 |
Jim Tozzi | |
|---|---|
| Born | James Michael Tozzi October 19, 1967 Everett, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Alma mater | Rhode Island School of Design |
| Occupations |
|
| Years active | 1991–present |
| Spouse | Vezna Gottwald (m. 1994) |
James Michael Tozzi (born October 19, 1967) is an American artist, commercial director, producer, voice actor and musician best known for his work on the MTV2 comedy series Wonder Showzen and the Adult Swim show Xavier: Renegade Angel and as a member of the rock band/art collective PFFR.
Jim Tozzi grew up in Everett, a city to the north of Boston. The most distinctive thing about this town was the smell of freshly roasted peanuts due to the Teddie Peanut Butter factory. The factory's emblem, a grinning cartoon bear with a bucket, would be one of the first influences of advertising on Jim. He went to Everett public school: always an outsider, he preferred drawing weird cartoons and watching monster movies to playing sports.
In his early teens, Jim borrowed a super 8 camera from his Aunt and began experimenting. Lacking a tripod, he would tape the camera down onto the kitchen table and animate various toys, Star Wars figures and clay monsters. He also created a live action series starring his little sister as "Chico" the heavily mustachioed drug dealer who would meet an unlikely demise in every episode. Jim went on to study film and illustration at the Rhode Island School of Design. He continued doing both animated and live action films creating a short film parody of an afterschool special called "Sunday School Girls" which tackled the subject of what Jesus really looked like.
Tozzi moved to New York City and started working at Broadcast Arts inking and painting animation cels. He also started directing music videos for obscure alternative bands. One of the first was for Mercury Rev and featured Ron Jeremy as a floating space traveler. Jim approached Nick at Nite with his reel and some promo ideas; he was brought on to TV Land to come up with a new promo campaign. This campaign conceived, written, and directed with his wife Vezna Gottwald, developed into the award-winning "Twip" series . "Twip" was an imaginary product in which its evolution was traced in commercial parodies from the early 1950s through the 1990s. Now as a directing team, the "Tozzi's" signed on to Bob Giraldi's company and began directing spots for Miller Lite, Sprite and Florida's anti-tobacco campaign. The "Tozzi's" split up and Jim went solo; joining M-80 he directed an award-winning campaign for Kellogg's Rice Krispie Treats for Leo Burnett. He went on to direct comedy spots for Sony PlayStation, Nick at Nite and Miller.
Tozzi married Vezna Gottwald in 1994, after the two met while studying at Rhode Island School of Design. [1] The couple is now separated.
In his free time Tozzi likes to draw, paint, and take long quiet walks. One of Tozzi's paintings was the basis for the character and show Xavier: Renegade Angel. [2] Tozzi is now signed with them.tv and living in New York. [3]
Nicholas Wulstan Park is an English filmmaker and animator who created Wallace and Gromit, Creature Comforts, Chicken Run, Shaun the Sheep, and Early Man. Park has been nominated for an Academy Award a total of six times and won four with Creature Comforts (1989), The Wrong Trousers (1993), A Close Shave (1995) and Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005).
Freakazoid! is an American superhero comedy animated television series created by Bruce Timm and Paul Dini and developed by Tom Ruegger for the Kids' WB programming block of The WB. The series chronicles the adventures of the title character, Freakazoid, a crazy teenage superhero who fights crime in Washington, D.C. It also features mini-episodes about the adventures of other superheroes. The series was produced by Warner Bros. Animation and Amblin Television, being the third animated series produced through the collaboration of Steven Spielberg and Warner Bros. Animation after Tiny Toon Adventures and Animaniacs.
The Critic is an American primetime adult animated sitcom revolving around the life of New York film critic Jay Sherman, voiced by Jon Lovitz. It was created by writing partners Al Jean and Mike Reiss, who had previously worked as writers and showrunners on seasons 3 and 4 of The Simpsons. The Critic had 23 episodes produced, first broadcast on ABC in 1994, and finishing its original run on Fox in 1995.
Nick at Nite is a nighttime programming block on the American basic cable channel Nickelodeon. The programming broadcasts from prime time to late night. The block initially consisted of syndicated sitcoms and films from the 1950s to the 1970s. Nick at Nite gradually shifted its programming to primarily airing sitcoms as recent as the mid-1990s to the 2010s.
Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels is an American animated mystery comedy series created by Joe Ruby and Ken Spears and produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions for ABC. The series aired during the network's Saturday morning schedule from September 10, 1977, to June 21, 1980. All 40 episodes are available on the Boomerang subscription app.
Charles Michael Adler is an American voice actor and voice director. He is known for his roles as Buster Bunny on Tiny Toon Adventures, Ed and Bev Bighead on Rocko's Modern Life, Ickis on Aaahh!!! Real Monsters, Doctor Doom, Wrecker, and Sabertooth in The Super Hero Squad Show, MODOK in various Marvel media, Cobra Commander in GI Joe: Resolute and Renegades, Starscream in the Transformers films, Mr. Whiskers in Brandy & Mr. Whiskers, Cow, Chicken, and the Red Guy in Cow and Chicken, Professor Monkey-for-a-Head in Earthworm Jim, I.R. Baboon in I Am Weasel and T-Bone in SWAT Kats: The Radical Squadron.
Saturday TV Funhouse is a segment on NBC's Saturday Night Live featuring cartoons created by SNL writer Robert Smigel. 101 "TV Funhouse" segments aired on SNL between 1996 and 2008, with one further segment airing in 2011. It also spawned a short-lived spinoff series, TV Funhouse, that aired on Comedy Central.
Frederick G. Seibert is an American television producer and media proprietor. He was the first employee and creative director of MTV in 1980, and later founded Frederator Studios in 1998, as well as its spin-off companies Frederator Networks, Channel Frederator Network, and Cartoon Hangover. Having held numerous executive positions for Viacom Media Networks, he was the final president of animation studio Hanna-Barbera from 1992 to 1996. He has since co-founded Next New Networks, Bolder Media, and the production company FredFilms by 2020.
Wonder Showzen is an American adult puppet black comedy television series that aired between 2005 and 2006 on MTV2. It was created by Vernon Chatman and John Lee of PFFR.
Syncro-Vox is a filming method that combines static images with moving images, the most common use of which is to superimpose talking lips on a photograph of a celebrity or a cartoon drawing. It is one of the most extreme examples of the cost-cutting strategy of limited animation. The method was developed by cameraman Edwin "Ted" Gillette in the 1950s in order to simulate talking animals in television commercials. Gillette filed the technique on February 4, 1952, and obtained patent #2,739,505 on March 27, 1956.
Kenny the Shark is an American animated television series produced by Discovery Kids. The series was first premiered on Discovery Kids' Saturday morning block on NBC on November 1, 2003, and ended on February 19, 2005, spanning two seasons and 26 episodes in total having aired. The series is about an anthropomorphic tiger shark named Kenny, who is tired of being a predator, and wants to live with a suburban family.
PFFR is a Brooklyn-based production company and art collective consisting of Vernon Chatman, John Lee, Alyson Levy and formerly Jim Tozzi until 2009. The group has been active since 1998.
Vernon Chatman is an American screenwriter, producer, director, voice actor, stand-up comedian, musician, and a member of PFFR, an art collective based in Brooklyn, New York City. He created the television series Wonder Showzen, Xavier: Renegade Angel, The Heart, She Holler and The Shivering Truth. He also produces, voices characters, and writes for South Park.
Nicktoons is a British pay television channel launched on 22 July 2002 as Nicktoons TV. It is a cartoon-centric sister channel to Nickelodeon. The channel airs Nickelodeon's original animated series, as with all of the Nickelodeon networks domestically.
Augenblick Studios is an independent animation studio founded in 1999 by Aaron Augenblick, and located in Brooklyn, New York City. The company has created a wide array of animated shorts for television, film, and the Internet, with the target audience typically being adults. Their clients include Cartoon Network, Comedy Central, Adult Swim, the TED conference, PBS, MTV, and Nickelodeon.
Darrell Van Citters is an American director, animator, and author, whose credits include directing the animated television series Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi and directing popular Looney Tunes cartoons featuring Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Sylvester the Cat, Tweety, and Foghorn Leghorn. He partnered with Ashley Postelwaite in 1992 to form Renegade Animation. He studied animation at the California Institute of the Arts.
Eric Fogel is an American director, writer, animator, producer, and voice actor who is best known as the creator of Celebrity Deathmatch. He also created cult shows The Head, Starveillance and Glenn Martin, DDS. Fogel also directed several episodes of Daria.
John Michael Lee is an American television producer, writer, director, voice actor, and musician best known for his work on the MTV2 comedy series Wonder Showzen as a member of the rock band/art collective PFFR.
Xavier: Renegade Angel is an American adult animated television series created by Vernon Chatman and John Lee, who are also the creators of Wonder Showzen. The show was produced by PFFR, with animation by Cinematico. It premiered on November 4, 2007, on Adult Swim and November 1, 2007, on the Adult Swim website.
J. J. Sedelmaier is an American animator, illustrator, designer, author and film director/producer, known for co-creating the "Saturday TV Funhouse" segment—including The Ambiguously Gay Duo and The X-Presidents—on the TV series Saturday Night Live; as well as the Tek Jansen series on The Colbert Report, the interstitial cartoons seen in the USA TV series Psych, and over 500 other TV and advertising projects.
