John P. McCann
Encyclopedia
John P. McCann is an American-born writer, actor and producer who has mostly focused on writing/producing animation and family-friendly scripts in the past. He is best-known for his work on television cartoons, for which he has received numerous awards, but he has also produced live-action screenplays and television scripts. At present McCann is also working on short stories, and a novella. His fiction tends to be either darkly humorous or horror-related.
McCann was featured on a panel in July 2008 at Comic-Con with other veterans of Warner Brothers animation, discussing Tiny Toons, Freakazoid, and Batman (the panel included Jean MacCurdy
, Sherri Stoner
, Andrea Romano, Bruce Timm, Paul Dini
, and Paul Rugg
).
in 1952, McCann grew up with his brother and his sister (Mary McCann, now a well-known radio DJ in her own right, based in Seattle) in the greater Chicago area—mostly in Skokie. McCann's first memory of making someone laugh is said to have been in a moment with his father. He did standup for some years in Illinois
, where he met Arsenio Hall
and Jay Leno
.
in 1979 to become a writer. Distracted by acting for a while, he worked at two separate comedy improv groups— The L.A. Connection and M.D. Sweeney's Acme Comedy Theater
(formerly Two Roads Theater; Sweeney has sold the theater, and now runs the restaurant and club next door, said to have been an investment of Acme Alumnus Adam Carolla
). Writing comedy skits enabled him to hone his abilities with dialogue and narrative, and to explore the way comic timing is affected by the needs of a story: he was no longer simply throwing out one-liners. He reached the summit of his acting career, he claims, as a double for Duncan Regehr
(as Errol Flynn
) in My Wicked, Wicked Ways: The Legend of Errol Flynn.
joined Acme Comedy Theater, Rugg and McCann were recruited by Tom Ruegger
and Sherri Stoner
of Warner Brothers Animation
for freelance scripts. Ruegger then brought both Rugg and McCann aboard at Warner Brothers, where they worked as part of Jean MacCurdy
's brain trust on Animaniacs
and Steven Spielberg Presents Freakazoid!. McCann later worked on Pinky, Elmyra & the Brain
, a spinoff of Pinky and the Brain
, which was ironic: the first script he'd written for Ruegger had been an experimental workup of a spinoff from Tiny Toons, using Elmyra as the main protagonist.
Along with being the creative force behind Freakazoid!—along with Rugg—McCann performed the voice for Douglas Douglas, Dexter Douglas' father, and for Hero Boy. The Freakazoid! character Lord Bravery was actually drawn to look like John P. McCann.
McCann has received a Peabody Award
and been nominated for seven Emmys—including one for songwriting—and has received three Emmy Awards: one for Animaniacs (as a writer), one for Freakazoid! (as a producer), and one for Pinky, Elmyra & the Brain (as a producer). At Warner Brothers, he worked not just on those titles, but also on Ozzie & Drix, Batman Beyond
, and a speculative series based on the character Lobo from the Superman Comic Strips that never got off the ground. He also produced a couple of public service announcements for the U.S. State Department (in a joint project with Warner Brothers Animation) that featured Bugs Bunny
and Daffy Duck
, in which Cambodian people were warned about the dangers of picking up stray ordnance from the ground. He remarks that the project took him to Washington D.C. once, and Cambodia
twice. McCann also won a Prizm Award in 1999 for helping to raise public awareness about the dangers of drug addiction (but in a funny way, of course).
The release of the first Freakazoid! season DVD occurred in July 2008, and that double-DVD remained in Amazon's top ten for family-friendly releases, boxed sets, and television animation for weeks.
's Curb Your Enthusiasm
. A take-off on The Blair Witch Project, it was entitled The Glendale Ogre, and starred Marc Drotman, Scott Kreamer, and Kate Donahue. Scored by Julie and Steve Bernstein, it featured camera work by David Coons
of Los Angeles' Artscans, himself most well known as the inspiration for the title of Po Bronson
's The Nudist on the Late Shift.
In the years since leaving Warner Brothers Animation, McCann has worked on Jimmy Neutron, Dave the Barbarian
, Tom Ruegger's Sushi Pack
, and Animalia. He was also story editor for the animated European series Sherm!, produced by BAF.
s (including Honolulu
, the ill-fated Chicago Marathon
of 2007--and the Eugene, Oregon marathon, for which he "broke" four hours in May of 2008). He acted as an assistant coach for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society's Team in Training at the San Diego Rock 'n' Roll marathon in June of 2008.
McCann was featured on a panel in July 2008 at Comic-Con with other veterans of Warner Brothers animation, discussing Tiny Toons, Freakazoid, and Batman (the panel included Jean MacCurdy
Jean MacCurdy
Jean MacCurdy is an American-born longtime animation/children's programming professional, best known for having worked at Hanna-Barbara, and for having presided over the Warner Bros...
, Sherri Stoner
Sherri Stoner
Sherri Stoner is an American actress and writer. She was born July 16, 1965, in Santa Monica, California.She has worked extensively in animation. She was a writer and producer for such 1990s animated shows as Tiny Toon Adventures and Animaniacs. She is probably best known for Animaniacs, for which...
, Andrea Romano, Bruce Timm, Paul Dini
Paul Dini
Paul Dini is an American writer and producer who works in the television and comic book industries. He is best known as a producer and writer for several Warner Bros./DC Comics animated series, including Star Wars: Ewoks, Tiny Toon Adventures, Batman: The Animated Series, Superman: The Animated...
, and Paul Rugg
Paul Rugg
-Biography:Rugg has worked extensively in the field of animation. His list of credits include writing for, co-producing, and playing the voices of several cartoon characters, first being credited as "Mr. Director" from Animaniacs...
).
Early life
Born in Elmhurst, IllinoisElmhurst, Illinois
Elmhurst is a suburb of Chicago in DuPage and Cook Counties, Illinois. The population is 46,013 as of the 2008 US Census population estimate.-History:...
in 1952, McCann grew up with his brother and his sister (Mary McCann, now a well-known radio DJ in her own right, based in Seattle) in the greater Chicago area—mostly in Skokie. McCann's first memory of making someone laugh is said to have been in a moment with his father. He did standup for some years in Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
, where he met Arsenio Hall
Arsenio Hall
Arsenio Hall is an American actor, comedian, and former talk show host. He is best known for his talk show The Arsenio Hall Show, which ran between 1989 and 1994, and his roles in the films Coming to America and Harlem Nights.Hall is also known for his appearance as Alan Thicke's sidekick on the...
and Jay Leno
Jay Leno
James Douglas Muir "Jay" Leno is an American stand-up comedian and television host.From 1992 to 2009, Leno was the host of NBC's The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Beginning in September 2009, Leno started a primetime talk show, titled The Jay Leno Show, which aired weeknights at 10:00 p.m. ,...
.
Acting and improv work
McCann moved to Los AngelesLos Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
in 1979 to become a writer. Distracted by acting for a while, he worked at two separate comedy improv groups— The L.A. Connection and M.D. Sweeney's Acme Comedy Theater
ACME Comedy Theatre
The ACME Comedy Theatre is a sketch comedy and improvisational theater located near Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, on La Brea near Wilshire's "Miracle Mile" in the U.S. ACME was started by M.D. Sweeney as "The Two Roads Theater" in Studio City in 1989, with the players known as the Two Roads...
(formerly Two Roads Theater; Sweeney has sold the theater, and now runs the restaurant and club next door, said to have been an investment of Acme Alumnus Adam Carolla
Adam Carolla
Adam Carolla is an American radio personality, television host, comedian, and actor. He currently hosts The Adam Carolla Show, a talk show distributed as a podcast on the ACE Broadcasting Network...
). Writing comedy skits enabled him to hone his abilities with dialogue and narrative, and to explore the way comic timing is affected by the needs of a story: he was no longer simply throwing out one-liners. He reached the summit of his acting career, he claims, as a double for Duncan Regehr
Duncan Regehr
Duncan Peter Regehr is a Canadian writer, multi-media artist, and film and television actor. He has also been a figure skater, an Olympic boxing contender, and a classically trained Shakespearean stage actor in his native Canada, before heading to Hollywood in 1980...
(as Errol Flynn
Errol Flynn
Errol Leslie Flynn was an Australian-born actor. He was known for his romantic swashbuckler roles in Hollywood films, being a legend and his flamboyant lifestyle.-Early life:...
) in My Wicked, Wicked Ways: The Legend of Errol Flynn.
Television writing
After Paul RuggPaul Rugg
-Biography:Rugg has worked extensively in the field of animation. His list of credits include writing for, co-producing, and playing the voices of several cartoon characters, first being credited as "Mr. Director" from Animaniacs...
joined Acme Comedy Theater, Rugg and McCann were recruited by Tom Ruegger
Tom Ruegger
Tom Ruegger is an American animation writer, producer, and director.-Career:In the 1980s Ruegger worked for Hanna-Barbera, writing and producing various animated series, most notably The Snorks, The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo, Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo and A Pup Named Scooby-Doo.In 1989 he began...
and Sherri Stoner
Sherri Stoner
Sherri Stoner is an American actress and writer. She was born July 16, 1965, in Santa Monica, California.She has worked extensively in animation. She was a writer and producer for such 1990s animated shows as Tiny Toon Adventures and Animaniacs. She is probably best known for Animaniacs, for which...
of Warner Brothers Animation
Warner Bros. Animation
Warner Bros. Animation is the animation division of Warner Bros., a subsidiary of Time Warner. The studio is closely associated with the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies characters, among others. The studio is the successor to Warner Bros...
for freelance scripts. Ruegger then brought both Rugg and McCann aboard at Warner Brothers, where they worked as part of Jean MacCurdy
Jean MacCurdy
Jean MacCurdy is an American-born longtime animation/children's programming professional, best known for having worked at Hanna-Barbara, and for having presided over the Warner Bros...
's brain trust on Animaniacs
Animaniacs
Steven Spielberg Presents Animaniacs, usually referred to as simply Animaniacs, is an American animated series, distributed by Warner Bros. Television and produced by Amblin Entertainment and Warner Bros. Animation. The cartoon was the second animated series produced by the collaboration of Steven...
and Steven Spielberg Presents Freakazoid!. McCann later worked on Pinky, Elmyra & the Brain
Pinky, Elmyra & the Brain
Steven Spielberg Presents Pinky, Elmyra & the Brain is the retooling of the American animated television series Pinky and the Brain , with the title characters being joined by Elmyra Duff from their other show Tiny Toon Adventures...
, a spinoff of Pinky and the Brain
Pinky and the Brain
Pinky and the Brain is an American animated television series.The characters Pinky and the Brain first appeared in 1993 as a recurring segment on the show Animaniacs...
, which was ironic: the first script he'd written for Ruegger had been an experimental workup of a spinoff from Tiny Toons, using Elmyra as the main protagonist.
Along with being the creative force behind Freakazoid!—along with Rugg—McCann performed the voice for Douglas Douglas, Dexter Douglas' father, and for Hero Boy. The Freakazoid! character Lord Bravery was actually drawn to look like John P. McCann.
McCann has received a Peabody Award
Peabody Award
The George Foster Peabody Awards recognize distinguished and meritorious public service by radio and television stations, networks, producing organizations and individuals. In 1939, the National Association of Broadcasters formed a committee to recognize outstanding achievement in radio broadcasting...
and been nominated for seven Emmys—including one for songwriting—and has received three Emmy Awards: one for Animaniacs (as a writer), one for Freakazoid! (as a producer), and one for Pinky, Elmyra & the Brain (as a producer). At Warner Brothers, he worked not just on those titles, but also on Ozzie & Drix, Batman Beyond
Batman Beyond
Batman Beyond is an American animated television series created by Warner Bros. Animation in collaboration with DC Comics as a continuation of the Batman legacy...
, and a speculative series based on the character Lobo from the Superman Comic Strips that never got off the ground. He also produced a couple of public service announcements for the U.S. State Department (in a joint project with Warner Brothers Animation) that featured Bugs Bunny
Bugs Bunny
Bugs Bunny is a animated character created in 1938 at Leon Schlesinger Productions, later Warner Bros. Cartoons. Bugs is an anthropomorphic gray rabbit and is famous for his flippant, insouciant personality and his portrayal as a trickster. He has primarily appeared in animated cartoons, most...
and Daffy Duck
Daffy Duck
Daffy Duck is an animated cartoon character in the Warner Bros. Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of cartoons, often running the gamut between being the best friend and sometimes arch-rival of Bugs Bunny...
, in which Cambodian people were warned about the dangers of picking up stray ordnance from the ground. He remarks that the project took him to Washington D.C. once, and Cambodia
Cambodia
Cambodia , officially known as the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia...
twice. McCann also won a Prizm Award in 1999 for helping to raise public awareness about the dangers of drug addiction (but in a funny way, of course).
The release of the first Freakazoid! season DVD occurred in July 2008, and that double-DVD remained in Amazon's top ten for family-friendly releases, boxed sets, and television animation for weeks.
Indie film production
In 1999 McCann wrote, produced and directed a short film in the improvisational style later popularized by Larry DavidLarry David
Lawrence Gene "Larry" David is an American actor, writer, comedian and producer. He is best known as the co-creator , head writer, and executive producer of the television series Seinfeld from 1989 to 1996, and for creating the 1999 HBO series Curb Your Enthusiasm, a partially improvised sitcom in...
's Curb Your Enthusiasm
Curb Your Enthusiasm
Curb Your Enthusiasm is an American comedy television series produced and broadcast by HBO, which premiered on October 15, 2000. As of 2011, it has completed 80 episodes over eight seasons. The series was created by Seinfeld co-creator Larry David, who stars as a fictionalized version of himself...
. A take-off on The Blair Witch Project, it was entitled The Glendale Ogre, and starred Marc Drotman, Scott Kreamer, and Kate Donahue. Scored by Julie and Steve Bernstein, it featured camera work by David Coons
David Coons
David B. Coons is an Academy Award-winning computer graphics professional who is perhaps best known as the inspiration for the title of Po Bronson's The Nudist on the Late Shift, but is also a longtime CGI expert of near-"Pioneer" status.-Biogrphy:...
of Los Angeles' Artscans, himself most well known as the inspiration for the title of Po Bronson
Po Bronson
Po Bronson is an American journalist and author who lives in San Francisco, California.-Personal history:Bronson was born in Seattle, Washington. After attending Lakeside School in Seattle, he graduated from Stanford University in 1986 and briefly worked as an assistant bond salesman in San...
's The Nudist on the Late Shift.
In the years since leaving Warner Brothers Animation, McCann has worked on Jimmy Neutron, Dave the Barbarian
Dave the Barbarian
Dave the Barbarian is an American animated television series created by Doug Langdale, creator of The Weekenders, that premiered on January 23, 2004 on Disney Channel and ended on January 22, 2005. Continuing to air in other countries after the show ended, the show follows a barbarian named Dave,...
, Tom Ruegger's Sushi Pack
Sushi Pack
Sushi Pack is an American animated television series produced by DIC Entertainment and American Greetings, that aired on the KEWLopolis block on CBS November 3, 2007 - September 12, 2009...
, and Animalia. He was also story editor for the animated European series Sherm!, produced by BAF.
Personal life and running
McCann lives with his wife in the hills east of Los Angeles, and claims to like "long walks through large corporate and government buildings." He has completed five marathonMarathon
The marathon is a long-distance running event with an official distance of 42.195 kilometres , that is usually run as a road race...
s (including Honolulu
Honolulu Marathon
The Honolulu Marathon is one of the world's largest marathons. It takes place annually in Honolulu, Hawaii on the second Sunday in December. - History :...
, the ill-fated Chicago Marathon
Chicago Marathon
The Bank of America Chicago Marathon is a major marathon held yearly in Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States. Alongside the Boston, New York, London and Berlin Marathons, it is one of the five World Marathon Majors. Thus, it is also an IAAF Gold Label race...
of 2007--and the Eugene, Oregon marathon, for which he "broke" four hours in May of 2008). He acted as an assistant coach for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society's Team in Training at the San Diego Rock 'n' Roll marathon in June of 2008.
External links
- McCann's own blog
- McCann's "Death Honk", in The Journal of Microliterature
- McCann's "Fresh Ideas", in Every Day Fiction