- Butch Hartman
Elmer Earl "Butch" Hartman IV (born
January 10 1965 inHighland Park, Michigan ) is an Americananimator ,executive producer ,animation director ,storyboard artist ,producer , and creator of the hit "Nickelodeon" television cartoon series, "The Fairly OddParents " and "Danny Phantom ".Childhood
Hartman was born in
Highland Park, Michigan to Elmer Earl Hartman III and Carol Davis. He received the nickname "Butch" as a youth and continues to use the name professionally as an adult. Hartman spent his childhood inRoseville, Michigan and his teen years inNew Baltimore, Michigan .He graduated from Anchor Bay High School in New Baltimore in 1983. He subsequently attended the
California Institute of the Arts in Valencia,California .Early career
While still attending the California Institute of the Arts, Hartman received the chance to intern as an in-between animator on the
Don Bluth film, "An American Tail ". Shortly after graduating for the California Institute of the Arts Hartman was hired as a character designer for the animated series "My Little Pony ". Instead, they had him working on storyboards (which he hadn't done before) and as quickly as he was hired, he was fired.Soon after Hartman found work with Ruby Slash, where he worked on "
Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog ", "" and "Gadget Boy".He was also a video reference crew for the
Disney movie, Pocahontas. Later, he became a writer, television director and storyboard artist for severalHanna-Barbera shows, including "Dexter's Laboratory ", "Cow and Chicken ", and "Johnny Bravo ".After his contract with Hanna-Barbera finished up he went to work with former co-worker
Fred Seibert on theOh Yeah! Cartoons show.He's also a friend of
Seth MacFarlane and designed and directed on MacFarlane's animated short "Zoomates." MacFarlane also has a character on Family Guy named after Hartman named Dr. Hartman.Hartman currently lives in
Bell Canyon, California , with his wife, Julieann, and daughters, Carly and Sophia."The Fairly OddParents" and "Danny Phantom"
His biggest success came in 1997, when he created "
The Fairly OddParents ". (The idea came to him during the drive from Hanna-Barbera to Nickelodeon to pitch an idea toFred Seibert .) It was originally a series of made for TV shorts on the anthology show, "Oh Yeah! Cartoons ". In 2001, Nickelodeon picked it up as a full series. "The Fairly OddParents" became a huge hit, second only in the ratings to "SpongeBob SquarePants". Due to the success of "OddParents", Hartman was asked to create another cartoon for Nickelodeon, (Hartman says the President of Nickelodeon asked him if he had an idea, and before he could say the title he was given a contract.) "Danny Phantom ", in 2004. "The Fairly OddParents" ceased production in 2006, but it was announced on Hartman's website on February 2, 2007 that 20 more episodes will be produced. On July 11, 2007, The first new episode of Danny Phantom was aired on the Nicktoons Network. Danny Phantom ended production on August 24, 2007. The 7th Season of The Fairly OddParents aired on February 18, 2008, starting with the 1-hour special Fairly Odd Baby."Doogal"
Hartman was asked to serve as executive producer and screenwriter of "Doogal", the Americanized dub of the British/French animated film "The Magic Roundabout". Seeing that the movie itself was lacking, Hartman proposed that in addition to dubbing, extra scenes be filmed in live action to fill up empty spaces in the story. While the idea was originally received with praise and was essentially given the okay, budgeting was pulled from it at the last minute and the only changes made were in the dubbing.
The film was then dubbed by
The Weinstein Company , and was released on February 24, 2006. However, "Doogal" was poorly received by critics, and did poorly in the box-office, grossing only $7 million dollars and getting 7% on Rotten Tomatoes. [http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1156283-doogal/]Other and future works
Hartman is currently working on two new projects for Nickelodeon: one, a live-action series and the other, animated. It has also been stated that 20 more episodes of "The Fairly OddParents" are currently under production and if possible, he may decide to go ahead and work on a theatrical feature film "The Fairly OddParents Movie" as well.
His other TV work include voicing various characters on the animated series "
Family Guy " (the series' creatorSeth MacFarlane even named the wacky family doctor Hartman after him), and playing the character Sean Masters on the short-lived series "Generations" in 1991. He was also a recurring character on the popular NBC soap opera "Days of Our Lives " (1988 - 1989; see [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0366924/] ).FOP looks of other Nicktoons and Shows
On an edition of "
Nick Magazine ", Butch Hartman posted FOP looks of "Nicktoons" and other Nick Shows such as "Zoey 101 ", "SpongeBob SquarePants ", "Rugrats ", "Drake & Josh ",and "".External links
*
* The Official Butch Hartman site [http://www.butchhartman.com]
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
