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An Inspired Chat with Josh Weisbrod of North Hollywood and Burbank

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Josh Weisbrod shared their story and experiences with us recently and you can find our conversation below.

Josh, really appreciate you sharing your stories and insights with us. The world would have so much more understanding and empathy if we all were a bit more open about our stories and how they have helped shaped our journey and worldview. Let’s jump in with a fun one: Have any recent moments made you laugh or feel proud?
For the last several years I have been working on my own short film, called Rocket Friendz. It is in part a raunchy satire of Pokémon (and other similar monster battling/ training stories), but it is also a personal story about how my generation of elder Millennials is dealing with ageing. With ageing being one of the primary themes, it was my goal to finish Rocket Friendz by the time I turned 40. And I did! With a few days to spare.

This year has mostly been about finishing my short. My full-time job is in children’s animated television (I storyboard on Teen Titans Go!) and although I really enjoy my job, I wanted to see how far I could take my own self expression. I had been finalizing an animatic based on a script I wrote for at least a year, and when my job at Teen Titans Go! went on hiatus, I saw this as my last opportunity to finish Rocket Friendz before my birthday. I was able to organize a voice-recording session last November, and then animated about 10 1/2 minutes of my short before April when I returned to work. From April to August, I worked double duty, storyboarding Titans during the day and at night, coloring and doing backgrounds and polishing Rocket Friendz, as well as some additional 30 seconds of animation.

I’m very proud of the short itself and the work I put into it, but more than that I was so excited to show it at my 40th birthday party to so many of my friends from so many of my different communities. It was such a high to see my friends show up for me and to have it put plainly in front of me that they are there for me and they “get” me. Sometimes it felt very lonely making Rocket Friendz, and the subject matter is darker than what I have worked on in the past (both for myself and for commercial work), so it was extremely gratifying to show it and feel a togetherness with people experiencing it for the first time.

Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
Hi! My name is Josh Weisbrod. I am a storyboard artist by trade (most recently on Teen Titans Go! and previously on Yabba Dabba Dinosaurs and Right Now Kapow, all at WB). I have also worked as an animator in the past, as well as a teacher, comic book retailer, and independent filmmaker. I perform stand-up comedy more recently and enjoy running and hanging out with my cat Kumite.

My friends have called my sensibility “funny, gross, and sad.” My favorite types of stories lately are ones that make me feel uncomfortable or sad or upset but still make me laugh. Does that make sense? A good example might be Falling Down starring Michael Douglas, or any Peggy Hill-centered episode of King of the Hill. Oftentimes for work I am called on for scenes where the characters are eating, working out or going to the bathroom. I am quite proud of how many different variations I have been able to do on these themes.

My recent film Rocket Friendz is funny, gross, and sad as well! Currently I am submitting it to festivals. I’m hoping to show it to as many people as possible!

Great, so let’s dive into your journey a bit more. What was your earliest memory of feeling powerful?
When I was growing up in Dallas, Texas, I went to a little indoor summer camp at the local JCC (Jewish Community Center) called Creative Arts Camp. It had about 50-60 kids and we could choose between focusing on visual art, theater/ stage performance, and a video/ moviemaking program. My first summer there, I had a lot of difficulty making friends. Since I had a pet rat and a desire to mostly talk about my pet rat, some of the kids started calling me Rat Boy. Not in the nice way, either. Imagine it being summer and just looking forward to going back to school!

But my second summer there was great. I feel like I really came into my own. Since the theater program was doing Grease and didn’t have enough boys, I was recruited to play Doody, a very important role. And the video program asked me to play a Guy Who Got Killed for their movie The Impossible Mission, which I also excelled at. The important thing was that I branched out of the visual art concentration that I was more comfortable with, and I made a lot of new friends. I gained a lot of confidence.

One day, I was in the bathroom washing off a putty nose (the counselors brought some stage makeup for us to play with) when 3 guys I knew from the carpool line or maybe little league baseball walked in. They started making fun of me, saying “hey look, there’s the kid that runs so funny!” I guess they remembered the way I ran (very fast) from either baseball or the carpool line.

So I walked up to their 12-year-old leader, took him by the shoulders, and rocked him back and forth while chanting the “Connect the dots, La la La la La” refrain made famous by Pee-wee’s Playhouse. The three of them stared at me for a moment. Then I pulled a portable tape recorder out of my pocket and said “hey guys, I’ve got something on here you will really like.” I pressed PLAY and the lumberjack song from Monty Python began. But it didn’t play long before all three of them ran out of the bathroom.

One of my counselors walked in and said “Wow! You scared the shit out of them. That was awesome!” This was a feeling of true power. I think I realized in that moment that people like that can call me Rat Boy or say I run funny or whatever they want. But it doesn’t really matter what they think. And it wasn’t hard to confront them with something that they truly couldn’t understand.

What did suffering teach you that success never could?
This is a pretty interesting question. I tend to think a lot about the benefits of suffering vs success. I think for many years I believed suffering served a noble purpose in my life. I would typically choose a harder route in order to reach my goals.

I will say this: doing difficult things is a great way to learn. You can learn how to do things, or you can learn about yourself. Everyone has hard moments in life, and they are super important for these reasons.

If I hadn’t had such a difficult time breaking into the animation industry, I may not appreciate my job as much as I do. But it took me years of trying and failing, and my job is one thing I never take for granted.

If I hadn’t been in a few long-term relationships that collapsed, I might not have learned things about myself such as, being in a relationship or having a job or having any form of external approval will not save you. None of these things are enough to form a foundation of self. And then maybe I wouldn’t have so many non-animation hobbies that I enjoy so much, or great friends from communities formed around these hobbies.

However, suffering also does not entitle anyone to anything. It is possible for one person to suffer through life while their peer does not and both will achieve the same things. I don’t find that the world is very poetic in this way– it’s important to accept suffering for what it is and what you can feel and learn from it, but it is also just as important to respect that it is what it is, and there is no reward that the world grants based on how much you have suffered to deserve it.

Alright, so if you are open to it, let’s explore some philosophical questions that touch on your values and worldview. What’s a belief or project you’re committed to, no matter how long it takes?
Well I first had the idea for Rocket Friendz about 15 years ago! Back when I worked in a comic book store, I saw so many people in various stages of arrested development– adults who couldn’t let go of toys, games, comics, other various aspects of our childhoods. I was one of them! I also noticed several different manga with the same premise: a 10-year-old captures and trains creatures to fight other people’s creatures. Why were they always 10? Why did these coming-of-age story heroes never actually come of age?

I was in my 20s and having a difficult time getting my life off the ground. I graduated into the 2008 recession and couldn’t find work in animation. I think it’s a difficult time in life for just about everyone.

This project was to some degree about ageing as a millennial back then (although at the time I think they may have been calling us Generation Y?), but as a 25-year-old I didn’t have a lot to say about ageing really. By the time I was in my mid-30s, I realized that this was the age my film should be about. Hanging onto childhood at my age is more tragic and still very real.

I also wanted to make a statement about the kinds of things (and relationships) that are sold to us and that we will do anything to hang on to.

Before we go, we’d love to hear your thoughts on some longer-run, legacy type questions. Have you ever gotten what you wanted, and found it did not satisfy you?
Oh, all the time. It is hard to deal with the feelings that come from accomplishing a goal. It is a bit like post-partum depression. I wanted for many years to have a job in animation. Now I’m a professional, but (especially considering the industry is in a bust period right now and uneasy at the prospect of AI), it is not lost on me that I am very lucky to be doing what I’m doing, and that it isn’t as secure as I would like.

I wanted for many years to finish Rocket Friendz, and now I have. Especially during the last 6 months when I was working on it in addition to my job at Teen Titans Go!, I wanted to be done so that I could relax. There’s no doubt that my life is more relaxing right now than it was. But there is still more to do, both with the film and the opportunities it creates, as well as on a human level– giving time and attention to the relationships and activities I neglected as I worked on the film.

I guess expectations rarely match reality in my experience. And if you want something very badly for an extended period of time, it is hard not to have expectations. Maybe feeling sad is a part of achievement as much as it is a part of failure.

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Image Credits
The first 5 images are from Rocket Friendz, credited to Josh Weisbrod. The two Teen Titans Go! storyboard images are property of WB TV Animation.

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