STANLEY

Pat Giles (The "P" in Pannylunie) Art Directed the series "STANLEY" on the Disney Channel. There were 59 episodes with 2 direct-to DVD's that would be broken up episodically to bring the run to 65 episodes. Produced at Cartoon Pizza, the studio formerly known as Jumbo Pictures had been wholly owned by Disney, and this was their first independent production. Of course Disney was their first client, and the show was based on the "STANLEY" books by Griff, for Hyperion books, also owned by Disney. The look and feel of the show owed more to classic Hanna-Barbera than to Disney, and you can see the influence in some of Giles' publicity drawings (the first three from the top). The show was meant to be a direct competitor of Nickelodeon's "Dora The Explorer," which was a monster hit in its first year when STANLEY went into production. STANLEY never knocked DORA off of her perch, but the show was a solid ratings success nevertheless. Premiering on the unfortunate date of September 15, 2001, it went on to be a staple of Disney Channel's preschool block for several seasons.

The show was directed by Jeff Buckland, Produced by Melanie Grisanti and Executive Producers were of course Jim Jinkins, who owned the studio along with his partner David Campbell. The title sequence shown here was from the Direct-to-DVD feature "STANLEY'S DINOSAUR ROUND-UP" and this sequence was boarded by Brad Rodriguez, with music by "Riders In The Sky," who are also caricatured right into the song. Pre-Production was in New York, and during those days Cartoon Pizza was located within Sesame Workshop across from Lincoln Center. The team was an all-star group of NY animation folks, featuring Chris Palesty, Kim Miskoe, Lynda Nettleship and Willy Hartland on background design and Tony Distefano, Brad Rodriguez, Keith Gardner and Piero Piluso on character/prop designs, and Paul Zdanowicz led the color dept. Diane Kredensor led the storyboard team, with more board folks than we can list here.

Charles Shaughnessy, of "The Nanny" fame, won an Emmy for his voice acting work on the series. In "STANLEY'S DINOSAUR ROUND-UP," Randy Quaid played the bad guy, and on a sad note, the movie was John RItter's last role, playing Stanley's Western singin' Uncle Stew. The rest of the pics here are some stills from the feature length show, and the reimagined show opening, featuring some really fun backgrounds by Palesty/Nettleship/Zdanowicz and Giles.