Interview with Dan Danko and Tom Mason,

Co-story editors and co-head writers for

The Cartoon Network’s “Pet Alien”

Interview by Mehroo Siddiqui

How did MainBrain Productions begin? I know it says both of you are the founders but did one of you come up with the idea first? How exactly did you start off?

TOM MASON: Well, it’s kind of a funny story, but maybe only to us. We both used to work for Malibu Comics, which at the time was the fourth largest comic book company in the US. It was bought out by Marvel Comics and we hung around for nearly a year afterwards, but comics at the time were downwardly mobile and it wasn’t a fun time to be in that business. So we quit.

Dan and I had written some comic books together and that went pretty well and after talking it over and looking at the opportunities post-comics, we decided to try our luck at writing for television. So we got an office down on the beach in Malibu because if you’re going to go to an office, it should be a nice one. Then we just started typing.

DAN: Technically, Tom started typing. I’m more of a hunt-and-peck guy.

What is it like, working together? There must be some disagreements; how do you deal with those?

TOM: Did you ever see the movie “Fight Club”? That’s how we solve everything. Actually, there are surprisingly few disagreements and it’s usually over where to have lunch. As writers go, we’re pretty easygoing. If there is a disagreement over something, we just throw it out on the table and present our case. In general, I’m usually wrong and Dan’s usually right. At least, that’s what he tells me.

Do you think you work better as a team? Why?

TOM: We work better as a team for a number of reasons-- the biggest is that there’s someone at the next desk that you can immediately bounce an idea off of and see what he thinks of it. It keeps you from going with a lame idea and writing yourself into the wrong direction. Writing is basically a solitary profession-- just a person and their computer. So it’s less solitary if there’s someone else in the room. Also, when you’ve written something, there’s an extra pair of eyes to remember that you’ve used the same joke in a script for the last three TV series you worked on-- so it keeps you from slacking off. Dan is always writing stuff that makes me wish I’d written it. If I get stuck, Dan usually has an instantaneous thought that gets me back on track. Plus when you go to a pitch meeting and there are two or three stern looking studio people sitting across the table from you with that “Okay, writer, entertain me now” expression on their faces, it’s good to have someone else on your side of the room.

You’ve both done a lot of things before “Pet Alien.” How has it been? If there was any one project that I’d ask you to name as something you are really proud of, what would it be and why?

TOM: Each one of the things we’ve worked on in the past is different, so it’s hard to quantify-- it’s not like taste-testing Pepsis. The correct answer is always the newest project because that’s where all of our creative energy is going and that’s where we’re applying the lessons that we’ve learned from working on other stuff. We’re very proud of “Pet Alien” because it’s funny-- it makes us laugh and it makes the audience laugh. The experience of putting the show together was very enjoyable and easily the most creative we’ve ever encountered. Sitting in the writer’s room and bouncing ideas around and getting a high level of enthusiasm from everyone involved made it a blast to work on.

DAN: I’m very proud of a book I wrote called Ricky and the Rocket. I also did the illustrations. My kindergarten teacher said it was very advanced for my age and to this day, my mom’ll still dig that thing out and show people who come over to her house. My mom’s not much interested in any of my comic book work, or my animation or live-action work. And I don’t think she’s ever even read any of the books I’ve written, but, man, does she love that Ricky and the Rocket.

Tell me about “Pet Alien.” You’re both co-story editors and co-head writers of the series; what exactly do you do? Who comes up with what turns the story might take? How did you build upon the concept you were given for the series?

TOM: “Pet Alien” is based on a group of characters that Jeff Muncy created a couple of years ago. He was a clothing designer and toy developer and he created these characters and marketed his own line of clothing and toys with them. They were successful enough independently to attract the attention of Mike Young Productions, who contacted Jeff about turning his characters into a series. That’s when we signed on-- we had worked with Jeff’s wife, Sadaf, when she was a production executive at Fox Family and they brought us in to help develop the characters into a funny show.

DAN: Basically, “Pet Alien” is about a kid named Tommy Cadle who lives in the lighthouse in his backyard. He shares his lighthouse with five aliens from the Conforma dimension, Dinko, Gumpers, Swanky, Flip, and Scruffy. They try to make Tommy’s life easier and, for every reason we can think of, they fail miserably. Things explode. People are zapped. All life on earth nearly ends. And then the opening credits roll.

TOM: Our job as story editors also makes us head writers as well, so we do tons of stuff for “Pet Alien.” We write scripts, we sift through pitches from freelance writers and hand out assignments, we keep the scripts on schedule, we attend story meetings and collect notes from the various producers, we give notes to our writers, and we edit and rewrite material to keep it consistent with the series and keep the show “on message.” We also brainstorm ideas, we sometimes see the storyboards and the animatics to see how everything is falling into place, and as the episodes progress, we get to see the rough cuts.

DAN: We turn in premises once a week and attend weekly story meetings to review all the ideas from the previous week. It’s usually Tom and myself, Jeff Muncy (the series creator), Andrew Young (the series director), Josh Fisher (the creative exec), and Bill Schultz (the executive producer).

TOM: We also go to the voice-recording sessions every Friday when the actors record two episodes at a time. That way, we get to hear how the dialogue sounds and we have the ability to make adjustments, fix jokes, and adjust the rhythms on the spot. Sometimes a joke that looked funny on paper just doesn’t play well out loud, so it’s great to be able to fix it. And the voice actors bring a lot to the material too-- they occasionally ad lib stuff and play off one another to make it even better. It’s really fun to hear Charlie Adler, Jess Harnell, Candi Milo, and Charlie Schlatter tackle a script and hear what they bring out.

How do you like this project so far? Is there any particular serial/show/comic book/or anything like that, which you really have loved and which provides you with a standard you want to see your work achieve? In other words… what is your dream project, if you have any?

DAN: I’ve always wanted to be an astronaut.

TOM: When I was a little kid, I wanted to be a cowboy, but then I outgrew the little red hat and Apple invented the iMac. Everything changed after that.

What was it like when you both started your careers and entered this field? What kind of problems did you face, if any?

TOM: We owe our initial break to Seth MacFarlane (Thanks, Seth) and “Family Guy,” a show that we had absolutely nothing to do with! How’s that for an answer. Maybe I’d better start at the beginning. The problem that we faced early on is that we were coming in basically as “comic book guys.” We didn’t have a TV background, we didn’t have the appropriate samples, and we didn’t have a lot of contacts within the industry. We knew some film people from our work at Malibu Comics, but that was not a big help in breaking into television. We got a couple of pitch meetings early on because of our comic book background and very quickly figured out the “rules.” We wrote a spec script for “Pinky and the Brain” and passed it around to everyone that we knew. That got us into Klasky Csupo and we developed two shows for them. Our agent heard that the “Ace Ventura Pet Detective” animated series was being brought back for a second season and was looking for funny writers. We wrote a scene for “Ace” based on the one episode we found on video and that got us in as writers. Our story editor was Seth and as soon as we turned in the first draft of our first script, he quit the series-- he’d sold “Family Guy” to Fox and that was a full time gig for him. He recommended us as his replacement so we became the story editors and finished off the season. And, of course, once you’ve had one show on the air, it becomes easier to get meetings, pitch ideas, and develop more shows. It’s never totally easy, but it does get incrementally easier. So all life revolves around Seth MacFarlane for us. We have a little shrine of him in the office.

DAN: And we’re still waiting for him to call us for “American Dad.”

Considering the great strides technology is making almost everyday, do you think young people entering this field may face greater problems or do you think it’s easier on them?

TOM: I don’t think it’s ever easy to get a job in any field, whether it’s shoe design or law or television. Technology makes it easier to telecommute so you can really write from anywhere. Computers make my writing easier and I’ve worked on airplanes, in coffee shops, and from hotels all over the world. I once wrote a script from the back of a bus traveling in Turkey. As long as I can get an Internet connection or recharge the battery in my laptop, I can work. That’s what’s great about technology for writers. However, the TV jobs are still in California and it really helps to be out here. If you’re living in Frostbite Falls you can still write, but it’s hard to get that first assignment in television without being near palm trees, smog, and the Hollywood sign.

DAN: The industry is certainly demystified. I know when I was a kid, things went into Hollywood and “magic” came out. Now thanks to the Internet, young people can really understand that “magic” is really several mega-corporations doing whatever they can to earn revenue dollars to please their A-class stockholders at the next quarterly earnings report. But don’t get me wrong. It’s still magic.

Do you try to incorporate science fiction, or any kind of fantasy-- any far out sort of situation/object-- in your stories? Why?

TOM: Sometimes science fiction, sometimes not. We’ve worked on such a wide variety of stuff that it’s hard to pin it down. “Toddworld,” “Lazytown,” and “Jakers!” were all very educational shows with specific messages. “Ace Ventura” and “Brothers Flub” were wacky. “Pet Alien” has a science fiction setting, but it’s still wacky. Our "Sidekicks" books are based in a world where super-heroes are accepted as “normal.” We’re doing a series now for PBS called “Word World,” which is a new educational cartoon show.

DAN: Did I mention I want to be an astronaut?

What is the worst part of your work, if any? Why? And what is the best part?

TOM: The worst part? Well, the worst part is when there’s no work. One show has finished production and the next show hasn’t arrived yet so there’s a gap. After working on a series for a year or so, the production is finished and it’s like the last day of school. After a couple of weeks I really miss the thrill of production-- the constant barrage of e-mails, phone calls, deadlines and stuff like that. Although sometimes having that break is the best part, because the downtime gives us a chance to work on screenplays and books and noodle around some of our own ideas.

The real best part is the actual writing-- puzzling through a story, and taking it from an idea in your head to something that’s actually on the air or seeing it as a book at Border’s. That’s just awesome.

DAN: For me, the absolute worst thing about my work is the crappy selection of restaurants in Malibu. Yeah, we’ve got the sun, the sand, and the surf, but I’d kill for a good falafel, you know?

How has the journey been from working individually in the entertainment agency to becoming co-founders of MainBrain Productions? How has MainBrain’s journey been from its conception to the present? Has it been a comparatively smooth ride or have there been a lot of bumps in the middle?

DAN: It’s been…interesting. We’ve had meetings straight out of “Barton Fink,” and we’ve worked with people that have become good friends. I think the important things to remember, and what has helped to make the last ten years in TV much smoother, are to never take anyone too seriously and never let your ego get in the way.

TOM: Not too long ago, there was a glitch in the system. Animation production has its peaks and valleys and there weren’t a lot of shows in development. We wrote an episode here and there, but it was definitely slower. After a couple of months, we were contacted by Scholastic Books-- a producer friend of ours had recommended us to them as funny writers. Scholastic had the license for the “Malcolm In The Middle” books and we did of bunch of them. That got us a reputation in the book industry and we’ve since done about 30 different books over the last few years-- “Shrek 2,” “Survivor!,” “Totally Spies!,” “Butt-Ugly Martians,” “Max Steel,” “MythQuest,” and “Battlebots.” We just finished doing an adaptation of Steve Oederkirk’s new CG film, “The Barnyard” for Simon & Schuster.

Some of our books are adaptations from TV or movies, but others are stories that we created on our own. For “Malcolm,” the first two books we did were adaptations, but the rest were our original ideas. The producers on the “Malcolm In the Middle” TV show liked our ideas so much that we were invited to pitch the series and that got us a couple of episodes. Now we go back and forth with relative ease-- television shows, books, video games, and we just finished our third screenplay which our agent is sending out very soon. So we’re just all over the board-- wherever there’s a chance to tell a good story and have some fun.

Why did you decide on joining the entertainment industry? Have you ever thought what it would have been like if you weren’t what you are now? What did you think?

TOM: I love the entertainment industry. I love TV. I love books. I love telling stories and I like to make people laugh. Television is the fastest way to do that. I’m not the kind of guy who’s going to write a novel every three or four years while teaching English literature to college kids. I like the fast-paced, nightmarish production schedules. We were working on one show that did its voice recording on the East Coast. The producer used to call us in the middle of a session to tell us that a joke wasn’t working and he wanted a half-dozen replacement jokes by the time everyone came back from lunch. Some people might think that’s a horrible schedule, but I think that’s really fun.

DAN: I joined the entertainment industry because I was born in and still live in LA. What else is there to do? I try not to think of what I’d be doing if I weren’t writing. It makes me feel all oogie.

Why did you join as people behind the scenes-- the writers, editors, and creators?

TOM: Well, I joined as a behind-the-scenes person because I’m no good at the other stuff and the writing, editing, and creating are what really interest me. I’m never happier than when I have a really good idea and it’s just me and my computer. You’re not going to see me in front of the camera. I’m not an actor or a public speaker and I don’t have the attention span to be a doctor or a lawyer or an accountant.

DAN: A TV producer friend of mine once told me that the people who are most successful in TV and film have larger heads proportionate to their body size. As my head is very much normal-sized, I saw no options but to become a writer.

What would you say to young people out there who find your work wonderful and inspiring?

TOM: You find him first, then we’ll worry about what to say to him!

DAN: $10 an autograph.

Is there any advice you would give them – something they should do/know/learn before coming into this business?

TOM: We didn’t start out to be TV writers or to even write books-- it just became a natural extension of our other writing and our desire to tell stories. I used to write for my college newspaper, I used to edit and write comic books, I ran a marketing department and wrote tons of press releases and stuff like that. If someone wants to be a writer, they have to read a lot and write a lot. There’s no easy way. There’s no shortcut.

DAN: Except for all the shortcuts that you hear about. Those are very helpful. I’ve met dozens of writers who are accountants. I’ve met writers who are teachers and lawyers and travel agents. I’ve only met a few writers who are writers. I think the thing that many people don’t consider is that writers write. I don’t have a dental practice. I write and I do so every day. The successful writers I know also write every day.  Writing is a craft. It’s a talent to be honed and developed and if you want to make a career of it, the early stages can demand sacrifice. Otherwise, believe in your talent, follow your heart, check your ego, and don’t listen to the people who are eager to see you fail.

Where do you see yourselves going from here? What are your plans for the future, individually and as a team?

TOM: My immediate future is pretty clear. My wife and I just had a baby in October, so my future is a houseful of diapers, stuffed animals, tiny shoes, and soccer balls. Since working on “Pet Alien,” we’ve become good friends with Jeff (the creator) and Andy (the director) and we have a new project with them called “Toad Rules” that we’re taking out and pitching around. There’s always something new and fun coming up.

DAN: I plan on opening a dental practice.

Originally from Pakistan, where she worked in the publications department of an organization, Mehroo Siddiqui is currently doing her Masters from George Mason University in Virginia.

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