CBS ENTERTAINMENT NETWORK | michael-chase-walker

Director of Children's Programs

CBS Entertainment Network

I conceived and or acquired the rights, developed, guided and supervised production of over 100 hours of animated network programming.

When I joined CBS I was a movie producer with numerous film and television productions and an over all deal with Sydney Pollack and Tri-Star Pictures. But, the film world moved glacier-like and I had a young family to feed.

Once at the network, I had the idea to revamp the 3rd place Saturday morning lineup into an old-time Movie Matinee feel with cliff hangers, horse-operas, and an eclectic blend of science fiction, fantasy, and horror all revolving around an Andy's Gang/Wonderama centerpiece.

I recruited many of my contacts from the film world, Jack Rapke at CAA, Chris Columbus, the young up and coming screenwriter at Amblin' Productions, and my creative team from The Last Unicorn, Peter S. Beagle and Jimmy Webb.

I bought and developed Ripley's Believe it or Not with Alan Burnett at Hanna Barbera. Sebastian The Dog Detective, with Joe Ruby of Ruby Spears, and Wendy Pini's Elfquest.

This is the line up that eventually prevailed. But, I still had to find my centerpiece show -- when along came Pee Wee's Big Adventure. You can read an excellent account of it in Caseen Gaines' Inside Pee Wee's PLayhouse.

Wildfire

Galaxy High School

Syd Iwanter at TMS developed "High School 2424" with Jon Kricfalusi, which I loved but couldn't get any traction for because TMS was an "unproven' animation studio. I physically had to rebuild the fledgling animation house from the ground up to get Galaxy High on the air. I brought in the hottest screenwriter in Hollywood Chris Columbus as Creative Consultant, and pulled my own CBS business affairs attorney Sander Schwartz to become president of the studio. The series was a total bomb, as was Pee Wee initially, but it remains one of my favorites to this day. John Williams of Vanguard Animation and I optioned the film rights in 1998 and sold it to Dreamworks for a live-action film.

I wanted to do an animated fantasy version of "My Friend Flicka" so I came up with Wildfire and recruited my creative team from The Last Unicorn, Peter S. Beagle, for the show bible, and Jimmy Webb for the title theme song.

Teen Wolf

In spite of the crappy animation I loved the backgrounds for this animated retelling of the Michael J. Fox movie. I had the idea to take the typical suburban setting and move it to a Solvang like township with an old Bavarian feel to punch up the production value. With my "Saturday Matinee" model shaping up I needed a horror themed show, so I appealed to Atlantic Releasing president Jonathan Dana to bring the screenwriters Jeph Loeb and Matt Weismann in to develop the show. They didn't really "get"the animation world and I didn't have a lot of time to screw around. I was a huge fan of Linda Wolverton's writing, and turned to her and Robie London for the heavy-lifting. Linda Wolverton went on to become one of Jeffrey Katzenberg's favorites and is considered one of the very best writers in Hollywood today.

The Wuzzles

I've always loved animation and was genuinely excited to be writing and producing in the children's field. So, it was vastly disappointing to see how little regard there was for it in the Hollywood creative community. On the network side, the "children's" area was the last resort for a few hard-driven secretaries in the one programming area not dominated by stodgy old men.

Sadly, when I came to CBS there was a very unsavory alliance with the toy companies and properties like Teddy Ruxpin, Lasar Tag, Gummi Bears, etc. I was determined to break from it, so I was not terribly thrilled to see this stuff toy inspired line from Disney. The challenge then became to turn it into a great show in spite of its crassly commercial origins. First thing I did was go mano et mano with Jeffrey Katzenberg to replace Richard Dysart as the show's narrator, with my friend and boyhood idol, Stan Freberg. The next thing was to bring in the great writing team of David Weimers and Ken Koonce to masterfully turn it into a perfectly charming animated television show.

This show was on the boards when I joined the network, and other than approve the weekly scripts the best thing I could do was stay out of the way. It was an excellent show brought tenderly into creation each week through Buzz Potemkin's Southern Star Studios.