How Ed, Edd and Eddy Change My Life
an Interview with Michael Hockney

For the last month, I've been working with Michael Hockney on a script for an animated TV series. Michael took the ProSeries four years ago and then became a Staff Writer on Ed, Edd, and Eddy that is in its sixth season on Comedy Central.

I asked Michael to do this interview because I was very impressed with his ability to EXCEED my expectations with each rewrite he has done on this project.

As you read the interview, see if you can tell what it is about his writing that consistently produces higher results than I expected.

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HAL: Ed, Edd, and Eddy has gone up for some major awards almost every year, hasn't it?

MICHAEL: Yes. We’re nominated again this year for the Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Awards. It has a reputation for being
one of the hardest shows to write for.

HAL: Okay, so what is the basic process of a writer coming in like you did?

MICHAEL: I actually came in as an assignment writer, so they asked me to come up with about 20 story ideas which I pitched them. Out of the 20, one of them was good enough to go ahead with.

HAL: Then what happened?

MICHAEL: They asked me to expand the idea, to turn it into a premise. Once the premise was approved by the creator of the show, it then went to a four-page outline. That was broken down into acts, so it was basically a blueprint for the story.

Once that was approved, we wrote the first draft and the producers would go through with the head writers and myself, and we would find out what was working and what wasn't. Then I would go back and fix it and it would go through a second approval, and then it would be sent to Cartoon Network for final approval. Once it was finally approved, then it would be passed on to the storyboard artist. They would storyboard it out and have their own set of meetings.
Then it would end up animated.

HAL: I notice that there is a significant difference between how you work right now vs. how you worked two and a half or three years ago when we worked together. What did you learn in the midst of working with Ed, Edd, and Eddy?

MICHAEL: One of the things I learned was, for a writer coming into a show, you really have to shelve your ego. You really do. These guys know what they’re talking about. They’re not there to screw you; they want to see you succeed as much as you want to yourself. Your work becomes their work. And their work has to be broadcast and stand the test of the audience.

So, you become part of that team effort.

The other thing I learned was when something didn't work, not to take it personally. It was hard to do at first because you’re putting so much of yourself into it. You realize quickly that it’s not you personally that’s not working, it’s the situation or the dialogue or the character. It’s not you, so you have to get your head around it and say, okay, how do I make this work? What can I come up with? Because in reality, if you don't, there’s going to be 10 other guys
waiting to do it for you.

HAL: With everything you’re doing and everything they’re doing, ultimately, the job is to have it on the air, right?

MICHAEL: And to have it be the best it can possibly be.

HAL: Right, everybody is all about trying to accomplish certain things for the show. If the show doesn't get what it needs, then they toss that out.

MICHAEL: Oh yes. Actually it’s pretty brutal. It’s still a really cool environment, but if it doesn't work, get it out of here.

HAL: One way to look at it is, everybody is making choices that are business choices, that they are show choices, career choices, and all that kind of thing, so nobody wants anybody to fight over word choices.

MICHAEL: No. And that’s where your ego has to be shelved. It’s not like you’re going to hold onto this and fight tooth and nail for it.

HAL: You were telling me about something before about character situations…

MICHAEL: Oh, the head writer said that for situations, "It's not what they do, but how they do it that makes the show work."

HAL: Tell me how that works.

MICHAEL: It carries over into everything. It all becomes about character. I had this idea about them having a snowball fight. And the head writer said that a snowball fight is okay, they pack snowballs and pitch them at each other, but the Ed’s don't work like that. So it’s not about them having a snowball fight, it’s how they go about having a snowball fight. So, Edd, the really smart one, is going to create some crazy invention that can rapid fire 100 snowballs. Eddy,
the schemer, is probably going to pay one of the other kids to make snowballs for him because he’s too lazy. And, Ed is probably going to eat snow because he’s too dumb.

So, you take something as simple as a snowball fight and the characters make it work. That’s what makes it interesting, how they do it. One episode I wrote was the school bully. You can just have him pound the crap out of somebody, but that wasn't what it was about. It was about the most gentle guy becoming the most feared guy in school, so how do we go about doing that? We made it a series of misunderstandings and accidents, but the way they made it look was that he was pounding the crap out of the people and they were afraid of him, and friendships were being split up. So the whole thing was how they did it.

HAL: So, that’s one of the things I noticed about working with you. We’re going through working on a script right now, and every time I say we need to make this more interesting or need to make this funnier or something like that, pretty much every time you've come back with something better than what I expected.

MICHAEL: Thank you.

HAL: You probably remember a long time ago I said that whole thing about always exceeding producer’s expectations. And that’s what it felt like, and on top of that when I would say this part really works, but this one isn't quite there, we instantly go into a brainstorm session and 2 minutes later we've made it one hundred percent better.

MICHAEL: And that goes back to trying to make whatever it is we’re doing the best it can possibly be, not hold on to the parts we like the most. The part may be really, really funny, and we really like it one but if it doesn't work we need to get rid of it because the rest of the show has to work.

HAL: Did that get ingrained into you in the midst of working on that show?

MICHAEL: Oh. Huge. There are still story things that I really, really liked and I wanted to have the characters do, but in the bigger scheme of things, I can see now that it just wouldn't work. It would be out of character, or the scene wouldn't be as funny, so you have to let those things go.

HAL: I don't know how many drafts we had done on this thing, what do you think?

MICHAEL: Seven?

HAL: So, we've gone back and forth on this comedy script . There have been times that I've come up with something in the middle of it, you and I would be trying to solve something and I’d go off on a comedy riff, and we’re both be laughing. Then, when you returned with the next one, oh, none of that is there. The first time I thought, Michael must have forgotten it. Then, whenever I read the stuff you had written, I saw it was better. Or what you came up with was more appropriate. It was clear we were in the moment coming up with ideas which seemed really good at that
time, but when you went to write it, it just didn't fit. Did you experience any of that?

MICHAEL: I had both of those. One thing that we were talking about was really funny when we were talking about it, but on paper, it just didn’t translate at all. So, I tried to take the essence of what we were talking about and make that work. The other situation was when we tried to apply that to the characters, the scene felt really forced. And the scene became flat so that was the other reason why we took that out.

HAL: I didn’t have any problem with that. In each case, once I saw what you , I was glad you did that.

MICHAEL: On the other hand when I send you things to read, and you go okay this works and this doesn’t, I don’t have a problem with any of that either. I’d rather get this stuff out of the way and make it the best it can be than to make it a laborious effort and fight over a line that really doesn’t matter anyway.

HAL: You’re thinking like a producer thinks, which is, write and write and rewrite and rewrite. As long as you’re focused on what makes it the best it can be, that ultimately is going to create more success for you and everyone else; is that the way you feel?

MICHAEL: Absolutely. And that’s one of the things I learned, is that you have to constantly be trying to make it the best it can be. Because again, if you don’t, someone else will gladly replace you.

HAL: You also talked about having both the plot and character going hand in hand.

MICHAEL: I think anything, not just animation, but screenplays or any kind of storytelling, the most important thing is character and plot. The character has to drive the story and the plot has to force the characters into revealing their true natures or their true emotions, or have them overcome whatever is that is holding them back. You can’t have one without the other, it doesn’t work.

HAL: On the project we’re working on, you’ve done a great job of making sure each draft is better than the last. What are your thoughts on how you do that?

MICHAEL: Personally, I look at the character and ask ultimately what are they after? When you start looking and ask, what are the things that are in this person’s way? Emotionally? Physically? Mentally? When you get notes back and they say this scene isn’t working, it’s usually the emotional part that is not working. So, then you have to change the plot
to emotionally challenge the character or force them to act in a certain way or cause them to feel a certain way in order to act a certain way. Usually, I go back and look at the characters to see if they are behaving properly. Are they behaving the way we’ve set them up to behave? If they’re not, then that’s usually the problem. Are we challenging them enough? Does the scene have enough emotion or enough drama? Isn’t big enough? Are they sitting in the middle of a coffee shop talking? Or are they in the middle of Iraq being bombed and he’s got to figure out why he can’t say I love you to his wife? There’s a huge difference between the two. Again, it comes back to character. How is he reacting? The guy in the shop isn’t going to be the one in the middle of a field in Iraq, then again, it might be the most interesting path for him. So, it comes down to brainstorming. How do you challenge these people the most? How do you get them from A to B to C to D­all the way to Z?