb and Chris Viscardi who were just legends.
And probably the favorite thing I ever did was a movie that wasn’t for kids actually, it was a raunchy comedy they did with this guy Mike Rubiner, who was a childhood friend, who’s now the showrunner on Loud House & Casa Grandes. The movie was called Ratko: The Dictator’s Son, and it was kind of inspired by-
Geri Cole: Great name.
Bob Mittenthal: … the idea of Son, of Hussein’s son coming to America and going to college. And that movie couldn’t be done now, we’d be completely canceled. But it was just like we just cracked each other up for a year writing this. And then it got made by National Lampoon and they called us up and said, “We’re really sorry we ruined your movie.” And I swear to God that’s true.
Geri Cole: Wait, what?
Bob Mittenthal: I just talked for a really long time. I’m terribly sorry.
Geri Cole: No, wait, why did they say they ruined your movie?
Bob Mittenthal: Because they did.
Susan Kim: Oh.
Geri Cole: At least they knew. I guess that’s good.
Bob Mittenthal: Yeah, well, I guess the company changed hands in the interim and so the guy who took over the company looked at it and said like, “What’s this?” And I guess he read the script, and he’s like, “The script was hilarious. Why is this movie so bad?” And they tried to get us to fix it by writing voiceover in post, and it was like, “Man, that didn’t work.”
Susan Kim: I think this should be for the director skilled podcast.
Bob Mittenthal: All right, I want to hear Geri talk now.
Geri Cole: Oh, what? Favorite thing. That is hard. I mean, I have had a pretty singular experience. Basically my whole career has been at Sesame, which has just been very fortunate, and in that I’ve gotten a chance to write lots of different types of things, which is also really fun. Favorite thing? I mean, I certainly have those jokes that I was like, “Ah, that was good. Did it get cut? I don’t know.”
And maybe I’ll say the Christmas Special that I did, which was the first long form thing that I did for Sesame, and that felt super special. One, because it was maybe a year or two into my career and it was the first time Sesame was doing a special of that kind, and I felt very proud of myself because I won the pitch. It was like they put it out to all of the writers, I think the majority of the writers. So that felt very special. I felt very proud of myself. It was like, “Oh, out of all these amazing people, I actually won the pitch.”
And then getting to make that special. I’d written a couple of shows and things, but it was the first time where it was like, when I went to set while they were taping it, I’d written, I say a little absentmindedly, the characters carrying a box of oranges. And then I was on set and saw the box of oranges. I was like, “Oh, they’re really going to do everything I said.” And that was a really big moment of clicking of, “Oh, what I write is what is made.” And that felt really profound. I was really proud of myself.
Susan Kim: That’s great. I was talking about this, I teach the Sesame Writer’s Room thing and someone was saying, “Hey, I really want to do an anthology show.” And I had to say, “Anthologies, people generally don’t like them. They don’t like them in television, they don’t like them in publishing.” But I said, “But they’re really good for writers because you really basically, it’s like…” Well, I was thinking maybe Sesame is the same thing because you actually do get to do skits and stand-alones. But I mean the great thing about working with a team is that you’re working with a team. But sometimes if you just want to be yourself and write your story and get it out there, it can be kind of fun working on an anthology show.
I always answer this question by saying, “I wrote for the show, Are You Afraid of the Dark? eons ago on Nickelodeon. And that was great. You had to write a little wrap around, but then you basically just told the story you wanted to tell.” So that was really fun. But that’s a very sort of a writery, selfishy, kind of leave me alone. It’s like the opposite. Bob is collegial and he likes to collaborate, and I did the opposite, mean-spirited answer.
Bob Mittenthal: Well, it’s so funny. I think you grow up in this world of entertainment where there are these auteurs, and I studied film in college and Ingmar Bergman, and I thought that’s what you have to be.
Geri Cole: I thought that too.
Bob Mittenthal: And I’m better with people. It makes me funnier, it’s more fun, and I work harder. It’s like if I am writing something by myself, it’s like, “Yeah, that’s pretty funny. That’s good enough, let’s move on.” But if I’m working with somebody and I pitch the joke to them and they’re kind of like, “Yeah, it’s all right, we can do better.” So you keep trying. And your job, if you’re doing comedy or kids comedy, is just to try to find the funniest thing. And it’s like that’s not even a job, that’s like just hanging out with your friends.
Susan Kim: Geri, I always wondered about the collaborative writing at Sesame. How much of it is you working on your own stuff and bringing it in? Does the entire room work on it? Does it get tweaked on set? How does the collaborative thing work on Sesame?
Geri Cole: In my experience I think it has changed over the years, and I think it’s currently changing again, honestly. When I first started, which was maybe like 10 years ago now, something like that, close to 10, I think we would have a few days where we would meet and have a Writer’s Room. And we would just break the beginning of an idea, because back then it also was topic-based, and then we would have an overarching curriculum. And so it was like, “This season is about kindness, but also your show’s about bubbles.” And so we’d sit and try and pitch ideas, or help the person, whoever got assigned bubbles, how to figure out what that show was going to look like. But then we got less and less of that time. And so it really was just like, “We’re all going to meet and have the curriculum seminar. Choose your topic and then break off and work out your idea on your own.”
I think now we’re beginning to have a little bit more time together, which is lovely to get to try it. In fact, we just came off a couple of weeks ago having a few days of writers meetings. And it was just like someone would throw out an idea, and then someone else tosses a joke in, and that really lovely collaborative Writing Room process, which I missed. It was really nice to experience again.
But then, yes, once you hit it to the producers, and then there’s testing, research testing, because we’re a very intense show. So they make a little storymatic, they take it out to kids and be like, “Did you understand bubbles?” Or whatever. And then they bring it back. There’s notes, lots and lots and lots of notes, and then there’s table reads, and then it gets to the floor. And the performers are amazing. We’re also very lucky to have such amazing talent. And so they will also still punch up once it’s on the floor a little bit, if they feel the need or to make it more charactery, that kind of thing. And so it always feels like you’re very supported.
Susan Kim: You’re raising something that’s of interest to me, we’ll throw back to you, Bob, and then get back to you Geri, but do you enjoy working with curriculum and how do you do that? And is that a negative or is it positive.
Bob Mittenthal: Nope.
Susan Kim: All right, Geri.
Bob Mittenthal: No, that’s not really true. I mean, that’s part of the job, and a lot of times the show wouldn’t exist without the fact that there’s a curriculum, and so it’s just part of the assignment. When we first started doing Bossy Bear, and we had an amazing curriculum advisor, whose name I can’t remember, but she was great, we would get a ton of suggestions and we would go and put in all the suggestions. And then the executives would see it and it’s like, “What happened to the script?” And I said, “Well, your curriculum advisor gave us all these.” He’d say, “Well, don’t put them in.” It was like, “No, you have to decide which ones are good and which ones are going to eviscerate the story.” We called it the de-flavorizer. And so the challenge became how does the story keep its integrity, and keep its humor and still deliver on that curriculum? And it’s like that challenge of that puzzle, that balancing act is worthwhile in and of itself.
Susan Kim: Geri, what do you think?
Geri Cole: Yeah, no. Can I pass? I feel like, honestly, it depends on the curriculum person. Because I think that there are sometimes folks just giving notes for notes. And then there are other times where it is they’re trying to make sure that we are meeting the needs of our audience and/or helping teach the thing that we are ideally wanting to teach in the show. And so I certainly have had sometimes where I got a note and I was like, “Come on, this is dumb. It’s supposed to be a joke.” Like, “Please, please, please.” And then they’re still, “No.”
But then I’ve also worked with curriculum folks where it’s like, “So, sorry, what’s the note behind the note?” and then trying to figure out. And then they pitched ideas and jokes and things, it’s like, “Oh, okay. So as long as we do it like this?” Then it can feel super collaborative. And then even better because what we’re trying to teach it coming across clearer, and we’re also not necessarily losing the fun in funny. So I really think it depends on the person, honestly, the curriculum person, and how game they are to be in the creative process.
Susan Kim: Well, it’s interesting because sometimes it’s the stuff we do as writers runs counter to. Because they’re essentially educators, right? Curriculum people tend to be our educators. You’re modeling good behavior, you’re telling the viewers what they need to know, and they expect the script to follow that. But of course, as writers, we’re trying to do something with humor. We’re trying to do something with a twist. We’re trying to do a little conflict or a little not understanding. We’re trying to show all that stuff in action.
So I was just freelancing on this show, which will go nameless, and we got the note back saying, “Well, if they know that that’s wrong, then why are they doing it?” And it’s like, “Well, they’re learning over the process, over this script, over this 11 minutes, they are learning how to do it. So at the beginning they don’t know how to do it, because that’s called a script. Because if they know how to do it at the beginning-
Geri Cole: Then what are we doing?
Susan Kim: … Exactly. “Then roll credits.”
Bob Mittenthal: Yeah, really [inaudible 00:12:18].
Susan Kim: But being able to make curriculum people understand that sometimes I find really difficult, especially when it comes to things like modeling behavior, the idea that someone is upset, or frustrated, or angry, or has what they consider a negative emotion. And it’s like, to me, that’s a real reality of childhood. And a curriculum person will often say, “Well, it’s very upsetting. Why do they have to be upset? Why can’t they…?” And it’s like, “Well, because it’s part of the story and they’re actually going to…”
So it’s as both of you have indicated, it depends on the person and it’s part of the challenge. Because you’re right, I think it’s one of the drivers of our industry, the idea that it’s good for you, it’s good for your children. It’s like salubrious programming, it’s not just the junk you watch on Saturday morning.
Just switching track a little bit, do you have adult co-viewing in mind when you write? Do you imagine the adult sitting with the child, watching and possibly laughing, possibly not laughing, possibly getting the inside joke? How do you deal with the idea that a lot of adults are actually co-viewing with the children?
Bob Mittenthal: I want Geri to take this one.
Geri Cole: I mean, historically, Sesame, that was their model because all the research shows that kids learn more in those co-viewing experiences rather than watching alone. And so yes, I feel like I am always, and sometimes going to the previous question for when battling with curriculum, I’ll be like, “That joke’s for the parents leave it.” And they’re like, “No, the kids won’t understand it.” It’s like, “It doesn’t matter if the kids understand, they’ll just keep going with it. And sometimes kids aren’t going to get everything, and that’s fine, and then this is where they learn maybe.” So yeah, I am always writing, trying to sneak in very specific, very age specific too, jokes I think for the parents. But again, research shows that kids learn better and more when they’re watching with their parents, so ideally, I think all kids shows should be writing with that in mind.
Bob Mittenthal: I don’t really have any illusions that parents are watching the shows that I do. I mean, I don’t really have illusions that kids are watching. Oh, no, just kidding of course, kids love my shows. I think that I know what I’m there to do, but a lot of times I forget. Because it’s really, I’m just trying to do something that sparks. And I’m not a kid and so I will often do something that’s too grown up, and someone will have to remind me. It’s like, “Hey, that’s a funny joke, but it’s not a kid’s joke.” And I’m like, “You’re right, you’re right, you’re right.”
So I don’t write for co-viewing, but it kind of sneaks its way in any way because I’m not very good at writing for kids. I’ve had to learn how to do it. A lot of kids writers come from an educational background, and I came just more from a comedy background and had to learn and adjust, and continually adjust to write for kids.
Susan Kim: That’s interesting. Geri, where do you come from?
Geri Cole: Comedy also?
Susan Kim: Yeah.
Geri Cole: Which was also, I think, historically how Sesame worked. Is that they wanted comedy writers that they will teach to write for kids, but not necessarily people who trying to make things specifically for kids. Just because it’s like the comedy comes first and then we’ll get the education in.
Susan Kim: Yeah, it’s interesting to me that, I find it changing a little bit, but thinking about all the people I know in kids TV, all the writers I know, a lot of them did not, it’s like they didn’t say when they were little, “I really want to be a kid’s TV writer when I grow up.” A lot of them came from comedy. A lot of them were playwrights. A lot of them, they did not necessarily find their way, they stumbled… I know I stumbled on it.
Geri Cole: I stumbled.
Susan Kim: Yeah, I was writing a lot of other things, and then I found that it actually clicked with me, and I actually found it actually suited me very well. Because I thought it was a very serious playwright, and then it turned out I was actually sort of really just basically a very immature, goofy child.
Geri Cole: Nice.
Bob Mittenthal: I love the playwrights. Every time there’s a strike, I get to meet all these playwrights and I’ve become friends with them. And they’re so smart and they’re so thoughtful, and I’m just this goofy guy.
Susan Kim: Yeah, but so many kids TV writers were playwrights, and many of them still are playwrights. Hey, so where do you guys get your inspiration when you’re writing?
Bob Mittenthal: I pretty much just steal ideas from things I see on TV. No.
Geri Cole: Just repeat, yeah. Oh, inspiration? I mean, I’m, again, very fortunate. I think though also, always, whenever writing, I feel like I start from the performer. Does that feel…? Yeah-
Susan Kim: That’s great.
Geri Cole: … and understanding what I love about their character, or their performance, or whatever, and then I’ll start from that place of what would be silly to watch and/or do. And then I guess also a little bit of childhood, like the things that I played, the things that I loved.
Bob Mittenthal: I don’t know. The stuff I write, at least recently, has been so specific. I’m working on a show right now that’s being done by a French company for the BBC, and it’s about the Three Little Pigs. But they form a construction company after their whole bad experience with the Big Bad Wolf. They learned a lot about building, and so now they’re little piggy builders.
Geri Cole: Wow.
Bob Mittenthal: It’s such a great show and they haven’t made it yet, but it’s so challenging because it’s like they have to solve problems with building. And I like to do home improvement projects, and so I’m in the mind of Cornelia, who’s the best builder of the piggy builders. And just sort of looking around my house at the things are broken, the things I have to fix, that I don’t want to pay somebody to fix. And it’s like, “Can I get a piggy builder story out of that?”
Geri Cole: Is it called Piggy Builders? Because it’s so cute.
Bob Mittenthal: Yeah.
Susan Kim: Oh, it’s so cute.
Bob Mittenthal: Yeah, it’s going to be such a sweet show. I hope it comes here. I don’t know if it will, but I think it’s going to feel very English.
Susan Kim: That’s so cute.
Geri Cole: Really cute. I know I’m going to watch that show.
Susan Kim: I find it’s hard for me to, when there’s curriculum, normally I would tap into my own childhood when I’m writing something, but when there’s curriculum, it’s like if I were doing a building show, my mind, it would be like white noise. Building? I’ve never built anything in my life.
Geri Cole: Yeah, it’s like where would you go, right?
Susan Kim: Where would you go? It’s like I have no childhood memories of building anything except maybe snow things, things out of snow. I would build snow things.
Geri Cole: There you go. Snow. Igloos.
Bob Mittenthal: That’s a great idea. But they would say, “No, the animators can’t do that.”
Susan Kim: Exactly.
Bob Mittenthal: It’s like, “They don’t want to do anything on this show.” I get that thrown back at me for some reason. I wanted to have someone jumping a rope, and it’s like, “No, they can’t do a rope.”
Geri Cole: What?
Bob Mittenthal: It’s like, “Really? It’s just a line.”
Susan Kim: I remember wanting someone to do a popcorn popping, like too much popcorn popping, and they were “We can’t do popcorn popping.” And it’s like, “Oh.” Or someone falling into the water, “We can’t fall into the water.”
Bob Mittenthal: Water. There’s no water in this. This is like Mars. There’s no water at all.
Susan Kim: It’s so funny. It’s like one thing I’ve learned about working with puppets, or working with animation, that there are real production limits.
Geri Cole: Sure.
Bob Mittenthal: But getting into animation, it’s like animation’s amazing because you can do anything. Until they started doing CGI animation, and then it’s like, “Well, it’s going to take four days to build and read that character, and that’s going to cost this much money, and you can only have this many characters.”
Susan Kim: So you basically get an umbrella. And if we’re going to have a teacher, we’ve got a reuse dad and put a different color shirt on him. And it’s like, “Oh, thank you.” And, “Here’s a list of the assets we’ve designed. You can use those.” And it’s like, “Oh.”
Bob Mittenthal: I think CGI really is kind of more like a puppet show. It’s like you can sometimes get a prop in there or something like that, but they don’t want to make a new puppet.
Geri Cole: Yeah.
Susan Kim: Did you have a learning arc with puppets?
Geri Cole: I mean, again, I feel like because I came up working in production on the show before becoming a writer on the show, so I was very familiar and a fan of Muppets beforehand. I mean, certainly there are obviously production limitations, but a lot of times, I mean, to me that’s a little bit the fun of production. Is like, “Okay, so I wrote in this thing, how are we going to make that happen?” But isn’t that the fun of producing, where it’s like, “She wrote in a tidal wave. How do we make a practical tidal wave on the stage?” And trying to figure that out. To me, and obviously I understand budget constraints and those kinds of things, but to me that feels like that’s the fun of production is trying to bring those things to life. Especially when they’re outside of what you would normally make. Sorry, what was the question?
Susan Kim: No [inaudible 00:20:58].
Bob Mittenthal: I think you bring up a really good point, because it’s like you see these movies where they have unlimited budgets and they just feel bloated. And sometimes having to rein things in, what is this expression? “Necessity is the mother of invention.” I think things can become better that way, through limits and having to impose that discipline on it.
Susan Kim: Well, it’s exciting when you see… I worked on a puppet show with the Henson puppet people years ago, called Allegra’s Window, and they were excited if you’d have some… I remember this one thing where one of the puppets jumps into a pile of leaves at the end. It’s this big thing, that’s sort of the payoff. And then the first note was, “He can’t jump into a pile of leaves because he’s a hand puppet and he’s got a rod hand, and he can’t. No, that’s not going to happen.” But the puppeteers were like, “No, no, no-
Geri Cole: Let’s figure it out.
Susan Kim: … we can figure it out.”
Geri Cole: Yeah.
Susan Kim: So they built a full body and they threw them into a pile of leaves. It was really cute, and they were spinning him around to make them do a crazy… So they really enjoyed it. It was a fun challenge. So you’re right, they weren’t just throwing money at the problem, they were actually trying to come up with a creative solution. So what would you say, and then we’re going to turn, but what would you see is the thing you love most about writing for kids media?
Geri Cole: I mean, specifically working at Sesame, again, I have been very fortunate to work with a lot of amazing performers, like actual legends. So coming up, getting to work with those folks. But also I feel like one of my jobs, and specifically writing for the show, but then also my other job as the narrative designer at Sesame, is that it’s just to make sure things are fun. And I feel like-
Susan Kim: That’s great.
Geri Cole: … it’s the best. Or it’s like, no, my job is to just be like, “Where’s the ha-ha’s?”
Susan Kim: Yeah, that’s pretty nice. That’s pretty nice.
Geri Cole: Yeah. So no matter what we’re making, it feels like, yeah, I’m in charge of making sure that it feels engaging, but really fun and funny. And is it making me laugh? Is it making you laugh? Which feels like a privilege to get to do.
Susan Kim: That’s pretty great. Bob, how about you?
Bob Mittenthal: Yeah, the thing I love the most is really the people. I mean, it kind of dovetails with being part of a team that I love so much. And people working kids tend to have good hearts, which I don’t think is universal in entertainment, and they’re just like everybody pulling together, everyone really positive. Even with some of the shit we have to go through with limitations, and budget cuts, and the world falling apart. And it’s like, but everybody still just wants to do a great job and wants to have fun.
You worked on Bossy Bear with me, and story editor on that show, Jeff D’Elia, when I first met him I couldn’t believe he was for real because he was such a nice, positive, happy person-
Susan Kim: He was such a goofy, sweet guy.
Bob Mittenthal: … Such a great guy. I’ve made lifelong friends in this business. I’ve talked about some of them already, Will and Chris, and Mike Rubiner. Magda Liolis is another one who I’ve worked with on Pony and I worked with her on Bossy, and she’s just a fantastic person. It’s just fun to spend your life, your career, working with great people.
Susan Kim: Yeah, yeah.
Geri Cole: Mm-hmm.
Susan Kim: Okay. And here’s the turn. What do you like the least about what you do?
Geri Cole: I’m going to… And then maybe this is going to be a good pivot into another thing that we can talk about, is people not taking it seriously. People thinking that it’s easy. Or thinking that somehow writing for kids is somehow less than and/or easy. And that is frustrating, I think. Because I would argue it’s just as difficult as writing anything, to have to try and keep a more easily distracted audience engaged with what you’re creating. So yeah, I’d say that. And then also, if I’m being honest, yeah, sometimes curriculum it does feel like… Or it is like, “No, no, no, it’s a joke.” And they’re like, “We don’t care. Cut it. The kid’s not going to understand it.” It’s like, “Well, you’re ruining it.”
Bob Mittenthal: You know I always felt like I got enough respect people. I didn’t feel like people looked down on me, or maybe they did, I didn’t know it, or it just wasn’t kind of my world.
Susan Kim: You weren’t listening.
Bob Mittenthal: Yeah. I don’t care. Very few of my friends outside of work have any idea of, they’re all lawyers and stuff like that, and they’re fascinated by it, and they want to hear about it and know about it, and they think it’s cool. My kids thought it was cool. So that was never an issue for me. But I understand what it would feel like to know other people were like that. For me, I don’t know, the only thing I don’t like right now is how little work there is. It’s like, I am-
Susan Kim: Talk about that. What do you guys think is going on? What’s going on in the industry?
Bob Mittenthal: Well, I think that somehow kids figured out that they just wanted to watch YouTube, and no one else wants to spend money on making kid shows if they can’t find a way to make money on those shows. I think that they’ve made some bad choices along the way that have gotten them in that position, but that’s the world that we’re in now, and I think we’ll come out of it. I think still kids are going to always want to be entertained, and I think there are going to be people with products to sell who are going to want entertainment, to have something to do in between the commercials.
But it’s going to be a while before that gets figured out in any sort of real way, and then it’ll change again. It’s always changing. And I just love what I do so much. I’ve been creating shows with a young creator named Benjamin Wiener, who’s fantastic, but there’s only so many shows we can create when no one wants to buy them. We have 10 shows sitting out there, and it’s like, “Let’s do something else for a while. Let’s go for a walk.”
Geri Cole: Walks are good.
Susan Kim: Geri, I mean, I know you’re at Sesame and Sesame is sort of its own kingdom. Do you-
Geri Cole: Yes, I’ve been very insulated.
Susan Kim: … Do you see industry changes affecting Sesame?
Geri Cole: Oh, for sure. I mean, we’re still, am I allowed to say, currently sorting out our distribution? And so that is a brand new issue, or new territory for Sesame to be navigating. And yeah, as you were talking, I was trying to think, it was like, “What did happen?” And it was like, “Yeah, kids go to YouTube.” The behavior changed. But kids will always need to be entertained.
And also things got democratized, I think. Where it’s like, “Oh yeah, you can just go to TikTok or YouTube, it doesn’t necessarily need to be on a network.” And so I guess that made networks less interested in buying packaged shows and those kinds of things. But yeah, and that’s a part of why I’ve been at Sesame so long, is because it felt stable and felt sort of insulated from the rest of the industry in a way. Because it’s an institution, because it’s been around so long. Yeah. Did I answer?
Susan Kim: Yeah. I mean, it’s weird times, but at the same time, as you say, I feel like we’re sort of in a liminal, in-between space right now. I don’t think the other shoe has dropped-
Geri Cole: I don’t think so either. Yeah.
Susan Kim: … But it just seems to be this weird time now where people are wondering what’s going on. But the thing is then you have really runaway hits. There is Bluey, and then there’s CoComelon. There are shows that are wildly successful, and that are also, in terms of the merchandising, they’re huge, they’re really huge. I don’t remember, I think it was Lisa O’Brien said that there is money in kids programming, but you’ve got to be patient. And it’s not going to just drop and explode and be huge, you’ve got to build it. You’ve got to be patient. But then you can have a PAW Patrol.
I do think this is partly tied back to what you said, Geri, which is sometimes I feel like not just each of us as a writer may not get the respect we feel we deserve, I sometimes think in the C-Suites, I don’t know if those guys are saying, “Yeah, kids TV.” I think they want to be doing big movies. They want to do the macho stuff. I have a friend who writes women’s historical fiction, so it’s a niche, she’s a novelist. But she said at her publishing house, they actually wanted to get rid of that imprint, because they had a new editor-in-chief and he wanted the big, spy blockbuster things. So they got rid of that imprint and then their revenue just absolutely dropped. So they had to coax back the editor and they had to rebuild that brand. But I think sometimes kids is the same way. People think it’s like, “Ah, pish-posh.”
Bob Mittenthal: Paramount’s being sold or merged with Skydance or whatever, and I was just reading the coverage of that. Paramount obviously has a big kids brand in Nickelodeon, and I was wondering what’s going to happen. It was kind of an afterthought. It’s like the 30th paragraph of the article mentioned some of the cable channels. I mean, Nickelodeon, they were a billion dollar a year business for a while. I don’t know where they are now.
Geri Cole: They had their own theme park, didn’t they?
Susan Kim: Yeah.
Geri Cole: Yeah. At that animation caucus a couple of months ago, and also, am I allowed to say this? I remember there was a writer that stood up and asked very bravely, it was like a panel with executives, producers and animation writers, and he stood up and was like, “Why don’t executives respect us?” And one of the executives on the panel who I honestly was like, “That was an honest answer and I appreciate that.” She was like, “Yeah, because not sexy.” Because kids writing isn’t the cool, spy whatever. It doesn’t feel like, I don’t know, you can’t cast an A-list celebrity in or something. But honestly, you probably could.
Susan Kim: Yeah, it’s just not sexy. I agree, yeah.
Geri Cole: But to me, I was like, “Oh, well then let’s make it sexy.” Because it was such a good, honest answer, I was like, “Oh, we can do that. We can make this feel like the coolest thing that everyone wants.” Like Bluey. I feel like all the parents that I know love Bluey. They’re like watching it by themselves, without their kid, crying. And it’s like, it’s just good content.
Susan Kim: Yeah, absolutely.
Bob Mittenthal: The number of people who have come to me and said, “We want to do the next Bluey.”
Susan Kim: Yeah.
Bob Mittenthal: But they really don’t. They think they do.
Susan Kim: Well, it’s like saying, we want to do the next SpongeBob. And they think what that means-
Geri Cole: Yeah, I want to do the next SpongeBob actually.
Susan Kim: … we need a show that takes place underwater, and there’s some kind of sea animal and he’s got a stupid friend. And it’s like, “No, no, no, that’s not what you want. You want to give a creative person some freedom. And to hire creative people who to work together, come up…” Bluey is the same way. These are really good shows that are very driven by the talent.
All right, so I’m going to get into, in terms of like I said we’re going to go dark here, and tell me if this is too personal, but you’re at Sesame, so you’ve got to deal with the Writers Guild. Bob, how have you handled health insurance?
Bob Mittenthal: How have I handled health insurance?
Susan Kim: Over the years. Yeah.
Bob Mittenthal: When I was able to do live action shows, I would get coverage from the Guild, and then I mostly pivoted to doing animated shows because that was what was on offer. And I had COBRA for a while, which I got to pay for. It was very expensive, but it was still great coverage. And then I was actually lucky enough to get some work on some shows that are covered by the Animation Guild. Is that what it’s called?
Susan Kim: Yeah, TAG?
Bob Mittenthal: TAG. I worked on an Amazon show that was done in LA, and it was explained to me that they don’t have to give you health insurance, but it’s at the election of the studio. And they agreed to do it, and that was great. And then I started doing some freelance episodes of the Loud House and they also agreed to do it. And then I think I was negotiating to work on another show at Nick, and they were saying that I wouldn’t get any healthcare coverage. And I was like, “Well, why could you do it for me on the Loud House, but you can’t do it for me on this?” And they said, “We didn’t do it for you on the Loud House.” And I was like, “Yes, you did.” And they went and said, “We’ll call you back.”
Geri Cole: Oh, gosh.
Bob Mittenthal: And they called me back and they said, “That was a mistake and that can never happen again.” And I was like, “Interesting.” And then they gave me a blind deal to do two live action pilots, to keep me happy, which was great. And I got Guild health insurance again, and then the pandemic came and got it through COBRA. And that ended, and all of a sudden I was like, “Oh, shit. I got to get healthcare. My COBRA’s ending.” And I looked at all the exchange plans. None of my doctors were on any of the plans. And I have a family and we’re not young people, and our doctors are members of the family at this point. We’ve been seeing them for so long.
And I looked and I looked, and I panicked. And I thought, “Okay, I have a small business. I have a loan-out. I can get plan for small business. I just need an employee, so I’ll hire my wife.” I’s like, “Nope, you can’t do that. They can’t be a family member. You have to have two employees and one can’t be related.” And it was like, “Okay, I’ll hire Benjamin. And he’ll leave my PA.” And then I decided not to do that because he’s much better than being my PA, because he’s my peer. But I found an insurance broker who kind of packages together loan-outs and single employee companies, and allows you to buy a group health insurance. Which all sounds great, except that for my wife and me, for the plan we have, it’s $2,666 a month.
Geri Cole: No.
Bob Mittenthal: Which is-
Geri Cole: A mortgage payment.
Bob Mittenthal: … Yeah.
Susan Kim: That’s a chunk of change. That’s a serious piece of money.
Bob Mittenthal: So that’s what I’m doing right now until I can get coverage in some other way. So it’s like, you know, I mean…
Susan Kim: See, and Geri has been at Sesame for 10 years, which is great.
Geri Cole: But for that reason. Honestly. Because before I got the job at Sesame I was working freelance, or doing a lot of service industry stuff, and hadn’t had health insurance for at least a decade. And so once I did get in Sesame’s health insurance, it was like, “Aah.”
Susan Kim: It’s amazing, yes.
Geri Cole: The feeling of being like, “Oh, am I covered?” And it’s like, “Oh, yeah, I guess I can-
Susan Kim: Oh my gosh, I can go to the dentist.
Geri Cole: Yeah.
Susan Kim: Glasses.
Geri Cole: Literally, a dentist. I hadn’t been in 20 years. And so yeah, it’s been, if I’m honest, a large part of what’s kept me at this company, is because it is struggling or hustling to figure out what you can piece together. And it’s like I don’t need that stress.
Susan Kim: I have to say the thing that really flips me out about animation, it’s just jaw dropping to me that it is overwhelming, like children’s animation especially, because like prime time has its own separate thing out West. Children’s animation in the East Coast, it’s not covered. And the idea that, I don’t know, because I’ve been doing this for so long, sometimes I can negotiate a better deal than if I were just starting out. But I never get health insurance. I never get anything. And a lot of times my freelance quote is when I’m just really trying to just get some jobs, just get some money in. I’m making the same amount I was getting 25 years ago. So there’s no floor. It’s like the floor just keeps sinking and sinking.
Bob Mittenthal: It’s a race to the bottom.
Susan Kim: It’s a race to the bottom.
Bob Mittenthal: A race to the bottom.
Susan Kim: So there’s certainly no health insurance. And the idea that you can have a really good year. So many years when I thought, “Wow, if this were covered, I would’ve had health insurance.” Bob, I’m sure you’ve had those years, where you’re thinking-
Bob Mittenthal: All of them, yeah.
Susan Kim: … “I’ve totally cleared the minimum. If this were covered work, I would have health insurance.” And in many cases far beyond what the floor is for coverage. And that’s just maddening because again, going back to what you said earlier about people don’t think it’s necessarily that difficult, and honestly, it’s one of the hardest kinds. I’ve done a lot of kinds of writing and I think kids is really hard, because you’ve got to make it look really easy.
Geri Cole: Mm-hmm. Because you got to make a look… That’s exactly right.
Susan Kim: Let’s talk a little about the Sesame Deal.
Geri Cole: Yeah, it was like magic, so yeah.
Susan Kim: Speaking of happy endings, what were some of the wins you got?
Geri Cole: I mean, that was the major win, was creating a floor for what you can pay for Sesame animated shows. And then also making sure that all of the work that Sesame makes is now covered by the Writers Guild, so that it’s all eligible for health insurance, or to go towards your minimum for health insurance. And again, want to always say thank you to the Guild, I feel like they were the ones that got us there. When we sat down initially, it was like Geoff, who was the lead of our negotiating team, was like, “We can get this.” And we were like, “Okay.” Sort of had that feeling of, “If not us, who? If not now, when? We got to get this.” Because it doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t make sense that kids animation is not covered under the Guild. It’s writing. It’s writing for TV. Why isn’t it covered?
Susan Kim: So what you’re saying is it’s not that Geoff pushed a button, it was basically he was the one leading you guys into battle.
Geri Cole: Well, I mean, I think we all were like, “Okay, this is a unique moment in time at Sesame.” There had been lots of changes or we’re still sort of going through certain changes, and so it felt like, because everything feels very nebulous in a way, it’s like, “Why don’t we make this push?” And then Jeff was the one who’d be like, “We can make this push.” And then also as it was getting deeper and deeper into negotiations, he was like, “Hold the line.”
Bob Mittenthal: It was Geoff Betts?
Geri Cole: Geoff Betts.
Bob Mittenthal: Love you Geoff.
Geri Cole: Yeah. And the whole team was truly amazing. They had us two steps ahead at every step, just to be ready to combat any arguments that this company tried to put towards us. And one of the big arguments was it’s like, “It doesn’t make any sense.” I think we’ve all arrived at a time in history where it’s like, “Sorry, why are we doing it this way? How about, no? How about, let’s not do it this way anymore? It doesn’t make any sense. People need health insurance. And if they’re working for you and their other work that they do for you is covered for health insurance, but this isn’t, that doesn’t make any…”-
Susan Kim: Why are we second class?
Geri Cole: … And why? Because it’s animated? That doesn’t make any sense-
Susan Kim: So animation is second class? Why? How?
Geri Cole: … Yeah, “Why?” And they couldn’t come up with a good reason why except for, “That’s the way the industry works.” And we’re like, “Well, not anymore. We’re saying, ‘Not anymore,’ is where we are now.” So yeah, that felt really good. We were really proud of ourselves.
Susan Kim: So what are the ways you guys rallied support amongst yourselves and among the larger Writer’s Guild membership? What did you guys do?
Geri Cole: Again, thanks to the team that worked with us, Mac and Michelle, they really had us two steps ahead. We had a petition that we sent out to animation writers in general, but also just kids writers.
Bob Mittenthal: Whose idea was that?
Geri Cole: I want to say it was either Mac or Michelle’s. Again, this is the Guild. The Guild-
Bob Mittenthal: It was such a great idea.
Geri Cole: … Yeah, and we got this started on the first week, so it was like by the time we needed to hand it over, we had 100 and some odd, I want to say 60 signatures, or something insane. They had done a comparative study of what the executives that other comparable nonprofits make versus the executives at our company. So if they tried to be like, “We don’t have any money,” we could be like, “Really? I feel like your salary is X compared to someone at a comparable company. How come that is okay? But we’re asking for this little bit of a raise to make sure that we can get health insurance, or making sure that this work is covered.”
We did a couple of T-shirt days. We were in production during the negotiating time, so I took some T-shirts over to the studio and got the cast and crew to all put them on. We did a T-shirt day at the office where I took a bunch of T-shirts to the office, so the executives could also see, where it’s like “We are all unified. Production is unified.” And also Sesame, the office employees are unified behind the creative talent.
And so I think we had that petition, we did an email campaign where we were emailed the board members and executives, or rather had I think the larger Guild start sending emails. So it was essentially, like’s that called, not spamming, but where you send mass amount of emails to the executives.
Susan Kim: There’s also a thing that used to be called a Thunderclap, when you all tweet at the same time and everybody’s inboxes are suddenly flooded.
Geri Cole: Yeah, we did that. Yeah, there were lots of different tactics. I feel like on week one and two I feel like the writers didn’t necessarily understand why, and they were like, “No, no, no, we need to get this ready. We need to have it ready. Press releases. We need to have this ready, so that we’ll be ready to play that card when it comes.” And I think that that honestly is what got… Because I think it applied the appropriate amount of pressure to the company, to be like, “You don’t want this fight. Just be on the right side of history.”
Susan Kim: And was there any moment where you sensed sort of weakening or any kind of anxiety among your unit? Or was anyone frightened? Or, “Oh, this isn’t the way. These are our friends, we shouldn’t be doing this.”?
Geri Cole: I mean, because it felt more like something’s coming from the company, that it felt very combative immediately. And it was like, “Whoa, you know us, we’ve worked here, some folks for 40 years.” So it’s like, “This shouldn’t be combative.” But it definitely felt combative. So I think on our side that just riled us up more, that just made us angrier. Of being like, “Don’t treat us lie we’re strangers, or we’re jerks for asking for what we deserve.” I mean, maybe there was a moment where in that last week where it felt like again, if we have to give, what do we have to give on? And that’s when Geoff was like, “Hold the line. We can get this. We can get this.” And it was like, “Okay.”
Susan Kim: Did you talk about work stoppage and-
Geri Cole: Oh, yeah, for sure. We had strike signs already made, which we didn’t technically do on purpose. But one of the days negotiating where we were meeting here, we started working on strike signs, and the legal team from Sesame was here and came in and saw us starting to make, like we are not messing around, we will go on strike. And so that also was a little intimidating. But yeah, it just really felt like every tactic that we used was perfectly timed, and we were super prepared for that fight. So yeah, it felt like we just kept getting stronger and stronger, where it was like, “No, no, no, we are going to get this.”
Susan Kim: It was so exciting.
Geri Cole: Yeah, it was very nice.
Susan Kim: Bob, I want to talk about last year. I can’t believe the Writer’s Guild strike was a year ago.
Bob Mittenthal: Well, it was also like six months ago.
Susan Kim: That’s true, it did go into the fall. But I remember seeing you out on the line, and I went to the line a lot, and we had special animation events. But there was something very poignant about them because we still are not covered. What were your feelings about? Why did you turn out for the Writer’s Guild strike? And you’re wearing your Writer’s Guild T-Shirt.
Bob Mittenthal: Yesterday David Handelman sent me a picture, in fact, and it was me holding a picket sign. And I sent a little heart back. And then he said, “That’s only one of six pictures I have from the strike, how technology’s changed.” I was like, “Wait, is that from the 2007 strike?” And he said, “Yeah.” And it’s like things, the more they change more, they stay the same. I don’t know. I’m really passionate about the union movement and it’s not great for us without health insurance, but I’ve been the beneficiary of Guild benefits before and I plan on being again, and things would be a lot worse if we didn’t have our union.
And I think for the first time with our animation caucus, that’s regularly meeting, I feel like there’s a real energy and movement to try to get animation covered two years from now. It’s two years from now, right? The next contract? So maybe it wasn’t so much my direct self-interest. I mean, I was able to work because I was working on Bossy Bear, which was not a covered show. It was based in LA so I had mornings free. I actually felt like I owed it to my union brothers and sisters, and non-binary siblings, to go out there and do my part. Because they weren’t making anything and they’re out there, and it’s like, “What’s the least I can do?” So yeah, it was my passion.
Susan Kim: I have to say having the Sesame action follow on the heels of the Writer’s Guild strike, I found it really powerful, I found it really moving. And I was really proud of the Sesame Unit for holding so strong. And I loved the job that the Guild did in crafting the campaign.
It’s just funny, we were talking about Cornell, and they have the industrial labor relations graduate school. And so years ago I remember going to these training sessions and reading about contract campaigns, and organizing campaigns, and how do you structure it? People think, “Oh, you just go on strike.” And no, no, no, that’s like the final thing. Hopefully you can have 20 actions and never get to the strike, because that’s big and crazy. But everyone seemed to be so steadfast and really strong. And the Writer’s Guild strike itself was just so impressive. So much energy coming from so many people, East and West Coast, around the… It was just really, really powerful. So I do think, I like to hope, that we are in a position, the idea that they got animation was-
Geri Cole: Yeah. I don’t think we would’ve gotten that without the strike last year. Because I do think that it was the momentum of, “The writer’s are fired up. You don’t want to be like…” Again, the strike was how long? Eight, nine months, something?
Susan Kim: It felt like nine years.
Geri Cole: Yeah. But it was like, “We are willing to strike.” And when we started, I remember Geoff saying, “This team is in fighting shape,” because coming off that strike. So I don’t think we would’ve gotten all the gains that we did at Sesame, if not for the strike last year.
Susan Kim: One thing I find really interesting, and I think we’re going to be running out of time soon, but I just wanted to ask both of you. I mean, this is my personal terror, so I don’t want to infect you with my personal terror, but I just want to say the two little initials, AI.
Geri Cole: Oh. I mean AI terror for a million reasons that involve Terminator level world destruction. But as far as my job, it just honestly seems like such a ridiculous thing to even be discussing. You can’t AI art, you just can’t. It’s not a thing. Art, it comes from the human experience explicitly.
Susan Kim: I would say good art comes from the human experience.
Geri Cole: Yes, you could argue, but I’d say, I mean definitely good art, but all art. Like a little dumb joke, a computer can’t make a little dumb joke because they don’t understand why it’s little and why it’s dumb.
Susan Kim: If they’re scraping all of the published work and produced work of the last whatever, 150 years, they can come up with a facsimile.
Geri Cole: I mean they can try, but I really… Again, there was that meme that was like, “Can we get AI to pick trash out of the ocean?” Do they all need to be screenwriters?
Susan Kim: Exactly.
Geri Cole: Why would we even try? Art is about the human experience. I don’t care how many computers and how much you feed it, it’s never going to be able to create something that will have the same effect as an actual artist making something.
Bob Mittenthal: It’s interesting that we are so conscious of it because we’re writers and we have imaginations, and we think about what can happen and what will happen. And I was talking to a first AD the other day just at a party, and she was explaining to some other people what her job is, and I said, “Is your job under threat from AI?” And she was like, “Yeah, I guess it probably is. I hadn’t really thought…” You can feed a script into an algorithm and it can break it down, and all the props, and all the days, and all the cast. And it’s like, an assistant director, they’re still going to be needed on the set. They can’t have an AI voice calling “Cut”, or whatever. But all the prep, and that’s the biggest part of that job. It’s like that’s going to be gone. It’s like it’s all going to be gone. But it’s like we’re just on the forefront of it because we see it coming.
Geri Cole: But is it though? I feel like even in that example, I imagine, yes, technically the AD is breaking the script down into all of those pieces, but they’re also, because of their experience, I would imagine, I don’t know I’m not a personal AD, and/or AD related at all, but I would imagine another large part of their job is like personality management, is understanding the flow, understanding that after these two kinds of days, which are going to be physical days, everyone’s going to be in a bad mood, so let me schedule this day after here. And you know what, we’re going to schedule a-
Bob Mittenthal: Ever met a studio money person?
Susan Kim: Exactly, yes. Yes.
Geri Cole: You know what I mean? There’s nuance.
Bob Mittenthal: They’re still needed, but it’s going to be, instead of 12 weeks of work, it’s going to be three weeks of work.
Geri Cole: And can you just fix this.
Bob Mittenthal: And that’s the same with writing. Instead of a room of six writers working for X number of weeks, it’s going to be like-
Susan Kim: A story editor.
Bob Mittenthal: … Yeah, “Go fix these things that the algorithm did.”
Susan Kim: Yeah, you will be handed a pile of generated scripts. Obviously, we don’t know. We don’t know what’s going to happen. Right now, AI just looks horrible, and the stuff I’ve seen looks like a joke. It’s getting better. And all I know about is maybe one day we can use it as a tool. We will use it a tool. Maybe it’ll be a wonderful thing. All I know is I just feel as an animation writer, really unprotected because we have no union helping, setting guidelines.
It was so funny, there was a Black Mirror episode that aired last year, which was very funny, called “Joan is Awful.” It’s really worth watching. It’s about AI. It’s very funny for Black Mirror, which usually a very dark show. It’s very funny. But it’s what does AI mean if you’re an actor? I think that that script, that episode, just really buoyed the SAG-AFTRA strike as well. It was really talking to the actors, it really hung heavy over their strike. And I just feel as an animation writer that I’m feeling that we have our own AI Waterloo ahead of us. And we may or we may not. Maybe I’m just being hysterical. And I hope, Geri, you’re right, that we don’t have anything to fear from it, but I would like a little protection. And I feel like the only protection we can get is through a collectively bargained agreement with the Writer’s Guild.
Geri Cole: Agree.
Bob Mittenthal: Agree 100%.
Geri Cole: Yeah.
Bob Mittenthal: Are we the only ones who hate AI? I see all these ads on TV for, “AI can do this for you. AI is great. We love AI.” It’s like every time I hear letters AI, it sends shivers through my spine. It’s like they’re not advertising to me.
Geri Cole: Yeah. I am a Luddite and proud, and so I am always wary of all technology because I’m a big believer in the trade-off. I think with every piece of technology you are trading something. And sometimes you know what you’re trading and sometimes you don’t understand what you’re trading. And so I feel like even the idea of using AI as a tool, because I feel like they’ve talked about this at the company a little bit, where they’re like, “It can put together your proposals or your presentations, and it’s saving you so much time.”
And it’s like, it’s saving you time, but then you lose the ability of understanding how to put together a proposal. And that’s valuable. Being able to discern what’s the kind of information that will impress someone, or the kinds of bits and pieces that you don’t need that will confuse. All of that is a skill and is a part of the creative process. And so it’s like for all that you’re trading for the time and it’s like, “Well, what am I doing with that time?” You know what I mean? “Am I getting it back to going on a walk? I don’t think so. You’re going to give me some other tasks to fill that time.”
So I’m always very wary of any… I mean, even you think of like GPS. Where it’s like, how did we get places before? I mean, we did have MapQuest I do remember, which was hilarious. But also, before that, do you know what I mean, you just had to know, and you did know.
Bob Mittenthal: We had the Thomas Guide in L.A. The big book that-
Susan Kim: Oh, that’s right, the Thomas Guide. You’d turn to page 284, go to map 18C, or whatever.
Bob Mittenthal: … But then at some point, I imagine, then you just knew the neighborhood because you had to know it.
Susan Kim: No, there’s absolutely a payoff. And again, I skew more Luddite than not, and maybe I’m being hysterical. It’s funny, I have a friend who’s a science fiction writer, and to him all technology is wonderful.
Geri Cole: Really?
Susan Kim: He invests in crypto and he loves AI. To him, it’s all great. And he may be right. I don’t agree with him.
Geri Cole: I doubt it.
Susan Kim: I doubt it, I doubt it. But at the same time, we need to be protected. That’s all.
Bob Mittenthal: I tried to use AI at my job, but not in the way you’re thinking. It was the non-creative aspects of my job. We were submitting Bossy Bear for a bunch of awards, and each award had to have a little essay of why it should win the award. And we had done all of them ourselves for music, and script, and this and that. And then they said, “Oh, you didn’t do casting?” And I said, “Well, I thought the casting department was going to do that.” And they said, “No, no, you have to do it.” So we said, “Fuck it. Let’s just have AI do it.” And so-
Susan Kim: [inaudible 00:53:32] really good?
Bob Mittenthal: And so the prompt was like, “Why should Bossy bears casting department win a Daytime Emmy Award?” And it just spewed a bunch of stuff, paragraph stuff, and we edited it a little bit and sent it to the executives. And Max Goodman comes back to me and says, “What did the casting department send you?” Because he didn’t know that we hadn’t done it. He’s like, “Are they mad at us or something?” He was like, “That can’t go in.” This was after I’d cleaned it up.
Geri Cole: Oh, wow.
Bob Mittenthal: And so then we went and just had to do edit.
Susan Kim: You see. Proving Geri’s point.
Bob Mittenthal: It was such garbage. It was just kind of like-
Susan Kim: You see, it’s not there yet, but you know.
Bob Mittenthal: … It’s all about the prompts. And I’m seeing a lot of ads for jobs to train AI.
Susan Kim: Absolutely.
Bob Mittenthal: And that’s what they’re hiring writers to do. And it’s like-
Geri Cole: I mean, it just feels like a waste of energy.
Bob Mittenthal: … turning on the team.
Geri Cole: Yeah.
Susan Kim: Do you have any takeaways for our listeners in terms of where’s the kids media industry now? How do you feel about it? And what should we all be aware of going forward?
Bob Mittenthal: I mean, I like to end things on an optimistic note, and I don’t think I can be too optimistic about it. My heart goes out to people who are just getting into this business, who are passionate about it. A lot of times people want to meet with me who are just trying to get into the business. I always try to talk them out of it. And it’s like, I know that I won’t. It’s if their heart is really in it and it’s their passion, they’re going to do it. And that’s great. That’s who should be doing, and that’s who has to be doing. If someone says, “Oh, this looks cool, I’m going to do this for a while.” It’s like, “No, go do something else. Go to law school or something. It’s going to be really hard.” When I got into it, the business was expanding, it doesn’t feel like it is right now. And yet there’s still people who need to do this, and it’s going to be tough for them. But like artists always, they’ll find a way.
Geri Cole: Yeah. I’d say I’m an optimist. Is this true? I don’t know. But one of the things that I love about writing is that you can always do it because it just takes you. And not only can you always do it, you can always get better at it. The more you do it the better you get at it. And that always feels encouraging to me where it’s like, no matter what, just keep working on your craft, and at some point it’s going to be so good and so you that it will find its audience. And I believe that. I believe it’s like there is an audience. We need everyone’s art. There’s an audience for it somewhere. And you never know when the audience is going to come. You know what I mean? It may not be the thing that you thought was going to be big in your twenties, but it’s, again, the thing you created in your sixties that was a beautiful, buoyant thing that touched millions of people. You know what I mean?
So it’s like just stay focused on your craft and you, and making it the most you, and getting better at storytelling as you can, and it will find its audience. And the other thing that I truly believe, because I feel like I’ve experienced it in my life, and this is a little bit grim, but you may not be around when it finds its audience. Because I certainly have found things now that I’m like, “Oh my God, this speaks to me so much. And when was this made?” But you never know. You never know who it’s going to find and how it’s going to help. And so it’s like just stay focused on making the best you-thing that you can make.
Susan Kim: I think that’s all we can do, because we just don’t know what the future holds. We just have to move forward and hope for the best. I think by definition of being in kids media and being, essentially, I know you’re at Sesame, but you and I are like long time freelancers, you just have to be resilient and hope for the best.
Bob Mittenthal: Survive till ’25. That’s what they’re saying out there.
Susan Kim: Survive till ’25.
Geri Cole: Wait.
Bob Mittenthal: I don’t know what’s going to happen in ’25, but.
Geri Cole: [inaudible 00:57:12] that’s next year.
Susan Kim: I missed that memo.
Bob Mittenthal: We’re going to flip the switch and it’s all going to be great again.
Susan Kim: Geri and I are like, “What?”
Geri Cole: That’s not that long. That’s like six months.
Bob Mittenthal: Yeah, we can make it.
Geri Cole: Okay.
Susan Kim: Okay. Well, thank you both so much. Really appreciate this.
Geri Cole: Thank you for having us.
Bob Mittenthal: Thank you.
Susan Kim: OnWriting is a production of the Writers Guild of America East. This series was created and is produced by Jason Gordon. Our associate producers are Molly Beer and Tiana Timmerberg. Our designer is Molly Beer. Mix, tech production, and original music by Taylor Bradshaw. To learn more about the Writers Guild of America East, visit us online at wgaeast.org, or follow the guild on all social media platforms at @wgaeast. If you enjoyed the podcast, please subscribe and rate us. Thanks for listening. Until next time, write on.
