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CJP #34: Jerry Lee Brice · Coconut Justice

• Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Hey, what's good? Jerry Lee Bryce is an animator that has an IMDB page that's pretty bonkers. He worked on Walt Disney's Oliver Company, Back to Neverland, and Little Mermaid. He's also worked on King of the Hill, Al Roker's Weather Hunters, as well as a bunch of his own animated projects. C4 Explosives joins me in this conversation with Jerry Lee Bryce. Before we get into it, remember to go to coconutjustice.com to get you some clothes that I think would look good on you. Let's go. When I grew up, I wanted to be an animator because I was watching Disney movies and stuff like that. I went out. Well, we went out and we found someone who can help us or help me specifically, selfishly speaking, reach my childhood dreams. You guys, welcome to the show. Jerry. Bryce. Yes. Jerry Lee Bryce. Jerry Lee Bryce. Jerry Lee. Yeah. Keep me, keep me, keep me, ⁓ keep me. That's what it says. Jerry Bryce. Okay. Jerry Lee Bryce. Right. Hey, ⁓ come to the front of the class. One and only C4 explosives. What's cracking, everybody? It's an honor as usual to be be on a part of this. Thank you guys for coming on the show. So this is probably Jerry, you're probably the only thing that's gonna make me feel good last night. My bears got that got that little they they hung a L around our necks last night, and ⁓ we gotta we gotta shake that off. So you're gonna talk to me for however long about being an animator, about reaching for your dreams that make me heal my heart, Jerry. Well, I'm gonna say this about ⁓ Chicago beer, you know, my my partner, you're talking about the Weather Hunters, this latest show on my PBS program, but the is the the person who brought me on the project, ⁓ Bill Schultz, whatever was the original executive producer, showrunner, etc. ⁓ he's from Chicago, so I know he was hurt, but you know he's the one who got me into it to buy the NFL as a prime ticket with all that, you know. He's like watching games from Chicago, don't have to be there, you know what I mean. But who do you roll do you do you watch sports and stuff at all? ⁓ yeah, I do. Definitely. Who do you who who are your teams? Like when you go to throw on some colors, who who are you wearing? Well, you know, all the teams from San Diego, if it's baseball, it's Padres, you know, like you know, unfortunately, I used to be like 100% like hardcore in the San Diego Chargers, you know, fans, like they up, whatever, hated the Raiders, Raiders, all that, you know. But the they left Sandy, you know, went to Los Angeles, which I do live and work in also, but I like I hated that. You know, LA hates them. So it's like, you know, I don't know, man. I I like watch the teams that are kind of winning. I like, you know, I like Patrick Mahomes. I like, you know, the the Ravens. I like, you know, I watch the the the underdog teams, man. Yeah. You know, so it's like I you know, as far as football, which is what I'm, you know, would watch it now, I like ⁓ I just kinda like the teams that are are entertaining. Definitely like the Pams, though. Definitely follow the random. Obviously, it's like a lot of you know Southern Calvin West, you know, West West Coast. Yeah, they're their quarterback is no joke. ⁓ he's solid. He can't run for shit, but no, he's solid. I follow Detroit a lot too. I like Detroit for the Detroit is dope. Detroit is dope. That's why we took the head coach. We no, they're their offensive coach. We kneecapped them, boy. You know what it was with, Jared Dow. Used to be the quarterback for the LA Rams and he went to the Super Bowl ran and then they lost and then they traded him to Detroit. I thought that sucked, man. I thought that was ⁓ horrible. Yeah. ⁓ so I was like riding for him and you know, I wasn't against you know the Ram, but ⁓ thought that sucked, right? So I'm riding for the underdog and I really like how he re reinvigorated the Detroit team. Yeah. Are you you're from you're originally from San Diego? Yes, native, yeah, born and raised. born raised probably gonna die. So when people talk about so when people talk about why do you live, why do people want to go to San Diego, what what's like your top two to three things to ⁓ to rep San Diego? See this is it's complicated because you know, I mean, you gotta understand I really love San Diego. So you gotta understand like Do I really want to encourage a lot of people from Middle Earth? I don't know, man. You know. Yeah. It's California, you guys would hate it. Yeah, man. You know, but it's a, you know, because I love the diversity out here. That's the first thing that people don't hate. I love the diversity. Even on the our Republicans, you know, people don't understand this is a Republican stronghold. My brother used to say San Diego is like Atlanta for white folks. You know. You know, basically it's like dog, you know, gate gas lamp in during the eighties, nineties, it's beautiful. Lots of fun. You know, ⁓ I personally live about 10 minutes from the border. This is gonna get controversial because all this BS about the border, like San Diego's the but you know, like I don't know what kind of border the rest of America is ⁓ having nightmares about, but you know, I don't care. You know, like back in the day, you know, it's because we used to live on the border. Back in the day, it's like, yeah, we had immigration, whatever. It's like, you know, we had if people were crossing the border, what you would do is like, you know, give them water and stuff and point them in the right direction. You know it was it's ⁓ it's it's a misdemeanor. It wasn't a big deal. Yeah. All this ⁓ for the record is still a misdemeanor. Yeah, it is still a misdemeanor. Thank you. Thank you. You know, so all this, all this ⁓ It's a flaw. They're treating you I'm gonna tell my dad it's the same as a speeding ticket. Yeah, it's no it's no big deal. I'm telling the people and I'm and I'm addressing, you know, and I'm and I get race. I'm addressing the black, white, brown people, ⁓ democrats, you know, ⁓ Republicans in San Diego, like the 70s, 80s, nine, you know, Pete Wilson was a friend of my father. My father is a is a ⁓ We used to be in land develop, you know, commercial developer here, you know. So we had crews and stuff. And I'm I'm gonna tell you, it's like crazy to really ⁓ think about like ⁓ running any kind of business. You know, Pete Wilson had like an all-pair, you know, you know, domestic help, you know, like ⁓ it's very, very crazy. I don't know if you've been to San Diego. I lived out there. I lived out there for about three, four months. Look on the map. So don't it don't it kinda look like China Vista? You know, all the you know all the names that Marcos. It's like you know, it's all Spanish. Exactly. All of it. And when I grew up, man, that's all my neighbors. I live in the hood, you know, the black, ⁓ black park of town. So it was like Mexican, blacks, Filipinos, you know. Yeah, white people obviously, 'cause they're eighty-five percent, but it was like basically where we're at, the red line district, and ⁓ Yep. You know, that's like it's crazy. This crazy no nobody out here had a problem. Pete Wilson, like all that ridiculous like you lose respect for somebody's because they're doing something that you know they're not about. Yeah. You know, and he was really going hard on that, but but but really in in his ⁓ realistic life, it wasn't I I never seen that. Yeah. You know, because he had masking people, you what mean, and then my father. It's crazy now. So, you know, long story short, it's like I don't get it, dude. It's like ⁓ I don't wanna, you know, X myself out, but I I think it's ⁓ horrible the way we have to deal with the racism, you know, it's just because how seamless it is at the San Diego border. We have people from Mexico that will take the train into San Diego to go to work and then they take the train right the fuck back to Mexico when they're done. Dude, I taught here ⁓ college and and ⁓ a large percentage of my students were commuting from Tijuana. Yeah. ⁓ you know, California every day. Yeah. And it's not like, you know, and it's not like I, you know, the the I would probably cross the border just generally like two times a week, you know? Yeah. This is this is a c you know, it's a community out here. ⁓ it's no issue. That that all this ⁓ ridiculous I don't you know this is horrible. You know, it gives it probably get us killed, but no. The last thing we need is a wall. What we need to do is ⁓ have an easier way for that's that's a you know, that's at least ten percent of our ⁓ consumer, you know, ⁓ customers. You know what I mean? Like even even even to go deeper is like Trump Trump says that civil rights led to white people being treated very badly. Yeah. Like I like that He just said that yesterday. Yeah, right. I mean, but you gotta kinda look at it like we're we're ⁓ from a white supremac of view. Right. Because it's easy for us to kind of take our hand. You gotta look at it from a person that looks at like ⁓ an intelligent black man or or or Mexican people or minority. Cause really it's a white Anglo-Saxon Protestants, because I tell my ⁓ you know my people of color friends you know what i mean that are not black you know like okay and they look white okay you do have an opportunity now chaldeans but if do have an opportunity maybe the and even the jewish people you know you do have an opportunity because you are you look basically you're white you do have an opportunity look white act white whatever but you know but ⁓ when it really comes down to it you know I know white people I grew up with you know they're talking about white Anglo-Saxon Protestants. So once they get rid of all the brown people, whatever, the obvious people, they're gonna come for you. Mm-hmm. Cause they hate you too. Cause I, you know, if I I tell my masculine friends, you know, like like you mentioned the real estate thing. I know we're in Southern California, you know, ⁓ because my family's from down south. We we ⁓ kind of like kid ourselves, we're not we're not south of the Mason Dixon line and all this kind of stuff. We didn't have Jim Crow. What we did have was ⁓ a worse than that. We had racial covenants on real estate sales. You know, this is this is really what controls your your bigotry in America. You know, redlining, you know, ⁓ my granddaddy and I, we, you know, like like my where my grandparents' house was, it's like, you know, there was a racial covenant where it's like the couldn't sell it to blacks, Mexicans, you know, ⁓ Italians, Jews, you know. But you know, there was a provision that Mexicans were considered white. in the in the US constitution because the first civil rights education thing, you know, like like it wasn't that Brown versus whatever was a a case that happened here in ⁓ Lemon Grove. Mm-hmm deal with the Mexican students being, you know, but but you know, within that case, that was the first civil rights education case that kind of changed the game. You know, a lot of people don't know that. But you know, look it up. But but really what it came down to, you know, was that the S the Supreme Court, you know, said, well, you know, ⁓ You know, Mexican people are are designated as white people in America. They're probably one of the I mean look look that up. You know, they they were they were going hard on Jews, Italians, blacks, you know, you know the whole Mexican thing, you know, and that whole discrimination thing is like, well, they're considered white in America. You know, a lot of my Mexican friends didn't know that. Look it up. It sucks, but but I would say that, you know, all the ⁓ issues that white folks are or so called conservatives are having against men's skins given you know what I know about the law is one hundred percent ⁓ racially motivated as we all know and it's not you know and it's and I hate the yeah because I I hate even ⁓ commenting on that because I spent a lot of my life coming at comments you know commenting on this and and the world is worse now than ever. Yeah. So I tend to not want better it's better but worse, right? So it's more extreme. Yeah, it's more extreme. It's like the the the extremists have are running the the you know, make you know, I mean the and and the only reason why I hesitate because the one thing I do know is like I I like I tell some of my Republican friends, I used to I don't mind disagreeing with somebody. I grew up in a in a hardcore repo Republican city, you know, we have racial issues, whatever, you know. ⁓ but ⁓ I don't mind arguing with people or having, you know, like like ⁓ constructive debate. Yeah, it's a constructive debate, not not fighting you, but but all but what I know of these ⁓ Ku Kuts Klan, Nazis, all these extremists, they're here to hurt you. You know, Trump and then Yeah, they're that that's about violence. So that's about, you know, you know, I grew up in the hood, so I know about street violence. And I'm not really about I'm not going, you know, tip my hand on any of that. You know, I don't want to, you know, ur urge it on, but I understand it's like, you know, live by the sword, you die by the sword. Exactly. You gotta be careful. You gotta be careful what you cook for dinner because you gotta eat. You ever like shoot somebody, you know, you can't take that back, you know. A lot of these people ⁓ talk a lot of the the the cowards that are ⁓ in ice or whatever, ⁓ or being, you know, all these ⁓ white supremac groups that are being ⁓ supported by, you know, the Trump regime right now. We know these are cowards, you know, they're running around in the jungles, you know, with Juicing each other up. You know, looking violent, you know, having ugly faces and stuff. It's like, okay, cool, man, whatever. You know, I'm not, you know, I like to tell people it's like I don't like to fake, fake it. You know, I'm not like ⁓ you know, I'm not out here, ⁓ you know, I'm not thug mythos and out here, I'm not, you know, shooting, robbing, killing people. Right. You know, but I am a sixty-one year old black man, but you know, I know a lot of people, you know what I'm saying? I know how for sixty-one of sixty-one years. Have you ever robbed a bank? Have you ever sold drugs? Have you ever I don't have a police record like that. Thank you. That's but you know, it's almost you know so basically not all of us glorify stuff like that, though. Yeah, but not all of us sell drugs, not all of us are out here raping chicks. Rape? No. Well, that's bizarre. You know what I mean? Yeah, not all of us are doing it. Yeah. So you spent most of your life in San Diego? What was it? What was it like? What was it like growing up in San Diego? Like, you growing up in San Diego in the sixties, seventies, dude, it was like, you know, you gotta kinda look at it like ⁓ there wasn't a whole lot of civil rights. It was like I was like the only black kid, you know, in my elementary school. You know, and it was like ⁓ I used to get I have a lot of those kids, they're still a lot of my friends, but you know, I used to ⁓ there was a lot of ⁓ so I had to like take the city buses from the black part of town, you know, right and go downtown and deal with a lot of ⁓ you know, ⁓ you know, si ⁓ seemly, ⁓ you know, getting the bus transfer, you know, and then, you know, like my like my mornings getting to school, you know, and then a lot of the the older people didn't really ⁓ like the fact that a black person, a left black kid was going to school in those, you know, traditionally all white schools. So that was a problem for me. So I got slapped by on the bus by, you know, ⁓ old white, you know. adults and stuff like that. That a lot of problems like that. But going to school though, you know, I had a lot of ⁓ friends at school and you know, school itself. You know, and then it's actually it's like ⁓ later on in life, you know, talking to my friends, you know, like like a lot of those kids, you know, we're still friends, but they were from that neighborhood. Mm-hmm and it was like all white neighborhood. So they didn't, you know, in you know, I was in P ⁓ Boys, what you call it, Cub Scouts and all these things with them. They just knew me from school. They didn't they thought my my parents were dropping me off of school. It's one thing we found out later on life, they didn't understand that I was giving I was just given a city bus pass and yeah. Grandmother basically, you know, to ⁓ show you know, she kind of like showed me the bus route and then I had to take the bus route, you know, and she kind of like go with me, but she kinda I saw her, she was driving behind the bus and it was like, you know, it wasn't a good I had to deal with a lot of adults and not a lot of problems. But with that, I got to ⁓ understand how to negotiate, you know, my ways out of problems and I wasn't, you know, I had to run away from a lot of stuff and I just survived. amidst a lot of ⁓ 100% they were just racially motivated issues because it wasn't a lot of black ⁓ kids in that part of town. I was alone. basically ⁓ you know I don't know if you look at like ⁓ what was happening in America in the nineteen seventies or late sixties with with force busing back in Boston, yeah all that thing and stuff. So they got a lot of press. San Diego was a similar situation, but we didn't get a lot of press and publicity and we didn't got a get a lot of support. My my brothers and sisters, I have like ⁓ had like ⁓ two sisters and one brother and they they went to the ⁓ elementary school in in our neighborhood. Hmm. It's all black, you know. I don't know. I was but the school across town because ⁓ what my parents saw was ⁓ inferior ⁓ education sure that they were receiving at this elementary school. So you know I had to get a you know they kind of fake you know I had to get an inter or district ⁓ pass to go to this ⁓ Henry Clay Elementary School, which now like like you talk about it, they changed the name of it, but it was like all white school. Now it's like the highly integrated. Yeah. We have that we have that with that. Yeah. We have that situation happen in Chicago too. I went to high school with so many kids that had to take the the ⁓ back in the day we called it the green limousine. They had to take the green limousine to school. Right. And then you'd see your kid you you know you There's certain kids that you would play with after school. And then there's other kids that you just you just knew at school because you didn't realize that they lived like ten miles away in a completely different neighborhood. Yeah, well, yeah, exactly. And I think that that was a situation that a lot of my friends, you know, we're still friends. They they come to realize that. I mean, I had a I had a when I turned 10 years old, I had a ⁓ birthday party at my house and I invited the kids from from school and I'm very excited. And some of them came and then we still talk about that to this day. But then some of them didn't come. You know, hell no, it's nervous going out there. You know, at the time I didn't realize it, but it's like you know now it's like they a lot of their parents ⁓ didn't let them come. But the kids would be kind of that fun. You know what I mean? But yeah where that address was at they were like, nah, we we we got something to do that day. Yeah. But it but literally, you know, I lived on the black part, it was it was like that, you know, 60 in the late, I'm talking 68, 69, 70, 71, 72. Yeah, you know, so it was ⁓ people, you know, it was just the reality. And being in Southern California, I think across the country, there was just an assumption that we didn't have all that going on. You know, you had all that going on, but it was like, you know, yeah, that it's like you were kind of by yourself. Yeah. My wife too, like my my wife, I talked to my We'll be talking we'll talk to my our kids, my wife and I, and then she'll she my son's like, ⁓ I need a ride to the to ride to the high school. I'm like, You can ride your bike there 'cause it's like ten minutes. And we're like, ⁓ it's like it's like raining. I'm like, Yeah, go. Like 'cause it's not that not that difficult. Like and then my wife is like, Do you know I took like two buses, I had to jump on the L and I had to get up at four o'clock in the morning to get where I gotta go, and then I come back and do the reverse and I get home like eight o'clock at night. Yeah, but it that was that that was a reality. We're walking around in the streets by ourselves when it's dark and it's you know what I'm saying, no bad conditions, six feet of snow, we're we're out there handling business and goddamn what we gotta get done. Well the kids the kids in L the kids that grew up in LA, because I had cousins in LA, they had it worse, you know, because then it was like forced buzzing, you know, they were like literally going from Englewood, South Central LA, Compton, you know, like 40, 50 miles way across town to North Hollywood to Grant, you know, it's a whole different situation. That that's how it was. That was like worse, you know. yeah, that was worse because and then it was like LA just in general, just going to Centennial. You had like thousands and thousands of students compared to like, you know, maybe we had like a couple hundred students at our high school. Right. So I'm just saying, so I didn't have a great and I thought, okay, you know, what was me, whatever. But yeah, you know, when you go to college and stuff like that, but I did re get really what I do want to preface that is like, okay, I did kind of have it like rough like that, whatever, but you know, I kind of internalize everything. And obviously I was an artist, so I had like two choices. I can gang bang and you know, we're gonna get back in these motherfuckers or I'm become like ⁓ academically excellent, you know, or excel like that. So, you know, I mean, as I grew up in the church too, right? You know what I'm saying? So I chose the same route. So I I became asset. Acad I excelled academically, so I was able to graduate high school early and go to college early. Nice. Were your parents super strict? I don't know about you know, I mean, ⁓ see, I don't want to put the whole strict thing up, you know, in in your generation probably would be like, Yeah, they were strict, they were religious. We're close. I was I would I was introduced to the world in 72. I was introduced into the world at 72. They were still whipping our ass with wooden spoons and stuff. Yeah, you know, you know what I'm saying? I don't want to go there because then it's like that's like child abuse, but it was like that, dude. These are like ⁓ southern people from the south, you know. Yeah, yeah, they and ⁓ grew up in the church of God in Christ, so it's like they had ⁓ you know rules. Yeah, you know how it's rules that it obey and stuff like that in and in in the in that and had discipline, a lot of discipline. Yeah, yeah. Like you're saying. Yeah. So it's like, you know, as a you know, growing up, it's like you want to avoid all that. So again, it's like just maybe my personality. I just try to avoid a whole lot of stuff. I did get into trouble and stuff like that, but I wasn't the first, you know, kid like that. But I was I managed ⁓ all that, you know. And it's like yeah, I I just noticed I got good grades, you get less trouble, you get more tension from the adults, you get more ⁓ tension from the school system, you get more opportunities, you know. Yeah, that's just ⁓ positive phrase too. It means a lot. Even at church, you know, like we went to Sunday school, choir, you know, like it was ⁓ y'all probably looking at strict, but you back in the day you kind of look at it like like know anything about the black community. Church was a big thing, man. You know, we had choir competitions, you know, during the week and yeah, still is WW and I all I can say is this is like a lot of people because I know it's like I got a ⁓ friend of my best friend Thellis. He's you know Muslim, whatever. Hold on, you know, he had a whole argument, you know, like and I get it against the Christian church, whatever white Jesus, all this stuff. I'm not saying I necessarily say Jesus was white, you know what I mean? So I'm just saying he wasn't. He got I get it, you know what I mean? Like our our church got picketed by the Muslims because we have murals of ⁓ the last suffering that was all white people, but this was like 1970, so I was like. People are friends of mine. Yeah, I know all these people. Like, what's the problem? But you know, we had no awareness of that. It's just like the way, you know, now I kinda I get it. So I'm not judging nobody. So but but what I do like to tell people is like, you know, I like to say whatever works, dude. It's like I know this, man. It's like that helped a lot of my friends. Cause I could see the brothers that had no kind of ⁓ no kind of pressure like that. You know. Yeah. And a lot of, you know, okay, you we understand Southern California. You know what I mean? Like you know about you heard about, you know, the the you know the street violence, the the gang, you know, all that ⁓ you know, all that rape shit. I don't know anything about that man, that's all but all the gang violence, all that drug and all that killing. Yeah, you understand that, right? So what we were trying to survive, so it's like I I would not I can't lie, you know. I am aware of all that and you know, I'm aware of this. Yeah, you know. And ⁓ had to deal with all that and I'm like, you know, I just can say that ⁓ we just had to survive it. You know, I'm just gonna be a survivor. So while you're going through all this survival, when when was it that you just started to draw and was that is that your way as an outlet to get you know, to kind of encompass some of that, but like trying to block some of that out? No, no, well okay, I don't want to go there, but you know, it was more of a natural thing. I always would draw and do though, you know, growing up as a kid and it's just ⁓ natural progression of your friends looking at your drawings or doodles. You know, can you know, ⁓ like I tell one of my friends, you know, from the sandbox, whatever, and they just, you know, liking it. And I like that reaction. So, you know, do it more. Get more reactions for your friends. Like my friends still they encourage me to keep going because it's like that that's that's it. Man, I kind of like the the reactions or the way my drawings or doodles or Illustrations or just did you draw pictures of all the cute girls? Still do. That's what we do at bars and diamonds. That's how you did it. I'm not I'm on the well, I can't say on the downside of all that. But yeah, that used to be the the the the program. You know what I mean? ⁓ ⁓ because I used to be the dude that would go to Fridays or I you know, I used to kick, you know, I st kind of still didn't because I'm yeah, you know, like the younger generation don't don't like to go out and drink anymore. So I got somebody got to, you know, and in San Diego, you know I'll be yeah, I'll draw, I'll draw whoever I used, you know, drawing ⁓ aerial. I know in San Diego, drawing aerial at a bar, a dog used to get yeah, like yeah, that the people loved it. You know, it's like the the manager used to invite me like. Like this is why I like San Diego, like back in the day. Managers used to like, Gary, you know, I haven't seen you. Please come back. You know what I mean? We like you here. You draw on these characters. ⁓ People are buying you drink the buy, you know. They I used to get in crazy, so yeah, I love it here. But that I mean, you know, ladies and gentlemen, sometimes people do like it, but you know, whatever. But yeah, that works. Drawing Ariel and then drawing drawing the person, drawing the girl as the mermaid works. Yeah. You don't know. I wouldn't practice that. You know what I mean? Now, you know, now I'm just saying it's a whole different now it's kinda like I wanna ⁓ promote Weather Hunter. So I mean I'm thinking, okay, now it's like I I actually bought two of the Weather Hunters games at ⁓ Barnes and Nobles for Christmas and and while I was buying ⁓ because the the lady was kind of kidding me that we got twins or whatever, and I told her, No, you know, I'm like ⁓ I told her, you know, my role in the show. And ⁓ They were excited. So, you know, as I was sitting there, I started drawing the Lily character and you know, some of the people, because a lot of lines like for Christmas. So the people started looking at it and she was holding it up. So I started drawing the other characters for people and lines. So some of the people bought more games. Yeah. You know, just as well waiting to pay. So I saw like the reaction, because what I get is like, you know, with all this artificial intelligence and blah, blah, blah. Maybe people don't see that a lot, you know. Mm-hmm. They're saying this guy is saying he worked at the I could have been lying. You know, so maybe like ⁓ while I was telling it that just you know, I may feel pressure to prove it. They didn't ask me. I just you know took the pen and it's like did a little simple line drawing a lily, whatever, and they were like, ⁓ hey. Yeah. We take it for granted. You guys are probably, you know, our artists or you know, I saw y'all or whatever. I was telling this one guy LinkedIn, he he because he said he likes to go to Apple stores and you know, he's a concept artist and and do really nice and he showed me do really nice, you know, illustrations on ⁓ these ⁓ computer there. I said, man, dude, like that's a promotion that they should get behind, you know, like mm-hmm. I don't know, you know, Apple Store there, Apple store kid was somebody used to follow, but I'm just saying a guy that's just showing up doing random dope illustration. That that's something I I would, you know, that's content for YouTube, but that's something people get behind. You know, Apple should get behind it. 100%. traffic into their stores. But you I know the manager at that ⁓ bars and elbows she they dug that man they're asking me to come back at me do that. Yeah let me let me let me I we kind of skipped over it because I know if anybody's watching we're we're trying to introduce everybody to you you say you drew Ariel. Let's break break that down for a little bit because I don't think I don't think you kind of skipped over like I you know I drew Ariel but like literally you drew Ariel. Yeah and I worked at Disney feature animation on Little Mermaid. You know, I was in a assistant animation department, which is the cleanup animation department, you know. So I was working with, you know, Glenn Keane and a lot of ⁓ top animators on some of the top animation. And if you don't know who Glenn Keane is, Glenn Keane is like the Michael Jordan of animators. Yeah. He's that dude. Yeah. You got all kinds of like the an you know animation following, yeah, definitely. you know. Ron husband. This is yeah, all those, you know, it was like a little mermaid, you know. movie we we had made prior to that was ⁓ Oliver and Company. ⁓ yeah. You know what I mean? Which was like one of my favorites. It still is. But you know, I got to we all got to know, you know, all these great animators. ⁓ did you ever work with ⁓ the Blaze Boys? Did you ever work with the Blaze Boys, Aaron Blaze and Travis Blaze? No. No. ⁓ wait, wait, wait, wait, and I I know you're talking about and Blaze, ⁓ guy who did Snowbear. No, actually he wasn't working at the studio ⁓ during the time I was there. He came after no, okay. And if you were over here, I think they they got their start over in Florida. Yeah, see deal is like ⁓ you gotta understand I was at Disney, like it was 86, ⁓ to like ninety. So I was working on doing the Oliver, you know, during the time they were setting up the Florida studio. Yeah, you know, during the time they're developing, you know, this is way yeah, you guys are talking about the nineties. No But I will say it's like when they were developing. I did work on the ⁓ the if you've been to the Florida tour, so when the there was a tour there of the anim they had the animators there, I was ⁓ supervising Kisses and Animator, whatever. On ⁓ the ⁓ Walter Cronkite and ⁓ Robin Williams did a a movie, did ⁓ like a documentary called Back to Neverland. So that played at the at the park for like 15 years. This is where I kind of like ⁓ event. You know, because those are like one of the more popular, you know, projects that I worked at Disney. And it's like the animators kind of respect it a lot because you know, we kind of ⁓ kicked ass on it artistically. Yeah. I made sure of that. You know what I mean? Bruce Smith was the directing animator, Jerry Reese was the director of the project. I don't know if you know all these people. ⁓ and our crew was just incredible. ⁓ yeah. was just ⁓ you know so it's like if you get a supervisory role at the ⁓ beginning of a project you know like Bruce told me we can pick our best scenes to work on which is exactly what we did. Yeah I don't know if you guys Bruce Smith is a creator of the proud family. Mm-hmm. ⁓ pretty tremendous ⁓ like if I go through his resume, you know director of ⁓ Bay Bay's kids, you know that's something we did. ⁓ okay Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, yeah. But so well Yeah. You ⁓ so you ended up leaving high school early because you jumped on Brainiac. At the end of high school, what was your decision making process as to what school you wanted to or what college you wanted to go to? Okay, well let me ⁓ so basically it's like ⁓ took ⁓ proficiency examination maybe I was like in the tenth grade and ⁓ at fifteen so I passed that. So I also took the PSAT test and I got a really high score. So I took the SAT, you know, so got a high score. ⁓ but I was basically like, you know, fourteen, fifteen. And so at that time I was under, you know, underage. And so I wanted to drop out of high school and go to college 'cause I had been, you know, accepted. You know, I took the college interest exam. So, you know, so prefacing all that. So a lot of this obviously I was a kid, I was fifteen and parents having me leave home, you know, at that time. Big deal. Right. ⁓ if I had stayed at home and went to Mesa college, you and lived at home, it'd probably be easier. But you know, like ⁓ yeah. So I didn't have I had limited choices due to that because, you know, it it was all about supervision. So I went to the University of Laverne. in Southern California. Okay. It was great. You know, I had a good time out there. But you know, I had a cousin that was getting a doctoral degree out there. He was a bishop in the Church of God in Christ, you know, and and then was ⁓ the school was like a a brethren college, you know, there was a church, you know, so this had a lot to do. I don't want to explain my family. I had a lot to do with I was a kid, you know, leaving San Diego, going away to college. And you know, parents didn't really, you I had to kind of get get behind that and and you know where was I gonna go and who was I gonna be around. So these people at this college had a good plan to to you know to to ⁓ watch you know make sure I didn't get in trouble. You know what I mean? Yeah I was pretty much a minor, you know. So 'cause if you were anything like me, Jerry, it boy I I lived under a strict roof. And I joined the military too instead of I graduated high school early as well, but then I went into the military because that I saw that as my out. And boy, when I felt like those those reins were loose, I was a mess. I went and did everything all the time. Well, see, the deal is when I when I went there, it's like okay, I had to get grades. get into the school like, you know, to pass all those tests. Even at that age I had to get you know good grades. You know, so I had a ⁓ you know, I was a I was pretty dedicated ⁓ academic, you know, student. It wasn't like, you know, art wasn't my major and stuff like that. I think I was a business major in marketing. You know, and ⁓ you know, so it was like ⁓ rigorous. So you know, I really enjoyed the first semester 'cause when they had me up there, it's like ⁓ it was a religious college. So we had to go to church every you know, Wednesday or something like that. And they also had like some some classes that they required the freshman to take. Yeah. So, you know, they maybe take a class about it was about the religions of the world. So still is so that kind of like was interesting because you gotta understand it's like at that time I was fifteen, sixteen, whatever, I was very religious person, church of God in Christ, and I had a an opinion about know other religions that weren't of the church got in Christ and it's like bottom line my religion is that you were all going to hell. Because that's the message that we get right you know you know yeah exactly going to hell you know then then you're all going to be all going Catholic yeah you're all really going to and it was like ⁓ and I wasn't you know personally against any of it but it was like that was what we was talking you know that's the message I got I wanted to say that they were saying yeah everybody's going to hell up in church God of Christ But yeah, that's saying this, you kind of get that, right? Even the Baptists of black black black Baptists, you know, wearing the lipstick makeup, all that, you know, Church of God in Christ was really like you would say, strict. Nothing. I I ⁓ you know, since we're talking about my film career, you gotta understand that whole church. I did not I was not allowed to step foot in a movie theater until I went to college. I had never done I mean, I remember my my aunt and I thought thought it was a bad my aunt, you know, took me to a Christmas party at a movie theater one year. And we saw a movie that they projected there. And I feel I didn't, you know, I don't know how to feel about it. It was a different experience. But it was at that darn cat was the first movie. ⁓ yeah. That darn cat, right? This thing Kurt Russ, all that projected at a movie theater the first time. And I'll never forget that, you know. Even when she died, I had to mention that because it was because because she was like, don't tell your parents and all this kind of thing. And it wasn't a ⁓ new movie. But you know, I never, I'm just prefacing that because I the the so I never been into a theater. ⁓ but when I left co we left to go to college, you know, since I was so young at college, you know, it really, you know, everybody was it was 18, you know, I started hanging out at San Bernardino High It was a dry because my sister, my my older older sister went to ⁓ you know, she was in ⁓ Loma Linda University. You know, she recently died. But anyway, just I would hang out with her. So, you know, I was in Loma Linda or whatever that was close to San Bernard, you know, went to the mall and met some girls, whatever. Ended up hanging out at San Bernardo High School. And then I had a ⁓ cousin that lived in the neighborhood and happened to, you know, know some girls that met at the mall that lived across, you know. I ended up hanging up and getting a girlfriend that was, you know, in high school and stuff like that and ⁓ You know, that kind of like put me in touch with while I was in college with the younger generation. Yeah. So you were going to school for business and marketing. Yeah. And the whole time you stayed drawing and you stayed creative as the outlet? Yes. Definitely because I also took a lot of art classes while I was there, like drawing classes, etc. But I wasn't looking at it like you know, it's like at the time I didn't know. I wasn't really being encouraged to the to delve into the possibility of making it a actual career. You know, the idea was I was gonna maybe like, you work in some marketing company, you know, maybe, you know, teach or whatever, you know. Yeah, something like that. But isn't it Isn't it funny to think that business and marketing people, the only reason, well not the only reason, but one of the major reasons, especially in the industry that you ⁓ that you were in business and marketing is useless unlike they unless they have the art. Yeah, we go, you know, like my teacher, you know, I had some really good teachers, you know, one one that man is profound, a promotional marketing teacher. He, you know, he owned the ⁓ part of the, he owned like the ⁓ large part of the copyright for Gumby. You know, remember Gumby was the stop motion show, whatever. So ⁓ so I knew that. So you know, he knew a lot of entertainers and he would bring, you know, ⁓ you know, I he had the the the guy who played the sheriff from the Dukes of Hazard as a guest speaker up at our like in the mid. You got to meet Roscoe P. Coltrane. Yeah. Nice. Yeah. As had him up as guest speaker, you know, ⁓ at college. ⁓ In our promotional marketing class, 'cause you know, in college you always have like six classes, but you always have maybe one or two ⁓ college professors that are so interested, you just hang around them and stuff. Yeah. And this guy was hella mean, right? Nobody liked him. And so he used to shave his head because he had like cancer on the top of his head. You know, but it was like, okay, ⁓ like my dad was real mean, you know, the word my dad was yelling, screaming. So that never phased me, right? Because I under I figured how to work with that. So it's like a person, even nowadays, if somebody acting aggro or ignorant on work, it's like, like, dude, you're gonna have to go a long way to really rattle me. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. Okay, like this this is not gonna rattle. I'm not asking That's all you got. Yeah, exactly. You know? So I kind of got into it, but he had like, you know, Art Clo he had wonderful stories about Gumby, man. You know, Gumby and Davey and Goliath that stop motion. So one was produced by the Lutheran Church, one was Art Cloaky. But the guy had like ⁓ wonderful stories. And ⁓ and he was our marketing and and promo promotional marketing teacher. So I know I I I did a ⁓ animated spot and you know, he was hardcore business, but he did kind of inspire that whole, you know. Like even when I went to CalArts, you my student films and all my my co-students were kind of dissing me were music videos and commercials. Because those are those are, you know, even whatever your marketing strategy, your corporate marketing strategy, you know, even like this show, whatever it is, like people are not buying your script. They're buying that artwork. You know, they may that the character, they may love Charlie Brown. When I buy like the you know t-shirt of a character, whatever, it's like okay, I know this ⁓ character from all the exploitations and the movies and the books, you know. So that is a combination of writing and visuals, etc. But when I go get that, you know, my daughter, whatever, I don't have a daughter, but if I had a daughter, go get that ⁓ t-shirt or that, you know, that ⁓ backpack, whatever, they're buying that artwork. Mm-hmm. Yeah. That and that's a that's a rubber. And really producers now hate they they hate like highly they hate to admit that. That's why this push for all this artificial intelligence, and I'm not gonna really speak much on that, because I'm an artist myself, you know, people got to do whatever. I mean, I got yeah, relatives and cousins, you know, I understand the template animation and people wanting to do it, whatever, ⁓ and not wanting to actually learn how to do it, you know. Yeah. It's a whole different thing, you know what I'm saying? So whatever, you know, whatever turns you on. But at the same time, don't be mad when it's not at the quality that we can produce as humans. Is that I mean, but I can flip the script, you know, whatever. It's like, you know, I can flip the script. People don't understand. It's like, yeah, like like at the end of the day, when it comes down to it, you know, I still want to see what you can do in front of me. You know, like I I teach live drawing classes all the time, you know. You know what I mean? We do quick sketches, long sketches, 30 second sketches, sequential sketches, you know, and it's like I want to see what you can do, you know. Like that's where the you know ⁓ it has a lot to do with my generation, but it has a lot to do with it. You know, yeah. That's what turns in. It's not about how you can shade it and reflect it. And I used to, you know, I used to express that to my students, so I would say it, you know, now it's like I am impressed with how people can, you know, tonal studies because You know, from the time I'm I was teaching at at the art institute because it's a V Hardcore just line artwork because you know I understand that any anybody you can cover up a lot of mistakes. You know what I mean with painting and time, you know what I mean? But funk and roll, dog. It's like, you know, I used to work with George Clinton and he George Clinton used to be like the beauty is in the mistakes. We're not going to throw away anything and use all of it. You know. You know, this obviously we we re-revise everything. That's that's that's the difference between that's the difference between working with a creative and working in the creative industry with all the business people. Exactly. I mean, some people the business people nowadays, like that's why they're pushing artificial intelligence and trying to, you know, like ⁓ like I just did this T V show we did forty half hour episodes, right? So every I'm like one of the main artists, I'm like pretty hardcore in the business because of artistry. And a lot of the business people are in it because they're ⁓ ledgers and they're really ⁓ clerk you know business sharks you know they got like they know how to move you know like Ponzi ski and all this kind of stuff you know and that's necessary right because they but they but generally ⁓ even the writers which is kind of down for a lot of people I you know in in the industry even in those positions A lot of them are in it because, you know, doing animation because they failed to be able to ⁓ penetrate that same position doing live action movies. You know, because you gotta understand the the crashing with with the filmmaking and television for a lot of generations was being associated with Tom Cruise or superstar, right? I can't say that I'm any different, right? You know what I mean? You know what I mean? A lot of my cartoons have to do with celebrities. But ⁓ but you know, so most people, most writers. Or business people that enter the business, they're wanting to be that live action, you know, Steven Spa, you know, they want to deal in that realm. You know, they want to be the person working with those A-list live action celebrities that are real people. Yeah. ⁓ writers all. So so what I find, you know, I used to, you know, if you kind of look at my work in the late 80s and 90s, the stuff that I, you know, created myself, I used to have to convince a lot of writers that, you know, a lot of the black writers, because I'm trying to, you know, be authentically correct. were only having opportunities in Hollywood doing comedy, you know, adult comedy and living color, these kind of things, there was no opportunity for them in children's TV or animation at all. There was just no opportunity ⁓ at all. You know what I mean? For all kind of reasons and I and typically because the people that were ⁓ that they would have to submit their scripts to, you know. Like I, you know, created a show ⁓ artistically whatever at a network and and the head showrunner, you know, network approved film runner is a person that has had success at writing scripts or leading again a showrunner on a if the show it was successful or not, but it was a network run show. And I'm talking like nineteen eighty nine, ninety. So if you think back, like how many black people had that history? Or we were even allowed to have that history. Exactly. know they weren't ⁓ allowed to have that history because the the you know Norman Lear all those people although we're nice folks whatever liberal as possible they were pretty hella racist. Yeah. And it was like, you know, it was you know that it's that way. And and so so you know trickle that down to animation, you know, because live action people at least even in those kind of arguments you're gonna get support from real people. When it comes down to what I'm doing in animation, you get discarded. You know, it's like dude you should be happy to be drawn. Or is it like ⁓ go ahead, Carl? You said Norman Lear. Yeah. I mean 'cause Norman Lear, like in the set, 'cause I'm you know, you figure if I'm if I'm, you know, in the business in nineteen eighty five to nineteen eighty six or and I'm trying to create, you know, if I'm working on a cartoon it's cool because you can, you know, just work whatever, you know, some muzzles or pacman show, whatever. He man, I've worked on a lot of cartoons. I didn't write it, but you know, yeah, I wanted to see myself on screen. Yeah, you know, ⁓ me and whatever. right, you know, let's do let's ⁓ create some opportunities for ourselves. So I'm doing black themed, you know, artwork. Like this this character I did right here was from a Motown music video. You know, I I started doing videos. Nice. Independent music videos because I did that in college and that was like something I can get you know I can present something, a proposal to a record label and they would give me whatever the 20, 30, 40, 50, you know, 70,000, whatever it was, ⁓ budget, you know, my production company. Yeah. You know, if I had an insurance policy, then I can hire, you know, my whole staff and crew and all I had to do was deliver it, you know, for a certain, you know, at a certain time frame at a certain, you know, ⁓ cost with, you know, working with the notes from the record label, you know, I could I could control that. And it was like there wasn't a whole lot of ⁓ people trying to keep you out of it, you know, like like writing, you know, television and movies, you know, especially like if i if you were going to attract there was a possibility of you attracting a large white audience with it, then that's when you would get a lot of ⁓ white ⁓ funding. Yeah. Well because white funding and whitewashing. Come with that. Yeah. Cause it comes it it comes down to like if you if you want to try to take away the racism from the industry, what they say is We're only gonna make things that are gonna make a lot of money. And who has a lot of money? Yeah, white people. White folks. Yeah. So you're not you're not gonna be asked to make black and brown content because black and brown content, number one, there's way more white folks, and then black and brown content, number one, we have way less people, and two, we have way less money. Yeah. But I mean, what which that being said, that being said, that is the perfect excuse to do racist shit. Yeah, that's true. Well, I'm just saying, but but what you kind of did, you know, that's that's one one ⁓ line of thinking. Yeah. I'm just looking at entertainment in general. I also kind of gotta look at music. Yeah. With that same lens. Yeah. Yeah. Now now let's ⁓ let's ⁓ test those arguments with black music. Are black people the major consumers of black music? No. I don't know. No. No, let's look at country music, rocking and like all these so-called white music forms, you know. Well are not are not all these forms of music that are quote unquote white, aren't they the product of black music creation? So this is so I look at that. So so this is this is where I mean because you gotta understand it's like you know, like my my family made gospel music records. So I understand with that. That's not even a big part of the record music, you know, industry. I understand that we rule black gospel, rules, gospel music, and I see how it affects white gospel. I worked at you know spheral records. So I I don't want to get into you know racial dynamics and religion. But it's not the black church. You know, look at the church of God in Christ. Is that not like the biggest black church in America? Huh? Look at the numbers. I got an uncle, you know, I got a you know, we got churches out here in Southern California that they're mega churches. Yeah. You know, so I understand the black audience. Sure. From my church experience. And I understand, you know, like Pete Wilson, like that's how we know him. You know, he had to come into our church to capture that black audience, you know. So so I might have a different, you know, so I understand it's like like white folks have ⁓ and God bless them, you know, they've been keeping us out of ⁓ the decision making. ⁓ dynamic in TV movies and films for these ⁓ racial arguments that ⁓ that really hold no weight. I mean they they can't even go because we started talking about really like what really control it because I'm a creative though. I'm not going to force ⁓ my competition to accept the winning strategy. Like I hope it will continue to be racist because I'm not you know what I mean? I'm going to really you know ⁓ feed that beast and we'll make you know, you and then you know God believe whoever wanna make it or not, whatever. Now I'm just seeing like the strength, like, you know, I'm just seeing the strength of ⁓ the series I just dropped, you know, on on the PBS. It's like that wasn't really it was difficult. It was difficult because, you know, Al Rokert tend to hire a lot of white people to work for them. They hated me because I was really solving a decades long problem that they had. Simply because they had because they were white folks trying to, you know, run a black show. And I mean sorry, it was ⁓ No, had to do it. That's what I was gonna kinda dig into like now. What what what it so you're creating you're you're creating a show about ⁓ minorities, right? Black and brown kids trying trying to make a difference and do positive things. Yeah, to sell it to everybody. Yeah. Right. And then did people that are funding these are not black and brown people. No, it's America. Yeah, and but yeah, people run it back. you know. So they have their they have their hand in it and then they start dipping into creative control. Yeah, they they dipping into creative control. They know that they know they have the they know they have create they have control of the funds. And then they kind of gotta look at like ⁓ yeah, they they they kinda like they gotta make one or two decisions. They can ⁓ go with success or they can go with the, you know, the VS. You know that that we generally think like shows are like, you know. in Living Color, you know, I remember I tried to sell them an animated skit or whatever. And, you know, even at this it it's height and I walked in there and I was kinda like appalled to see that, you know, the majority of their writers. But, you know. You always have like a black figurehead and a bunch of white you know, and it's like ⁓ you know, America, ⁓ you know, when I when I walked into the our roker situation, you know, I have a lot of white man been in business for a long time, so you know My friends are looking at it, God forbid. I mean, it's not anything personal, but they were adults, but I definitely have white friends and black friends that have dynamics of relationships that that don't, you know, race issue, but you but basically I have white friends that have black friends, you know. And that's his way of the world. And ⁓ lot of my white friends are are more receptive to me working for them than my black friends ever have been. Powerful, but so I will say that so it's all it's all kind of like you gotta kinda look at the arguments on. racial issue, but you know, gotta look at it like black people offered me no ⁓ opportunity. You know, I mean they probably are supported me, but a lot of them was our familiar you know, it's the you know general suspects that you guys know about. Y'all can know about me. You know what I mean? And and I know all these powerful there wasn't they wasn't really reaching out to me else you know, so I get it. ⁓ so there's a lot of gatekeeping from them. On that on that. I mean, I can't say the gatekeepers because you know they can't keep me out. There was no helping. You know, I always felt like ⁓ this dude, you look at the brothers that I do know in industry, all the top black, you know, animators, whatever the past 20 years, you know, I mean, I don't think any of them can say that Jerry, you know, was never like trying to not get us together to create our own, you know, entity. That's always something that I've always ⁓ wanted to know not only demonstrate. But also ⁓ promote. But you know, it wasn't happening because of ⁓ you know, unfortunately, eagle or personal agendas and then people really don't know. And then what I also see is like, you know, the difference here is that my family, I'm not saying better than anybody, I'm not gonna point fingers. But you know, it's like I've been in the business since eighty five, dog. It's like, you know. The resume is heavy, son. There's like a lot of coup a couple when I went to Cal Art, you know, there's ⁓ two, three, four of our black people that have had a lot of opportunities and and ⁓ to to you know put some things together even within their industry of opportunities and that hasn't happened. You know, I ⁓ our kids still have to come to Hollywood and beg, you know, for jobs ⁓ for ⁓ go to somebody else's neighborhood. I mean, the you know, the racial difficulties I had at Disney had nothing to do with being at the studio, had everything. with it being in Burbank and having to drive to and from work. And then tell ⁓ about You know what I mean? So I'm just saying it's like like like we haven't really been responsible. Like I can point out a whole lot of black you got someone you show I can we've been really you know independently responsible. We haven't been unified in and you know there's no black studio that that you all can point out to in Hollywood that you can send that I can even me being here for the past four fifty years that I can send some kid To talk to somebody like me and not have to lower themselves, you know, under white supremacy to get their foot in the door. For us again, you know, and I and I and I would say that that I regret and and I and I ⁓ really ⁓ apologize to the current, you know, ⁓ generation of black animators and artists that we didn't do that. Yeah, my older generation, we didn't do that because we were all ignorant. You know, some of us were selfish, you know, like like I don't know. I mean, I gotta take I don't know, you know, maybe I did the wrong thing. It's like like maybe I'm communicating it wrong now. You know, I'm sixty one now. I mean, I got a lot of heat, you know. I think like ⁓ you know, I did ⁓ you know, pilots back in nineteen now. I've been steadily ⁓ putting this thing together, but I haven't I guess I haven't really had a lot of support from black, you know. I'm very excited about this NAACP award because I haven't had any acknowledgement really from any black organization. And I'm not really blam begging for it because it's like, you know, okay, you know. I don't have that pressure, dude. I'm doing things for the people. You know, a lot of black artists they they had this ⁓ the day they may have had a photo about all the profound black artists today and they recreated a ⁓ a photo about a day in jazz that was ⁓ chicken heart, you so they did New York. Yeah, New York. They didn't ask me to come. My and my so-called best friends, you know, whatever, or people used to be my best friend. I guess we just ⁓ pass associates now, they put together the photo. I didn't even get invited. You know, and and I felt really bad about that because but what what I did, you know, you know, ⁓ come to realize is because when I started commenting on the photo, I started the people to put it together, they started to DM me and say, Hey man, okay, this wasn't wasn't the same with us we have, you know, there next time we do it, blah, blah, blah, blah. But I'm saying I know there's not gonna be a next time. And I you know, okay, I just got now I'm I'm glad you guys feel a certain way because dude, it's like I you know, I've ⁓ I'm tired of fighting for people that No, don't fight for me. I really felt like that then, you know, and then I was I can say, well, F all you got, you know, I mean, I really felt bad about it, I felt disrespected because I do, you know, I put a lot of my, you know, look at my comic strip, no joke. A lot of stuff I've done has been about ⁓ moving black artists forward, you know, and creating within those opportunities, you know, the 85% of the population that that ⁓ is out there have gotten 85% of opportunities from Jerry Bryce production. I've have not ever had to discriminate against anybody. But you know, fifteen percent of the population definitely needs ⁓ representation. Yeah. So, you know, if I want to jump on if there's only one or two of us in these ⁓ you know, Hollywood works in above the line talent and below the line talent. Yeah. Below the line talent or everybody gets hired, etc. All the in-between, all that stuff I told you about. Above the line talent is look like what I did, you know, on the Weather Hunters or what Bruce does. Or, you know, the people that run Ayanu, you know. ⁓ we get into those above the line positions on our productions and even at these net the studio net ⁓ the product at the networks, you know, broadcast networks. ⁓ maybe there was like more black or one black person at PVA and I can relate to you, you know, we can kind of help each other out ⁓ to get in these positions to You know, maybe not higher just all white folks on our product. Maybe I can have like a diverse crew, you know. It won't be all black people, there'll be a lot of us, you know, there'll be more of us represent representing, you know, ⁓ just like authentic pr productions, man. You know, if it's a black family show, why are why are we having all these white people writing, you know. And then it's because then I'm always in conversations about how black family life is similar to you know your family life, which is probably white or whatever. You know, and even a lot of those conversations, which you know because I think those are valuable. ⁓ But then I'm never gonna get, you know, anything like you saying before we started this organic. That's all right. It's all gonna be research, it's all gonna be blah, blah, blah. Like cosplay. But I get black writers, you know, like it was a black ⁓ black family, you know, all the ⁓ mothers, all these black women writers that that have all these awards and TV, it's you know, they they can probably write this show a little bit more authentically than somebody. That's not of this culture. So it's not about it's about authenticity. And I always tell people if I'm writing a show about pink purple dancing elephants and and I have a crew available pink purple dancing elephant riders that are qualified. I'm gonna I'm gonna hire them. Yeah. Right. It's more efficient that way. And then you know, everybody else around them because you gotta have ⁓ the world, you know, around your project. So yeah. I wanted to jump back on on something that you were talking about, like Building up all of this experience and stuff. This is something that happened to me. And if you have something similar, jump in. But I was told growing up, keep your head down and work and do all the projects as much and work as hard as you can and shut up and do all the things, right? Yeah. And then I get to the point where my resume has Disney, HBO, ABC. I have all these folks on my resume. And then I come up here. And now the excuse is your resume is too big. You might want to take some things off. So you don't believe in best man for job. You believe in not you, but you know, people that are hiring. They believe in someone that they know more than someone who has a proper resume with all these big names on it. Yeah. So have you have you bumped into in doing the animation thing? Have you bumped into that too? Or is it a situation where they can look at your art and they base their decision off your art? You talk about from a from somebody. I can tell you when you're looking for just from somebody. I can tell you from the point of view of somebody that just had to hire a bunch of people. You know, yeah, anybody on the ⁓ weather hunters. ⁓ because it sounded like you were asking me about like, do I have problems? as a as a somebody that's ⁓ in applying for jobs. Not to speak on that. I you know I can I can say this from my my most recent experience with that would be from the hiring you know position and and I'm I'm pretty clear with it. If you follow my you know postings I'm pretty you know I mean let's just point you know y'all are artists. Let's just say this. This is it. You know I believe in ⁓ I believe in relationships. You know, I believe in the strength of relationships. I think Brad Bird even, you know, mentioned this. He's an old friend. It's just like you cannot fake ⁓ the synergy we had at Disney with and just so you know, Brad Bird is the director. He directed he directed Family Dog. ⁓ And didn't he didn't he do ⁓ didn't he do one of the Incredibles? Yeah, Incredible. That's it. Yeah, Incredibles. Brad Bird is Brad Bird legit. Yeah, I worked with one family dog. ⁓ nice. There's a buddy of mine from school. Yeah. You know what I mean? And Chris Buck. I mean, it was a whole time where it was like, you know, people were ⁓ you know, outcasts or whatever. You know, you know, but you know what I mean. But so it was like ⁓ we had a good re still do. I mean, I like him. I haven't seen him in a while, but it was a good relationship. But you know, what was I talking about? You gotta kind of ⁓ what was I what was I talking about? I don't think we're talking about ⁓ you were you were you were looking at resumes and making decisions that you're yeah it's like like he was saying like you can't really fake the kind of synergy and and the team you know crew kind of effort we had at Disney. You just can't hire a bunch of unknown people that you don't know and that right expect it to work. It you know, like like that's kind of how it goes down now. You know, I believe in in ⁓ relationships, you know, Woody, you know, Woody Allen, you know, he always w had an ensemble kind of ⁓ approach to his ⁓ past of ⁓ characters and writers and groups and i you know and i like ⁓ i I like that you know I mean ⁓ and when I was ⁓ producing music videos independently you know it was a lot of risk you know I'm at a day job it was a lot a whole lot of risk for me fine ⁓ personally because I took all those jobs on ⁓ without any production company you know my personal ⁓ finances were at risk. So You know, I didn't want to risk that with ⁓ hiring a group of people that I didn't know, which kind of would be like like what you're saying, if I did look at a lot of and I would say this, if I did look at a lot of resumes, if I didn't have open calls for things, ⁓ you know, you do have to look at resumes. Yeah. And it does always make sense to hire the most ⁓ experienced person. And if I'm looking on paper, I really don't know who you are, but I mean, I can I can guarantee you. I look at your work and you know, certain level of work is probably I could probably guess. You know what I mean? You never know, but I'm just want the person to be, you know, like cinematographers or electricians or s you know, when I do live action things, I obviously in an animation crew it's all artists. ⁓ yeah, so I just want the most so let's say theoretically, I just want the most proficient person with the best work. Obviously that's what we work on, but you know. Somebody who's had the opportunity and the responsibility of putting together a crew and and has had to deal with the fact that I know people flake out at night, even if they are the best person, I don't want to risk that. That's always been the hassle when somebody doesn't come through. Yeah. You know. So so I need so yeah, I will say this. I generally like to hire people that I know or have been to to war with, you know, my school schoolmates definitely. You know what I mean? ⁓ but but I mean I'll say even with this ⁓ last thing, you know, like like I wish I've had like I have a more of an open mind because I I did, you know, hire some people I met on LinkedIn. You know, I got some hassles and and they you know well this one brother, there's one brother named Brian, you know, ended up being incredible. Like it's gonna be incredible director. you know Nyla Magruder, you know so I did kind of have to dip into some people that I hadn't worked with. I just really ⁓ were fans of their work. Saxon Moore, you know, did a logo, you know, and that worked out well. So I can't say that I worked with these people, but that I might have had a somewhat of a ⁓ internet relationship with them. So I was yeah and then and then also I want to say this. It's like ⁓ I was one of those people that would kind of look at like your ⁓ samples. And if you just showed me a lot of action adventure work, like if you're a storyboard artist or something like that, you know, and like I did a preschool show, I probably wouldn't call you. You know. So I would say this is Kid Brian, right? This not kid, this young, you know, he's like Brian, you know. ⁓ anyway, it was like ⁓ so he was doing all this Warner Brothers stuff, incredible. So I was like in a hard spot. I needed a really dope, I needed somebody very, very impressive, 'cause I've been like down, unfortunately. And ⁓ and I was like, man, you know, I really want to call Brian, but man, you know, how am I gonna I thought I was gonna have to convince him, you know, it's like like I I was I was always in even with the writers, I will I was always prepared to not beg ⁓ but you know, like like I am good at convincing people to do things, you know what I mean? You know, like like this being good because I thought, you know, so I was really like spent a little how, you know, because I expected that he wasn't gonna do it because All his samples were like superhero and like tremendous drawings and and it's like hey, you know, he could storyboard anything. I got got that, but I'm always thinking would he want to? And you know, and I'm not really, you know, I'm an artist dude. I'm not, you know, I'm really recalled. I wasn't really I wasn't even really thinking like if the person, you know, like this is just a gig, he wants the money. I wasn't even thinking of like Montara, I'm thinking like would he want to do it because we're little kids, you know. And so I was like, wasn't gonna call it. But but I called them because I really was gonna need it somebody's dope. You know what I mean? So I took a roller, you know, and it worked out, man. I told him even the other day, I said, Yeah, that's that I would say that's the most profound change if you know, dealing with any of those things you're talking about. Yeah. You know, I think I'm addressing that. ⁓ just from a hiring position is that yeah, sometimes I would, you know, first part of my, you know, long reply was yeah, I kinda know, did kind of look at like my friends and relationships only kind of thing. And yeah. And I'm you know, and I'm not ashamed of that, you know. Yeah. You know how they say it's not what you know, it's who do you know? But you can you can know whoever the hell you want, but if you're not prepared for this for the for the job, like what you know becomes important. Yeah, if you picked up on what I'm saying, it's like I you know, I deal with a lot of artists, so I understand people can draw whatever, but it's all that other stuff. Are they gonna do are they gonna be responsible? Yeah, are they gonna be Yeah, are they gonna have an ego or are they gonna mess well? You know, familiarity is cool, but it like if you know that guy's an asshole, like do I really need him right now? Like, do I want to have that have that in? Think about that. Think about you're on a crunch, you're on a on a deadline and the guy who you know has been an asshole. When things were calm and now things are heating up, he's gonna be a more of an asshole. Yeah, like you gotta consider all that, right? Yeah. And then also, too, it's like, you know, like so Bill Schultz is actually pretty brought me in, he knows me. You know, I used to work for him, you know. Cause I'm just saying, like, I could be an asshole, right? Like, like, do we ever really consider that? I don't think I'm an asshole, but we gotta consider that because it's business, right? It's all business. So I'm always like it's business, I don't wanna be personal, like yeah, I have the problem, you know what I mean? So I like ask him, you know, so he would tell me, Jerry, like, yeah, yeah, you can't like, you know, he give me advice on, you know, hiring friends and and so he wouldn't, you know, be positional, but he said, you know, your friends could play you, right? Mm-hmm. Drink with a party on and get real, you know, serious about that. I gotta take that in consideration. You know, like like you haven't you don't just have like a business relationship with these people, so they could play you. Mm-hmm. You know, so you know, so then this guy is like my friend, I made a you know And I don't, you know, I don't want to get into I meant I made an emotional decision with how I handled my business of getting on this that job because of it was a personal relationship with this person. I'm not gonna say that that was all good either. Not gonna say it was all bad. I put eight years, I put eight years on a project that just disappeared. Yeah. Well let's just say, okay, it's okay. People that I was pretty tight with and all of a sudden it was gone. I'm like, what the hell? So maybe like okay, you might have had a tighter contract, you know, peer play, you know, because like I, you know, I had an issue with something that I created with Arsenio and Paramount was a great gig, but I'm glad at the end of it that I had a peer play contract. Yeah. And I don't think you do that with friends, but you know, I had like a great manager and like we didn't have no friends. We had a lot of friends personally, but I didn't, you know. Yeah, not I had a business of somebody handling them, you know. So I can tell you it's like like I take responsibility for anything, like. Things did happen. But yeah, I made a lot of ⁓ personal decision. And it was probably, you know, I was in San Diego and I was doing things with Nikki. I was doing more entrepreneurial things. And my man just came through with like a higher profile project. A lot of, you know, project had been installed for 10 years, but things were heating up. And and he just came with a good convincing, like, Jerry, you need a, I like what you're doing. You just need a ⁓ you just need a platform, you know, a higher profile platform. You know, and I because I can tell like I was still doing the things I was, you know, as a producer, you per pursue at least five or six different things. You know, like when I got on this ⁓ our roker project and and then started to really get it moving forward, everybody started calling me. ⁓ people that wouldn't return, my I can tell you that kind of affected me. I'm glad my man Bill ⁓ Schulz was there because yeah, that caused me to have you know emotional. ⁓ ish well, you know, questions because it's like you know, damn it like this person, they got they calling me and now they people dropping by when I moved had to move to LA to do the job, and all these people acting like they my friend and stuff. You know, I really didn't know ⁓ you know a few years ago. And now now everybody got my number. Yeah, yeah. That made me really kind of mad. I bet. But but I'm glad Bill was there because he said, Well, you you know, because he gave me And it's not I got good parents and stuff, but a lot of people don't go through these kind of things. And even my brother was saying, you know, it's like I had to really kind of deal with that because I was like, I kind of felt mad at the people. Yeah. But but really what I gotta look kind of look at is like, you know, I gotta look at the opportunities that I have and and ⁓ remember who I am and kind of look at like these people. They don't get these kind of opportunities. Maybe, you know, and there's a lot of work. They there's a lot of like they gotta understand there's a lot of downside to pursuing ⁓ something that has a lot of upside. You know, there's a lot of hard years. But you know, I'll also tell your ⁓ audience that I didn't grow up poor and broke. And I could tell you this that's that's the one thing, and I'm not getting into that's the one that's the that makes a difference because I see how ⁓ the People that have like a little bit more financial stability, you know, and have had that in their life and wealthy people how they exploit ⁓ how they exploit ⁓ other people that haven't had that. You know, these people are putting a whole lot on their jobs and positions, you know, if they're coming from a ⁓ low esteem type of facility, because you can be a grow up broke, whatever, and have a lot of high esteem. So I'm just saying that doesn't really, it doesn't really ⁓ You know, money isn't gonna make you a better person, but you know, just straightforward. I I really, especially in college and stuff and and being in this career, I can understand like the bad decisions people make with their money are based on you know flat, you know, stupidity, man. You know, like like maybe they you know, just maybe haven't had the the exposure to finances and stuff, even though we're making it hard. And also I see like a lot of their decisions. ⁓ a lot of ⁓ the confidence level is limited based on ⁓ the poverty and then i think a lot of white supremacy because i don't hate on white people a lot of white supremacy kind of ⁓ you know a lot of black people are white supremacists you know i i I take black people that are what more white supremacists than than white people because you know unfortunately a lot of our brothers that have grown up ⁓ with low self-esteem poverty and dad not there. I don't know, whatever, you know, whatever the situation I've seen a lot of it, they do get into these higher profile, you know, situations in in American society, you're gonna be around more rich white people. And, you know, and like the rich white people just looking at a business, the black person looking at it like, you know, it I'm elevating myself as a human being because I'm around these white people. I'm better than all these other black people. Mm-hmm. Yeah. They start disconnecting themselves from what they've been they've been around their entire lives and they're like, I don't want to lose my spot. Yeah, and and I start reading Yeah, exactly. And I start reading things by black motivational speakers about, you know, as you grow up, you gotta get, you know, you gotta ⁓ mature and and and leave other people behind. I I read a lot of these kind of things and and okay, like I don't wanna make people wrong that believe that, but I just believe that thinking is faulty. That's not what you want to do. You want to be like, you know, we run the church, so I deal in a lot of black, you know, rich, poor, whatever. You know, we're dealing in the black community. We're blind dealing with society and most of our people in our church are are are poor. You know, obviously they need leadership. They don't need ⁓ acquiesce or power to any any ⁓ our education needs to change because coming from the inner city, ⁓ growing up the way that I did. And then being in the situation where I am now, I'm up in I'm up in ⁓ North ⁓ Northern California by Silicon Valley and stuff. And yeah, there's a few things that you said that that are absolute gems that people need to probably put a little sticky note or something. A lot of it is that, a lot of it is the mentality. White folks, they're about that paper. They're about It's building companies and owning intellectual property and all that stuff. They build towards generational wealth. We build towards buying Jordans and buying these purses. And and and it's not that I don't want those things for you, but we need to get to ownership first. I just had a conversation with ⁓ Hotep. He said, if it's not ownership, it's a slave ship. Yeah. Yeah. That's it. We need to we need to we need to set the the standard for our the people that are coming up. We need to set the standard that we it's about ownership. Own your if you're in music, own your masters, if you're in animation, have IPs, you know, fill out go to go to whatever website and fill out whatever paperwork so you can get the copyright of these characters that you're developing. Copyright trademark, preach that dog. It's like, you know, because this is where I'm at, you know. I even ⁓ go I'll tell you this, man. It's like ⁓ so I was like one of the brothers that was like, you know, even with like my ⁓ freelance jobs, it's a design job or creation job, I only had one rule. It's like I'd take the job, but I wouldn't do it as a work for hire. ⁓ I wasn't doing work for hire contracts for anybody. Mm-hmm. You know. So that meant 'cause I had this manager here, Harry Sternberg. You know, big time music, you know, manager, you know, she she just produced this movie called ⁓ you know, she handled that We Are the World thing. So she had this ⁓ greatest night at pop. So she just produced that movie and and I can tell you it's like ⁓ she probably don't she ⁓ I remember one year she bought the rights to Spino tap because she managed all the actors, you know, Harry Shear, all the lead actors in the movie. Yeah. And ⁓ I remember like she was telling me the guys about the rights of Spino Tap because at the time that the rights were ⁓ up, none of the guy, none of the even the producer ⁓ Rob the the guy ⁓ Reiner Reiner didn't have the money to buy it. She had the money. You know what I mean? And I was working with her because like at times like she so she because I had this comic strip called No Joe. She was a friend of mine that I she used to manage, you know, Cheryl Lee Rao. And you know, I had ⁓ I was like working at Disney. So I had a girlfriend who was a crisis publicist who also was a PR agent for Shirley Ross. So we all were friends. You know what I'm saying? So I was hanging out with with Harriet and ⁓ Harriet was in the music business and she was working for King Kramer and they were doing, you know, all kind of crazy, you know, he was like the biggest, you know, ⁓ fucking you know, sorry, ⁓ you know Lionel Richie, Kenny Rock like everybody, right? We are the world hands across America. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, ⁓ Paula as she managed Paula Abdul. I can tell you then about the Paula Abdul album, you know, a lot of people. I was there, you know, with them. You know, she was like my friend and she was like, you know, Did you have anything to do with that cat video? Yes. The Paula Abdul Yeah? Yeah. ⁓ boy. That was like something I did. That was a video I worked on that as an assistant animator. I did like some, you know, rough rough animation. Yeah. Though if you are a fan of Jerry Lee Bryce, you need to go on YouTube right now and take a look at Paula Abdul, ⁓ Forever Your Girl, isn't it? Yeah. So Michael Patterson to that, you know, I was like one of the crew members, etc. But I did that because it's like I was directing music videos that had animation for ⁓ black RE groups, right? So that was a high profile video, and you know. I was working at Disney and Hyperion at the time, so I was in that loop. So I was able to get that job. It's just ⁓ kind of a cool ⁓ you know, ⁓ Easter egg for my ⁓ resume. I wanna add so cool, set of Instagram you kind of see the rough animation, you know, and everything. I was gonna say I wanna add even if you don't know who Jerry Lee Bryce is, you know Jerry Lee Bryce's work. Yeah, definitely. No, I've been there. Yeah. So like I didn't know you did King like King of the Hill. Yeah. So like with the King of the Hills, I it's where you know ⁓ so basically it's like like on the ⁓ Part of my career, you know, I was a creator writer, so above the line. So I'm coming in and ⁓ but a lot of my career is like, you know, dude, it's like I gotta make a living. I live in California, rent is high, all these kind of things. So it's a job, it's how I pay my rent. So, you know, but it's the animation industry. That's what that's the two things that people kind of conflate if they're not in the business. So it's like a lot of the jobs, like this Paul Edwell thing or the Disney things, I was an employee, you know, I'm in the union. Right, you know what I mean? Like I'm probably gonna, you I got I got a good career, I have a great career. So timing director, animation director, you know, in-between or whatever I can do, ⁓ background art, what have I done a lot of that. So, you know, so that Paul Ed build thing did that, but also, you know, I've had, you know, in I've tried to separate, you know, myself ⁓ out of the production crew to be above the line. So the kind of thing. So I had a you know, so a lot of my ⁓ credits like ⁓ Street Sharks. You know, King of the Hill. The King of the Hill thing though, that was kind of a a ⁓ great opportunity for me because that came to me from an independent project that had, you know, that MTV had bought from me. And and they had given me a a a ⁓ production deal, whatever. You know what I'm saying? That was so that was a creator thing. So I met Mike Judge and Abby Tracooley and John Garrett Adams, who still, you know, runs LA Animation Festival. These are still my buddies, man. These people support me. They like they brought my project. It didn't really work out. I made a, I made a short, you know, I made a ⁓ PSA short based on my comment strip, no joke, because I it which was in the Source magazine of hip hop culture and politics and urban languages. And I did that with ⁓ the Parliament Funkadelic artist, Oberton Lloyd, Ronald Stozo, Edinburgh, and ⁓ Pedro Bell. This is why I mean I hope you I hope you're you hope you're you're you're you know maybe you know I'm dropping these names so if you yeah I I saw Dawood ⁓ you know the Brotherman comments. Yeah, Dawood is Dawood is that dude, man. I love Yeah, so hopefully so hopefully your your audience is ⁓ used to older black artists, maybe look some of these guys up because the Parliament funk and delicate artist had a big ampic impact on my life. Bootsy Collins, George Clinton, all that stuff, you know. You guys, if you were into the seventies kind of P Funk. had a lot to do with ⁓ art, you know, the the comic strips, the comic book certain o' certain those avoided from I was really into that and I actually got to work with those guys and hang out with them and it was like I joined the circus man and blew my mind. So we had a comic strip and ⁓ you know because I was like all this stuff you're talking about copyrights was yours and them you know they don't own any of the copyrights to any of their music. It's been a a big fight, you know it's all in the media. My buddy Overton Lloyd and Pedro Bell and Ronald Silzo Edwards did the album cover. Which was a big thing for the fans. Funkadela album covers. And then ⁓ Sir No Sir No's album covers a whole comic strip that Overton Lloyd did. You know, Oberton Lloyd was a character artist on Win, Lose, or Draw. You know, so anyway, so he's an older artist that I idolized. You know, he's 10 years older than me. You know, so so the brothers, I met the brother, you know, you know, Hollywood or so end up meeting the brother because we worked in Gap Damn music video that blew up ⁓ in the in the early in the mid 80s. ⁓ fully animated six minutes disrespect you know check it out all your favorite black artists did it's ⁓ amazing you know ⁓ ahead of his time you know what I mean so now it's about you know it was based on the night that Prince didn't you know show up at the We Are the World contra ⁓ recording. ⁓ yeah. And I did all the print scenes. So you know but so that's what that's what the song is based on. That's what we base the animation on and had me, Bruce, Lenard, all these Incredible black artists. And we did a whole six minute video, blew up across the country in the RB, you know, ⁓ music market. Yeah, you know, which you know, I don't know if it ever hit the pop charts, but it was like I was invited to every hood across America. All my cousins down south love that shit. You know what I mean? Listen, Gabban was like before the internet was amazing back then. Before the internet, you know, so it's like about 85, 86, so it's before the internet, so it's like know so we were doing things so if you had something that blow blew up like what you would look at being viral now you know people had to go out of their way like you were really you know hitting so it's like you know I could tell there was a market out there for ⁓ you know for their artwork so I I got involved with over 10 you know during that time we were even in the video during the little live action session so we established a relationship then met all his friends George etc you know They hang out at my apartment, you know. So what I wanted to do was I thought it sucked they didn't own any of their of their copyrights their artwork. I remember we're walking down Sunset Boulevard one time, but actually it was Melrose with the Overton and ⁓ a lady, a really cute lady was ⁓ walked past us and she had like Overton had done all the ⁓ Aqua Boogie, Parliament Funk, you know, Aqua Boogie, you know. So she had Aqua Boogie, you know, t shirt on. And he you know, he was kind of broke, right? Know and then it was like a really nice whatever. So we asked her where you got it from. She told, you Steucy, you know, whatever store, you know, real expensive, you know, fifty dollar t-shirt. I'm talking about the 80s, though, you know. So it was like, yeah, imagine if you got, you know, so we just thought that that sucked. You know, it's good or sweet, right? You're not getting paid, you're broke, but yet people are buying your artwork for a hundred, you know, like an incredible amount of money. And you get so I was like, we gotta figure this out. So I was like, you know, I knew people and he knew people, so there was a Know LA Weekly David Lynch had the ⁓ comic strip called the angriest dog in the world. He was a famous director and LA reader. ⁓ Matt Groening and Overton knew Matt Groening and his wife, you know, so he knew their whole business things and they were really helpful. But they had the Life and Hell strip in the LA weekly. And we really like that was the market that we were going for. We just wanted to do something that could dominate the LA comic strip market that was You know, in a free ⁓ a magazine and we chose Erd magazine, and that was the first one we did, and it kind of blew up, and then we got invited to be in the source magazine, and they paid us. That's all ⁓ I mean. We're in like the maybe the second source magazine. We're in the source magazine for about four or five years. You know, I argue, you know, I was young, I argued with the editors and shit like yeah, because that they were like white folks. I mean, I had a lot of issues, you know. Yeah, I'ma say this, you know, you know, I mean Shakey. Like I might have been kind of harsh when I was younger. And if you read the strip, I wrote all that stuff and it was yeah, like I would say familiarized and you can understand maybe what I was on at that time. You gotta understand it's like I was writing stuff and it was ⁓ social political things and I was arguing with and really grill gross in it and I was going to work, you know, working at Disney and I had a you know a lot of pressure on me. ⁓ but the strip was high and it was successful and and people kind of responded to it so You know, whenever you're writing something or creating something, you know, I mean it's maybe I'm a method actor, but I had to kind of really get into it and it did kind of take over, you know, my life work. You know what I mean? But the material was ⁓ abrasive. I got a question because my mom hated it 'cause of discussing and stuff like that. ⁓ I do I I mean I I my realm is music. I don't I don't dabble in art. I love art. I appreciate it. ⁓ a lot a lot of the guys in the nineties, ⁓ the like the hip hop artists especially are retaining their catalogs after thirty five years. Right. Is there is there anything 'cause of because of the the copyright laws. So is there anything that protects artists from that? Or do they re are they able to re are you guys able to retain any of your your your properties or anything like that or protect yourselves or what can upcoming artists do to you know I have I have not I know what you're talking about. I have not heard of anything like that for artists. Like my thing is I do a lot of ⁓ I consult with a lot of attorneys on on ⁓ IP ⁓ copyright, you know, cases like this. So it's like I I see a lot of shenanigans, you know. The one thing I see with ⁓ material that I'm familiar with or cases I've been involved with were like people wanting to claim that your artwork is fair when they exact your artwork that they're doing it like very fair use. You know, and then you know, we have this public domain issues and then there's Issues that people try to say like they try to deny somebody's copyrighted trademarker invalidate it because of something that's common. Yeah. And you know, you know, I've been involved in cases like that. I don't want to, you know. Yeah. I could point you to two cases I wanted to talk recently. But I'm just saying like this. So it's like ⁓ I kind of I haven't I'm not familiar with anything. What I do know is that, you know, you know, the what is it, the 99 year when when the when something does come into public domain, that's a problem. Right. I mean, if you if you create artwork, if you create something like I don't care what it is, you know, piece of music, you know, happy birthday to me, whatever, you know, I can I can understand the public saying, well, if you want to own a copyright to happy birthday to me, whatever. I'm just saying, like, like you gotta put yourself in the shoes of like myself. I create, you know, I create things that that like like I would want my ⁓ heirs to inherit the copyright and control the value of that. I don't I I disagree with. the whole like like it to me it's a form of government tyranny that they could ever force me to give up the ownership of my intellectual property. My manager Harriet, like her her standpoint with parent parent I I I give it to her to this day, it's like she argued like we're still working contract 'cause she said Jerry, if Jerry draws it, Jerry owns it. You know, that's intrinsic copyright. You know, so basically like why would I give up something for for nothing that I already own? Mm-hmm. know we're you know you're gonna have to deal with you know and that's and I've always and and she's the older person though I've always agreed that that's always excited me about you know working with her because she was hardcore about that and she was like we don't need the like if you own it you draw it and you know why would you ever give up and every attorney that I've ever worked with on a on a copyright infringement case and and and some of these cases were very high profile. There's there's I can say it's like They've always asked Jerry, why would an artist ever sign a work for hire contract like this? Because we have to, you know, and I'm just saying I tell them because they think they have to. Yeah. Yeah. If you're a creator like Jerry, like me, if you have IP that you're dealing with, what you want to do is go to one of these lawyer websites. I forget which one I use anyway, I'll think of it. But you go to a website and then it will walk you through getting a copyright or a trademark if it's your logo, whatever, you use it as a trademark. Yes, if you draw something and you release it out onto the internet, yes, technically you have copyright for that. But if you want to really protect yourself. Build this thing out. It's not that expensive. And then you'll get a piece of paper that says, Yep, you're in the Library of Congress. You you own the rights to blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I have a comic strip called Robots and Aliens. ⁓ so I have I took that, submitted that, got my letter. So now I own it, and it's not robots and aliens and everything that has something to do with robots and aliens. It's not that, it's a specific. Category. It's the specific category and the specific characters and the specific universe that they live in and all that stuff. Then you can have like once your stuff blows up and you have a bunch of money, there's going to be IP lawyers, there's going to be copyright lawyers, there's going to be lawyers that handle this type of stuff that will keep an eye out for you because one of the things that you need to actively do as a creator is actively. protect your your property or your intellectual property. Well yeah there's someone that's running around talking about there's this there's this alien called choopy and there's a robot called Rob and I that I have to step up and go get them and tell them to cease and desist and all that stuff. Yeah you're actually compelled to because if you don't then if you don't then you lose it. Right. That's what you tell them. Yep. And it's like it, you know, so there's a it is a monetary difference between a copyright and an actual trademark. Yeah. But I've seen cases where, you know, it has a well in the case where, you know, I had a copyright, but then somebody trademarked. Yeah. You know what I mean? So it's like I dealt with that. It was wasn't funny, but it was like they had a little bit more levels of who it was a problem. Yeah. You know, and I can see why people don't do that because financially it's like a, you know, like I don't have the money to do it, so I'm gonna do what I Hopefully. But also if you if you do any kind of commerce, if you're selling, you know, your thing, your t shirt, whatever, that does protect it. Like like my no joke comic strip, like, yeah, that that got challenged. Somebody was jacking that to mention their names and it was a problem because it were you know prominent people. And it was sad because they just came after, you know, ⁓ and ⁓ my thing was first, whatever. But ⁓ the fact that, you know, it was published in a magazine that that That did sell ads and stuff like that, that established a date that prior to maybe the one I had registered, they kind of negated their thing. So it was like, you know, but I had to hire somebody to figure that out, right? I had a friend I have a friend that had a bunch of artwork, and someone in Germany took one of his characters and they branded their entire company off of this one drawing that my buddy did. Like they had they had wrapped their car. And all this stuff, but it was off of the artwork that my friend made. But then, like, but then what what do you do? Like, do you go and go and like bankrupt a small business? Is it worth it? Are they gonna have the money that it takes to give you whatever for damages or whatever it is that you know what mean? It's a whole thing, and it's not an easy answer, except for if you have something that's worth it, you need to create that paper trail. Paper trail starts with getting the copyright from the from the Library of Congress and then you defend your you defend your IP. I'm telling this is what the rich people do, because this is my experience with the our Rokers team and the weather hunters. It's like, you know, anything I would say that they kind of like, you know, all always the weather in it together, anything like that, or you know, any any kind of catchphrase or or character or or name, you know, he had attorneys on on ⁓ on ⁓ you know. a retainer that they would immediately ⁓ call them up and see if we can get that trade cleared. They buy the rights to that stuff immediately. That was the first thing you would do. So that's what that's what rich people do. That's what you you know I'm saying that stood out to me. That's what you call y'all that's why if you're that's right you can understand where someone is coming from because you have a lot of people that are complaining and and they and they talk about ⁓ I I wanna buy these shoes and I wanna buy this car and all this stuff. But then you have rich folks that are like defending IPs and like yeah, you know what I mean? That's how the rich people roll. Yeah, like Mr. Conversation is completely different. Look at Mr. Tinderism, right? You talk this is a podcast, right? So this pop culture thing, there's ⁓ was it destination, smokehouse. We give them a little put, you know, barbecue, whatever they're caught up in the whole controversy online. But you can kind of look at it like, dude, you know, he's a cook, got popular, started popping out, you know, some term, Mr. Tinderism was one of them, you know, the owner, the white owner, whatever. And I'm not against it, you know what I'm saying? Like, you know, so brother don't own it, but you know, whatever, you know. But what what I thought was kind of salty was the white owner went and was trying to ⁓ trademark my man's, you know, verbiage in his little viral videos and that that they posted on tenderism. That's all line. So I'm just saying, so that's something that everybody can look at the why why is that important? Because you know, if if I'm you know, trademarking your your catch praises, you know, your band name, your name, you know, the name your y'all can't do nothing. You have to pay me. Exactly. You know what I mean? And if I or start over, you can't pay me. Yeah, or start over start over. Echo unlimited. I can tell you this. Like I do just do clothing lines. I'm glad you mentioned it. You remember Echo Unlimited clothing line? Mm-hmm. When that first came out, you know, because I was selling no joke clothing at at 432F show. So he was like small. These guys came out from Brooklyn. I liked him. He was a tagger, but he was Echo only had like, you know, tagger t shirts and his E C H O, you know, with the little rhino. I thought it was dope. And they gave you a little mixtape. That was the whole thing. When they first came out, when they were hustling, gave you a little mixtape from a New York ⁓ you know. DJs or rappers, whatever. In California, okay, whatever. But they were school, man. Like dude was dope. Echo, you know, Mark Echo. And then, you know, so he blew up, bro. He blew up because a lot of those ⁓ everybody didn't stay small. He blew up, right? So he's the main stage and he got well rich. I noticed that he they had to change the ECHO, became E, what E C K O, 'cause he could trademark that, you know. Even in our show, it's like you know, we would clear names in our show. So this one, so we write the names of the characters or whatever. So you know, before we go and produce all that stuff, every all that stuff has to be clear, you know. You know, we had an attorney just for that. So it's like I would change the names to whatever Aloys' Bingham. I think Aloys interpreted before the main, you know, the leaf painter. You know, I created that because a first of all I knew what that meant, but ⁓ okay, anybody might have this name, right? But but we got that cleared. So now, you know, our worker entertainment, you know, has that trademark. This is what rich people do because they don't want you selling, you know, products associated with my show and and me not getting paid for it. This character on this show you can you can simplify that by saying they don't do anything that don't get them paid. Exactly. I mean, even like the the music videos that I did, all that stuff was done work for hire. So I did like a popular RB video, Bruce Mith. design this character and animated the first time a lot of people saw stuff like that on ⁓ be t you know top ten video anyway it's like you know dealing with the record company it's like I I I've got the I got the trade you know I got the copyright and trademark to the character that was dancing in the video that Bruce Mill you know I was able to get Jeryl Busby to get get me that and it was at the time it was something that they weren't even thinking about because you know they were not in that business or whatever. You know what I mean? But I'm just saying it's like like the proud thing, all that stuff is like I own this character, that's why I did this. I haven't really marketed it. I just wanted to own it and I and ⁓ you know maintain it. ⁓ because Bruce, ⁓ you know, he's a ⁓ I knew he was gonna become an incredible ⁓ superstar artist and stuff. So I just wanted to have that. So I mean, you I did this t I never sold this t-shirt, I only wore it because I said you said you liked it. But I have I have five like it, you know. ⁓ that Floyd Norman. But you that's that's all it is. I'm all about owning that's why it's like maybe y'all didn't know me. I ⁓ I turned down a lot of opportunities. I spent a lot of my life ⁓ just pursuing ⁓ intellectual, you know, property or or or copy ⁓ creating ⁓ character designs that I could own or or properties that I could own. And I did a lot of that with the you know colleagues that I went to CalArts with. And they and they weren't always you know black properties man. One of my favorites, you know. So so you keep saying you keep saying CalArts. So to let people know, ⁓ CalArts and CalArts was basically developed by Disney. Yeah. So you they would get talented folks like Jerry, you'd go to school, and it's basically a farm system for animators. Yeah. How did you get how did you get ⁓ introduced to and then eventually ⁓ admitted to Cal Arts. It was a ⁓ you know, I got introduced to CalArts. It was a college ⁓ you know fair, college recruitment fair. And you know, I met the ⁓ recruiter there, ⁓ gentleman named Jules Ingle. You know what I mean? And he was a you know he was and turned out to be a great artist, animator. And it's like he had a just a great conversation with me at the time when I met him because I was looking at, you know, something else to do. You know, I was considering, you know, traffic college and he was like, He hit me with this thing called 'cause he saw my art where he just hit me with this thing, like you ever like imagine this 'cause I was doing drawings and paintings at that time. He says, Imagine this movie. And I was like, you know, okay, like like I like that, you know. Yeah. He was like, you know, he was an abstract artist. You know, he worked on a lot of Disney. He was a great animator, you know. Hollywood, you worked on a lot of these things with an art director and all these kind of things. So, you know, he'd do moving paintings. So, you know, as our relationship ⁓ you know grew, that that became a compelling, you know, suggestion to me. And then I just liked him and so I pursued it. You know, I went up to the school and you know, my girlfriend at the time, you know, went with me. She was a dancer and you know, I had to transfer from school, so she so we decided to do this together. She got, you know, actually accepted before she had to audition. Yeah. So it took me two times. She got accepted before me because she was really good. And then it was pressure, right? You know, so I was like, ⁓ man. Gotta get in. You know, seriously, you know. So, you know, that's the deal. Like John John, if you hung out, if you hang out with Brad Bird, do you know John Lassiter? ⁓ I don't know John Lasseter. No. He lives up here by me. I ⁓ cool, cool. I've been I've been to his house a few times now. And hung out with them a couple of times, you know. ⁓ cool. He's a good dude. Yeah, man, you know. Yeah, you know, he hired a lot of my friends and colleagues. Nice. Yeah. Nice. Yeah, and it was like, no, I met ⁓ you know, so Brad Burr, Chris Buck, you know. Just ⁓ Chris Sandler. What's his name? I'm trying to remember the guy who did Nightmare Before Christmas. ⁓ Tim Burton. Tim Burton went there. Yeah, in fact, you know, the that ⁓ first ⁓ family dog ⁓ was a I think it was a special we did for ⁓ the Steven Spielberg had like an ⁓ anthology show called Amazing Stories on on NBC Primetime. We did like the first family dog. I worked on that. So all my I got the some artwork too. Every every all my artwork is stamped with the Tim Burton or Brad Bird Birdworks. ⁓ nice. You know, on it. Shuttle flex. Tim Bird, you know, Tim Bird designed all those characters. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I would I would love to have been at least in the lunchroom with all you guys. ⁓ cool. Because it would have just been it would have just been phenomenal to have hang out with you guys. I went to film school. I went to film and animation school. And you know, like it was it was the art institute's family of of schools, blah blah blah. And you know, it was fun. It was fun hanging out with a bunch of the kids that were there and ⁓ and stuff, but it it's not at the quality of a Cal Arts would have been. And so just being able there to to to be in the room and just like through osmosis, like learn how much you guys are doing and what you guys are doing and how you're doing it. ⁓ it would have been it would have been amazing. Yeah, the school situation was great. Yeah, but some of the best times of my life. Yeah. And then after that, what was your first gig? You said was it Family Dog? No, my first gig out of college was probably at filmation, I think. Okay. Cause I know I did some freelance gigs for at D D I C and then I think ⁓ Let's see. Yeah, by the time it was film probably filmation. Okay. Yeah. Explain to people. Like when I when I was in when I was living in Chicago, I always wanted to visit Clasky Chupo. I always wanted to visit Filmation. I always wanted to visit all these animation studios. And I thought for a fact that when you got to the building, the building would glow a little bit, you know. Right. It's just normal. It's just a normal building. Yeah. I mean, you know, like office building, people with the cubicles and desk and yeah. Granted, if you know if you work at Walt Disney, that shit's a little different. Yeah, well, you know, yeah, and that that's ⁓ that was a studio, you know. Like once they moved us, you know, like like we were like off the studio when I when I worked there, but you know, we're across the street from Imagineering and that was basically like the whole different situation because they were like all the scientists and engineers that created all the rides for Disney World and all these kind of things. Yeah. They may have been designing Tokyo Disney or, you know, Disney ⁓ Paris. Yeah. At the time. But dude, it's like all those those all those engineers. Like I remember seeing like the Joe Cocker ⁓ animatronic, you know, guy fired cause it was like my friend fired it up, you know, was ⁓ seeing it moving without the skin and then had this one friend that he was like ⁓ because it's like You know, so Disney World, what is it? Like they have like the ⁓ One area I'm forgetting Epcot Center. So they were like how to grow plants and all this. ⁓ yeah, yeah, yeah. We were growing, you know, this guy, he was like growing plants and paper and stuff. You know, like the hydroponic guy. Yeah. So he's a friend of mine. I don't miss some people's name. These are this guy because we walk around there, they you know, and they also have the roller coaster, you know, all these this is the atmosphere, right? So we were making the rises, so all these guys are had sculptures or guys making ⁓ you know, pirate heads. It's just incredible, man. Yeah. So even they would show me all this stuff and you know, so the mixture. So I'm a cartoonist and this guy's ⁓ my best friend was Phil Young, he was the older cartoon and one of the lead animators and so he knew all everybody there. So it's like all the cross the street ⁓ you know, that's amazing people, you know. So it's like my life was like as a young person at Disney was incredible. I mean, I I try to act as normal as I can, but I can tell you, man, just being exposed to these people is incredible. Making robots and stuff like Joe Cocker singing. Yeah. Yeah, you know, growing the stuff and paper because you know we we you know, cause then it was like you know, growing up and stuff, you it was like we did all kind of things. Like, what else can we grow on paper? You know, I ⁓ one of my best friends, one of my best friends is ⁓ animation director at Netflix animation right now. And whenever I go down there, he's like, You want to go to the studio? I'm like, Hell yeah. And it's always something. And one of the last times I was there, he's like, You want to get in the booth? And I was like, Hell yeah. So I was able to like use all their sound equipment to do voices and all kinds of goofy stuff. It's what I missed. Well I think what's missing in the current animation industry is the fact that, you know, a lot of people working at home, we don't have like the like when I got into the in the union, it was a job. You know, we had union breaks and everything. So I threw everybody working together and going to lunch together, you know, like like that's missing because you know that's how the artist grew. That's how I got better. You know, I mean relationships. know being able to hang out with the other guys, yeah. Walking around. Feed off the energy. Yeah, feed off the energy and then like looking at your stuff while you're doing it. You know, that's big that's that's not happening in in our industry anymore. So you know it's like ⁓ like I talk about talk about how many jobs are going overseas. Well all the jobs are going overseas I could tell you like like so I gotta you know preface this because you know as a producer on the PBS series There was no option to not go overseas. Mm-hmm. ⁓ that I was off that I was offered. You know what I mean? Like that was above that was above my head. It's not like the amount of money I do have an opinion on that and have been very vocal about that. Like all my friends are in Hollywood and I think like and then, you know, I was like, ⁓ you know, PBS is going through a lot of hard times, you know, but but you know, I mean, a lot of this is taxpayer supported money. Mm-hmm projects, you know. American taxpayer. So it's like unseemly to me that we're taking, we're granting, you know, American taxpayer dollars and forcing producers to to produce them outside of our country because you know you gotta you go out and you seek like a ⁓ subcontracting or or you know third third party studio outside the country that are offering tax breaks or tax incentives, you know, Canada or whatever. ⁓ you know. Canary Islands was, you know, I mean, these studios and you're looking at the real. So you're making decisions. Can these people possibly do the level of quality I need to do based on their real? Because what's appealing is that they're giving me back, they're offering me 65% of, you know, starts at like 35%, but you know, 65% of your money back as a tax incentive. Yeah. And and nobody not to mention you got not to mention the price of animator, price per animator is lower. So not only are you saving money on animators, but you're also getting the kickback from the government. Yeah. So they can they definitely come in because basically because their money, you know, the value of their dollar is is lower. So yeah, that's gonna be natural. But mainly, like I mean, all of the world doing business was mainly attractive. Because we're not gonna trip if we got to pay, you know, an animator, whatever. They're looking at their tax incentive. That's that's the attraction. Yeah. Because is it really ⁓ worth it to get like a ⁓ low? ⁓ low expense animator and and it's a media mediocre you know quality you know work is that really like is that really worth it i don't think so you know and and and and then like like who would make that decision as a creator like i'd rather ⁓ pay a pay more to get the ⁓ higher quality ⁓ project but that's just that we can go back to we can get back to that's not how the decisions are being made now but really right chasing and that tax incentive so that you know I can make my money back ⁓ before I have to deal with the minimize the losses. Yeah. Yeah public acceptance or not. So does that really motivate me to do a hit show? Yeah. And then then it kind of screws over the American taxpayer because you know like most of the animators I know you know in Hollywood now are are unemployed. So I couldn't hire them. I mean I I I was able to hire like some pre-production artists here, you know. Right. And even if you're not, even if you're not, even if you're you're just like a beginning artist, there's jobs that happen throughout the life the lifespan of an animated project that you can do. You can be a runner, you can be anything like that that helps, but then you're getting exposure as an artist to these artists and going back to building a relationship with your team. It's all this this is, you know, so bottom line, it's like so modern animation producing, whatever, they're not really trying to do it in America. You're doing you're you know, I sent like 75% of the production out out to a place called Nova Scotia simply because that's where the animation studio was. And they had a, you you know, so I made that decision based on a relationship. I'm saying that it worked out, but it was like ⁓ one of the ⁓ executive producers or sales agent. I had worked with this person before at Warner Bros. You know, so that had a lot to do with that decision because I would never do that again. I would never give up seventy five percent of the budget to a third party studio. Yeah. Did you know what can happen? They could flake. Well, not only can they flake, but they can be like, I got seventy five percent of this budget. They can start realizing that and making it work against you. Hmm. And try to try to take the other twenty five percent. ⁓ That's a very good point. They're working against you. So all these demands is I'm expecting, you know, so I'm expecting it to be based on this relationship. We all gonna, you know, go into this. We're trying to mass this quality because we had a pilot mass this quality of production. We understand we're working with Jerry and I want to go blah blah blah. So I'll support him until the castle politics start to get involved. Once they found out that the people at our roper enterprises hated me for, you know. racial, you know, it wasn't it wasn't because I was making them a gang of money. That's why the project, you know, and that that was a problem for them, white folks at least. ⁓ I'm just gonna be candid about that, you know. But one thing then what happened was was ⁓ we had a ⁓ an illness that kind of caused the change in leadership at Al Roker Enterprise. And it wasn't Al, you know, all that bullshit about him getting sick with the no it was just they had a the person that ran this c company was a lady named Tracy Brennan. And she's the one that I really went to bat for. And we went to, you know, I spent yeah a couple of years to get this project up and selling, you know, all the strategy to make it happen. She was running a company, but she came down ⁓ with like a Parkinson's kind of disease. And I saw her in six months, I saw her lose her ⁓ very sad lose her ability to to hold her head up and function and all these kind of things. So basically it's like that opened the door. For a snake to come in, somebody that she thought was her friend ended up being just a snake. Yeah, let's set that table. Al Roker, if you don't know, Al Roker is the black dude on Good Morning America, is it? I think it's called NBC ⁓ Today Show. Today, the Today Show. Okay, yeah. So he's the guy that does that does the weather. The weather man. He's a he's a weather, he's a weather ⁓ weather reporter. And so he's very successful. He's been on TV since since forever. Yeah, I remember when he took over, ⁓ you know, remember I used to watch the day show. I remember when he came on because they had a different weather man. Yeah. That I liked a lot. Yeah. I forget his name. And on TV, he seems like a really nice guy. Al does, at least. Yes. Yeah, but you know, you don't ever want to meet your heroes. Right. I a I met I met Dawood Anya Buile a handful of years ago and he is he is my go to that says not all the time. There's sometimes that you do and ⁓ if you did yeah, if you bump into a Dawood, that's I mean, you know. I'll just say you understand I'll give you ninety nine percent. Some people are very performative. Like I was saying, but you know. Yeah. Sometimes you don't want to meet your heroes, man. Like like ⁓ you know Lual Senator. So he went he went obviously, he's been making money since for a long time now. And then he from what I'm gathering in your story, he started Al Roker Productions. Yeah. Is it an animation house or just a content? No, no, no, no. He was doing you know, content. He was doing ⁓ producing like news bits or documentaries, these kind of things. Okay. ⁓ weather. weather ⁓ live action, you know, related projects. Mm-hmm. Like Alaska pric weather control. Something, you know, doing a lot of this stuff. Yeah. This was so then my man my man Al, my man Al goes, I have this idea for a weather related cartoon. We're gonna call it Weather Hunters. And that's when they came and got you? No, what happened was I it was like a decade. I think it was something that that in 2010 My buddy Bill Schultz, you know, met out, whatever, because he's a animation producer who was ⁓ produced a lot of hot projects, you know. He did a ⁓ you know, based on celebrity Simpsons, Kenny Hill, and you know, one based on ⁓ Rob Drydeck, whatever. You know, he you know, and he had his own, you know, doing things. So I knew him and I was doing things, you know, trying things ⁓ based on celebrities. I'd done, you know, projects Arsenio Hall, Martin Lawrence and you know, independent projects. ⁓ So I know I worked I worked on ⁓ I worked on Big Mama's House Three, the website for Big Mama House Three. ⁓ yeah, I mean Martin is with that it does it's not gonna change your life at all, but I was just I like to flex that I like you know you I like I like and I seen you know I was I remember being in India seeing a line around the block ⁓ for a ⁓ Big Mama's house when yeah man premiered over there. So it's like yeah, he's a big, you know, ⁓ even though I double he's a he's a big star, dude. And ⁓ and we actually developed a pretty cool, you know. preschool series and was trying to sell it to CBS based on the characters he did on the show. ⁓ like Roscoe's neighborhood was the name of it and had Shine. I mean it I got that all up a line. I designed them and everything and he, you know, we wrote it, wrote it with the ⁓ Kim Bass was a writer on it. ⁓ with Martin, you know, we pursued it and everything. But you know, there's some things we went wasn't able to sell it because there were some things that happened in his life that kind of overtook ⁓ publicity at that time that kind of made it like ⁓ something that people didn't want to do. Hmm. But but I it's a hot project, some of the best designs ever did. And it was unfortunate, you know, kind of bullshit that a black celebrity has to go through. Because he was the top black celebrity at the time, dog. You know, just you comedian at the time. And I thought it was ⁓ definitely ⁓ you know, go look some some hot designs, but you know, these are the you know, I had like experiences. So it's like I I understand I don't maybe it's I am kind of being salty when I do mention the fact that, you know, when Al hired like the writer, he hired white writers, whatever, back in 2010, you know, and Bill probably did too. But they had been working on this project for a good decade prior to the time I came onto it. And when I came on to the project, so it's 10 years, Karen, whatever, was nobody black on the project, but they had produced ⁓ an 11-minute pilot. And it had, you know, I think Tyree Dillahay was the director. And Tyree Dillahay, you know, you'll be hearing a lot about him because he has this movie coming out called Goat on, you know, Sony movie. He's the director of that designer whole night, one of co-directors. Anyway, so you know, Bill had a relationship. Yeah, exactly. So you know, be big time. So this is a story. So so so Tyree, you know. I guess Bill knew Tyree, like we had met Tyree through Northridge. So he hooked Tyree up to ⁓ be the director for this eleven minute pilot because after ten years of pursuing this because you're pitching things, whatever, doing decks, whatever. You know, Al was and I would say this, I I'll give it to Al. He he Bill convinced him to spend between, you know, eight hundred to a million dollars to produce ⁓ an eleven minute pilot. So that's not a sizzle reel, that's a pilot. We did an episode. Yeah. You know, so they did that independently, you know, so it could have worked or not, right? And the difference between the two is a pilot is an actual like episode and a sizzle reel is about three, four, maybe five minutes. Yeah, and it probably show you what it is, give you a good idea of what it is that you're yeah, yeah, with no narrative structure. That's the trailer, the sizzle reel. So the pilot is has a narrative structure. So begin beginning, middle, and end. And so most preschool series. The format is ⁓ two 11 minute segments, right? So that make up your whole house. So so they did, so that was a plan. So they did like one 11 minute segment, scissor, and then they presented at the PBS. So the person that ran PBS is a lady named Linda Symesky at that time. PBS Kids. And I knew her too, right? You know, so from being in the industry for a lot of years, right? Familiar with her. Luckily, she liked. You know, we had a good relationship, you know. ⁓ and and ⁓ definitely had a great relationship with Bill. So they did this pilot and then the artwork was kind of dominated. You know, ⁓ Tyree had hired my friend Tara Nicole Whitaker, profound illustrators, cool sister. So the artwork looked like hers. I was at that time really trying to promote her artwork because I was really ⁓ hardcore pro you know, she's younger lady, you know, younger girl. So I was like, You know, let's do ⁓ I I told her I looked at her artwork, she could be like the Lisa Frank. You know, remember Lisa Frank with all the so I was like you're talking about licensing. I Hey man, you know, we can we see you as the next Lisa Frank, and I would I would kind of gas her up like this, and what I liked about her because she would kind of give that back to me so she was with it, you know what I mean? She's very cool. I don't know if you know you should have her on your show. Very cool girl, you know, you'll know all her work, you know. But ⁓ yeah, so. Know so you know she was kinda you know, you know, she was going with it. So I was like, damn, let's do this, man. ⁓ so I was I was actually trying to hit up Bill about that, you know, but ⁓ the day I I met with them, he popped on this eleven minute pilot and it's like, damn, you know, that's Tara's artwork. So I was kinda thrown. Because okay, check me, did I know you knew her, you know, like what is this? So it's like, you know, so I said that damn there already knows my thing was like he kinda caught me off guard, he presented to me that, you know, Tyree had Gotten this opportunity to, you know, direct this feature film because this was 2020. So the movie's coming out now. So it's like five, you know, so it takes a long time to make these. So go do that. You know, the project was kind of like ⁓ semi green lid at PBS, semi not. I don't know, ⁓ semi green light was, or you know, they need it, it was kind of like stalled. Yeah. And so Tyree had to leave. So they wanted like a brut and somebody on it that had the sensibility to pull it through. And I knew Tyree. So so I talked to Tyree. And he told me, you know, his whole, you know, plan for it, blah, blah, blah. And, you know, do you think ⁓ you know, so we he thought I could do it. And I talked to Terra and everything. And then I talked to the people I worked with on ⁓ the last ⁓ big pilot I did for ⁓ back in nineteen ninety for out for ⁓ Arsenio Hall at Paramount. Bob Iger had bought and has a lot of political issues. That was like a long time ago. But ⁓ so I talked to them and and it was Right at the time that George Floyd had gotten killed, that that villain and called me, right? And so we kind of knew what was happening. And actually, when I talked to Linda and everybody, everybody's being honest, you know, that they had all this great awakening. But anyway, what what all these things, all this timing with, you know, Tyree getting involved in this feature and them wanting me on this project, you know, my friends had, you know, friends at the Arsenio project, they were like, you know, they go and use you, whatever. But I but I, you know, talked to her about it. It was like, okay, but if I'm in this position, I can hire everybody and I may be able to hire some of my friends and we can maybe keep this thing happening. And she said, but you know, they gonna blah blah blah you know then and and actually, you know, everything that Kim Swan said was right. But ⁓ but I definitely wanted to do it because it was a good opportunity because I knew like that was the best opportunity that I had, you know, I could really kind of flex and do I could really kind of flex and do some things. Yeah. really kind of flex and do some things. And ⁓ and ⁓ yeah, you know. So I you know, I went ahead and and did the job and and ⁓ You know, the first thing I did, they wanted they were having a hard time, you know, hiring black writers, but no black writers in Hollywood, blah, blah, blah. So the first meeting I had was like was all black writers. You know, all of them had school, you know, credits and all these kind of things. Sid Sid Ventris, who wasn't even available, but he showed up. I almost start crying because he's a friend. Yeah. You know, and a lot of you know, he led that Hey AJ thing that just came out. He was doing the But you know, we had the s same agent, but you know, he showed up just to represent for me. Nice. Yeah. But you know, I had a lot of these black writers and cause that's that's where they were, you know, people was being clear, you know, and and I and I provided that for him. So, you know, because that's my original job was to be a hiring consultant on the project. You know, and then it kind of and I kind of went with that, you know, because it was kind of in flux for a good, you know, few years. But ⁓ Got around maybe maybe around like a couple months being on the project, I really was I got comfortable with everybody because I saw what was wrong with the project. You know, and what was wrong with the project is that I was the only black person in the room and you know it wasn't a really like it was a good family show. Right and great character designs, but it wasn't anything. And just to let you know, ⁓ Weather Hunters is about a black family. Yeah. I mean it is a it is it's our Roker's family. They are black, right? So it's a family show. But I thought like, okay, how to make this show special? Like, like our roker has a black family, like we and I know they're from the islands and stuff. So at home, they're not rich people. So, you know, why not go all the way with ⁓ why do we have to do a whitewash, you know, black family? Yeah, and I thought that that would, you know, make it culturally authentic and the fact that seventy-five percent of our budget. was a CPB diversity, equity, and inclusion grant that required all this that we agreed to. And we actually had a conversation about this. I said out because I didn't go into this, like I when I showed up to our Rokers thing, I saw that I was only black, me and I was the only black person around this table. Yeah. You know, so I I immediately I'm I'm from Holly, you know, I I deal in Hollywood, so I understood what was up. So I'm not gonna go ham on this, you know, blackness, because that's not what you know that they had, you know, going on, you know. Yep. But once, so I was just gonna hire everybody to do a great project, you know, whatever, you know, however they wanted to go. But once they went for that DEI grant and started going down that black, black, black thing, okay, it's like I had nothing against that. But I said, hey man, we don't have to do this. We can just go get a regular science grant. But they wanted to do that. So once we did that, one thing I don't ever want to do is be a person that has no integrity. You know. Right. Right. So I'm not taking 75% of a DI grant. We're gonna hire a majority of black writers and make all these. And then I was a diversity, equity, inclusion, you know, ⁓ person that had to you know make these all these reports. There's a lot with that. And I know President Trump hates this, whatever white people think it's racism, what but this is but I I'm not getting into the argument. I'm just telling you contrastally that's what they agreed to. And I didn't want to be signing my name to false reports because that's you know, sounds like fraud to me. ⁓ someone I know that fudged some numbers on some papers got thirty six count felonies. Yeah, but yeah, exactly. But I'm just saying it's like, you know, I know people this is common, you know, this is common, a common crap. And I think like Yes, I'm at a but I'm saying, you know, if you're gonna defraud a public pro ⁓ government program, you're safe to the defraud a ⁓ diversity, equity, inclusion, you know, the way that you know, because they're not gonna, you know what I'm saying? So maybe so maybe I was ahead, you know, maybe he knew something I didn't, you know, maybe he is a tr I don't know. I can't say he's a chance or alleged, but I'm just telling you that's what they did, you know what I'm saying? And I didn't want to really have any parts of that. Yeah. So at the end of it, you know, you say, so you know. So that's how things kind of ended. But but we got to the 35th episode, you know. But I created character line, but I elevated my position there from a hiring consultant to like supervising producer because I came up with these storylines for great grandfather Wallace. You know, I created some older characters. and ⁓ Miss Joyce hired my friend Cheryl Lee Routh to voice it, you know. Al got LaBarra Burton to do, you I mean I hired you know, I created some characters and storylines and then they they I had to oversee the writer. I was an invited, you know, PBS made me go to all the writers room meetings. So I I ⁓ contributed, created storylines for the majority of the season. Yeah, based on my ideas, you know, along with curriculum advisor, et cetera. But you know, I was ⁓ an a ⁓ part of the executive story team. Yeah. There's ⁓ Karen Greenberg, John I hired John Simper, which I regret. Because you know, I had to hire a blackhead writer because that's what they told me to do. Sure. Well, you know. ⁓ so I mean, I didn't know John. I wanted to hire Sib. Sib wasn't available. I didn't know John and Bill Show said he knew him. I've been around Hollywood, I knew John Semper. I'm ⁓ you know, I had the opportunity to be a director of a series called ⁓ Kid and Play back in maybe 1990, talking a long time ago. Kid and Play series. So Suzanne De Pass and her partner Susan Coston, these are prominent you know TV producers, Susanna. to be the vice president of Motown, but they start she started this. They they called me into their hot in their offices at Maple Street and in ⁓ Beverly Hills and they wanted me to direct the series, ⁓ Kid and Play series. And you know, I wasn't available, but you know, I took the meeting and ⁓ anyway that's how I knew of John Sempers. So you know I knew he has done some things. He, you know, he's a brother that does he's a he's a black person that you know what I get with him I don't want to call him anything out his name. He's the black person that will not hesitate to benefit from his blackness. But he ⁓ on our show, he told me, Jerry, I don't want to work with any black writers because all the black and BIPOC writers suck. He argued against having Cheryl Lee Ralph on the show when I created the Miss Joyce character, because he said, Jerry, we already we already have too many black people in the show. God damn. We don't have enough white people on the show. He he didn't want to have Cheryl Lee Ralph cast in the show. So we had an argument actually, you know, and I you know, I got Zoom meetings, all this stuff. So man, I'm you know, I can say I want to get, you know, y'all in trouble, but I can say allegedly or whatever, but I do have a paper trail of of that of all this. And it's and then I think I sent you the lawsuit, and I think it's high all those things are highlighted in that lawsuit that Bill has against our Roper Entertainment. ⁓ that civil rights of discrimination lawsuit. I think I forwarded it to you. I don't even ⁓ I haven't gotten it. I haven't gotten it, but I don't know if my heart can ⁓ take that. But that's public record, but you know, they they you know there is a lawsuit ongoing, and you know, if you want to go down that path of what happened. To me on that project, it's pretty ⁓ well stated in a lawsuit that my brother Bill Schultz has. But that that's that's what happened. So I don't know, you know, I don't know where they make black people. I didn't grow up in Boston. I do know that ⁓ my buddy, you know, I do know I you know, you know, the group new edition and Bell Bib DeVoe. So this character was ⁓ you know, Ronnie DeVoe. We base this character on Ronnie DeVoe is a friend of mine. You see, okay. He made a guest appearance. He made a guest appearance. So in this Motown video, so he we he was a live action character that we turned into an animated character. ⁓ hell yeah. Yeah. So anyway, so so my relationship so I've been knowing that for years, man. I remember one thing he told me about ⁓ brothers from Boston. He said, Jerry, if you ever meet any brother from Boston, they say they're from Boston and they don't say they're from Roxbury. Don't trust them. Yeah, okay. I'm just saying, right? You know, we know these anyone anyone that says that they're from anyone that says they're they're from the east side of Chicago, you know they're full of shit. Full of shit. Yeah, I'm just saying it's like you say most black the black people on, you know, most 'cause you know, you go back to Boston, you know, Roxbury's like that's the black neighborhood. I I think that's where it was coming from, and then you know. And then turns out the brother was from Roxbury, man. But I don't know, he's older than me. He's like 10, 20 years, 10, 15 years. I don't know. He's an older dude. So I don't know. Maybe some lowest, but he definitely was ⁓ you know, he was really ⁓ campaigning for the whiteness. You know, and I hired him to be the black head writer of the show. But he was really like he was really ⁓ captain, he was really out there ⁓ protecting whiteness. So that was the main problem. Karen, Karen Greenberg, you know. The the lady, the credit for development show. I mean, bless her. I liked her. I mean, she turned out to be a snake, unfortunately. You know, thinking, you know, ⁓ going after me because John was a little bit easier for her to handle. But I mean, what we did do, she we did, but when we came together and created that great grandfather Wallace kind of re redeveloped that pilot, that was during a time when we weren't getting paid on the show, neither one of them. You know, there were times where we're we wasn't getting paid anything on the show. Them. And it wasn't moving forward. So we just came together because and and we did this. And we invited John. He didn't he didn't join us. We just came together to to have those meetings to to figure out we just wanted the show to move forward. You know. So I knew that so it was basically volunteering at time, but we came up with all the storylines and you know, she synthesizing and created, you know, a a great ⁓ wrote a great Bible. And ⁓ that's what got the show financed in 2023. And ⁓ you know, so I don't say so so she was easy to handle, but I can tell I can show you so you know she don't really know anything about black people. She's like we're just black white people, you know, as far as ⁓ our home life and stuff like that. ⁓ yeah. So I had to explain a whole lot, I had to do a lot of explaining to her. I had to ⁓ you know, so what what I had to do is kinda kind of juxtapose black culture with ⁓ similarities with her white Jew upper, you know, upper middle class, white Jewish, you know, ⁓ whatever rich people. in New York live upbringing and kind of show similarities in her life so that she can understand maybe. But I mean I have like things she don't understand the challenges of like because you know great grandfather Wallace was a the a Tuskegee airman. He was one of the first he was a meteorologist. So you know there's you can look at Tuskegee Airmen and fantasize about ⁓ they did a lot of greatness. But the reality to Tuskegee Airmen is that the only reason why they were in existence because it was a separate but equal laws. I was like, like we had to do everything that was set if black people could legally be separated, like we separated, but they had to have equal things. So it's like, you know, they didn't have no the them white pilots and air people didn't want to have anything to do with the black people. So it was created out of race. And so one thing I didn't understand is that not only that they have air people, they they had like the meteorologists, you know, the engineers, the people that worked on like everybody black. you know, was working over here because the white, you know, so that's a sad reality. So it wasn't no they did heroic things. They were being openly and actively discriminated against. Yeah. Then you kind of look at the great grandfather, you're talking about 1940, 1945, you know, when did you we get to really see a bunch of black commercial airline pilots, PSA, ⁓ you know, Eastern Airlines, you know, really. Yeah. We see that. And when did we really start seeing a bunch of ⁓ black weather men or meteor meteorologists on TV? Pretty sure that was the 70s. Yeah. Yeah. And they and they made sure, like I we saw this in ⁓ the that ⁓ that ⁓ movie about the black ladies at NASA. We saw that, you know, when they were recruiting, you know, ⁓ possible ⁓ astronauts, they they made the rules to make the year so anybody that was into ski airmen were automatically too old to to you know participate in the first discrimination so I'm just saying so I brought that up I'm just saying so we can you know so this I wanted this character, you know, to be a person that was like, you know, really qualified, you know, from his experience to be a meteorologist on T V or whatever, you know, work at PSA. But Those opportunities, as you know, with Jim Crow legally, state sanctioned racism, there was no ⁓ fairness. You know, they you have to the those opportunities weren't open to him. This was based on relativism line. So what they had to do was be janitors or, you know, ⁓ you know, low level jobs, you know, and then have to live and go home and know that, okay, I'm better than, you know, I could be a a weather, I'm better than all this. So this character, you know, janitor or whatever, had a low level job, service job because of blackness would come home and under his house, you know, he would, you know, be like a weather scientist making gadgets, whatever, all these kind of things. And then the family would see that and the families, the found that would be like a a family shield or, you know, ⁓ an agenda for the family to make sure that, you know, like going forward, our whole family's going to push this dream that, you know, great grandfather Wallace had. So it was about, you know, so it's a typical story about a black man being denied. ⁓ and then it's denial causing the fire. Because if you look at a lot of ⁓ families, like my family was in construction, so obviously me and my brother, you know, we do that a lot, right? We know how to do it. We could have ran those businesses or a lot of my friends, Pakistani friends, their family own motels and they all do that, you know, if they didn't go to college, you know. So it's not it's not like unusual for families to inherit family businesses and things like that. And in in Europe you have family shields and all these kind of things. So So that's why Al, you know, so the the thing was that's why Al Roker became a meteorolog. Well, he's not a meteorologist, that's the one thing that, yeah. That's the one thing I had trouble because it is kind of ⁓ I think, you know, he's a web. Wow. He's not a meteorologist, he's a actor. Like he reads the weather. Damn it, Al. But the care, but the character, but the character, Al, the Al character in the cartoon is a meteorologist. So you know. Yeah. I always told him, man, you know, if we put this out, people gonna think you're meteorological, but I think that's what he wants. Yeah. People inflate themselves. Santa Claus isn't real. Yeah. With everything that you've been through in your career, ⁓ I know that there has been like it seems like micro level change, but What do you think when you see things like I think his first name is Ryan Kugler? ⁓ yeah, I mean, yeah, the centers director. Yeah. And they're coming out and they're like they're coming out with more projects that I I think a little bit more independent. ⁓ how do you feel? How how going through everything that you've gone through in your career, how does it feel to see young black? directors and creators out here doing their own thing. It feels great, man. It feels like ⁓ you know, like progression. Yeah. Especially like in my business. ⁓ well film business in general. Yeah. People kind of getting smarter. You know, the fact that we have like conversation we had today, you know, about IP, etc. More people are talking about that. Like, you know, so You you're not alone out in the wilderness just talking about that because you could just be one talking about and everybody else like, ⁓ man, shut up. You know, just you know, I mean that's what it is, right? And then say, Here we are. Yeah, we are so it's like, yeah, I think like what's what's what's what's great is like more people are smarter about that. You know, the music, the music business, the things the brothers have been through in the music business and everything, you know, kind of that's kind of like spilled over in in all the other, you know, parts of entertainment business and and everybody's trying to boss up and be smarter. You know, my my my my focus with that is like I kinda like look at like ⁓ you know okay look since we're talking about weather hunters, I'm looking at like ⁓ when I got on that project in 2020, like August 2020. And you know, y'all seeing it now in 2020. So let's take the the five years that I, you know, working on that project. ⁓ I remember like there was a internet cartoon called Gracie's Corner. I think they started around 2019, 2020, you know. And and ⁓ you know, they're they're five years later, you know, now like 2026, they they they've been nominated in the same category as the Weather Hunters. That's one of the biggest, you know, hits on the internet, you know, in in in children's television. That's an independent project that the ⁓ this mother and father, how is I even paid to hear ⁓ speak, but the little family, you know, it's always like somebody not in the business that's gonna make the the biggest waves. You know, I always tell people it's like It's gonna be somebody outside the business, you know, that just doing it, you know. Yeah. And in this case, the Gracie's Crown. I know if you know that cartoon, but I just kind of like my point with that. I look at the time. Like I'm I'm I could be, I'm very pleased that that the public likes the Weather Hunters, the PBS cartoon. So that's a $20 million cartoon. We spent $500,000 for each episode, 22-minute episodes. I know that because I did the budget myself. You know what I mean? And these are broad numbers, you know. I can tell you the how much the animation costs, you know, because, you know, I pay the but you know, so half a million. ⁓ you know, ⁓ I'm I yeah, I can guarantee you the but well, I don't I'm not in the people's pockets, but you know, I would say that it's a good bet that the budget per episode for Gracie's Corner is not at that five thousand dollar level. And that they those people didn't have to deal with, you know. all the ⁓ levels of ⁓ notes and and input that that I had you know like like you know you gotta kinda happily take it now you know you know and you have to have that opinion ⁓ attitude while you're working but I can step back and say this I don't need all those people to to be to be to smoke, you know, to be bad. In fact less. You know what I mean? Like I they make you, you know I mean I had to because I didn't have the the the Jews ⁓ to not deal with those people and i have and if the people are listening i have nothing against them i didn't need all of y'all you know needed some of you not all of you especially especially from the network i didn't you know the opinions from the network it's like there's strong you know strong opinions because these are executives that probably been fighting their way up the ladder but they had they didn't get there by writing and drawing and stuff like that they're getting there by you know giving your opinion on somebody's their writing drawing and shit like that before the public gets an opportunity to tell if you're right or wrong that's that gatekeeping you're talking Right. Exactly. How excited are you? But but you gotta play along, right? Or you're not, you know. How excited are you? How excited are you that the industry is going more independent? Like we don't necessarily need to see I personally don't necessarily need to see my stuff on a TV more than on a YouTube channel or on a Instagram feed or whatever. It's a financing that's going independent, you know. Yeah. And and and really the financing kind of follows the public. You know, once they started using or you know, powerful players like Netflix started using algorithms and and and I mean, you know, when I post on when I buy, you know, ads on YouTube, whatever I'm looking at trend analysis and things like that, you know, like we all kind of got into it. I want to see what's kinda popping, what are people talking about, you know, and kind of go towards that. The movie, the people commissioning or financing the movies and things like that started to do that. And then this is what they're demanding. It's like I remember the difference. I used to develop cartoons and just out ideas I thought would work and take a slate of cartoons to NBC CBS or whatever and pitch them and hopefully want to stick. Now it's all about like I remember somebody told me Jerry what you gotta start doing is a you know and it was like two thousand and three or something like this. You gotta start posting and try to get sixty thousand followers on YouTube and then come back. And then you know, you know they tell us that 'cause they're really a lot of careers. Yeah, they're really only following the they they have no opinion about, you know, now you're you if I like what you're doing or not. Like right. It's easier to hate it. I used to be a reader, it's easier to hate everything, say no to everything that you're safe to do that. But once you kind of put yourself out there and say I like something, that that's when you start to put your own career in jeopardy. Yeah. All y'all gotta know that. So if you really like just so I tell people, I don't even know my friends, whatever, you know, I got people hounding me. And it's really the people that you have. Friend in relationships with their hounding me in my DMs, wanting to send me their scripts and read them and all this stuff. I'm just saying, and then it's an animated series. I'm saying, and then it'll be something in a genre that I have nothing to do with because these people just know that I I work in the film business. Yeah. This one brother had this one brother stop me at my funeral, my sister's funeral. ⁓ Exactly. And he still don't get it. To pitch me, you know, ⁓ some some movie script for some book that is and then to come to find out a really good way to get And I'm saying this book must be hot, whatever, but you know, whatever, because I was you can't really blow them off because it's a friend of your family. But then it's like and then you keep following through and then you know you find out the book is sold like twenty copies on Amazon. Like now I'm thinking like, dude, do you know do you know like the level ⁓ you know and then you can't really say that, right? Because then people I don't know just funny style here. So I don't know. I'm always dealing with people outside the industry and in the industry. People outside the industry don't want me to feel like I'm any different than I know that, right? 'Cause I've had relationships go bad just by, you know, maybe acting like I'm happy with something that I did with someone like you know, 'cause you coming around if you hang around your friends that you grew up with, and I always try you know, I always like that, but you know, it's really, you know, what changes is them, you know, like like your success may put them in tune with their ⁓ their ⁓ lack of success. Yeah. Like they may have a successful job. Yeah. Like they didn't they didn't, you know, ⁓ gamble everything on being an artist. You know, they went and did that safe thing. Yeah. I'm looking at them, you know, you got white kids, nice half what that's what I'm looking at, but they like jealous of you. You know, so like my my life has been, especially when I was younger, it's been very tenuous with relationships because some of your friends are your haters, man. They jealous at a long and they look at what you're doing at a different level than you do. Yeah. Like like I'm in a union. I'm always having, you know, it's a struggle to get the next job. You get the job, it's hard to keep the job gotta entertain, you know, even with this show has to no matter what I went through to make it, whatever, has to work, right? It doesn't work at all for not, nobody cares. But once you're there, you know, people they ⁓ everybody wants to participate, but they didn't want to participate in the ⁓ in the in the hassle of getting there. So but they didn't but I understand they don't understand, you know. ⁓ But I just like people, if people kind of took me serious, man, I don't want to take myself too serious, but I mean it's like, dude, you know, this is hard. You know, this is not a joke. This is if it was easy, everyone would be doing it. That's right, you know, and and and ⁓ you know I've been knowing you for years. You never came around asking, you know, talking about movies or whatever, you know, like why are we doing it now? Yeah. You didn't ask me to do Instagram posts if I needed help doing Instagram posts. Yeah. 10 years ago, 10, 20. Now all of a sudden you are Instagram specialist. Yeah. Could you read my name like that? You're not, it's not the time to come at me, is not the time when when things are like when I done smoked it, you know? Yeah. Right. Like I'm not looking at, I'm not trying to open the doors for anybody like that. Right. If you are a person that knows me and you got if you know of a of a a really high project that's selling, you know, hundreds of thousands of of ⁓ copies on Amazon, you know, hit me up with something like that. That's that's a business. But I'm not, you're not gonna get me on like some ⁓ friend type of relationship. Because that's what people try to exploit their friendship because then they kind of make you they try to exploit that relationship to make you kind of I want to read your script and ⁓ you're supposed to be a friend. And then I ain't a friend like that for nobody because you never eight years later and then eight years later everything is falling everything fell apart. You're like what the fuck Like I said, you know, I work with a lot of I work on a lot of lawsuits so I understand how these things go, you know, like like all these lawsuits ⁓ that I work on with these attorneys been based on. You know, well I knew a secretary at Disney that had a ⁓ that had a friend that was, you know, lived next door to her. So I gave her a script and I know that that they showed it to 'cause there's someone, you know, the studio for stealing her movie that's, you know, was Zootopia or some shit, you know. Yeah. That's how that's go. So, you know You can't do somebody a favor like that and and and expect that to go good. Yeah. So I don't ask for fear. Just like I tell people I don't read scripts, especially for cartoons and stuff. I look I look at like videos and I want to see like numbers. Yeah. And before before at funeral. Well, yeah, don't even yeah, exactly. Don't even hit me up. But if I'm just it's kinda like that's crazy, right? At a funeral tax. And and then I was like right out of there, just put her ⁓ you know. Body in a hearse. It was actually kind of sad because kind of it did kind of piss me off, but then it's like, you know. You know what I mean? I also don't know. I also don't know what what would take a person to think that that situation, like, what is he going through in his life to think like I have to swing for the fences right now at this funeral. You know what I mean? I don't know. Yeah. Which for that. For that, like mad respect and mad respect for actually finishing a book, the majority of the people don't. Yeah. But like if you have if you have 20 sold copies, you gotta get your numbers up. Yeah, see, but it is for a lot of people, you know. This is why I get a lot of template the it's just the fact that I did it. Yeah, you know, that's all you know, and I think like when people look at me in my career, it's just a fact I'm You know, like they can't distinguish between an in-betweener job and the fact that our producer and created the series. There's no you know, a lot of people can just know that I'm working in films, right? Yeah. You know, they don't they don't kind of understand the struggle, you know, that goes through. You gotta kinda look at like where where you're at. Like I don't need you to ⁓ I need you to help me. Like if you really trying to get involved in me, you know, get involved with me when I'm building, not when it's built. Because that that looks like you're trying to use me. See, Ford and I talk about this all the time. Yeah. We talk about this all the time. Not everybody wants to not everybody wants to do the hard part. No, but I'm just saying it's like you want to show up when things are almost done. Yeah. And and I don't know. That's why we tighten our circles. And you know, talk about the circle. Like your circle gets smaller, not just yeah, because you don't want to share the pie, it's because the people that are trying to eat are just trying to eat and they don't want to make they don't yeah. Yeah, they they try to use it's transactional. You know, they're trying to use you. It's like while I'm in San Diego now. It's like, you know, I don't want to have any fake friends, man. It's like you know, and it's because I'm you know I wanna I wanna stay in that that struggle. It's not a struggle, but I'm gonna like you know, LA you get a lot of desperate people and it was just sick the way, you know, like like I'm not friends. I'm friends with people, but I'm not we we not that kind of friends because you you're friendly you're friendly with people. Yeah, you never they never call me that. I had people showing up in my office, you know. Yeah. And you gotta grant like when I by the time I got this job together, I I had a I knew who I was gonna hire. So it wasn't gonna be any convincing me or you know, it was it wasn't really the time. And and all the voice actors and stuff that keep hitting me, you know, up in my DM, you gotta understand I'm never gonna hire any any unknown voice actor. Yeah. You know, unless you're a little kid. The little kids, definitely, because they they kind of smoked it, man. That's one thing, because then they're new, you know, like I'm a new actor, all the little kids were like new and they They're blown up now. But I'm never gonna hire like an unknown, you know, voice actor. Yeah. It's not gonna happen. Yeah. Gotta put in the work, huh? Yeah. I mean, like I I I will like I have become known to some voice actors actors online because they post so much cool stuff that, you know, and then it's like, dude, this guy I'm gonna hire this guy. You know what I mean? But the grind you see the grind, you see the grind they're doing. Yeah, exactly. I'm just fine, but there's never somebody like I'm you know, this is a I don't know. Want to be a friend? I'm adding a friend, and then I get like this hella long email on somebody's demo tape and stuff. I promise I'm not gonna send you any scripts. I'm not gonna send you no coverage. You gotta send me up in your demo tape, and I'm on your show now. And it's like, okay. Well, you're gonna get some coverage. Well, I know you gotta go. So Jerry Lee Bryce. Yeah. Man, I'm sorry. Give people ⁓ yeah. We'll have to keep we'll have to come and have you back on. All right. yeah, give folks your last parting words of wisdom and then where they can find you online. Well, my last parting words of wisdom is people's do your thing, don't listen to anybody, and ⁓ you know, keep it moving and get paid. ⁓ that's a that's a good one. Get paid. Get paid. And you can find me online at my online name is Jerry No Joke. So I'm at Jerry No Joke, I think, on Instagram or LinkedIn. I post a lot on LinkedIn business stuff on Instagram. It's ⁓ pictures and you know, Facebook is kind of a mess at this point, but yeah, I try to, you know, same stuff ⁓ Instagram or Facebook, you know, so you know, LinkedIn, it's all business, that's all good. Awesome. Yeah, hopefully I said something that helps. Well you helped me quite a bit actually. Selfishly speaking. So if you watch this video and you didn't pick up any gems, go back and rewatch it because he's he was dropping gem after gem. So thank you, sir, for taking time out of your busy schedule to come hang out with us. Yeah. Yes, your hair is on point. Everything looks good, man. Sunday morning. ⁓ It's really nice to meet you, man. I can't wait to hear more about what you have going on. I can't wait to like get into all of the stuff that you've ever done. ⁓ I when I when I say this, I mean this with my whole heart. You are an inspiration to me because of wanting to be the the having wanting to have the career similar to yours. Possible. Was always something that always, and it's just really nice to see someone as cool as you out here doing it and fulfilling that that role. ⁓ we need more people like you out there. Cool. I'm exactly my career. It's like had a lot of good times, but you there's always a lot of bad times. So you probably just want to do the good time. But I'm saying that the bad times kind of shape my whole person, you know, yeah. Man, because they they propel you into the good times. Right. And you gotta want it. You got a more picture person too, man. So it's like, yeah, a lot of stuff kids like this, like, you know, just hard times in their business for a professional. So don't don't have any ego. If you need to go get a day job, go do that. Yeah. Like I, you know, I used to like when I, you know, got finished working on the Little Mermaid, I came back to San Diego and I like digging ditches with my father. Or at least you know, I'm just saying I would do that because you No, no, it's it's just how it is. Yeah. I never did a service, retail service job. might be a little bit different, soul sucking, but you you gotta do what you gotta do. Yeah. There is no mountaintop without the valley, right? Yeah. Exactly. Or sell t-shirts, but definitely do your thing. Don't don't stop, man. You know, even ⁓ like it's a it's a marathon, not a sprint. Yep. I never I told my my attorney, my attorney told me once I Jerry, you know, this comment is going to take you about 30 years. Actually he said something about 33 years for this to happen. I was just saying, ⁓ damn Why do you say 33 years? Just say it's, you know, why can you just say it's never gonna happen? You know, and I told him that today, you know, not today, the other day. But you know, basically he was kind of like right. I said, no, we gotta go to you know Vegas now because 30 years later, you know, he was very accurate. I was really hella mad at you. You know what I mean? Being that honest, you know what I mean? I was saying on tape, but yeah, he was right. ⁓ you know. Danny Zucker. He's a brutally brutally honest person. Yeah. Jerry Lee Bryce. Again, thank you so much. All right. Thank you, guys. Bye to you. We'll see you, brother. We'll see you on the next one. And with that, everybody, we're out.