Doctor Dolittle

I always thought that Hugh Lofting's "Doctor Dolittle" books would make a wonderful animated series or special or feature film. When I returned to Nelvana Ltd. after leaving Disney, I was thrilled to find out that Nelvana had acquired the rights. The project was beaten around in development for a couple of years, and after seeing what the marketing execs in L.A. wanted turn it into I'm glad it was never made. Nelvana eventually let the rights lapse because some of the Doctor Dolittle books were falling into public domaine in some territories, but not in others, and the legal problems with getting all the rights were too numerous.

I did some development on the series at the beginning, but the stuff I did that I liked the most never made it into the marketing "focus group".

I even went as far as designing the layout of his house.

I guess the journey will continue at a later date.

Good Ideas Don't Die

After Disney scuttled the "Mickey Mountie " short idea, the concept behind it never left me and I later developed into a new short idea called "Yukon Sam". It was a bit of a twist on the Canadian Sam Steele legend, and it takes place during the Yukon Gold Rush where the N.W.M.P. patrolled and enforced the laws of the Dominion of Canada.

What follows are a few bits of art I did for development. I actually completed a ten minute leica reel for the short, and it's still on the back-burner waiting for me to get some time to do it.