Kyle Carrozza

Kyle Adam Carrozza is an American animator, cartoonist, storyboard artist, musician, songwriter, composer, character designer, comedian, writer and voice artist who is the creator of the recently aired animated series Mighty Magiswords on Cartoon Network, billed as the network's first online digital series. Prior to Magiswords, he was also the creator of MooBeard the Cow Pirate; an animated short from Nickelodeon's Random! Cartoons.

Besides animating and cartoonist, Kyle is also an accordionist and singer in which he performs songs such as "I Like Pie" under the name "TV's Kyle" in The FuMP.

Early life

Kyle Carrozza was born in Catskill, New York.^[1] As a little kid, Kyle was influenced by many cartoon shows on television, mostly Bob Clampett's Looney Tunes. Most of the cartoons he watched were inspirations for his own drawing style. Shows such as Beany and Cecil and Garfield helped influence his drawings. He also got into anime in 1996 while he was at high school and particularly enjoyed watching Ranma 1/2 and Project A-ko. Several of his animation influences were from Bob Clampett, Bruce Timm, Doug TenNapel, Jhonen Vasquez, Tex Avery, Ralph Bakshi and numerous others.^[2]

During his summer times when he was a teenager, he attended several drawing classes titled "Center for Character Animation" where he studied under famous cartoonist Brian Mitchell. Mitchell taught him most of the things he never got at school. He graduated from Catskill High School in 1997 and in the Art Institute of Philadelphia in 1999.^[3]

Career

Animaniacs

During his senior year in high school in 1997, he was invited to visit StarToons; a defunct-animation studio in Chicago, Illinois and met the studio owner Jon McClenahan who criticized his drawing work online when he sent him fan letters (along with Ren & Stimpy creator, John Kricfalusi). He worked on the famous Warner Bros. series Animaniacs in StarToons doing some cleanups and in-betweens for the Slappy Squirrel cartoon, Bully for Skippy, for two days. The work on Animaniacs helped his animation and cartoon ability grow. He was offered a full-time job but passed it down because he already accepted a full tuition scholarship to the Art Institute of Philadelphia.^[4]

Recently in an interview, Jon McClenahan stated that Kyle's work for the show was possibly re-done, which may be the reason why he wasn't credited.^[5]

Funnybone Interactive

After graduating from the Art Institute in 1999, the college send his portfolio to the defunct CD-rom studio Funnybone Interactive in Canton, CT.^[6] He worked as a character designer, 2D animator and voice actor in the studio. He worked on proposed CD Roms never made and mostly worked on the JumpStart CD Roms. He was dismissed in 2001 as the company decided to drop 2D graphics in order to favor completely 3D games. He moved back with his parents' place because of that.^[7]

Fantasimation, Inc.

During his time in Funnybone, Kyle did some animation for a cartoon short called "Da Heist" for the American animation studio, Fantasimation Inc. located in Levittown, New York^[8][9][10] He also storyboarded the opening sequence for the non-licensed children's concept, Kappie the Kangaroo, at the same studio.^[11][12]

Kyle's hiring may be due to the fact that Brian Mitchell, who Kyle studied over the summer, was the owner of the studio.^[13] However, Brian Mitchell stated that since Mitchell left the studio around the time, he never saw Kyle at the studio but remembered that Kyle was working at Funnybone at the time the projects were in production.^[14]

Nickelodeon / MooBeard

Kyle did not have much luck until in 2005 where he pitched "MooBeard the Cow Pirate" to Nickelodeon and Frederator Studios for their then-upcoming series, Random! Cartoons.^[15][16] One of his friends, who was a crew member on My Life as a Teenage Robot told him about the fourth season of Oh Yeah! Cartoons needing new shorts. After several storyboards, he got the greenlit. He did the final storyboards, key poses, character designs, voice direction and provided the voices of "Ungus the Unpleasant" and the "Cow Eating Gentleman".^[17] Since this was his first TV job, he gave the directing position to Jeff DeGrandis who not only was pitching his own short "The Finster Finster Show" but also directed The Shnookums and Meat Funny Cartoon Show on Disney which was his favorite as a kid and influenced his style.^[18] The short finally aired on Nicktoons Network on December 6, 2008.

During Moobeard, he did some storyboard revisions for Catscratch, a series on Nickelodeon created by one of his favorite and inspirational artists Doug TenNapel who was also working on two Random! Cartoons shorts "Solomon Fix" (done in computer animation) and "Squirly Town" (done in traditional). After Moobeard, Kyle later did some storyboards for the second season of Fanboy & Chum Chum, another series from Random! Cartoons. He also did the character design for Metalhead in the Nickelodeon Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series. His final work with Nickelodeon was as a storyboard artist for The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water before leaving for Cartoon Network.

Disney

He did some storyboards for two Disney television series: Fish Hooks and Doc McStuffins as well as additional Flash animation for Doc McStuffins.

Comedy Central

He did a short in Flash animation called "Ralphy Panda in Half Baked Ditz" which premiered in Comedy Channel's Atom TV shorts block.^[19]

PBS

He storyboarded several episodes of Danger Rangers in PBS.

Cartoon Hangover

He returned to Frederator Studios for a short period in which he did storyboard revisions for the Bravest Warriors episode "Catbug".

Cartoon Network

Mighty Magiswords

Kyle's new animated series Mighty Magiswords finally premiered on Cartoon Network Video and Cartoon Network Anything on May 6, 2015.^[20] Kyle also provides the leading voice of Prohyas in the show and does the voice of the announcer who says all the magiswords names in the show, as well as numerous other voices. This show also stars Grey DeLisle as Vambre, Princess Zange and other voices. The series was billed as the network's first original web series. He created the characters in high school in 1996 and pitched it between 2005–2007 under two different titles; "Legendary Warriors for Hire" and a matured-adult concept called "Dungeons and Dayjobs" until Cartoon Network picked it up. 15-micro shorts have been created for the CN Anything app in which the players have to decide which Magiswords the Warriors choose to continue the next scene.

On June 13, 2016, it has been confirmed that the series is picked up for a full-fledged TV series, which premiered September 29, 2016 on Cartoon Network in the United States.

10 3-minute shorts premiered throughout 2015 and currently, 5-minute shorts, which bear the same continuity as the TV series, are premiering. Character vlogs, which involve the characters on the show communicating to the audience in a vlog-style, are also premiering as well. Since the series was greenlit to a TV series, more designers and artists are on board in the show. His wife, Lindsay Smith, is a character designer on the show and provides the voice of the characters Witchy Simone and Lady Hiss, among additional characters. Famous comedy musician Luke Ski who is a co-host on his and Kyle's podcast "Kyle and Luke Talk About Toons", also works on the show as a storyboard revisionist, writer and voice-over actor, providing the voice of recurring character, Skullivan. The majority of the TV series episodes are written by Mr. Lawrence, who provides the voice of Ralphio on the show. Animation director and storyboard artist, Ken Mitchroney, serves as the supervising producer of the series as well as providing additional voices. David Baron, an artist on Tumblr and deviantArt who collaborated with Kyle on his webcomic "Frog Raccoon Strawberry", does some character designs for the show. The series also gained a cult following due to the involvement of Danny Sexbang, who provided the lead vocals of the theme song alongside Kyle and Arin Hanson who frequently voices the character, Gateaux on the show.

Cartoon Network has reported that 400 pieces of original content will be released including interactive shorts, games and interactive narratives.

Music

His music was inspired by famous artists Weird Al Yankovic and Dr. Demento. In 1990, Kyle discovered They Might Be Giants. Their unique style made Kyle want to start recording his own music. He was inspired by Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?. The show featured a group called "Rockapella" who performed rock songs using only their voices. Kyle got a stereo out and began recording some simple a capella musical pieces adding two more "tracks" by playing another stereo while recording.^[21]

Gradually, Kyle taught himself how to play the piano just enough to play the musical ideas floating around in his head. A few keyboards and an accordion later, Kyle was all set to record. Using a stereo with two tape decks (and later a karaeoke machine), he recorded his weird little songs from high school through college.

When he was 16 in high school, one of his songs "Bob from Accounting" was played in Dr. Demento's show. He even got to perform live portraying Bob in said song with musicians Conehead Buddha. In 1999, He developed his first ever CD; "You Know What? No!" on mp3.com which is featured in his album "Pencil Test" as well as an updated album "Why Fiddely?" which was made after he gained a computer for his 21st birthday.^[22]

He is now currently recording his own solo songs for The FuMP and his own Bandcamp website as well as making occasional live performances and collaborations with other FuMP members.

Other works

While working at Funnybone, he started his comic book series Clare's Stupid Life for Antarctic Press. It has since gone on to become a 6-part series for Radio Comix's long-running comic anthology Furrlough. Clare was recently voted the ninth most popular comic feature in FURRLOUGH'S 140+ issue history.^[23] He also did some work on the comic series, Ninja High School for the same company. He also did a comic titled Frog Raccoon Strawberry on Dumm Comics from 2008 up to 2014 because he and his animator friend, John Berry, were too busy on production with Magiswords. He also did graphic drawings and designs for Kee Kee Koki; a Spanish comic created by Looney Tunes artist and cartoon director, Dave Alvarez. He even created some characters for the comic series and even original designs. He also worked on the ABCmouse.com website for a year. He is also a freelance artist at the time, offering services to many clients and some graphic designs for some artists.

Voice roles

References

External links

• Official website
• TV's Kyle's Bandcamp site
• Kyle's FuMP page
• TV's Kyle on Tumblr
• TV's Kyle at the Internet Movie Database