Say it IG-NOH-RAY-MOOSES!
By 1997 Harry and I were knee deep in Cartoon Heaven making cartoons and having the time of our lives. What A Cartoon program still had a few empty slots available and Harry and I pitched cartoons as quickly as I could storyboard them. The next idea we sold was about two argumentative southern gentlemen mooses named Sherwood, a wiry red moose and Pomeroy, the laid back green moose.
They were polite enough but intent on getting their way. Most arguing developed into one upping the other which always ended in head-butting.
My favorite line from it is:
“Now ya’ll KNOW mah darkness is darker than yours!”
Below is the original storyboard for The Ignoramooses.
The Ignoramooses seemed to be a great idea. We pitched it to all the other directors at Hanna Barbera including Butch Hartman, Van Partible, Seth McFarlane, Craig McCracken, Eddie Fitzgerald and even the famous Genndy Tartakovsky. They all laughed at us acting like idiots and doing the voices. Everyone clapped us on the backs and told us we had a sure hit.
I remember Eddie telling us that we needed to do the voices ourselves or it wouldn’t be funny. We didn’t. I still think it was funny though but I often wonder if it would have been better with our voices instead of Dee Baker as Pomeroy and Tom Kenny as Sherwood.
Ultimately, I think Ignoramooses had two great characters that we just didn’t execute a good enough story for. I also think Disney possibly borrowed the idea from us in Brother Bear but who could prove it? This being the second time I had ever directed, I was getting better but still had a bit of a way to go. I storyboarded, key-animated, slugged, Timed, designed and almost voiced all of the scenes in this film and Harry did all of the backgrounds did props and color design, did the animatic as well as co-wrote it.