AboutTony Hansen Expertise Wow! I can answer "all" or "anything" about Dr. Katz. For example, do you want to know who spent the most time on Dr. Katz`s couch? I can tell you. Do you want to know how many African American`s sat with the good doctor? I can tell you. I can tell you which comedian said what to whom at what time in what episode. I can tell you about the personal life of Ben, or Laura, or Stan, or Todd. Admittedly, there may be questions of minutiae that I don`t know, but I can attempt to look up anything that you need.
Experience I have seen every episode of Dr. Katz numerous times and have every episode on tape. I also have followed the careers of the show's creators Tom Snyder and Jonathan Katz and I also know a great deal about the stand-up comics that graced Dr. Katz's couch. To help me, I have a fairly detailed episode guide.
Education/Credentials Like Ben, I'm the type of person that leads the contemplative life.
Question Is there a connection between Dr. Katz and the Cartoon Network show Home Movies? They have a similar look and feel.
-Chris
Answer Sorry about the lack of promptness in responding to your question. Lately, I've been trying to spend as much time away from my computer as possible.
To answer your question, yes, their is a connection between "Dr. Katz" and "Home Movies" both in terms of style and personnel. The connection is animator/educator Tom Snyder and his animation preference Squigglevision. Squigglevision (which I believe, but am not 100% certain, Snyder and his team developed and named) is a compact form of animation in which five similar but slightly different drawings are run in loops called "flicks." Traditional animation consists of going frame to frame and perfectly connecting different cells to provide a crispness and clarity that Squigglevision doesn't provide. It can be said, however, that the advantage of Squigglevision over tradition animation is its unique style and its thrifty, economic process of creation. With Squigglevision an entire episode can be drawn and animated in about 10 weeks, whereas other forms of animation can take multiple months.
(I realize that all this information is really superfluous and on my part extemporaneous (it's possible that I have no idea what I'm saying.))
Now, I'll admit, I've never, ever, ever seen "Home Movies." I wish could say that I have, but my local cable company doesn't provide my area with the Cartoon Network (can you believe that? Who doesn't have the Cartoon Network? Believe you me, everyday I disgustedly spit on my t.v. in protest.) But what I've read from various sources is that the last couple seasons of the show the producers have gotten away from Squigglevision animation and now use Micromedia Flash to give the series a more traditional feel. One source suggested that this was done to save money (which goes against everything that I've read about Squigglevision), but I suspect it's more likely the change occured in order to make the series a little more mainstream.
As I stated earlier, the chief connection between "Dr. Katz" and "Home Movies" is their mutual creator Tom Snyder. (Just in case you had this question, this Tom Snyder is not the Tom Snyder who had a CNN chat show throughout the 90s.) Snyder is/was also the creator of the saturday morning cartoon "Squigglevision," which is probably more well known for its center piece sketch "Science Court," and also the "Dick and Paula Celebrity Special," which aired on FX. From a more direct, on-air creative standpoint both "Dr. Katz" and "Home Movies" star H. Jon Benjamin who plays Ben on "Katz" and on "Home Movies" - the coach (I don't know his name but you know who I'm talking about, right?) And comedian Bill Braudis an on-the-couch guest of "Dr. Katz" and show writer is also the head writer for "Home Movies."
Well, I'm running out of things to write and I can tell that I'm starting to get B - O - R - I - N - G, so I'll stop right now.
