Jab boredom sataaye, tab kyun na thoda toon-tainment ho jaaye? 🍿
— Voot Kids (@Voot_Kids) February 15, 2023
Enjoy blockbuster movies of all your favourite toons, only on #VootKids 😍#MotuPatlu #Shiva #Rudra #Pokemon #Transformers #ChikooAurBunty #AnimeMovies #MastiMeinAchhai #Kids #Cartoons pic.twitter.com/zB0M7kBD1s
Holiday season = Unlimited entertainment 🤩
— Voot Kids (@Voot_Kids) December 23, 2022
Enjoy 10 days of #VKMovieMania with blockbuster hits of your favourite toons. And that's not it. 😎
Watch first-ever movie of Chikoo Aur Bunty, 48 hrs before TV, only on #VootKids ✨✨
Download the app now. 📲 Link in bio. pic.twitter.com/yQ2jkcmJBl
The other thing that happened while I was away from Facebook was that Nickelodeon finally pulled the plug on me.
I'd known that was probably coming for a few months. It's an old Hollywood story. The executives who optioned my show in 2020 left, and were replaced by new people who were more...well. They started complaining that my project doesn't cater enough to boys.Hollywood has an idea that boys won't watch shows that center girls, but girls will watch shows that center boys (or, girls just "don't like animation"), so marketing-wise you should only ever make boy shows, possibly with one token girl.So my very girl-centered show gets the ax. I wrote a new show treatment emphasizing how important Max is to the whole thing, but it didn't work. I knew it probably wouldn't.I know the comments are going to be full of a lot of "well they're wrong, what about Power Puff Girls/MLP/Owl House" and...yes, I know. Of course they're wrong. They're being absolute idiots. But this is Hollywood.I worried transphobia would screw me over. Turns out, no. Garden variety sexism.It's actually the second time something like this has happened to me (Amazon Studios was developing the show from 2017 to 2019). Though my impression was that happened because the new execs just axed most or all kids' tv projects in development.Also, in 2019 I was hired as a writer on a Disney show that then got shelved. I am becoming an old hand at Hollywood disappointment.I found this out for sure literally five minutes after Facebook suspended me for a week for the dumbest imaginable reason. So I finished my comics for the day and then went out and got wasted. I don't do that anymore, really, but it felt like a good day for it.So now what.Well. I and the team that's around me take the show and shop it to some new places. I'm not gonna say it's fine, but it's Hollywood. This stuff takes years.Nickelodeon never listened to me anyway. Amazon had me in meetings and actively sought my feedback. Nickelodeon treated me as almost an afterthought. I didn't like that.A friend who's one of my animation heroes (she may be reading this-hi, you know I mean you!) told me "if you're not being given a seat at the table, pull up a chair," and I've been thinking about that a lot. I'm working on a show bible for "Phoebe" (no one at Amazon or Nick ever asked me to actually do that, but at this point I think it's well within my abilities). In 2023 we have more meetings and keep trying.Hollywood, man. I guess I'll keep my day job.
