Butch Hartman

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Elmer Earl "Butch" Hartman IV (Born January 10, 1965, Highland Park, Michigan) is an American animator, creator of The Fairly OddParents and Danny Phantom.

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[edit] Childhood

Hartman was born in Highland Park, Michigan to Elmer Earl Hartman III and Carol Davis. He received the nickname "Butch" as a youth and continues to use the name professionally as an adult. Hartman spent his childhood in Roseville, Michigan and his teen years in New Baltimore, Michigan.

He graduated from Anchor Bay High School in New Baltimore in 1983. He subsequently attended the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, California.

[edit] Early career

While still attending the California Institute of the Arts, Hartman received the chance to intern as an in-between animator on the Don Bluth film, "An American Tail". Shortly after graduating for the California Institute of the Arts Hartman was hired as a character designer for the animated series "My Little Pony". Instead, they had him working on storyboards (which he hadn't done before) and as quickly as he was hired, he was fired.

Soon after Hartman found work with Ruby Slash, where he worked on "Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog", "Captain N: The Game Master" and "Gadget Boy".

He was also a video reference crew for the Disney movie, Pocahontas. Later, he became a writer, television director and storyboard artist for several Hanna-Barbera shows, including Dexter's Laboratory, Cow and Chicken, and Johnny Bravo.

After his contract with Hanna-Barbera finished up he went to work with former co-worker Fred Seibert on the Oh Yeah! Cartoons show.

He's also a friend of Seth MacFarlane and worked on MacFarlane's animated short "Zoomates" and "Dan Danger" with Steve Marmel. MacFarlane also has a character on Family Guy named after Hartman named Dr. Hartman.

[edit] The Fairly OddParents and Danny Phantom

His biggest success came in 1997, when he created The Fairly OddParents. (The idea came to him during the drive from Hanna-Barbera to Nickelodeon to pitch an idea to Fred Seibert.) It was originally a series of made for TV shorts on the anthology show, Oh Yeah! Cartoons. In 2001, Nickelodeon picked it up as a full series. The Fairly OddParents became a huge hit, second only in the ratings to SpongeBob SquarePants. Due to the success of "OddParents", Hartman was asked to create another cartoon for Nickelodeon, (Hartman says the President of Nickelodeon asked him if he had an idea, and before he could say the title he was given a contract.) Danny Phantom, in 2004. The Fairly OddParents ceased production in 2006, but it was announced on Hartman's website on February 2, 2007 that 20 more episodes will be produced. On July 11, 2007, The first new episode of Danny Phantom was aired on the Nicktoons Network. Danny Phantom ended production on August 24, 2007. The 7th Season of The Fairly OddParents aired on February 18, 2008, starting with the 1-hour special Fairly Odd Baby.

[edit] Doogal

Hartman was asked to serve as executive producer and screenwriter of Doogal, the Americanized dub of the Franco-British animated film The Magic Roundabout. Seeing that the movie itself was lacking, Hartman proposed that in addition to dubbing, extra scenes be filmed in live action to fill up empty spaces in the story. While the idea was originally received with praise and was essentially given the okay, budgeting was pulled from it at the last minute and the only changes made were in the dubbing.

The film was then dubbed by The Weinstein Company, and was released on February 24, 2006. However, Doogal was poorly received by critics, and did poorly in the box-office, grossing only $7 million dollars and getting 5% on Rotten Tomatoes.

[edit] Other and future works

Hartman is currently working on two new projects for Nickelodeon: one, a live-action series and the other, animated. It has also been stated that 20 more episodes of The Fairly OddParents are currently under production and if possible, he may decide to go ahead and work on a theatrical feature film The Fairly OddParents Movie as well.

His other TV work include voicing various characters on the animated series Family Guy (the series' creator Seth MacFarlane even named the wacky family doctor Hartman after him), and playing the character Sean Masters on the short-lived series Generations in 1991. He was also a recurring character on the popular NBC soap opera Days of Our Lives (1988 - 1989; see [1]).

Hartman currently lives in Bell Canyon, California, with his wife, Julieann, and daughters, Carly and Sophia.

[edit] FOP looks of other Nicktoons and Shows

On an edition of Nick Magazine, Butch Hartman posted FOP looks of Nicktoons and other Nick Shows such as Zoey 101, SpongeBob SquarePants, Rugrats, Drake and Josh, Avatar the Last Airbender.

[edit] External links