Producer of “The Simpsons” Keynote for KAFI
One of the featured attractions of KAFI 2007 will be a comedy writer who has been involved with “The Simpsons” for more than half of its 20-year run.
Mike Reiss, a four-time Emmy winner for co-producing more than 200 episodes and penning a dozen “Simpson” scripts, will be featured on Friday, May 18, at 7 p.m. in the State Theater.
“An Evening with Mike Reiss,” which will include a showing of his “Queer Duck: The Movie,” will be a ticketed event open to the public during the four-day festival that is slated for May 17-20 in downtown Kalamazoo and being hosted by Kalamazoo Valley Community College and its Center for New Media. His participation is being sponsored by the Arcus Gay and Lesbian Fund.
Competitions, screenings, professional development, and networking interaction between today’s and tomorrow’s animators will fill the four days. Festival attendees will be treated to screenings of animated films created by major studios, independents and aspiring animators.
At least four shows will feature finalists in the KAFI competitions with $15,000 in prize money on the table.
Reiss, a 47-year-old Harvard graduate now living in California, served as an editor of both The Harvard Lampoon and The National Lampoon.
That prepped him to become involved with “The Simpsons,” which was created by Matt Groening and went on the air in 1987 as part of a real-person sit-com and evolved into its own half-hour series on Fox three years later, as a writer and co-producer in its third season.
The series is known for lampooning almost every aspect of the human condition, American culture, society in general, and television itself. As a satirical parody of the Middle-American lifestyle, it has retained its freshness and relevancy because Reiss is among a cadre of writers and co-producers who have contributed to its staying power that will be celebrated by its 20th anniversary this coming April. A feature-length movie is scheduled to be released in July.
With a “nothing is sacred” approach to topics and issues, “The Simpsons,” its writers and producers have attracted more than a bit of heat from parents’ groups and conservatives because their main characters in the dysfunctional family aren’t exactly “role models.” Commented one: “We are trying to strengthen the American family, to make them more like ‘The Waltons’ and less like ‘The Simpsons.’”
Meanwhile, the rest of the nation and much of the world have been laughing like crazy at the animated series, which was almost cancelled before it hit the air and which Time magazine has labeled “the greatest TV show of the 20th century.”
“The Simpsons” was the first TV series on the Fox network to appear in the top-30 highest-rated shows of the season. Several episodes have been viewed by more than 30 million people in their night-time slots.
Reiss has been more than a one-trick pony in his career as a comedy writer. He’s created material for Johnny Carson, Eddie Murphy and Garry Shandling. Reiss is also the co-creator of “The Critic,” the animated TV series about a movie critic that is part of the Comedy Central lineup of shows.
“Queer Duck: The Movie” is the animated adventures of a gay duck. Following Reiss’ commentary and one of the festival’s competitive screenings, “Queer Duck” will be shown at the State Theater beginning at around 11 p.m. Tickets for this movie will be $6.
In addition to being an award-winning mystery writer, the KAFI keynoter has written for Esquire and Games Magazine.
Nuts-and-bolts information and updates about all KAFI activities -- dates, times, location, tickets, and entry information-- is available at this webpage -- http://kafi.kvcc.edu -- or by calling Maggie Noteboom at the festival office at (269) 373-7883.
There will be three days of professional-development seminars led by animators who are knee-deep in the industry’s technology age, training sessions for students, workshops that explore animation as a career, and portfolio reviews. Students can learn what it takes to get into the animation business and gain a grasp of the state of the industry.
One of the festival’s unique attractions, "The Cartoon Challenge," selects 10 teams from animation programs spanning North America who engage in a "24/7" cartoon-creating competition prior to the convening of the festival.
The teams selected to compete arrive at the Center for New Media on the Sunday preceding festival week and bivouac there. Over a four-day period, their objective is to conceive, script, design and produce up to a 30-second, animated public-service announcement on a topic chosen by the event’s sponsor. The winning school receives scholarship funds for animation students.
Kalamazoo’s Irving S. Gilmore Foundation has joined the college in being the major underwriter of all four festivals. All of the activities and events will be held in the Center for New Media, KVCC’s Anna Whitten Hall, and the Kalamazoo Valley Museum with the major screenings booked for the State Theater.
KAFI is now a biennial event, sharing the every-other-year format with the Gilmore International Keyboard Festival that brings world-famous performers to downtown Kalamazoo for two weeks in May of even-numbered years.
