Animation Guild | We are 839 Digital Magazine
Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1542912
FROM SPONGEBOB TO CHARLIE BROWN, TAG MEMBER ERIK WIESE HAS INFLUENCED SOME OF ANIMATION'S MOST BELOVED CHARACTERS. BOTTOMS UP If a career is going to start at the "bottom," the animated world of Bikini Bottom is a pretty major ground floor. Erik Wiese learned this lesson first- hand when he made his move from CalArts to Nickelodeon, where he joined the team working on a brand- new series set under the sea about the exploits of an animated sponge. "At the time, the conventional wisdom at Nickelodeon was that the best bet for a hit was a grounded show about real kids," says Wiese. "Rugrats and Hey Arnold!—those were the models. Some thought SpongeBob was too weird, too silly, and he looked like Swiss cheese." But executives championed it, and because the show wasn't on the radar yet, the team had a unique degree of creative freedom in the first season. "That was actually a good thing," Wiese says, "because we got to do a lot of good, weird stuff." Wiese came to his love of the good and the weird growing up in the San Fernando Valley. A self-described introvert who used art to escape and make like-minded friends, Wiese says there was never a time when he didn't love to draw—especially the Peanuts gang. "I was the kind of kid who'd flip through TV Guide cover-to-cover looking for cartoons, and anything Peanuts, I'd write the date and time and tape it," he says. "I loved how weird and funny the animation could get." While at LA County High School for the Arts, he got an internship at Disney for school credit, after which "I eventually landed at CalArts, and that's really where everything took off," he says. From 1993 to 1995 , he attended school at night while working on animation and storyboards at Disney Interactive during the day. 12 KEYFRAME T H E C L I M B