The Cartoon Network's Mike Lazzo

DATE November 11, 2003 ACCOUNT NUMBER N/A
TIME 12:00 Noon-1:00 PM AUDIENCE N/A
NETWORK NPR
PROGRAM Fresh Air

Interview: Edward P. Jones discusses his novel, "The Known World"
BARBARA BOGAEV, host:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Barbara Bogaev, in for Terry Gross.

Edward P. Jones' new novel, "The Known World," is about a little-explored
piece of history. In the antebellum South, some former black slaves chose to
become slave owners themselves. This fact drives Jones' sprawling narrative,
set in an imaginary place, Manchester County, Virginia, in 1840. New York
Times reviewer Janet Maslin says of the book, `With its hard realities and
prescient dreams, with its eloquent restraint and simplicity, "The Known
World" penetrates a realm of contradictions and takes the measure of slavery's
punishments.'

Jones is the author of a book of short stories, "Lost in the City," which won
a PEN/Hemingway Award. It's set in the tough neighborhoods he grew up in in
Washington, DC. Jones was the first member of his family to go to college.
Despite the success of his first book in 1992, he still struggled to make a
living until he landed a day job 19 years ago as a proofreader and writer for
a tax newsletter, which he kept until very recently. "The Known World" is a
finalist for the National Book Award. We begin with a reading. I asked Jones
to introduce it.

Mr. EDWARD P. JONES (Author, "The Known World"): This is the morning after
Henry Townsend, the master--a black man--of 31 slaves has died. His widow's
maid, Loretta, has come down and told Moses, the overseer, to go and tell all
the slaves on the plantation that Henry Townsend has died.

(Reading) `Their world had changed but they could not yet understand how. A
black man had owned them, a strange thing for many in that world, and now
that he was dead, maybe a white man would buy them, which was not as strange.
No matter what, though, the sun would come up on them tomorrow, followed by
the moon, and dogs would chase their own tails. And the sky would remain
just out of reach.

"I didn't sleep well," one man across the lane from Elias(ph) said to his
next-door neighbor.

"Well, I know I sure did," the neighbor said. "I slept like they was paying
me to, slept enough for three white women without a care in the world."

"Well," the first man said, "sounds like you got a hold some of my sleep.
Better give it back. Better give it back before you wear out my sleep using
it. Give it back."

"Oh, I will," the neighbor said, laughing, inspecting loose threads on his
overalls. "I sure will, soon as I'm finished. Meantime, I'm going to use it
again tonight. Come for it in the morning."

They both laughed.'

BOGAEV: Edward P. Jones reading from his book "The Known World." I love the
dialogue in that passage. Is that what you hear when you're thinking about a
book, when you're planning a book? Do you hear...

Mr. JONES: Parts of it, yes. In that particular episode, I wanted to inject
some humor. My sense is that black people have a great deal of humor. And
I'm sure it didn't just happen overnight, didn't happen in the 20th century.
It certainly began way back there when. And I wanted to just inject some of
that right there.

BOGAEV: Well, your book is about many things, but it does cover a side of
slavery that's very little-known. When did you first learn that at one time
blacks owned other blacks as slaves?

Mr. JONES: I was in college. And I don't know if it was a footnote or a
professor said something in passing. I know I didn't read some book or
something that was completely about that subject. It was just small thing
that I came across. I wasn't intending on being a writer at that time, I just
sort of filed the fact away. It was a big fact for me, a big surprise. I
just filed it away. And in the year or so before I completed my first book, I
started going through a file cabinet in my head, thinking what I would do
next. And that one fact about black slave owners came to the forefront. And
I began creating a world around that fact.

BOGAEV: What kind of information did you draw on to write the book? Did you
do some research?

Mr. JONES: Well, I had about 40 or so books that I was prepared to start
reading in 1992, after I had finished the first book. So, over those years,
before I sat down in 2001 to start writing, I would read a chapter or two of
this book or that book. I never finished any of the books. And by the time I
got to 2001, I had read maybe a hundred and fifty pages. And I had taken
notes on all those pages. And I sat down at that time, 2001, and I'd already
worked out the novel in my head, you know. I just didn't have all those facts
from those books. I had all those people that I'd created, I had this place,
this imaginary place, Manchester County. And so I was just ready to start the
research. I had five weeks of vacation with this day job. And in those few
days after Christmas, I looked at all those books on the shelves, I looked at
the notes that I had, and I knew that I didn't want to tackle any of that
stuff. I knew that what I had created in my head I was ready for. I had
about 12 pages of hard copy of the novel that I had written over the years,
and that was it. So I felt I was ready. I felt I knew enough about the world
of slavery to forge ahead.

BOGAEV: Well, the book follows the stories of many free men and women and
slaves. And in particular it tells parallel stories of two slave owners: the
white master, William Robbins, and a slave and former groom, Henry Townsend.
And Townsend's parents had bought their freedom from Robbins...

Mr. JONES: Yes.

BOGAEV: ...and eventually they bought Henry's freedom also.

Mr. JONES: Right.

BOGAEV: But he chose to follow the path of Robbins and to...

Mr. JONES: Yeah.

BOGAEV: ...buy and maintain slaves of his own. So, what interested you about
setting up these two parallel paths, life paths and these two characters?
One's a mentor and one is a son who betrays his own family.

Mr. JONES: I think that once I got into writing about Henry Townsend, I had
to find some vehicle that would allow the reader to see how he got into being
a slave owner. And William Robbins originally was a very, very minor
character. He didn't have anything to do much beyond, I suppose, the first 50
or 60 pages originally, in my head. And then I began to understand that,
well, Henry had all those years without his father and then, of course,
without his mother. And the main guidance in his life simply was William
Robbins. He was his groom. He got up every morning and waited for his master
to come if his master was away.

And then, as Henry became better and better at making shoes and boots, William
Robbins took him along sometimes. So, in a certain sense, he became his
father. And...

BOGAEV: He didn't have his mother and father in his life because they had
bought their freedom and they were working...

Mr. JONES: Yeah, bought their freedom. Yeah. The were working.

BOGAEV: ...to buy his freedom.

Mr. JONES: Yeah. Exactly. And I know, too, I say, too, that Robbins began
to see what a product he had in Henry Townsend. And he kept upping the price,
so that if Henry's parents had thought that in the second or third year, they
would have their son's freedom, well, it became the fourth or fifth year.

BOGAEV: So, in that...

Mr. JONES: And all that time, of course, William Robbins is guiding him.

BOGAEV: So, in that sense, it's the disintegration of the family that...

Mr. JONES: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

BOGAEV: ...that slavery brought about...

Mr. JONES: Yeah. Yeah.

BOGAEV: ...which engenders this whole world and...

Mr. JONES: Yes. Yeah.

BOGAEV: ...and upholding this institution.

Mr. JONES: Yeah. Yeah. Despite all the parents' work to overcome that.

BOGAEV: It's interesting in that you examine how blacks could enslave other
blacks through a number of different characters. Did your thinking about this
grow or evolve while you were thinking over this period of 10 years about this
imaginary world?

Mr. JONES: Yeah. Huh. I often say now that I wish I had taken notes along
the way, because then maybe I could have sort of had a look at how everything
developed over the years. I think that thinking it all through sort of gave
me a way of knowing how everything was supposed to go, was supposed to turn
out. I don't know. I don't know about the evolution of my thought. I only
know that I sort of went from first line of the first chapter, all the way
through. And so I had worked it all out in my head, you know, by the time I
sat down and did the physical work. And I tried to look for all the pitfalls,
I tried to make sure that all the logic was there. I tried to make sure that
the major characters were fully developed.

And so this took--you know, I couldn't say that, well, in '94 or '95 this is
essentially what I was doing, because it was all those years. I mean,
sometimes I would be on the subway in Washington or something and an idea
would come to me. And I never took notes. I never took notes.

BOGAEV: Why not?

Mr. JONES: I just would sort of file it away, you know. They're in my
brain. And so I worked it all out.

BOGAEV: Why wouldn't you take notes?

Mr. JONES: I don't know. I think there was something about me that said, all
right, you know, you don't have any right to do any writing really until you
read all those books. Now, those 12 pages I mentioned that I had at the end
of the day when I started working--I think that there was times when I really,
really was anxious, you know. The opening lines in the first chapter--I
really wanted to start writing about Moses and I really wanted to talk about
Henry on his deathbed. And so I couldn't hold back.

And the same thing probably happened with those six pages of the final
chapter. I really saw the sheriff get up with this toothache, and I really
wanted to get at it. And I didn't allow myself any more than that, because
those were all the pages I had.

BOGAEV: So you had these two scenes that were burning a hole in your brain,
that you had to get down.

Mr. JONES: Yeah. Well, there were a whole lot more. But, you know, I knew I
couldn't get to them till I got those pages of those books. And I think as
the years went on, there was this distance that grew between me and reading
all those books, you know. And I think that happened as the world of
Manchester County became more and more whole.

BOGAEV: So what finally got you over the fact that you were being held back
by not having read those books?

Mr. JONES: Well, I had five weeks of vacation with the day job that I had.
And, you know, there'd been vacation time before and I probably just put off
reading the books and everything. And so finally that few days after
Christmas of 2001, I said, OK, you have five weeks. You're really, really
going to make, you know, inroads into it. And it was a really quick decision,
knowing that I was never going to read the books and I was never going to go
back to reading the notes of those hundred and fifty pages.

I remember that I first started in writing a story. I had some stories in my
head as well. And then I said, well, no, no, let's just get to the novel. As
it happened, about two weeks into that five-week vacation, they called me from
this day job that I had, that I had had--I was one month shy of being there 19
years. And they called and told me that I didn't have a job anymore.

So I think I was probably 75, 80 pages into the novel by then. So I was going
at a pretty good clip. And I just got up the next day--it was Tuesday when
they called me, and I got up the next day, Wednesday, and did my five pages or
so. And I went on. I think that there was a certain momentum by that time.
And even generally the depression that would have set in if I hadn't been
writing didn't come about, you know. And I think I credit that my decision,
somewhere, something told me to get started for some reason. I didn't know,
of course, I was going to lose my job. But it was a wonderful thing that I
had gotten started because I just plowed on. And by the middle of March, I
had the first draft done.

BOGAEV: Why didn't you feel that you were immersed in your profession as a
writer? Your first book...

Mr. JONES: I think that...

BOGAEV: ...had won a lot of acclaim...

Mr. JONES: Yeah. Yeah.

BOGAEV: ...and had been a National Book Award finalist also.

Mr. JONES: I think--one of the things I'm beginning to realize is--especially
because I've done far more stories than I have novels, of course--is that, you
know, you might at the end of this day write a story that is grand, you know,
wonderful, the greatest thing since Chekhov, since James Joyce, you know, and
the world might tell you that. But tomorrow, Wednesday, you get up and you
start another story--you can't take all of that acclaim and start writing, you
know. You're starting in a certain sense from the bottom of the mountain
again, you know.

So I think one of the things I didn't allow myself to do is just to, you know,
paste all those wonderful notices about "Lost in the City" on the wall and
look at them every day, you know. I put them away because that was "Lost in
the City" and I was going on to something else. So, all the wonderful things
can't help you get up tomorrow morning and write as well as you wrote today,
which is why a lot of people publish a lot of bad books, even after they
publish wonderful books.

BOGAEV: I'm talking with Edward P. Jones. His new novel is "The Known
World." Jones is also the author of a collection of short stories, "Lost in
the City." I want to take a break here, and then we'll get back to our
conversation.

Mr. JONES: OK.

BOGAEV: This is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

BOGAEV: Back with writer Edward P. Jones. His new novel is "The Known
World." Jones' other writing includes "Lost in the City," a collection of
short stories.

So, over 10 years or so, you didn't take any notes. How did you hold on to
all of these characters' stories and their back story and their histories?

Mr. JONES: I don't know myself. I think that one of the things I was able
to do is just--living my life, I just went over stuff over and over again,
all the chapters, from beginning to the end.

BOGAEV: It's so amazing to me you would deny yourself writing something down.

Mr. JONES: I think I felt, well, you know, you can't really say any of this
stuff until you read all the books and everything, you know. I think it was
sort of a way of punishing myself, you know. You're not doing the reading, so
you really can't get the stuff out of your head. And that's how it went, you
know. Just sort of a weird way of doing it.

And I look at it now, you know--when I was sitting here and before we started
speaking, and I was reading a section about the cousin council, and I was
thinking, you know, it wasn't such a bad job, you know. And so, I don't know.
Maybe if I had taken notes and everything, maybe if I had gotten to it in '96
or '95, I wouldn't have what I have now, you know. So maybe all of that
waiting and all that denial produced what I have right now.

BOGAEV: You dedicated this novel to your mother and your brother.

Mr. JONES: Mm-hmm.

BOGAEV: And of your mother, you write, `Who could have done so much more in a
better world?' What were your mother's aspirations and what held her back?

Mr. JONES: Well, I think--what I know about her is that all she could handle
was, you know, caring for her two children and going to work every day. My
mother, she couldn't read or write. So her world, her sky didn't rise very
high.

BOGAEV: What was her background, that she never learned to read or write?

Mr. JONES: Well, she was born in rural Virginia and raised in Virginia and
parts of North Carolina and on a farm. And, of course, in those days, in the
'20s and '30s--because she was born, I think, in something like 1916, you
know. Children were needed for the labor in the fields. And so, of course,
education tended to take a way, way, way backseat. She went, I think, for
maybe one or two grades or something. But she never really learned to read
and write.

BOGAEV: I wonder what that's like...

Mr. JONES: I grew up with her making X's on everything, whenever she signed
something.

BOGAEV: So what was that like for you? Actually, I'm thinking of one of the
short stories in your collection, in "The Lost City."

Mr. JONES: Yeah. That...

BOGAEV: It's about a mother who's registering her daughter for kindergarten.

Mr. JONES: Yeah. Yes.

BOGAEV: And the mother has to ask for help filling out the forms because she
can't read.

Mr. JONES: Yeah.

BOGAEV: It's really poignant because you know that at some point, the
daughter is going to be ashamed of her mother.

Mr. JONES: Yeah. Yeah.

BOGAEV: In fact, you say that in the first sentence, I think, of this story.

Mr. JONES: Yes. Exactly. In the first line. Yes.

BOGAEV: Yeah.

Mr. JONES: `Long before I learned to be ashamed of my mother.' And it's the
only one that's--everything else in the story is in present tense. That's
the only thing that's the past tense.

BOGAEV: And this really is the first step towards the daughter moving towards
that day that she'll be ashamed of her mother.

Mr. JONES: Yeah. Yes, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. There are 14 stories in
"Lost in the City," and that's the only one that's taken from part of my own
life. I do remember my mother and I getting up and going to First Cedent
School(ph), as the girl and her mother do in the story. And then we were told
that's not where we were supposed to go, so we went to Walker Jones. All the
other stuff about waiting for someone to help fill out her card, all of that
is just my making fiction.

BOGAEV: Well, do you remember that moment when you realized, oh, my mother
can't read and write, that you were embarrassed?

Mr. JONES: Yeah. There aren't a lot of situations where--I went to
kindergarten in Catholic school. And there must have been some sort of letter
telling the parents, you know, come pick them up at a certain time. Because,
maybe it was the first week or the second week, I came out after lunch, and
there were a lot of kids there, all the kids were in the playground. And then
everybody disappeared, you know, and the kindergarten was closed. And I was
sitting there, and my mother hadn't come and picked me up. And I think there
must have been some letter saying, you know, when you're supposed to come.
And she hadn't ready the letter because she couldn't read it. And they put me
in the first grade after that. So, for a few months there, I'd gone from
kindergarten to first grade.

But another time I remember when I was about four or five years old. My
brother is severely retarded. And they sent a letter to my mother when we
were living on New York Avenue. And I still have the letter to this day. And
what it was essentially is that the city government was saying that my
brother, being feebleminded--that's the phrase in there--that they was going
to take him and put him in an institution. And my mother had to run around
and find someone. And I can remember standing on those steps after the guy
read it, and she just started crying.

BOGAEV: Where was your father?

Mr. JONES: He sort of disappeared after my sister was born. So he was not
really there. I think he and I--my mother died January 1, '75, and he died in
March of that year. And I was sort of happy that he and I had never really
been close, because I couldn't have taken two deaths like that, so close.
He's buried in the Catholic cemetery in DC. And up until about 20 years ago,
he didn't have a headstone. And I don't know if he has one today, but I'm in
no hurry to give him one.

BOGAEV: What are you writing about now or thinking about writing?

Mr. JONES: I'm writing a collection of a stories and I'm taking, in a lot of
cases, a minor character from a story in "Lost in the City" and building a
story around that person. And the first story in "Lost in the City" is about
a girl with pigeons. And I'm writing about the man who first gave her
pigeons, when he was an infant was discovered hanging from a tree. And the
story is about the woman who found him and about her husband.

BOGAEV: How long have you been thinking about this?

Mr. JONES: A long time. As a matter of fact, when I sat down to do "The
Known World," I first started writing stories in 2001, because that's what
I've been doing for a long time. It was hard to stop and think about
something long term, like a novel.

BOGAEV: Well, Edward P. Jones, it was really interesting and an honor to get
inside your head for this time. Thank you.

Mr. JONES: Thank you for inviting me.

BOGAEV: Edward P. Jones book is "The Known World." I'm Barbara Bogaev and
this is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music; credits)

BOGAEV: Coming up, breathing new life into Hanna-Barbera cartoons. We talk
with Mike Lazzo, co-creator of "Space Ghost Coast to Coast" and the man behind
Cartoon Network's "Adult Swim," a late-night block of animated programming for
grown-ups.

And jazz critic Kevin Whitehead listens to two recent releases from the Art
Ensemble of Chicago.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Interview: Mike Lazzo discusses Cartoon Network's late-night
programming for grown-ups
BARBARA BOGAEV, host:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Barbara Bogaev.

If you've ever been up late at night, unable to sleep, clicking through all
the channels on your TV, you might have caught a glimpse of Wilma Flintstone
on the witness stand or Shaggy and Scooby-Doo being busted for possession, or
a talking milk shake, carton of french fries and a wad of raw meat living in a
suburban New Jersey home. Don't worry; you haven't gone crazy. It's just
Cartoon Network's late-night programming, "Adult Swim." Ted Turner launched
Cartoon Network in 1992 after he bought Hanna-Barbera, the animation factory
that churned out shows such as "Tom and Jerry," "Scooby-Doo," "Huckleberry
Hound," "Yogi Bear," the "Smurfs" and "The Flintstones." In the beginning,
Cartoon Network aired these oldies 24 hours a day, but soon the staff was
itching to create some original productions. The problem was, there was no
money. Mike Lazzo is the senior executive in charge of adult programming
for Cartoon Network. He co-created their first original show, "Space Ghost
Coast to Coast," which went on the air in 1994.

Mr. MIKE LAZZO (Cartoon Network): Hanna-Barbera formed probably the
quintessential TV viewing experience for myself and for the programmers that
I worked with at that time. It was our Saturday mornings that were replaying
every single day. We would sit around and watch these; we soon realized that
there were probably 20 permutations of "Scooby-Doo," just like television
today, if something was popular, they would just make it over and over and
over again in seemingly more ridiculous fashion each time. And so many of
these cartoons weren't exactly gold, but we thought we could have fun with
some of them. And so eventually, that's what we started doing, mainly out of
necessity.

Every afternoon around 3:00 we would get together for a programming meeting,
and this just happened to be around the time we would show action cartoons:
"Space Ghost," early "Birdman," "Dino Boy," "The Fantastic Four." And so
these cartoons would be playing as we were talking about how could we program
to have fun, to do different stunts the audience would enjoy. And it just
seemed like Gary Owens' big Space Ghost voice was always booming out of one
of our offices, which would amuse us. And at the same time, the late-night
wars were going on with Jay Leno and David Letterman. And we said, `You know,
we ought to introduce Gary Owens. We ought to introduce Space Ghost into the
late-night wars,' just as a joke. And somehow that stuck, and we ended up
actually trying to bring that to fruition.

BOGAEV: Now "Space Ghost," for people who don't remember it, the original
cartoon, what was that?

Mr. LAZZO: Well, a very odd cartoon from 1966. You know, the superhero genre
had--they had tried almost everything. And in this particular case, they
decided the superhero would literally--his power would be able to become
invisible, a ghost. And when I was eight years old, when the cartoon came
out, this to me was the most exciting, thrilling action adventure I'd ever
seen. When I was in my early 30s at the Cartoon Network, it was a bit silly,
so to speak.

BOGAEV: Now for listeners who don't know the Cartoon Network version of
"Space Ghost," why don't you explain the high concept?

Mr. LAZZO: Well, we knew that we could go in and re-animate, re-voiceover
any cartoon character in our library. We own those cartoons. So talk shows
were in vogue at the time; we felt like, you know, that would be fairly
inexpensive way to repurpose a character. We had CNN right down the road that
we could use interviews that they had already done, and we could...

BOGAEV: You mean with celebrities.

Mr. LAZZO: That's correct, which in essence we could just splice together.
We could splice together this caped crusader asking these ridiculous questions
of celebrities. And we just thought that was silly enough to be interesting.

BOGAEV: (Laughs) Silly enough to be interesting. What I love...

Mr. LAZZO: At least to ourselves.

BOGAEV: Space Ghost, he wears his whole suit. He's there interviewing--the
animated character is interviewing real celebrities on a video monitor.

Mr. LAZZO: Oh, yes.

BOGAEV: He's got the white muscle suit and the yellow cape and that black
hood. What is that superhero dickey, or what do you call those things that
cover the whole head and neck?

Mr. LAZZO: A cowl.

BOGAEV: The cowl.

Mr. LAZZO: That's right. In superheroism, that would be the cowl. You know,
the interesting thing is, in the earliest days, we couldn't get anybody really
to come on the show. We would call and explain, `Well, we're going to have
you interviewed by Space Ghost, the 1966 cartoon.' And they would say, `No
thanks.' So we rapidly just started going to almost anybody, and we ended up
with what you would call, you know, C-list celebrities. And we found out that
that was actually more fun than dealing with, you know, the five or six agents
and publicists and whoever else to try and get somebody that you might have
heard of on.

BOGAEV: Well...

Mr. LAZZO: I mean, we had people on the show I'd never even heard of.

BOGAEV: Well, let's listen to a clip. Donny Osmond is Space Ghost's guest on
this show.

(Soundbite of "Space Ghost Coast to Coast")

Mr. DONNY OSMOND: How did you get this show? Did you audition for this or
something? I'm kidding. I'll be nice. I'll be kind.

"SPACE GHOST": So, besides those teeth, what superpowers do you have?

Mr. OSMOND: Everybody said I can sing well.

"SPACE GHOST": Do it.

Mr. OSMOND: (Sings a note in operatic style)

"SPACE GHOST": Do you like croutons?

Mr. OSMOND: Nuts?

"SPACE GHOST": Croutons.

Mr. OSMOND: No, no, no. Grapes. They're better.

"SPACE GHOST": Better for idiots. Does Marie eat grapes?

Mr. OSMOND: Why don't you get Marie on the show, let her answer?

"SPACE GHOST": Yeah, why don't we get Marie on the show? Moltar, I want
Marie. Call her agent.

BOGAEV: A clip from the Cartoon Network series "Space Ghost Coast to Coast."

Donny Osmond in this clip, he really seems to know what was going on. How did
you prep him for the interview?

Mr. LAZZO: Well, you can try and prep these guests, but they're really never
quite prepared for a disembodied voice asking them ridiculous question that
have to do with space. They either get it and have a pretty good sense of
humor about it, or they are just baffled.

BOGAEV: Yeah. Space Ghost asks questions like, `Do you have enough oxygen?'
and `What is your secret identity?'

Mr. LAZZO: Some of the videotape which we quite often used, the guest just
looks like a deer caught in headlights. They're just flummoxed by the
approach. And we, of course, milk that for everything it's worth.

BOGAEV: Who are the guests who didn't get it, and how did they react?

Mr. LAZZO: Well, I would have to say at least half of the guests really have
just not gotten it. They've been told by a publicist or an agent, `Hey, it's
a fun little show. Go do it.' Or perhaps, you know, they just for the
experience decided to do it. But I'd say a good half just don't simply
understand what they're in for. Those are always our favorite interviews. I
think Willie Nelson was someone who just stared at us like we had come
directly from Mars. And we've now used his interview three times.

BOGAEV: (Chuckles) So that reaction...

Mr. LAZZO: We keep using it and using it.

BOGAEV: ...staring as if you come from Mars, is what makes "Space Ghost Coast
to Coast"...

Mr. LAZZO: We prefer that.

BOGAEV: ...a success.

Mr. LAZZO: We prefer awkwardness. You know, we're huge television fans, and
we've seen television just be so pat and so edited until there's just no air
to breathe. And what we like to do is break it down and to put in awkwardness
and moments that may make you feel uncomfortable.

BOGAEV: Explain for us the function of Zorak and Moltar on "Space Ghost Coast
to Coast." That's his bandleader and--What?--his director.

Mr. LAZZO: That's correct. Yeah, Zorak is the bandleader just as, you know,
Doc Severinsen for Carson and Paul Shaffer for Letterman. We just took that
to a different level when we said, you know, these bandleaders love and joke
around with the talk show hosts; what if we had a bandleader that just
despised the host? And so Zorak gives us, you know, the tension and the comic
aspect of a bandleader who just simply doesn't like the talk show host.
Moltar--for years we didn't know what to do with Moltar. He just kind of
stood there. In fact, we had a standing bet--I had a five-dollar bill taped
to the wall for any funny Moltar lines. I don't think anybody took the $5
until the third season of that show. But, you know, you need--the comedy rule
of threes; you need three characters at least.

BOGAEV: Zorak is a preying mantis, which you neglected to mention.

Mr. LAZZO: Yes. Yes.

BOGAEV: And Moltar--I don't know what he is. He's kind of a "Star Wars" type
creature.

Mr. LAZZO: Moltar is a lava man. Inside his heat-resistant suit is just
molten lava. And I mean, this is the wonderful, freeing aspect of cartoons.
Your characters can be anything. So you can have a giant mantis, a giant bug,
playing keyboards and a lava man as a television director. And I think that's
just the strength and power of animation. You can go anywhere with it, even
to outer space, to interview celebrities.

BOGAEV: Aren't they being held prisoner by Space Ghost?

Mr. LAZZO: They are, but we think by this time they're just hanging out
'cause they don't have anything else better to do.

BOGAEV: It's become much more congenial season after season.

Mr. LAZZO: Exactly. Well, you know, it's almost a little pathetic. Now
Space Ghost wants to hang out with Zorak 'cause he thinks he's cool, but Zorak
won't have any of it.

BOGAEV: (Chuckles) There's a certain mirroring of reality there.

Mr. LAZZO: Well, I mean, in the last two seasons, they've gone to each
other's apartments. Space Ghost has begged Zorak to let him hang out. And,
you know, over the years it's become a little less, you know, combative. I
don't think Space Ghost has blown Zorak up once in the new season. He just
wants to go hang out with him and go to restaurants. But Zorak, of course,
thinks it would be completely uncool to be seen with Space Ghost. And it
would be.

BOGAEV: Mike Lazzo oversees "Adult Swim," Cartoon Network's block of
late-night programming for grown-ups. We'll talk more after a break. This is
FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

BOGAEV: Back now with Cartoon Network's Mike Lazzo. He co-created "Space
Ghost Coast to Coast" and is the senior executive in charge of "Adult Swim,"
the network's late-night, edgy animated programming for adults.

I want to talk about "Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law." And this is another
of the "Adult Swim" offerings. It features an obscure Hanna-Barbera superhero
from the '60s, Birdman, and he was a masked crusader with white wings. But
now he wears a suit and he's a token superhero/lawyer, superhero-slash-lawyer,
who defends cartoon characters like Fred Flintstone and Scooby-Doo in court.
It's kind of like a Looney Tunes "Law & Order." Was that the concept?

Mr. LAZZO: Well, yes. "Perry Mason," I think, was the first thing we all
said. You know...

BOGAEV: Perry Mason with wings.

Mr. LAZZO: Perry Mason with wings, correct. You know, Birdman was out at the
exact same time as Space Ghost. They were kind of equal, so to speak; Birdman
perhaps a little more pathetic with the wings and getting the power from the
sun. But they both were Hanna-Barbera superheroes in the mid-'60s, and after
"Space Ghost" had done well for the network, I mean, why not a lawyer? We had
reached a place at the network where, you know, these characters were real to
us. If Space Ghost could be a talk show host, then certainly cartoon
characters perhaps needed legal representation. And what better for that than
someone with wings?

BOGAEV: Well, let's play a clip from "Harvey Birdman." This is from the
episode called "Dabba Don," and it's a parody of "The Sopranos" starring
Fred Flintstone as a mob don. I've got to say, it opens with a hilarious mock
"Sopranos" theme song sequence. You want to say anything about the making of
this episode before we air the clip?

Mr. LAZZO: Well, it was actually quite a struggle because, you know, "The
Sopranos" was very popular; still is, obviously. And to take such a serious
show and turn it into a cartoon--you know, "The Sopranos" is HBO, and HBO is
part of Time Warner, so we had some questions to answer when that episode was
produced. But they...

BOGAEV: Like what?

Mr. LAZZO: Well, you know, they were concerned that we would make too much
light of a serious show, and whether or not it was appropriate to parody it in
cartoon form. But once they saw the episode, they said, `This is wonderful.
By all means, finish producing this episode.' So they were big supporters.
But, you know, it was a property that was, you know, still on the air, and
some people don't like what we do with reality and unreality. But in this
case, they loved it.

BOGAEV: So they didn't have any problem with you transposing the Bada Bing
into the Dabba Doo strip club.

Mr. LAZZO: No, actually, they laughed as we did. I mean, the open of that
show was so wonderful, how could you not like "The Sopranos" more after you
had seen that? And you know, there's all kind of things going on there. I
think my favorite moment is when Quickdraw's head is in the bed, which is
straight out of "Godfather." So there were a lot of influences that informed
that show and all of these shows.

BOGAEV: Let's listen to a clip. In this scene, Harvey Birdman, attorney at
law, is cross-examining Fred Flintstone, who's on trial for crimes committed
as a mob boss.

(Soundbite of "Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law")

"Mr. FRED FLINTSTONE": I'm just a regular working guy.

"Mr. HARVEY BIRDMAN": What do you do?

"Mr. FLINTSTONE": Building materials. Stone, gravel, cement, that kind of
thing.

"Mr. BIRDMAN": Well, your wife--(chuckles)--your wife thinks you're into
organized crime with the money and jewels and the beautiful stone furniture.

"Mr. FLINTSTONE": My wife--heh, what's she know? She knows nothing about the
business, nothing!

"Mr. BIRDMAN": All right. Well, I think that about covers it.

"Mr. FLINTSTONE": She's supposed to be in the kitchen all day. You see shoes
on her? No!

"Mr. BIRDMAN": That's fine.

"Mr. FLINTSTONE": What's a wife know about the things we men do, huh?

"Mr. BIRDMAN": Nothing further.

"Mr. FLINTSTONE": Enough with the wife! Givin' me agita.

Mr. LAZZO: Yeah. Actually, I think this episode has my favorite line in it,
which is `Your dead to me, can opener!' when he's yelling at the bird.

BOGAEV: Yeah, I love that. The bird rats on Fred all over the place.

Mr. LAZZO: Yeah, it's just the greatest thing. I mean, that's--another
thing, you know, you watch "The Flintstones," you always love the inventions.
And now here is a new context in which you're seeing that. And you're
bringing this hit show, "The Sopranos," into that context. I just think it's
a great crashing of worlds.

BOGAEV: I have to ask you about "Sealab 2021," and this is a parody of a show
that I remember, "Sealab 2020." And that really rivaled "Scooby-Doo," I
thought, in the '70s for the worst thing on television.

(Soundbite of laughter)

BOGAEV: I mean, whole minutes would go by and not a single character would
move. What was the story with animation in that decade? Some of it was such
schlock.

Mr. LAZZO: Well, it's very true. You know, there are so many shows in which
animation--there is no animation. They just stand there. But you know, at
that time, in the '60s and '70s, you know, animation was such a machine. The
networks needed new shows every fall and they didn't much care what they were.
`Just give us five of them now.' So any show would just be kind of machined
out of the studio, and the budgets were obviously quite small on these.

"Sealab" happened to be one of those--"Sealab 2020," which is set in the
future, but remarkably felt like, to us, it had been set 30 years in the past.
You know, people living under sea? Oh, my golly! How futuristic! So the
producers came to us and they said, `This is about the dumbest thing we've
ever seen. We would love to repurpose it, and we think it'll cost about $20
to do that since there's no animation that actually moves in the show.' And
we said, `Sounds great.'

BOGAEV: You make some of these cartoons--all of them, really, on such a
shoestring budget. How does that influence how you produce them, and is it a
case of necessity is the mother of invention? Is it freeing in a way?

Mr. LAZZO: Well, yes, I believe not having very much in the way of resources
is freeing. In the earliest days with "Space Ghost," we simply didn't have a
choice. We had very little money to make new programming, and that's
obviously reflected in the production. But we...

BOGAEV: Did that come down from Ted Turner himself?

Mr. LAZZO: Yes, it did.

BOGAEV: Did he say, `Look, boys...'

Mr. LAZZO: In fact...

BOGAEV: Uh-huh.

Mr. LAZZO: Well, we actually went to Ted a year after the network started,
and we said, `Can we have new money to make new programming because we're
tired of being labeled as a Hanna-Barbera rerun channel?' And he said, `Get
out of my office. You have all you need for a while. Start making some money
then I'll give you some money.'

BOGAEV: He sounds like a dad.

Mr. LAZZO: Yeah. It was very much what you would hear from a parent. And so
we kind of went back with our tail between our legs and said, `You know, we
can do things inexpensively if we think about them.' And so "Space Ghost"
literally came out of two half-inch machines, an old cartoon and a CNN
interview. I mean, we made a pilot for that show in 30 minutes for the cost
of a RadioShack microphone.

But we discovered something in the process, and what that was, was that if you
had very limited resources, very often you had to be very creative and look at
things in a new light. And we thought that was more interesting in many ways
than just throwing a lot of money at a situation. And to this day, even
though we have far more resources, we're informed by that philosophy. We
think it's a good one.

BOGAEV: Mike Lazzo is the senior vice president responsible for Cartoon
Network's "Adult Swim" and co-creator of the animated series "Space Ghost
Coast to Coast." A DVD of the first few seasons of "Space Ghost Coast to
Coast" will be in stores next week.

Coming up, two new CDs by the Art Ensemble of Chicago. This is FRESH AIR.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Review: Two new CDs by the Art Ensemble of Chicago
BARBARA BOGAEV, host:

Thirty years ago, the Art Ensemble of Chicago was one of the groups that shook
up modern jazz with its blatant Afro-centrism, marchy anthems and new
improvising strategies. The quintet's lineup was stable for 23 years until
saxophonist Joseph Jarman quit in 1993. Then trumpeter Lester Bowie died in
1999, reducing the band to the trio of Roscoe Mitchell on reeds, bassist
Malachi Favors and drummer Don Moye.

The Art Ensemble has two new CDs out. Jazz critic Kevin Whitehead says
neither is great, but one is better.

(Soundbite of music)

KEVIN WHITEHEAD reporting:

Back in the 1960s, when free jazz in New York was often about playing long,
loud and frantic, Chicago's new wave came up with an alternative so radical it
was like pushing the reset button. The Art Ensemble in particular fostered a
style of quiet and spacious improvising with a mysterioso atmosphere. Using
flutes, small percussion and noisy toys, they could suggest, say, the ritual
purification of a performance space, the innocence of childhood and sardonic
commentary on either notion. It was an amazing feat of ensemble tone.

(Soundbite of music)

WHITEHEAD: That was just one thing they did well. But starting in the 1980s,
the Art Ensemble's records began to dip in quality till they seemed more about
the deal than the music. On a meeting with pianist Cecil Taylor, they circled
each other like wary boxing promoters. As the band recorded and toured less
and brought fewer good tunes to the table, the quiet pieces and long African
percussion jams started sounding like time fillers. Their two new CDs have
more filler than cafeteria meat loaf.

(Soundbite of music)

WHITEHEAD: This music comes from the Art Ensemble of Chicago's "The Meeting"
on Pi Records, which I give the edge over their other new CD, "Tribute to
Lester," recorded earlier for ECM. That one is for the bare bones trio the
band had shrunk to after Lester Bowie died. "The Meeting" brings back to the
fold Joseph Jarman and his arsenal of wind instruments making the quartet
sound almost like the real deal. There was always good creative tension
between Rosco Mitchell's tense and angular saxophone's and Jarman's looser,
bluesier style. He defers to Mitchell a bit too much but Jarman did bring one
rousing tune, "Hail, We Now Sing Joy."

(Soundbite of "Hail, We Now Sing Joy")

WHITEHEAD: Comparing the two new Art Ensemble records, "The Meeting" has the
better atmospheric music, the better filler, if you will, and the catchiest
number on either disk. Rosco Mitchell's "Tech Ritter and the Megabytes,"
it sound like Mitchell recorded the bass saxophone line first, then picked up
his alto to spar with Joseph Jarman on top. I like how drummer, Don Moye,
crosses a hip-hop beat with a jazz shuffle.

(Soundbite of "Tech Ritter and the Megabytes")

WHITEHEAD: I wish there were more gleeful music like that on either new Art
Ensemble of Chicago CD. It's obvious the ensemble is more a business than
musical enterprise at this point. Rosco Mitchell, now the band's dominant
figure, sounds more committed to other groups he leads these days. But then,
Lester Bowie once said, "Established musicians can always find work, even in
decline, because people will pay to see what you've deteriorated to.' So
maybe Lester would have wanted it this way.

(Soundbite of music)

BOGAEV: Kevin Whitehead writes for the Chicago Sun-Times, the Absolute
Sound and Down Beat. For Terry Gross, I'm Barbara Bogaev.
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