Alex's interview with Bill Kopp!

Well kiddies, today we have a special treat for you. A interview with none other than Bill Kopp. Bill has had quite a amazing animation career which includes The Simpsons, Eek The Cat, Tales From The Crypt and the Roger Rabbit shorts.

ALEX: Hello Mr. Kopp and thanks for taking some time to do this interview. I'm very excited for this chat. I love the Roger Rabbit shorts and I am a HUGE fan of Eek the cat.

What artists or cartoons do you consider to be your main influences?

BILL: Well, influences are the obvious ones; Bob Clampett and Tex. But I also think Michael Maltese is very underrated. His contributions on story are phenomenal. I think he was the true genius of the Looney Tunes. If you look back on those credits he was all over the place.

ALEX: How did your animation career get started?

BILL: My animation career was an accident. I just met the right people at CalArts. Savage Steve Holland was a super influence on me. He was the guy that told me to change my major into animation in my second year. But all the fellas back then were a huge influence on me. it was very healthy competition at CalArts.

ALEX: Could you give us a bit of insight to how do you come up with the stories for your cartoons?

BILL: How do I come up with stories... I'm not sure if there's a simple answer to that. It's a very complex process. And I'm never at ease with it. Writing is very hard, like torture. None of this stuff comes easy to me. I wish I was like Woody Allen, where it just flows. But I'm not. It's a fist-fight every time, somehow I have an instinctual knowledge of what seems to be funny. THANK-GOD! And my instincts seem to sync up with what makes people laugh. But a lot of it is nervous energy, comedy is like a defense mechanism. It's like the world scares me and I just fend it off with gags.

ALEX: Can you tell us some more about Tummy Trouble and how you got involved in that project?

BILL: The Roger Rabbit stuff came after we started the Simpsons. It appealed to me because it was high-end animation. And I wanted that chance to work on stuff that was challenging you on quality.

ALEX: What was the making of Roller Coaster Rabbit like?

BILL: Tummy Trouble and Roller Coaster Rabbit were awesome experiences. I was lead story guy on those and it was a fucking blast.

ALEX: Did you do any uncredited work on the third cartoon, Trail Mix-up?

BILL: I did. Pat Ventura and I worked that up along with another great one that was never made called: BEACH BLANKET BUNNY. But I left Disney and they got mad at me so I never got credit on that one. But I don't care.

ALEX: There was a fourth Roger Rabbit cartoon in the making that got canceled called "Hare in my soup" Did you do any work on that or have any more information in it?

BILL: Yes. I remember that one. There were one or two units working and Hare in my soup came from another unit. We were very competitive back then, and we didn't have much respect for the other units. Ours was the one that got shit made.All due respect of course.

we were a lot like musicians in those days. We just wanted to blow the other guys off the stage.

ALEX: Finally, on a different note: "When does the hurting stop?"

BILL: HAHAAA... It never stops....

Roger’s “carrot bag” and other ammenities

James E. Daniels, from the J.E. Daniels’ Animated Topics and Headlines blog, uploaded some interesting screencaps from the “Trail Mix-Up” short that show many of the gags and inside jokes animators left on there… But one of the screencaps hitted me like a ton of bricks, since it reveals that Jessica loves her zany husband not only because he makes her laugh:

Yup: Roger is wearing a thong.
And yup: that’s quite a “carrot bag”!!

What’s funny about this particular screencap, is that later at this animated short, Roger is wearing boxers (just near the end of the feature). Well… I must admit I feel a little disturbed about Roger’s “power package”, but hey! Those kind of gags were meant to be hidden, so it’s not surprise we could find more of them if we look close enough ;)

Thanks to J.E. Daniels for sharing this info with everyone!! =3