Van Partible
Encyclopedia
Van Partible is an American
animator
of Filipino
descent, writer
, and producer
best known for creating the animated
television series Johnny Bravo
.
Partible currently resides in Salinas, California
.
where he began work on a senior thesis project titled Mess O' Blues (1993). Initially a film about three Elvis Presley
impersonators, the short time to produce the cartoon influenced Partible to shorten it to one. Upon graduation in 1993, Partible was 22 and did not have the extensive experience and portfolio studios were looking for, and for a while worked in a daycare program for a local elementary school. Mess O' Blues was shown by Partible’s animation professor, Dan McLaughlin, to a friend working for Hanna-Barbera Cartoons
. The studio loved the film and asked Partible to do a pitch for a seven-minute cartoon based on it – what would become Johnny Bravo
.
The short was produced for Cartoon Network
's new animation showcase titled World Premiere Toons
. Also known as the What a Cartoon! Show, the series’ short cartoons (three per half-hour episode) mirrored the structure of a theatrical cartoon, with each film being based on an original storyboard drawn and written by its artist/creator. Partible initially roomed with Craig McCracken
(creator of The Powerpuff Girls
) Paul Rudish
(a designer on that series) and Genndy Tartakovsky
(creator of Dexter's Laboratory
.) The only two cartoonists fresh out of college were Partible and Seth MacFarlane
(creator of Family Guy
, American Dad!
, and The Cleveland Show
). Partible changed his character from Mess O’ Blues around so that "he would be more of this '50's iconic James Dean
-looking character that talked like Elvis." Partible picked voice actor Jeff Bennett
to play Johnny Bravo solely based on his young, hyped Elvis impression.
The short, Johnny Bravo, premiered on World Premiere Toons on March 26, 1995, and involved Johnny trying to score with a zookeeper girl by capturing a runaway gorilla. Partible, with a small team of animators, animated the short themselves in-house at Hanna-Barbera using digital ink and paint (the latter shorts and first three seasons of the series would instead use the traditional ink and paint and film camera.) Two more shorts on the program followed (Jungle Boy in "Mr. Monkeyman", and Johnny Bravo and the Amazon Women) and the shorts were so popular that Cartoon Network commissioned a first season of series based around Johnny Bravo, consisting of 13 episodes.
The crew of the first season of Johnny Bravo consisted of several writers, animators, and directors from World Premiere Toons, including the aforementioned MacFarlane and Hartman, Steve Marmel
, and John McIntyre
. Veteran cartoonist and animation legend Joseph Barbera
was also a creative consultant for the first season of the series. The series premiered on July 7, 1997 and three additional seasons followed. Partible left and was not present during the second and third seasons of the series for unknown reasons; he returned to produce "A Johnny Bravo Christmas" and its fourth season.
He has produced original materials for Film Roman
, Walt Disney Television Animation, Fox Kids
, and for NBC's Medium
, for which he was the animation producer for the premiere of the third season. Partible is currently serving as executive producer for Cartoon Network Asia
's original programming, teaches animation workshops at Loyola Marymount University, and he is working on a pilot for Disney
.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
animator
Animator
An animator is an artist who creates multiple images that give an illusion of movement called animation when displayed in rapid sequence; the images are called frames and key frames. Animators can work in a variety of fields including film, television, video games, and the internet. Usually, an...
of Filipino
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
descent, writer
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
, and producer
Television producer
The primary role of a television Producer is to allow all aspects of video production, ranging from show idea development and cast hiring to shoot supervision and fact-checking...
best known for creating the animated
Animation
Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. The effect is an optical illusion of motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in several ways...
television series Johnny Bravo
Johnny Bravo
Johnny Bravo is an American animated television series created by Van Partible for Cartoon Network. The series stars a muscular beefcake young man named Johnny Bravo who dons a pompadour hairstyle and an Elvis Presley-like voice and has a forward, woman-chasing personality...
.
Partible currently resides in Salinas, California
Salinas, California
Salinas is the county seat and the largest municipality of Monterey County, California. Salinas is located east-southeast of the mouth of the Salinas River, at an elevation of about 52 feet above sea level. The population was 150,441 at the 2010 census...
.
Career
Partible was born in 1971 and grew up with an avid love of drawing. Despite growing up copying artwork from collections of old comic books, it was not until college that Partible decided to pursue a career in animation. Partible attended Loyola Marymount UniversityLoyola Marymount University
Loyola Marymount University is a comprehensive co-educational private Roman Catholic university in the Jesuit and Marymount traditions located in Los Angeles, California, United States...
where he began work on a senior thesis project titled Mess O' Blues (1993). Initially a film about three Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley
Elvis Aaron Presley was one of the most popular American singers of the 20th century. A cultural icon, he is widely known by the single name Elvis. He is often referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll" or simply "the King"....
impersonators, the short time to produce the cartoon influenced Partible to shorten it to one. Upon graduation in 1993, Partible was 22 and did not have the extensive experience and portfolio studios were looking for, and for a while worked in a daycare program for a local elementary school. Mess O' Blues was shown by Partible’s animation professor, Dan McLaughlin, to a friend working for Hanna-Barbera Cartoons
Hanna-Barbera
Hanna-Barbera Productions, Inc. was an American animation studio that dominated North American television animation during the second half of the 20th century...
. The studio loved the film and asked Partible to do a pitch for a seven-minute cartoon based on it – what would become Johnny Bravo
Johnny Bravo
Johnny Bravo is an American animated television series created by Van Partible for Cartoon Network. The series stars a muscular beefcake young man named Johnny Bravo who dons a pompadour hairstyle and an Elvis Presley-like voice and has a forward, woman-chasing personality...
.
The short was produced for Cartoon Network
Cartoon Network
Cartoon Network is a name of television channels worldwide created by Turner Broadcasting which used to primarily show animated programming. The channel began broadcasting on October 1, 1992 in the United States....
's new animation showcase titled World Premiere Toons
The Cartoon Cartoon Show
What a Cartoon! , is an American animation showcase project created by Fred Seibert for Hanna-Barbera Cartoons to be run on Cartoon Network...
. Also known as the What a Cartoon! Show, the series’ short cartoons (three per half-hour episode) mirrored the structure of a theatrical cartoon, with each film being based on an original storyboard drawn and written by its artist/creator. Partible initially roomed with Craig McCracken
Craig McCracken
Craig McCracken is an American animator and creator of The Powerpuff Girls and Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends.-Biography:...
(creator of The Powerpuff Girls
The Powerpuff Girls
The Powerpuff Girls is an American animated television series created by animator Craig McCracken and produced by Hanna-Barbera for Cartoon Network...
) Paul Rudish
Paul Rudish
Paul Rudish is an American animator who helped create Dexter's Laboratory, The PowerPuff Girls, Samurai Jack, and the Clone Wars. He worked in Hanna-Barbera and then in Cartoon Network Studios with Genndy Tartakovsky...
(a designer on that series) and Genndy Tartakovsky
Genndy Tartakovsky
Genndy Borisovich Tartakovsky is a Russian-American television animator, director and producer. His best-known creations are Dexter's Laboratory, Samurai Jack, Star Wars: Clone Wars, and Sym-Bionic Titan...
(creator of Dexter's Laboratory
Dexter's Laboratory
Dexter's Laboratory is an American animated television series created by Genndy Tartakovsky and produced by Cartoon Network Studios . The show is about a boy named Dexter who has an enormous secret laboratory filled with an endless collection of his inventions...
.) The only two cartoonists fresh out of college were Partible and Seth MacFarlane
Seth MacFarlane
Seth Woodbury MacFarlane is an American animator, writer, comedian, producer, actor, singer, voice actor, and director best known for creating the animated sitcoms Family Guy, American Dad! and The Cleveland Show, for which he also voices many of the shows' various characters.A native of Kent,...
(creator of Family Guy
Family Guy
Family Guy is an American animated television series created by Seth MacFarlane for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series centers on the Griffins, a dysfunctional family consisting of parents Peter and Lois; their children Meg, Chris, and Stewie; and their anthropomorphic pet dog Brian...
, American Dad!
American Dad!
American Dad! is an American animated television series created by Seth MacFarlane and owned by Underdog Productions and Fuzzy Door Productions. It is produced in association with 20th Century Fox Television...
, and The Cleveland Show
The Cleveland Show
The Cleveland Show is an American animated television series that premiered on September 27, 2009, as a part of the "Animation Domination" lineup on Fox in the United States...
). Partible changed his character from Mess O’ Blues around so that "he would be more of this '50's iconic James Dean
James Dean
James Byron Dean was an American film actor. He is a cultural icon, best embodied in the title of his most celebrated film, Rebel Without a Cause , in which he starred as troubled Los Angeles teenager Jim Stark...
-looking character that talked like Elvis." Partible picked voice actor Jeff Bennett
Jeff Bennett
Jeffrey Glenn "Jeff" Bennett is an American voice actor and musician, listed "among the top names in the voice-over field", best known as the voice of Johnny Bravo in the series of the same name...
to play Johnny Bravo solely based on his young, hyped Elvis impression.
The short, Johnny Bravo, premiered on World Premiere Toons on March 26, 1995, and involved Johnny trying to score with a zookeeper girl by capturing a runaway gorilla. Partible, with a small team of animators, animated the short themselves in-house at Hanna-Barbera using digital ink and paint (the latter shorts and first three seasons of the series would instead use the traditional ink and paint and film camera.) Two more shorts on the program followed (Jungle Boy in "Mr. Monkeyman", and Johnny Bravo and the Amazon Women) and the shorts were so popular that Cartoon Network commissioned a first season of series based around Johnny Bravo, consisting of 13 episodes.
The crew of the first season of Johnny Bravo consisted of several writers, animators, and directors from World Premiere Toons, including the aforementioned MacFarlane and Hartman, Steve Marmel
Steve Marmel
Steve Marmel is an American Television writer and Producer who has worked on many animated TV series, among which are The Fairly Odd Parents, I Am Weasel, Danny Phantom, Family Guy and Yin Yang Yo!. During his work on The Fairly Odd Parents he frequently co-wrote episodes with Butch Hartman...
, and John McIntyre
John McIntyre (cartoonist)
Jonathan McIntyre is an animated series writer, director, and artist.-Films:-References:...
. Veteran cartoonist and animation legend Joseph Barbera
Joseph Barbera
Joseph Roland Barbera was an influential American animator, director, producer, storyboard artist, and cartoon artist, whose film and television cartoon characters entertained millions of fans worldwide for much of the twentieth century....
was also a creative consultant for the first season of the series. The series premiered on July 7, 1997 and three additional seasons followed. Partible left and was not present during the second and third seasons of the series for unknown reasons; he returned to produce "A Johnny Bravo Christmas" and its fourth season.
He has produced original materials for Film Roman
Film Roman
Film Roman is an animation studio founded by Phil Roman, best known for producing the animation for The Simpsons, King of the Hill for 20th Century Fox, as well as the Garfield and Peanuts animated TV specials....
, Walt Disney Television Animation, Fox Kids
Fox Kids
Fox Kids was the Fox Broadcasting Company's American children's programming division and brand name from September 8, 1990 until September 7, 2002. It was owned by Fox Television Entertainment airing programming on Monday–Friday afternoons and Saturday mornings.Depending on the show, the...
, and for NBC's Medium
Medium (TV series)
Medium is an American television drama series that premiered on NBC on January 3, 2005, and ended on CBS on January 21, 2011. Themed on supernatural gifts, its lead character, Allison DuBois , is a medium employed as a consultant for the Phoenix, Arizona district attorney's office...
, for which he was the animation producer for the premiere of the third season. Partible is currently serving as executive producer for Cartoon Network Asia
Cartoon Network (Southeast Asia)
Cartoon Network is a cable and satellite television channel created by Turner Broadcasting, a unit of Time Warner which primarily shows animated programming.Programming is broadcast in dual-language audio in English language, Chinese language, Thai language, and Malay language with Vietnamese...
's original programming, teaches animation workshops at Loyola Marymount University, and he is working on a pilot for Disney
The Walt Disney Company
The Walt Disney Company is the largest media conglomerate in the world in terms of revenue. Founded on October 16, 1923, by Walt and Roy Disney as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, Walt Disney Productions established itself as a leader in the American animation industry before diversifying into...
.