Galan and Giles

For today's entry, let's not go back so far to talk about educational television, let's go back 11 years or so. In 2000, Cartoon Pizza in New York was newly independent from Disney and in a new partnership with Sesame Workshop, but their main client was Disney Channel. Jim JInkins ("Doug," "PB & J Otter") was cooking up a new idea, and our own Pat Giles was asked to do some development drawings that would lead to a couple of years worth of pre-production work on "Jojo's Circus" on the Disney Channel, debuting in 2003.

The show's scripts were developed against a goal of getting preschoolers up and moving in front of their TV sets. Story groups were held with kids, where early character designs were put on magnetic background designs, in order to find out what ideas and dialogue would get kids up and moving. Other issues were addressed, like responsibility, personal hygiene, and other simple everyday lessons.

The show was animated using stop-motion, by Cuppa Coffee in Canada. But the characters and backgrounds were designed in 2D first in New York, at least for the main cast and first few episodes. "It was such a thrill to see our drawings translated into 3D," says Giles. "It was also a lot of fun to be part of a small crew of designers that came up with the look and feel of the show." The crew was led by the show's creator JIm Jinkins, and the Director John Schnall. Designers Fariba Adams and Pat Giles hammered out the main cast building off of Jim Jinkins original designs. Giles also designed the final show logo (with Alisa Grodsky) and spent weeks on the establishing shot above (with Beatriz Ramos, Prentis Rollins and Sophie Kittredge) and on several main set pieces in 2-D, later built on stages in Canada. Produced by John Catapano, JoEllyn Marlow and Jack Spillum in New York, with Production Design by Ravinder Kundi, and animation Direction by Alexander Gorelick in Canada.

While we are giving shout outs, Stuart Kollmorgen was the music supervisor for season one, and our friends Robert David and Pammy Salmon wrote several scripts for the series.

Jojo is a little girl who is attending clown school, in a circus themed town. "Jojo's Circus" ran for several years on the Disney Channel, but if you can't find it on the air, here is a sampler.