LuminoMagazine.com - King of the Hill's Mike Guerena

King of the Hill's Mike Guerena

Written by H. L. S. DUNCAN

Saturday, 02 April 2005

Lumino's recent "Simpsons" issue left us wanting to know more about the people behind America’s animated families. So in the name of investigative journalism, I tracked down a good friend of Hank Hill of Arlen, Texas, to talk about cartoons, animation, Gwen Stefani and Swingline staplers.

Mike Guerena works on “King of the Hill” and lives in Los Angeles.

What was your favorite cartoon as a kid?

I grew up on Saturday morning cartoons, just like the rest of the kids in the neighborhood – ‘Bugs Bunny’, ‘Courageous Cat’, ‘Speed Racer’...That kind of thing.

I remember one day sitting in my pajamas watching ‘Wacky Races’ or something, and my Dad walked by and smacked me on the head with a rolled up newspaper, "Why do you watch that crap? That's not animation!" That week he took me to an animation festival at the downtown library and introduced me to what he considered true animation – Max Fleischer. I remember watching ‘Gertie the Dinosaur’ that night, and ‘Popeye the Sailor vs. Sinbad’. I was pretty blown away. As we walked out to the parking lot, my Dad smacked me over the head with the festival program and said, "Now that's animation". And he, as usual, was right. I mean, there's a real charm, at least to me, in cartoons like ‘Tennessee Tuxedo’ and ‘Magilla Gorilla’, but once you've seen the three dimensional sets and the amazing rotoscope stuff abounding in the Fleischer cartoons, everything else seems to pale.

Who – or what – was on your lunchbox?

If you really need to know, it was Star Trek – and it was a very bitter, sad memory. I remember distinctly dropping the thermos on the asphalt at lunchtime because some girl I liked got too close and I got nervous. It wasn't just a thermos shattering event, it was soulshattering...so sad, so depressing…Thank you for reminding me of one of the saddest moments in my life. Now I hear the sound of broken glass every time I see a beautiful girl.

Favorite book as a kid?

My Uncle Lou was in Vietnam, and he somehow got hold of a book that was beautifully illustrated with pictures of plundering, rampaging pirates. I remember a lot of blood, and booty and villages burning…very graphic… Chinese pirates with knives in their teeth and a full-sized painting of a man being hauled around the keel...I loved that book. I remember trying to read it, but I was way too young, so I made the stories up. This is where my love of fires and plundering stemmed from. Nothing quite like a lot of red on black…

I also loved a book my father bought me once, a Windsor McKay illustrated edition of ‘Little Nemo in Slumberland’. I read that book until it fell apart. That was the only book that I ever recall studying.

What exactly is your position on KOTH – and how long have you been with it?

My official job title is "Digital Color Stylist", which means I color anything and everything that moves on the show. I take the designs that were approved by Fox and scan them onto my computer, clean them up, and color them on Adobe Photoshop. Then after another approval process, they're sent to Korea where the studios over there have to do all of the dirty work.

I've been doing color for about 12 years now, and have worked at pretty much every studio here in L.A. during that time. I've been on ‘King of the Hill’ for 4 seasons, which has been a pretty good run. Before that I did backgrounds for ‘Jackie Chan Adventures’, worked on ‘Jumanji’, ‘Godzilla’, ‘Men in Black’, ‘Spongebob’, and a ton of other cartoons that I try not to remember for various reasons…

How did you get into animation?

It started when I was but a wee tyke. My dad spent most of his free time beating it into my skull: "Son, this is Carl Stalling. Shut up, sit down and just listen"..."Tex Avery is a genius, and here's why...." All throughout my early years he must've said, "Someday you'll be working for Disney" about 47,000 times... He sat down and patiently taught me what was good, and what sucked.

I made flip books when I was a kid, about karate people knocking people's heads off, and haunted graveyards, just because I wanted to do something that moved. I'd show them to my Dad and he'd say, "Someday you'll be working for Disney."

I worked extremely hard on my art, and pursued my animation goals at an almost desperate level. After I graduated from Columbine High, where the mass killings took place, I hitchhiked back to California and was on my own at an early age. I could never afford college, and spent some time in juvenile hall for stealing drawing paper and a pencil. But after a lot of persistence and the echo of my father’s words in my head pushing me forwards, I finally did become an animator. My first show I worked on was a cartoon called ‘Duckman’ at Klasky-Csupo. Soon after that I was called over to Disney to work on a series called, "Nightmare Ned" The first paycheck I ever got from there I sent to my dad. In my entire life I'd never heard him cry, until then.

Do you think the CGI trend will ever completely subsume traditional animation – in the feature length and television length categories?

To me, it doesn't matter – there is no such thing as traditional animation anymore, and there hasn't been for a really long time. We've gone back to Saturday morning generic crap, but this time without Max Fleischer and Disney to take the reins and remind the public that it is an actual art, and has nothing to do with the commercial chaos involved with brain-dead mush that’s around right now.

Why oh why did they do a ‘Rugrats Grown Up’ cartoon?

I wasn't aware of it, thank god... Actually that studio gave me my first break. I was living in Denver at the time. I was fed up with my situation and felt like I was losing grasp on the one major goal I had had since I was little – to become an animator. So I drove out to L.A. with only a box of original artwork, no resume, and raggedy clothes. I spent a week getting shut down by every studio in town until my final day I went into Klasky-Csupo Studios. The receptionist almost immediately shot me down and told me there was nothing available. As I was walking past the parking lot out back, the smokers were out in a little pack and I went over and joined them. I asked a few pertinent questions, such as "Who is your producer?" and "What are you guys working on at the moment?"

As soon as they were finished, they re-entered the building through the back, and I followed. I found the producer’s office and lied and told his secretary that I had an appointment, but that I was a little early. After a few minutes he invited me into his office.

"So, what'cha got?"

As he flipped though my stuff, his only two comments were..."There's not enough boobs", and "Go see Margot in Human Resources".

I thanked him, and went down to see Margot. I told her that the producer said that I could have a job, and that I needed to fill some papers out. She asked me what position I was applying for and all I could think of was "Storyboard."

"Sorry, but there aren't any available slots in storyboard, but we've got something in color."

She offered me three times as much money that I was making back in Denver. I almost had a heart attack. That weekend I drove my shitty Chevy back over the Rocky Mountains, grabbed my family, and finally started my career.

If you were going to write yourself/your friends into a storyline, who would you be and what would happen?

Easy...I'd be Luanne’s boyfriend and spend the entire show in a trailer with her, ummm teaching her math…

Either that or I'd have Boomhauer give me a ride in his hot rod. Hell, I've spent enough time making it look beautiful, might as well go for a ride in it.

Best celebrity cameo so far?

I was never into the band No Doubt, but they were on our show once. I talked to Gwen Stefani over breakfast once about her hair color and clothes and so on, and all I remember is seeing her lips moving and falling into this dream world of fuzzy beauty. She will always go down in history as the most beautiful woman I've ever spoken with. Her boyfriend had to snap his fingers to get me out of my trance. It was embarrassing. Another one was when I had the character designers put my girlfriend Missy on the show, and she ended up in a yoga class with Johnny Depp as her teacher.

Gwen Stefani.....good god...

Do you guys have Swingline staplers in the office?

À la “Office Space”? It is kind of cool having Mike Judge as my boss. Or I should say Hank Hill is my boss… no, wait – Butthead… pretty cool. At one point I had both Butthead and Jackie Chan as my two exec producers – awesome…

Photos courtesy of Fox

Comments

That guy obviously rules..
Written by Guest on 2007-02-08 18:28:35