Rocky Robot News

Hello there

I spent ages drawing that header.  I could have just used any old picture of him, but we know how I like things "just so".

A very happy new week to you from my semi-snowy abode that is proper freezing.  I’ve been working exclusively in the art room all day, as it’s the smallest room in the house and easiest to warm up fast.  That it should come to this…

Anyway, the big time is just around the corner (again) as I officially bring you the Rocky Robot news that you’ve all been waiting for.  Mainly me though.  And Jon.  I’m not sure if Rob knows about it yet.

Let’s go right back to 1999 first, as is customary for a Monday which is struggling to discard it’s Rebootaffiliation.  I’ll tell you this tale relatively quickly, because a great many of you will have heard this before in some form, either on the Reboot podcasts or my written musings, but I’d like everyone to be properly up to speed before continuing.

So, 1999 was the first time myself, Rob and Jon went up to the Edinburgh fringe as a three, with our debut show “The B.A.D Comedy Show”. Once word got out that B.A.D stood for Big And Daft, it was generally referred to as that.  Now, we went up there knowing less than nothing, we just applied the same experience/logic as we had when we had done shows at our own venues down in London. Namely, they were knockabout, self-promoted, silly and ramshackle. It was the first and only time at the Edinburgh Fringe that I wasn’t industry-distracted in any way.  In that respect it was very pure, and we hadn’t entertained the possibility of it being a failure in any way.

I guess it could be looked at as primitive positive thinking, but it wasn’t even on our radar that we were doing such a thing.  We just had absolute belief in what we did, absolute belief that loads of people would come to it and love it, and absolute belief that telly companies would be falling over themselves to get us on the telly as a matter of urgency.

If you are sitting there smirking at our delusional naivety then I shall put you right immediately by saying that all these things are what happened. Retrospectively, it’s almost unbelievable, but in the moment up in Scotland, it played out exactly as we presumed it would.  In a very real sense, we weren’t in the slightest bit surprised.  That’s not to say we weren’t ecstatic when the reviews dropped and the telly people started coming, but it wasn’t a surprise.  Honestly not in an arrogant way, we just had no concept of what a long shot it was.  Maybe we though it happened to anyone who was half-decent and plucky up there.  Maybe that was the last year that was true of the whole festival.  Who knows.

Anyway, even though they’d been sneaking in throughout the run, it was mostly in the last week of the fringe that the telly people started to introduce themselves to us, and my wallet started to fill up with business cards.  The two front runners were Chrysalis TV which was headed up by Gary Reich, who had been a producer at BBC comedy and moved over to Chrysalis to head up their new comedy department, and Simon Lupton who was a newish producer at BBC Comedy, working in the charge of Myfanwy Moore (who was doing loads with bringing Lucas & Walliams through). There were some other companies too, but those two were the ones that were seeming to make big plays for us.

We ultimately opted for the BBC, which was kind of inevitable really.  It impressed us because it was the BBC, and I honestly think the sway was secured when Simon took us to the old Blue Peter garden at TV Centre.  It’s weird to be starstruck by plants.  Ironically, the only telly we actually made as a three was with Chrysalis (they made Terrorville), but that’s another – well-told – story.  The BBC signed us to a development deal to make a broken sketch show (still not sure what that means), a sitcom, and something else that I can’t even remember now.  I think we got five grand between us at signing.

We really liked Simon, and he had a decent idea of what we were and how we could develop, but the fly in the ointment came when we got a manager.  Unbeknownst to us, and without consultation, he quashed the BBC deal.  We found out months later when one of us mentioned that we hadn’t heard from them in a while, and the manager, let’s call him Dr X, casually said he had got us out of it.  As you many have noticed from all television since, we never did get to make a mark there.

I genuinely don’t recall if any of us spoke to Myfanwy or Simon about it when we found out.  I think we were rather embarrassed, certainly a bit cross, but felt if we went to them and said we didn’t want such a thing to happen, it would then become a big mess arguing with management and re-negotiating with the BBC.

Yeah, really brief this recap is Ian….

The next time I saw Simon in person was at Series 11 of Red Dwarf.  He was, by now, working at UKTV, and a producer on the show.  It was proper nice to catch up with him and see him every week.  He hadn’t changed much at all, but was striding ahead in the industry.  The best thing about that time was being able to put him right about what had happened with Dr X, and to assure him it hadn’t been our choice or instruction.  I remember standing outside with him at Pinewood Studios and him saying he understood and not to worry and all that, and me really emphasising that I wasn’t paying him lip service – that it genuinely wasn’t what we had wanted, and that I remained cross about it.

Fast forward again to the ParaPod Movie looking for a distributor in the UK.  I messaged Simon to ask him if he knew anything about what I should be trying to achieve.  He put me in touch with some folk he knew, and I got a far better understanding on how distribution worked, and Simon came down to the premiere at the Prince Charles Cinema.  Weirdly, that night was the first time myself, Rob and Jon were in the same room for 18 years, but also the first time the three of us were in the same room as Simon for 20 years.  I didn’t actually speak to him that evening, busy as it all was and distracted by poorliness as I specifically was, but we were all there.  The next day I got a long email from him, which I read in hospital.  He said he had been ready for it to be rough around the edges because I’d told him the budget I’d worked with and the manner of making it, but it had really surpassed all his expectations.  He was really gushing about it, and it was a brilliant and lifting message to receive.

I mean, it’s obvious where this is going isn’t it?

So, earlier this year, as logged on here, we approached some animation companies to pitch The Rocky Robot Show (the cartoon that started as a puppet show, that I created, Jon and I wrote, the three of us voiced, and I animated a pilot of – that’s how you do a brief recap).  We got positive responses from all the companies except one, who still haven’t had the courtesy to acknowledge it being sent, but that’s to be expected.  One company, who (despite me wishing to name and shame them) I shan’t name, were very full on in wanting to acquire it. The head of the company called me at home on the evening of receiving the pilot, said they wanted it, and we had meetings that were all mega-positive.  Then there was a brief break whilst they had to concentrate on another existing project, and when they finished that it was all different.  Lots of promises were made, that it became increasingly apparent were simply not going to happen.  At no point was there any explanation, or any apology, just nothing. We still haven’t heard from them with either an explanation or even a “no”. I mean, you start speculating then, right?  And it’s not a healthy thing to do, so we stopped speculating, stopped contacting them, and had a rethink. Proper rubbish year this has been.

After a Reboot recording, the three of us stayed on the Zoom and discussed it. We wracked our heads for what contacts we could try. I’ve had a bit of secret work in development with a TV company who originally wanted to develop the ParaPod, but I said I wanted to develop some different things on a similar theme without being in them, which they agreed to do, but that felt too specific and precarious for me to suddenly say “Oh I’ve got a cartoon as well!”.   Then I suddenly thought of Simon.  I knew he had left UKTV, and I knew he had set up his own production company.  I didn’t know what it was doing, but it was an option to ask him.  So, I did.

He told me, very honestly, that they made drama. He said animation, or kids stuff, wasn’t something they’d done, and if I sent it to him he would have a look, but it was unlikely.  I immediately thought it was the same situation as the other company I’ve been developing with.  That it was just a square peg in a round hole. He did however also say, if he came back wanting to do it, that would mean he really wanted it and it would get priority attention, as it’s outside of the norm.

That’s what’s happened.

Jon and I had a few meetings with him whilst Rob was swanning about in the West End, where we chatted through it all.  As the meetings have progressed it became a running joke where I said, “we should probably tell Rob at some point”, and there’s a chance that this is Rob finding out what happened now.  That’s if he has read this far, and he’s famously not a big fan of reading.  I have tried to call him like, but he was probably doing a proper toilet.

Last Friday, we had the last of the discussion meetings, culminating in us all agreeing, and it now being officially a project in development with them.  We are all under no illusion how big a task it is, but we also have a game plan in place, and are confident that Simon will bat for us well. There’s been a lot of side-chat in the meetings about how ace it would be to have such a long time period between us getting that business card and getting something away finally, and it’s a kind of romantic ideal really, but very enticing.  There’s definitely a feeling of putting things right, which – let’s be honest – is what Jon and I writing it, and us all doing Rebootwas really all about. An actual reboot after the estranged years.  So, we’ve put ourselves right, and now we have the opportunity to do the same with the industry players who backed us when one of us was having to sign-on at the Edinburgh Job Centre during the fringe (hello).  To be brutally honest, and realistic, I think just working on developing it with Simon, and having a crack to get it away, will do that.  It’s not a case of “Only a commission will be enough” (not to say we aren’t aiming potently at that goal), but the chance for us to all finally do what we contractually agreed back in 1999, before other folk stuck their oars in, is rather a nice conclusion to the mess we’ve had to deal with on the Rocky Robot front for the rest of the year. We have also all been very honest about part of the drive to succeed in this being the side-opportunity to give the finger to that other company and Dr X.  There’s always room for a tiny bit of pettiness to keep you focused.  Of course, the only motivation we actually need is we really want to make The Rocky Robot Show and will inevitably do this no matter how the cards fall.

So that’s the news.  Now you know, Rob (hopefully) knows, and one of us will have to break it to Rocky himself at some point. I appreciate I could have just said “Oh we’ve signed it to a company” but why say seven words when you can write a musing essay on the cyclical nature of existence?

Watch Simon die on New Year’s Eve or something now.

Hope you have a wonderful week lay out peacefully ahead of you, and that all is well and warm over there

Much love

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