“Create to Relate” article
Our copy of Emmy Magazine arrived today! We were interviewed a few months ago for this.
Article by Craig Tomashoff:
It’s just kids’ TV. How hard can it be?
it’s not child’s play, as anyone in the business can attest. Making shows that entertain and educate youngsters – without annoying parents – is a tricky business, indeed. These eight creators, among the hottest in the business, have backgrounds and interests as varied as their hit programs. What’s the common thread? They all remember what it feels like to be a kid, and a few have even refused to grow up.
EDDIE MORT and LILI CHIN – ¡Mucha Lucha!
Eddie Mort and Lili Chin know all too well what people are thinking.
Oh no! Not another cartoon show about masked Mexican wrestler-superheros airing in the U.S. and created by Australians!
“I’m sure to most people, it’s like, ‘Where did this come from?’” says Mort. “Whenever we tell people about the show, we have a lot of explaining to do”.
Adds Chin: “It was certainly strange pitching Mucha Lucha. It’s true that we are two animators in Australia pitching ideas to US executives about wrestlers in Mexico. But honestly our characters are just a base for going into other fantasy stories.”
Their Kids WB! show follows the adventures of Rikochet, Buena Girl and The Flea, three young fans who hope to become great masked wrestlers in a world where masked wrestling is a way of life. As bizarre as the characters may seem, they are based on the strange-but-true tradition of Mexican wrestling.
“We sought that world out and got sucked right into it”, says Mort, a native of Manchester, England, who was raised in Melbourne and now lives in Sydney with Chin, his personal and professional partner.”We traveled to Mexico and found old videotapes of masked wrestlers, and we couldn’t get enough of it”.
“It was totally wacky, and so colorful – we were immediately interested in making it a kids’ thing,” adds Chin, who was born in Malaysia. “Something like this had never been done before. Wrestling is usually associated with teen boys and older. But the costumes and acrobats are so much fun, we felt younger kids would enjoy it”.
Growing up, Mort used to draw wrestlers in his notebook and get in trouble for it. He never realized he could get paid for it, but after teaming up with Chin in art school, the duo began to establish themselves as leaders in Australia’s small animation community.
“He’s more of the idea person and I’m more of the artist” says Chin. They continue to work in their home country while selling their work abroad, which they insist is the best of all possible worlds for anyone in the kids’ TV business.
“Maybe because we’re not in America, when we come across a cultural phenomenon like Mexican wrestling, we can see the possibilities from a different perspective,” Chin says.
Adds Mort: “We are far away from everything. We have to travel, but we’re very open to that. And because of that, I think we’re more open-minded. Just because we’re from Australia doesn’t mean we’re limited to stories about kangaroos”.
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Hate to be a party pooper, but there are a couple of misquotes – we didn’t ”team up at art school”; we didn’t find old wrestling videotapes in Mexico (we did travel to Mexico, but we got the tapes through the internet); and it was the costume and the acrobatics (not “acrobats”) that appealed to us…
Also, we don’t really understand why
where we were born is so relevant; and we wouldn’t call ourselves “leaders” in the Australian animation community… But, hey, maybe these are just normal Hollywood journalistic touches.
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