Now here’s the part that doesn’t quite play into the lunatic agenda of spreading hilarious misinformation: I loved the idea of doing more ZIM stuff!
See, people like me (awesome ones), the second something becomes even remotely possible, something on the scale of an animated series or, what I was hoping to do instead, less frequent specials, that’s the instant my brain just goes nuts with new ideas, places to go, stupid jokes and horrific new stories.
So I had my meetings, and phone calls, and listened to people discuss my show in that strange way that makes dealing with a network so unlike dealing with an actual human being that knows what it likes, knows what it wants and expresses a love or hate of anything. It’s that particular way of interacting that made me decide a few years back that if I was to do ANYTHING, be it animation, live action stuff, comics…basically anything creative, it was going to be something worth driving yourself mad for because that’s what inevitably happens, you drive yourself to exhaustion to get an idea out of your head before you die, and you do it as best you can.
Like I said, the show was doing alright on NICKTOONS, getting the 2nd highest ratings of anything on the network, coming in under Avatar, and for a show coming up on a decade old, that’s pretty damned great!
That I still keep in touch with people from Nickelodeon is probably one of the more mindblowing bits to people that think I do nothing by firebomb the place anytime I’m near enough to hit it. That the network would even dare call me to talk about more of a show it is supposed to hate is the second such bit.
Well, my brain got going, like it does, and I was already imagining all kinds of fun stuff, like voice actors to bring in, having favorite bands do covers of the theme song for each episode, a sequel to ZIM eats waffles that would somehow be even more stupid than the first one. Big, dumb, fun stuff.
But crazy stuff is sometimes just as crazy as it sounds, and more ZIM is probably too crazy for reality! The weird energy around resurrecting the show (that’s actually how one of the NICK execs referred to it) ebbed a bit in recent months and it looks like it’s not going to happen. Honestly, I’d love working on newer ideas for different shows, but that place in my head that wants to take those old characters to new places and torture the hell out of them just a bit more can’t help be be a bit sad to see the lights dim on that world just a bit. A world in mothballs is what it feels like when these things don’t get to live in more than just reruns.
Reasons? The usual…too expensive, and not nearly soul-crushingly bland enough. Okay, I added that last part, but come on…you know that’s part of it!
https://www.questionsleep.com/mindspill/?p=2024