The Toon Room Podcast

For Episode 6, I sat down with Alan Keane — writer, script editor, producer and long-time animation storyteller — for a deeply human conversation about creativity, resilience, and what it actually takes to build a life in animation over decades.

Rather than dissecting industry trends or chasing headlines, this episode stays focused on the person behind the work: the detours, the failures, and the reasons we keep showing up even when things don’t go to plan.

We talk about Alan’s journey from comics and psychology to screenwriting, UCLA, BBC productions, and ultimately finding a creative...

Duration: 01:14:18

Recorded Live Inside The Toon Room Community

For Episode 5 of The Toon Room Podcast, I sat down with Rita Street — award-winning animation executive producer, creator, writer, and President of Radar Cartoons — for a deeply honest, wide-ranging conversation about storytelling, resilience, and surviving a life in animation.  

Rita’s journey spans decades and disciplines: from growing up in the Mojave Desert fueled by Disney classics, comic books, and Star Trek, to navigating setbacks that rerouted her path away from CalArts and into theater, playwriting, journalism, a...

Duration: 01:18:26

Recorded Live Inside The Toon Room Community

In our fourth Toon Room Podcast conversation, I sat down with global animation producer and studio leader Marty Knox — whose career has taken him from Canada to Vietnam, Berlin, Ireland, Thailand, and beyond.

This one is all about people, global perspective, and the magic that keeps artists going in the toughest industry on Earth.

Marty shares how a rock-band drummer who once cut model sheets on a light table became a world-travelling producer — learning the craft by solving problems, culture by livin...

Duration: 01:09:59

Recorded Live Inside The Toon Room Community

For Episode 3, I sat down with Ed, a veteran creative director, designer, illustrator and storyteller whose career spans Disney, MGA, Spin Master — and yes — the early days of PAW Patrol and the full development scope of Talking Tom Heroes.

Together, we traced his journey from Brooklyn to Disney’s resurgence in the ‘90s, the unexpected birth of the Disney Princess mega-brand, and how toy-driven IP development shaped some of today’s biggest kids’ franchises.

Here’s what we get into:

🏰 The D...

Duration: 01:12:31

Recorded Live Inside The Toon Room Community

In this episode of The Toon Room Podcast, I sit down with the incredibly talented music composer José Varon for a deep dive into the world-building power of music in animation and games. José breaks down his creative approach through his recent work on the RTS video game Immortal: Gates of Pyre, showing how music can become more than an emotional layer — it can be the heartbeat, identity, and storytelling engine of an entire world.

We explore:

🎼 Holistic music design — b...

Duration: 00:53:49

Recorded Live Inside The Toon Room Community

For our very first episode, I sat down with our Head Writer at Outfit7 to reflect on seven years of building the Talking Tom universe together — one three-minute story at a time. We dig into what it really takes to make short-form, non-dialogue animation land with audiences around the world.

We break down the creative principles we’ve learned the hard way — things like:

✨ Finding the “Game”

How one clear comedic idea anchors everythin...

Duration: 01:01:37