The Dark Side of Cartoons: Was It A Hollywood-Style Rip-Off?

Or an unbelievable, improbable, mind-boggling coincidence?

HEY LOOK! Have I got a story that'll make your head spin! It's got everything you need for a good old-fashioned Hollywood scandal; greed, betrayal, and intellectual property theft. What more could you want in a true Hollywood story? (Aside from sex and murder, that is).

You won't believe your eyes when you read what I've typed up for you. And yes, it's all true! 100% non-fiction!

Storyboard made in prep for animation, early 2013.

Back in 2012, I was working on something big. Something that I thought would make me a hot commodity in the world of cartoons. I had not just one but two great show ideas that I was sure were going to hit: Copy Cat and Oddjobs.

Now, Copy Cat, that was a crazy-cool idea. But the folks over at Nickelodeon didn't think so. They shot me down like a clay pigeon. Seems the big cheese despised nothing more than cat shows - made her violently ill or something. But that didn't slow me down. I switched quick to my other idea, Oddjobs.

Oddjobs was based on characters my old man used to doodle, starting when he was a kid in the 1950s. I took those sketches and jazzed 'em up real good. The idea for the show had me stoked as well. It was to be a nod to the old silent film era; short comedy sketches with no dialogue - just music and effects.

The original line-up of Oddjobs characters, August 2012.

As fate would have it, I got word that Nick Jr. was on the hunt for "cute critters" to build a preschool show around. I knew that my Oddjobs characters fit the bill, so I wasted no time sending them in. I never heard a peep. No big deal, I then pitched it to Nickelodeon through the normal channels. No go.

For the next two months, I shopped Oddjobs around town and pitched it to two other big animation studios, but no one was seeing the genius of the idea. So, I thought, "What the Fu*k," and took matters into my own hands. I traveled all the way to Hong Kong and had toy prototypes made, then built a website to hawk the toys on when they were good and ready.

I realized that older Facebook posts can be updated with new content while retaining the original timestamp. That's when I again suspected foul play.

At the time, I also made a short animatic (rough animation) with a good friend of mine in an effort to create a buzz in the animation world. But still nothing; nada; zilch.

I got pulled away from the project by some very serious stuff going on in my family, but I kept plugging away at Oddjobs, despite that. I kept fine-tuning things in my spare time, penning episodes, prepping for more animatics, and so on. Because I'm nuts like that.

Evolution of Oddjobs into 3-D in preparation for toys and animation, 2013.

A few years went. Then one day, my brother called me and told me my show was on the air. Only, they had changed the name to “Oddbods.” It had a prime slot on the Disney Channel and was a near-clone of my Oddjobs show. The characters were shockingly similar, and the show format was exactly the same - short comedy sketches with no dialogue, just music and sound effects. I couldn't believe my eyes and ears. It was a devastating blow.

… my brother called me and told me that my show was on the air. Only, they had changed the name to “Oddbods.”

And here's where it gets even crazier. Through some research, I found out that Oddbods had been launched on an app in Hong Kong just a few months after I had been there showing my toy designs to manufacturers.

Right on the heels of that, Oddbods became the centerpiece of an upstart animation studio in Singapore called One Animation. Oddbods then became the most popular show in Asia and parts of Europe, winning awards and being hyped as the next big money maker, comparable to Spongebob or The Simpsons.

Disney, Nickelodeon, and Cartoon Network were soon airing Oddbods in the U.S.

Collection of Oddbods toys, circa 2016.

I was crushed. My intellectual property had been stolen right out from under me. But I wasn't going down without a fight. I spent hours combing through the show's credits, checking social media posts of One Animation employees, reading articles, and trying to find any evidence that could support my claim that I had the idea first.

Oddbods had been launched on an app in Hong Kong just a few months after I had been there showing my toy designs to manufacturers.

I got a lawyer involved, and he was willing to fund a legal battle with up to $100,000 of his firm's money. But I wanted to be doubly-sure, so I spent an entire week going through the evidence again. That's when I found a post on Facebook from an artist in Germany, announcing he was going to Singapore to work on a new cartoon called Oddbods, just one week before I shared my idea with anyone.

I called off the dogs. I convinced the lawyer that it was a bizarre coincidence; two people coming up with the exact same idea on opposite sides of the planet - however improbable it seemed. But then, years later, I realized that older Facebook posts can be updated with new content while retaining the original timestamp. That's when I again suspected foul play.

Looking back, it seems more likely that the post was planted to make it appear that they had come up with the idea first. And that, my friends, is the story of how I got screwed out of my big break in Hollywood.

Available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Thrift Books

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