Interview with Mark Simon about the Timmy series
Melissa Ross, of Good Morning Orlando, hosted a 3 and a half minute on-air interview with Mark about his series Timmy’s Lessons In Nature. Mark was able to announce on-air that the shorts had just won at another children’s festival in Chicago the night before.
The interview also covered the theatrical release of the first 3 shorts of the series in the new Spike & Mike Sick & Twisted Festival of Animation. The touring film will hit 50 cities in North America during 2001 and 2002. Other topics covered were the development of the series and future plans for Timmy.
“I first saw the character in a proposed children’s book called “Can I Keep It” that one of my animators created.” says Simon. “I saw a number of possibilities for the character so I sat down with my wife, a producer for Nickelodeon, and the creator and we designed the series around this moronic kid who never learns.”
The station ran portions of two of the Timmy shorts. They ran portions of Lesson 1, where Timmy is repeatedly struck in the face by a snake, three times. Those portions ran both full screen and as an insert next to another reporter, co-anchor Michael Brooks, after Mark’s interview.
Brooks called out to the control room, “Yeah, I’d like to see some more of that Timmy. Can we re-rack that and show us the snake bite again?” The segment began to run. “We should run this and I’ll just watch it like everyone at home.” At that point the snake viciously bites Timmy in the face and the entire stage crew can be heard laughing in the background. Brooks continued, “I can’t compete with that, you know?! Timmy’s got me beat.”