Butch Hartman | The Untold Story of Nickelodeon’s Most Visionary Creator, How Was Fairly OddParents Show Created & How He Made Millions

Summary

Podcast Summary: School of Hard Knocks – Butch Hartman | The Untold Story of Nickelodeon’s Most Visionary Creator

Date: November 12, 2025
Podcast: School of Hard Knocks
Host(s): James, Jack, Josh
Guest: Butch Hartman

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Episode Overview

This episode features Butch Hartman, renowned creator of Nickelodeon’s “The Fairly OddParents,” “Danny Phantom,” “T.U.F.F. Puppy,” and “Bunsen is a Beast.” The conversation dives deep into the behind-the-scenes process of pitching, developing, and running hugely successful animated shows, the business and creative aspects of the animation industry, vertical integration, lessons in perseverance, creativity, business acumen, and how Butch’s faith has shaped his leadership and legacy.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Butch Hartman’s Animation Journey

• Early Career & First Break (03:27)

  • Butch started in Michigan with a passion for drawing cartoons, eventually attending CalArts in California.
  • “You think you’re good till you get into the major leagues and everybody’s unbelievably amazing. And so I really had to decide: am I going to step up my game and stay, or am I going to go back home?” (Butch, 03:27)
  • His first major opportunity was creating a short for “The Fairly OddParents,” later becoming a global hit.

• Getting the Green Light (06:08)

  • “In January of 2000, they said, ‘We’re gonna make your show. Not just one, but six half hours.’ And at that point, you’re just worried about a paycheck.” (Butch, 03:57)
  • Success was measured by TV ratings: “A good show on Nickelodeon would get like a 5 rating; Fairly OddParents were getting like eights and nines.” (Butch, 06:10)

2. The Creation Process & Show Longevity

• Ideation & Pitching (11:00)

  • The concept for “Fairly OddParents” was crafted in just 15 minutes. Timmy was inspired by Butch’s brother; Wanda and Cosmo’s names came from brainstorms and pop culture references.

• Story & Character Development (15:36)

  • Importance of strong characters: “You’ve got to have a great set of characters, number one, and a great concept. But the characters come first, concept second.” (Butch, 33:24)
  • Writing process centers around Timmy’s problem each episode and inventing creative, relatable solutions.

• Sustaining a Franchise (24:20)

  • Show’s longevity (over 18 years) attributed to continuous innovation and understanding the evolving demands of both the network and the audience.
  • “Fairly OddParents actually got canceled five times… at the wrap parties, I would tell people, ‘It’s not over yet.’ And sure enough, about two months later they would call me.” (Butch, 25:30)

• Collaborations (27:34)

  • The “Jimmy Timmy Power Hour” was born from casual interactions with the Jimmy Neutron creative team. “You’ve got a kid named Jimmy, I’ve got a kid named Timmy—what are we, morons? We need to combine these shows!” (Butch, 28:10)
  • Special considered highly successful and broke ratings records.

3. The Animation Business & Learning the Industry

• Building Connections (08:46)

  • “Every job I got, I made sure it was a different job… by the time I got to Fairly OddParents I was very well-rounded.”
  • Advancement is about doing more than just your core role—make others’ jobs easier.

• Negotiation & Revenue Streams (45:23)

  • Emphasis on understanding contracts, getting an agent and lawyer, and learning to negotiate for fair compensation, including residuals and merchandising.
  • “These days, I don’t sell my rights to anybody. I own the rights to everything and I license things out.” (Butch, 46:00)

• Vertical Integration (45:32)

  • Importance of securing participation in every revenue stream (“floors” in contracts, merchandise, etc.), much like predecessors made mistakes by giving up rights (e.g., Star Wars toys).

4. Creativity, Leadership, and Team Building

• The ‘Formula’ For Success (33:24)

  • Structure for consistent engagement: memorable characters + clear problems + a strong story arc.
  • Comparison with business and YouTube: initial virality is luck; consistent hits require a repeatable formula.

• Leadership Lessons (47:43)

  • Transitioning from artist to manager taught through hard experience—being “the boss” changes relationships.
  • Hired a coach to visualize himself in the “observation tower,” ensuring he didn’t burn out by trying to do everyone else’s job (50:12).
  • “You can’t delegate things effectively unless you really know what goes into them.” (Jack, 47:43)

5. Faith, Fulfillment, and Life Lessons

• Faith’s Central Role (54:28)

  • “I stopped answering to Hollywood and started answering to Jesus.” (James, 54:28)
  • Butch explains that his faith guides his decisions, leadership, and sense of fulfillment, midlife crisis included.
  • Generosity as a calling: “I got more satisfaction out of buying that person a car than buying myself a car…to see the impossible come true for them.” (Butch, 67:19)

• On Giving and Legacy (73:53)

  • “I want to be remembered as a guy who gave his all so that other people could have a better life. … I want to make people feel better than they felt before they met me.” (Butch, 73:53)
  • Advice for future generations: “Please don’t be afraid. There are so many opportunities out there. If you let fear rule your life, you’re going to miss out on what God has for you... Take that first step. Don’t be afraid.” (Butch, 72:48)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Opportunity & Ambition

  • “Opportunities are like comets. They are really cool and beautiful but they don’t come around very often and it might be a long time till you see another one.” – Butch Hartman (39:00)

• On Success & Perseverance

  • “Passion, patience and persistence. Passion to do what you love. The patience to know it’s going to take a while, and the persistence to keep going.” – Butch Hartman (20:33)
  • “I moved from being just a cog in the machine to wanting to create the machine.” – Butch Hartman (23:55)

• On Creative Team Building

  • “Having creative people around you, building the right team is important. But being the driving force has got to be on you every single day.” – Butch Hartman (30:06)

• Personal Fulfillment & Faith

  • “All fear is, is negative belief and negative faith…. For me, I never wanted to go to church ever. But there was always that pull in my heart. It was about getting a relationship with Jesus for me.” – Butch Hartman (58:20)
  • “People say, you made my childhood. That means the world to me. I never get tired of hearing it.” – Butch Hartman (74:19)

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Important Segment Timestamps

• Introduction & Overview: 00:00–01:36
• Career Beginnings & Getting into Animation: 03:27–08:00
• Pitching and Building Fairly OddParents: 11:00–16:00
• Business Realities & Longevity in Entertainment: 24:20–27:00
• Crossovers: “Jimmy Timmy Power Hour”: 27:34–29:37
• Creative Formula & Team Leadership: 33:24–38:39
• Building and Running Two Shows: 38:39–42:28
• Business Acumen, Contracts, & Monetization: 45:23–47:43
• Leadership Lessons & The Observation Tower: 47:43–50:25
• Faith, Fulfillment, & Life Lessons: 54:28–67:56
• Legacy & Final Advice: 72:38–74:32

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Closing Thoughts

This episode leaves listeners with an intimate portrait of a creator who combined artistic talent with business savvy, persistence, and faith to achieve longevity and legacy in children’s entertainment. Butch Hartman’s transparency about both triumphs and challenges makes this essential listening for anyone aspiring to excel in a creative field—or any field that values grit, innovation, and personal growth.

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For more on Butch Hartman or to pitch your own cartoon, visit Butch Hartman Studios or follow him across social platforms.

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“I want to make people feel better than they felt before they met me. …Take that first step. Don’t be afraid.” – Butch Hartman (72:48, 73:53)

Transcript

[James]

We have an incredible guest for you all today. The man that invented your childhood.

[Butch Hartman]

I created several Nickelodeon cartoons back in the early 2000s. One's called the Fairly Oddparents. You guys ever heard of that show? That was that. Absolutely. Then I created a show called Danny Phantom.

[James]

How do you even put yourself in a position to pitch Nickelodeon?

[Butch Hartman]

It really was a matter of connections because you can make these people's lives easier. They want to know who you are. Who's the guy over there who's doing all the stuff that we don't have to ask him to do?

[Jack]

You can go viral once a.

[Butch Hartman]

Okay, by chance, anybody can do that.

[Jack]

But to do it consistently, there's a formula. Is there a formula to creating a great show?

[Butch Hartman]

There absolutely is. It's not the exact same formula all the time, but the elements are always there.

[Josh]

I always love talking to Christians that are successful and especially from.

[Butch Hartman]

Maybe one will come in here someday. I got more satisfaction out of buying that person a car than buying myself a car. To see their eyes light up, to see the impossible come true for them. They've been praying for something like that. And you can make that happen.

[Josh]

You got all these blessings, and you're almost acting as a vessel to give that to others.

[Butch Hartman]

Yeah.

[James]

So butcher me. And you died tomorrow. What would your last message to the younger generation be?

[Butch Hartman]

Wow.

[James]

What's going on, everyone? And welcome back to the School of Hard Knocks podcast. I'm James, and I'm here with Jack and Josh. And we have an incredible guest for you all today. Mr. Butch Hartman, as I like to call the man that invented your childhood. Butch created not one, but two of the greatest childhood shows of all time. And I think probably three or four shows in total. How many shows in total?

[Butch Hartman]

Well, at Nickelodeon, there were four. Four shows in total? Yeah.

[James]

Those two shows that changed your life and changed everything for you. What shows did you create for the people that don't know?

[Josh]

Yeah.

[Butch Hartman]

Well, first of all, I'm glad to be here with three Js. It's easy to remember. Like, I just. Hey, Jay, Jay, Jay. You guys are all Js. That's good. I created several Nickelodeon cartoons back in the early 2000s. One's called the Fairly Oddparents. You guys ever heard of that show? That was that show. Then I created a show called Danny Phantom, which came out right after Fairly Oddparents. And then you guys might have been a little bit too old, but my third show was called Tough Puppy. Came out in the late 2000s. And then around 20, 2014, I created a show called Bunsen is a Beast. And so those four shows on Nickelodeon and yeah, that was a blast to do. And now I have my own company, my own animation production company now, and we're doing a bunch of other stuff now, so it's really a blast.

[James]

And if I'm not mistaken, you actually did some of the voice narration on some of the shows as well, right?

[Butch Hartman]

Well, I did. I couldn't do voices for sure, but when I got my own show, I wanted to hire actually people. That's all. They do professional stuff. So I hired some of the best voice actors in the business. So they.

[James]

The reason why I asked is because before we get into the podcast, need to confirm that it's really you and that it's your show. So we. We need to hear something.

[Butch Hartman]

Oh, wait, okay, so I should do probably. Now, here's the thing. I don't do the voice of Mr. Crocker, but I can imitate the voice. We gotta hear it. We gotta hear it. It's like, well, see water, wooden. Wooden table. This can only be the work of Paragod parents. I mean, I can.

[James]

There you go.

[Butch Hartman]

I don't do that all the time, but I. I can imitate that guy. Carlos Ellis Racki is the originator of that voice. He's great.

[James]

I love it. Where I want to get things started off and we'll unpack everything, is when you got the green light for the fairly odd parents that, you know, at the time your idea was going to become such a global phenomenon. Like, what was that moment like when you first initially got that green light on the show? What was going through your mind? Let's go right back to that moment when you got the green light for your first big hit, the Fairly oddparents.

[Butch Hartman]

Yeah, man. Thank you. How old are you?

[James]

23. 20?

[Butch Hartman]

You're only 23? The guy's only. He's only 23 and you're like 23 and a half.

[Josh]

I'm 25.

[Butch Hartman]

25. So old. And you?

[Jack]

27.

[Butch Hartman]

Great, great, great. Ages to be. I was about 35 when I got my green light for the fairly odd parents. But prior to that, I'd worked in the an. About 15 years, about 11 years, actually. And I. I'm from Michigan originally. Drew cartoons. See, when I grew up, all we had were three channels on tv. There was no Internet. There was no way of really. I guess you could find out things, obviously, through books and magazines and the news and all that, but it was a lot harder to find out things. And so I Didn't know where I was going to make a living. I thought, I want to do cartoons my whole life, but how am I going to do this? A kid in Michigan, how do you do that? How do you get into the television? You know, how do you get in there? And so I knew there was a school in California called CalArts, which is an animation school. Ended up going to that school, and I just learned from the other students. I immersed myself in what I loved and got around all these people. And I thought I was good. I thought I was talented in my hometown. But it's almost like being a pro baseball or football player. You think you're good till you get into the major leagues. And everybody's unbelievably amazing. And so I really had to either decide, am I going to step up my game and stay, or am I going to go back home? So I got into the animation industry, and through many years of practice and different jobs, I ended up in Nickelodeon. Finally had an idea sell. It was called the Fairly Oddparents, but it was only one cartoon. They bought one cartoon for me. It was a short, the first episode. And so what you do is you pour all of your expertise you have at the time into that one story, that one episode. And fortunately, they liked it. And so it was in January of 2000. They said, we're gonna make your show. Not just one show, but six half hours. And at that point, you're like, six half hours. This is great. That means I'll be working for the next year. All you're worried about at that point is like a paycheck. You said global phenomenon. Nobody knows if it's going to be a phenomenon ever. You're just like, I'm going to get my show made. Let's just do this. I get to draw every day now. In my heart, I knew it was going to be good, but I knew I had to work really hard. I had to make funny characters that people wanted to watch. Multiple episodes. I made the first six half hours a very small crew of people writing, drawing, all that stuff. And then you're kind of dependent at that time on the studio putting it out. There was no social media of any kind. I had no control over me. There was no extra advertising on my end that I could do. I had to make sure that network was airing it, putting it out, all that type of stuff. So unfortunately, they did. And back then, the show did really well. We had a thing called ratings. Ever heard of ratings? TV ratings, that kind of stuff. I was making sure I don't know if you guys knew that, but back then, a good show on Nickelodeon at the time would get like a 5 rating fairly out. Parents were getting like eights and nines. We're getting like at the time.

[James]

How many viewers would like a good show be doing?

[Butch Hartman]

Maybe per se. Yeah, like an 8 or 9 rating meant you were getting like maybe 10 million people watching your show at any time. So there's live viewers or. Well, there were people like, what. It was really weird back then because they would, like, put the show out and then they would have to do an average of people that were watching. How many people subscribe to Nickelodeon and how many people were watching this particular show at this particular time? Out of all the people that have Nickelodeon, who was watching what at what time? It's all a way they averaged it out. And so not really privy to all of that information. But I would know that they would say, hey, your show's doing great. They slide the numbers across to me and you're like, great, we're going to make more. And so once they start ordering more episodes instead of going, hey, we only want six half hours. Now we want ten half hours. Now we want twenty half hours. Now you're time of employment is going up to three, four, five years. But now, in order to turn that out, in order to hit that product demand, you have to like now hire more people. Your crew is getting bigger. They're putting you on the network more. You know, we would beat SpongeBob all the time. I mean, SpongeBob was the number one show. I always say SpongeBob was the Mickey Mouse. We were the Donald Duck, you know. But I'll take Donald Duck any day because Donald Duck's pretty popular, right? Donald Duck's popular, right, guys? Oh, yeah, I heard of Donald Duck. Right?

[Josh]

Absolutely.

[James]

Let's be very clear. Donald Duck.

[Josh]

I sound like him right?

[Butch Hartman]

Now.

[James]

Let'S be very clear. Donald Duck has made Disney billions over the years.

[Butch Hartman]

Absolutely. And it's weird because, like, Mickey Mouse has no shirt and pants, but Donald Duck has shirt, no pants. It's really weird how they hang out together. You would think so, but we would do really well. We would. There was even times on the CNN little crawl at the bottom of the news, I guess all the extra news, it would say, fairly odd. Parents beat SpongeBob in the radio. We would get things like that all the time, which was really fun. But you're really just hoping the audience loves it. You're excited when they do. Then you start seeing demand, you know, we want to. Butch. Can you give us a Christmas special? Can you give us a Halloween special? Can you give us a, you know, whatever. Can you add on to the show you're already doing? You know, can you do a movie for us? That type of stuff. So that's really exciting. And those opportunities don't come around all the time. You know, a lot of shows out there, but they don't get extra stuff made all the time. They get like one, two seasons. That's it. But Fairly Oddparents was very fortunate. We did about 18 years on Nickelodeon.

[James]

So I'm sorry, I know you got to go. I just want to had to ask this real quick.

[Josh]

Yeah.

[James]

How do you even put yourself in a position to pitch Nickelodeon? I mean, I know that you mentioned that you started off working at the network, but like a lot of people, especially in this, you know, you're in the idea business, right?

[Butch Hartman]

Yeah.

[James]

And eventually you hope to one day get something approved. You know, first, how do you even put yourself in a position to present to Nickelodeon the idea of a show? And then also, how competitive is that process?

[Butch Hartman]

Totally great question. It's like, you know, everyone thinks they can do a show or sell a product or, you know, get into a sports team or whatever, but until you get that opportunity, until you're standing in the room with people you know, you don't even know. So how do you get into that room? Well, my. In my way was. I. I went to college, like I said, the art school. And then I just started getting jobs in the animation industry, which is a whole process you walk in. Back in those days, you'd walk in with a portfolio like a big book with all your drawings in it. Sit at a desk like this, all the executives, and you're sitting there as they look through your artwork and like, is he talented enough for us to hire him? And fortunately for me, I got hired because I can actually draw a little bit. And so I. It's just the more. But the more you get job number one, you meet this amount of people, you get job number two, you meet more people. Really was a matter of connections. I would get different jobs, but every job I got, I made sure it was a different job. I didn't just do character design. I did backgrounds and I did props and I did storyboards and I made sure I could do every aspect of animation. So by the time I got fairly outparents, I was very well rounded in what my profession was. But then all along the way, I was meeting high level executives because you can make these people's lives easier. They want to know who you are. It's like, who's the guy who's making all this stuff? Who's the guy over there who's doing all the stuff that we don't have to ask him to do? He's making our lives easier. Who is he? Give him more stuff to do, right? Whether it was me or whether it's one of you or somebody else, don't be the guy who just shows up late, leaves early, and just wants to go party all day, you know, if you want to. If you want to really succeed in any job. In my case, it was animation. Get there early, stay late. What else can I do? How can I help that type of stuff. And so I was just meeting people. So by the time Fairly Oddparents rolled around, there was a producer at. At Hanna Barbera, where I worked, which became Cartoon Network at the time. There were shows over there being made. Johnny Bravo, Powerpuff Girls, you know, Dexter's Lab, all that. I worked on Dexter's Lab and Johnny Bravo. And at that time, there was a producer at Hanna Barbera named Fred Seibert. And Fred was leaving Hanna Barbera, and he said, hey, I'm going to Nickelodeon. Do you want to come pitch me a show over there? And I said, no. He goes, why not? And I said, well, I'm working on Johnny Bravo. I'm pretty loyal. The show's running. I can't just leave, right? And so he goes, okay, I'll tell you what. I love what you're doing. Call me if something changes, okay? So nine months go by working on Johnny Bravo. And then they told us Johnny Bravo was ending. Show's done. And that's really what happens in Hollywood. It's like, show's done. Bye. Good luck, everybody. And now you're like, well, I'm gonna call Fred. So I called Fred. It's nine months later now. Hey, Fred, I got this great idea. Do you have any slots left? He goes, I got one slot left over here. I go, it was Tuesday. I said, I'll see you Friday. Great. Click. I had no idea at all. I had nothing. And so I'm like, I got to come up with an idea. So I. I came up with this little boy. I drew this little boy. I named him Timmy because my brother's name is Timmy. And then I'm like, what can he do? I'm like, maybe he could do science. That'd be fun. Science is fun. But Dexter's Lab was already out, so I couldn't do a science show. That's another thing. Do your homework. Don't ever do something that's already been done if you can help it. So, okay, maybe I'll do magic. That's kind of fun. Magic's neat. So I thought, okay, does he have the magic power? No. What if he got a magic friend? So I drew, like, a magic friend. I drew Wanda. I thought this would be kind of fun.

[Josh]

Wanda sitting in the cups over there?

[Butch Hartman]

Yeah, the pink cups, exactly. But I'm like, maybe, Wanda, what's your.

[James]

Ideation process like when you're bouncing off these ideas?

[Butch Hartman]

To be honest with you, at this time, it was. I really needed a job. Sometimes jobs come out of desperation. I was, like, excited. My first daughter. I have two daughters. My first daughter was born. My second daughter was on the way. So I've got a little girl at home. My wife's pregnant. Johnny Bravo ended. I have no job. And I'm like, I'm needing a job right now. So I had to go like, okay. I got this idea. Timmy. Wanda. And then I thought, I've never seen a fairy godfather before. A fairy godmother? Yeah. But I never had a fairy godfather. So I drew Cosmo, but I didn't know what to name him. Like, what do I name this guy? And Seinfeld had just released an episode where they revealed Kramer's first name, which is Cosmo Kramer. And I thought, cosmo, That's a really funny name. So I wrote Cosmo down, and then I had Cosmoand and Timmy. And I need. They need a she need. He needs a bad guy. So that. What if he had an evil babysitter and he called her Vicky because he's icky with a V. Right? Icky. And so I drew that, and it took, like, 15 minutes for the idea, the whole first couple drawings. And then I went home, and I'd never written a script by myself before. I'd written scripts and stuff, but the. I had never written a script by myself. I'm like, I gotta go home and write a script by myself. I don't want anybody else to be creating this. It's gonna be me, you know, sink or swim. It's me by myself. So I wrote a script that I thought was pretty decent. And then by Friday, I had an idea, and I took it into Fred and he liked it. So we did the first episode. And then that went. It kind of went on from there.

[Josh]

So when you're creating and for context.

[Butch Hartman]

Sounds like Donald Duck. I know. I said, I'm Joking. Yeah.

[Josh]

First, for context, for the audience. Big Dodgers fan, was at game three, longest game in World Series history last night. So I was cheering, cheering my ass off, so.

[Butch Hartman]

Well, well done.

[Josh]

Yeah. But my question is, I've always been fascinated on the technical side of when you're creating the episodes for a show.

[Butch Hartman]

Yeah.

[Josh]

How does the drawing work in that sort of process? Like, when you're like, are you drawing, like, several of the same images in a row and just kind of changing one thing to make it?

[Butch Hartman]

How does.

[Josh]

How does the animation.

[Butch Hartman]

I'm not. But other people. Other people, Yeah. I mean, there are people in the world that are animators. Absolutely. That's how I started out. I was an animator. That's where you take drawing one, drawing two, drawing three, drawing four. It's like if you took a strip of film. If you and I were to film a movie, we filmed somebody jumping off a diving board. You know, they'd be here, then they'd be here up in the air. Then there were so, like, several frames, they would jump off the diving board. Animation's the same way. You just gotta draw it. You can't film something in real life, so. But in a cartoon, you can have them jump off the diving board and then get sucked back by a magnet or something like that, you know, so. But yeah, you would do every drawing. But before you do the drawing, you gotta do a character design, which is like casting a movie. For example, like when I drew Cosmo, I'm like, what does this guy look like? So I'll sit for a couple hours and draw. In this case was quick. With Cosmo, that was 15 minutes. But sometimes when I was working as an artist, they'd say, butch, we got this brand new show. Read the script. You read the script. Because there's always a script. It's like a movie, TV show. James walks outside and he meets an ostrich. Okay, what's the ostrich look like? Right? So someone's got to draw the ostrich. Is he big? Is he small? So a guy like me would sit there for hours doing different ostriches. Show them to the boss, and the boss goes, I like this ostrich. I like that guy. Put a hat on him or whatever. That's what the cartoon world is like. So, yeah, then you do that. Then you got to get somebody to do the voices. You have to get actors that do the voices, Right? So you got to hire these professional actors that come in and read your script that you've written, and then you go from there. So you kind of assemble it piece by piece like a movie.

[Jack]

Every show has personalities, and I even look at some of the most successful YouTube channels of our time, and they. They create characters that all kind of play a specific role within the show itself. What goes into the thought process of how you're going to create the characters and the personalities behind them?

[Butch Hartman]

Yeah, it's a really good question. Like, you know, for example, any show, for example, like, what? Do you have a favorite show on TV right now or a favorite cartoon?

[Jack]

Game of Thrones, I'd probably say.

[Butch Hartman]

Let's say you're doing a Game of Thrones script, right? You'd write everybody's naked number one. You'd write that down. I'm kidding. But Game of Thrones, you'd say, okay, what happens in this episode? And a Game of Thrones was like a soap opera in a way, because they would have to. Every episode continued from the previous episode, right? So when we last left, Tyrion Lannister, he was hanging from a cliff and there was a dragon about to eat him, right? So what happens now? You know, so we have to come, you know, with point A, point B, point C, and you have to drag the audience through the narrative in an interesting way so they want to watch the next episode, Right? You can't make it boring. That's the trick. That's what separates a good writer from a bad writer. It's all storytelling. You know, what I do is just storytelling. I just do it through cartoons. But you'll have a room full of people like this sitting around going, okay, like, if it's a sitcom, for example, we need an episode today. All right, what's the episode about? Well, for fairly oddparents, for example. Okay, well, it's always, what is Timmy's problem? Because Timmy's the star. What is Timmy's problem? Okay, well, we already wished for goats. We wish for refrigerators falling out of the sky. We wish for outer space adventures. What could we do? Hey, what if he hates getting haircuts? Because all little boys hate getting haircut. That's cool. What do we do? What if Timmy had indestructible hair? No one could cut his hair. Oh, that's funny. He could wish for instruct. Okay, great. But now what happens? Okay, well, maybe he's got indestructible hair. Maybe the hair gets so big, and maybe at first it's really cool and beautiful, people love it, but now it gets so long, so it's taking over the city. It's like a giant octopus on his head. We actually did that episode and it's called Hurricane. And so the only way to do it is Timmy's dad has to fly a helicopter through his hair. Cause it's like Godzilla and he has to cut his hair there with a helicopter. And so. But that's a funny story you come up with in the room with everybody, you know, and then like, what does Timmy say? What does Cosmo say? What does Wanda say? So you need funny people to, to write that stuff and you got to find funny people, which is always a challenge as well.

[James]

So cartoons made you a millionaire?

[Butch Hartman]

Yes, sir, it did. It did, yeah. And I said not easy to be a millionaire doing cartoons. But yeah, we. Yeah, absolutely did.

[James]

Did you have some people that thought that you were absolutely insane?

[Butch Hartman]

Yes. Oh, yes.

[James]

When you said you were going to leave home and go make cartoons?

[Butch Hartman]

Well, I don't know if they thought I was insane. I think they wished me well. But no one in my family had ever done cartoons, ever. Or art or anything. Everybody. I'm from Michigan, right? Everybody worked in like the auto industry or just, you know, blue collar jobs. I mean, great people. But they, no one did entertainment, you know.

[James]

So I would imagine though, you had a lot of people, maybe even family members, friends that were maybe advising you to say, hey, like, what are you doing? Like, it's like, like, are you serious?

[Butch Hartman]

A couple people maybe had some questions about it, but I was always kind of, I guess you would say I was always pretty headstrong. If I wanted to do something, I would do it. So they really didn't have any doubt in me. I don't think they might have doubted what I was doing because they didn't understand it. Like, what is, how are you going to do this? You know, first of all, no one in my family had ever left Michigan to do anything, let alone go into the TV industry and the movies. What? Are you kidding? How do you even do that? And it's really tricky in the entertainment industry unless you have somebod that's done it before. Like any industry, it always helps to have an in.

[James]

Right?

[Butch Hartman]

The day I got to California, I was 18 years old. I got off the plane with my bags and my friend. I'd had a friend who left Michigan before me to meet me. He didn't meet me. He wasn't there. And this is 1983, so there's no cell phone, there's no nothing. So my plan B was to get on the shuttle to the school. I would had to get on the shuttle. I had to Find the Los Angeles International Airport. I had to find the shuttle. Got on the shuttle and went to the school. But, yeah, people thought no one understood what I was doing. Even I kind of didn't understand it. I just knew that I wanted to do it. And I wasn't thinking money at all. I was just thinking, hey, this will be a blast.

[Jack]

And that's what I actually want to touch on real quick, is I think everyone thinks when they look at successful people or these successful businesses, for example, they think that they always started with this grand vision. But in reality, just like, it's almost just like, hey, this seems like a cool idea, and I'm gonna put one foot in front of the other and figure it out. And the vision grows bigger over time. It doesn't start off with this grandiose vision. It oftentimes starts out with like, okay, how can I even just make a living doing this?

[Butch Hartman]

Well, like I said, with me, with fairly odd parents, it was like, I need a job. But coming out to California originally was, I wanna go to college and maybe I'll get to work for Disney. Cause Disney created CalArts, the school I went to Disney. Walt Disney founded the school. So at the very least, I thought, I'll work for Disney someday. And to this day, I've never worked for Disney. Isn't that funny? I've worked.

[James]

Was he somebody that inspired you? Walt Disney.

[Butch Hartman]

Walt Disney really inspired me. Absolutely. Yeah. Walt Disney. And many of the animators who worked for Walt Disney inspired me. A guy like Chuck Jones, who didn't work for Disney, but Chuck Jones created all your famous Bugs Bundy cartoons, Roadrunner, all that kind of stuff. I really looked up to those guys. I looked up to a lot of comic book artists, too, but I never met any of these guys. And I never, you know, rarely would you see, like, a TV special or something or see them in a magazine. But, like, again, there was no Internet back then, so you couldn't get stuff instantaneously. So I really. I didn't come to California going, I'm going to make a show about fairies one day and make millions of dollars. But I did come going, I'm going to stay in this industry for as long as I can, because I didn't know what else I was going to do. I mean, I don't know what else I would have done. Maybe I would have done music. I would have been a police officer. I don't know what I would have done. But fortunately, and it took a lot of perseverance, number one, I always say there's three Ps. There's passion, patience and persistence. Passion to do what you love. The patience to know it's going to take a while, but the persistence to keep going. You need to keep going, because if you don't keep going, you're not going to get anything. I met so many people in the animation industry and the, you know, being. Or actors or musicians, if the first thing doesn't take off, they give up. And that's really tragic sometimes.

[Josh]

Do you think that that was the formula that separated you from other animators or anybody trying to get a show on television? That I guess, basically what separated you from other people trying to get a show that ended up working your favor to take fairly odd parents.

[Butch Hartman]

I really think what separated me was probably just ambition. I mean, really ambition. I was a very ambitious guy. Still am. And I'm not saying other people weren't ambitious. I just knew that I'm going to get this. I'm going to do this, because, number one, I know I can do it. Number two, the opportunities there. And number three, if someone else gets it, then I'll have to try harder again. I'd rather do it now while it's right in front of me. You know, when they. What was really. What was a really cool moment in my career was when I was at Cartoon Network again. I worked at Hanna Barbera, but then Cartoon Network or Ted Turner bought them and turned them into Cartoon Network. And then right. If they bought, and right after Cartoon Network was formed, Fred Seibert, my producer friend, he was running Cartoon Network. He said, or he was producing. He was a big producer there. He said, we're going to give all the artists in the studio a chance to pitch their own shows. Now, at the time, I'm just a regular artist in the building doing my props and my character designs and all that. But they said, you can make your own cartoon now. And I'm like. At first I was like, I don't want to do that. I'm scared. I don't really want to do that. But a friend of mine goes, hey, let's do that. And I went, I don't want to do that. Nah, it's too much too hard. That's what I said. He goes, ah, come on, you can jump on my cartoon. Come and help me pitch it. So he pitched his cartoon and it sold. I'm like, wow, that was easy. And the reason they bought it, they told me later no one else had pitched anything, so they bought one.

[Josh]

Wait, which one was that?

[Butch Hartman]

Oh, it Was a cartoon called Shake and Flick. It's just a one episode cartoon. Pretty fun, interesting cartoon. But did that cartoon and thought, well, that's kind of neat, let's do another one. So we did another one and we invent. We created another cartoon called Fish and Chip, which was about a shark and a lynx that work at a bomb squad. Was kind of fun. Another one off, you know. But then I started getting the taste for this going. I could really. But then when you. Every cartoon you make, it's a story, it's characters, it's a whole new world. Right. So what worlds am I creating? Like, think about it. Every movie you've ever seen that you really like, somebody created that world. Whether it's Avengers, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, whatever, somebody made that world. And there's certain rules for every world, you know, But I moved from being just a cog in the machine to wanting to create the machine. And that at the mo. At that time, is what separated me a little bit.

[James]

I think when, when I think about the fairly oddparents, one of the most impressive things to me isn't just necessarily the fact that you created a global phenomenon, which it definitely became worldwide, but the longevity that you had of. You said 18 years, right?

[Butch Hartman]

Yeah.

[James]

When I think about, it's still running.

[Butch Hartman]

Now, but new shows for 18 years.

[James]

Which is absolutely insane. And I think that, you know, in any business. Right. Take fashion, for example. The average cycle of a hot brand is like five to seven years. I would imagine in television, that's a.

[Butch Hartman]

Huge long cycle for a clothing brand for sure. Unless you're Michael Jordan.

[James]

Yeah, yeah. But I would imagine the same thing probably applies in the television business.

[Butch Hartman]

Absolutely.

[James]

And so what was kind of your secret ingredient to that longevity, as I like to say, in content creation, you constantly have to be an innovator in whatever niche that you're in.

[Butch Hartman]

Absolutely.

[James]

You know, you hear all the time, especially in content, people hit plateaus and they stop growing. And I'm. Anytime that I've ever hit a plateau or I've stopped growing, month over month over month, like I get paralyzed by an action. I get paralyzed by not growing. I'm always thinking about that thing to keep growing, to keep things, you know, what were you doing, you know, maybe getting into year five, 10, 15, to be like, let's keep this thing going. How are you continuing to kind of cast that vision and get bigger and bigger and bigger?

[Butch Hartman]

Great question, man. Really good question. But what's great about guys like you, especially you, because I've met you before, Already do you have a mind that you want to just keep going? You have a very ambitious, very entrepreneurial mind, which a lot of people don't have, and that's okay if you don't have that. But the ones that do are always dissatisfied unless they're doing something more. Right. I was the same way with Fairly Oddparents. The ratings were going through the roof. The show was doing great. And after a while, they were like, I feel like three or four years. They were like, well, we're going to cancel your show. I thought, cancel the show. It's doing great. Yeah, but, you know, Butch, we just do three or four years and, you know, thanks. Anyway, I'd say, well, SpongeBob's still going. Like, well, SpongeBob's different. That's doing. You know, that was doing things on a different level. And I would think I had to learn how to play the game. I had to move from just being an artist to being a business person. I started talking to the execs more, started talking to the people that ran the studio more. Hey, let's talk a little bit. Let's, you know, let's talk about this type of stuff. Let's negotiate a little bit. And so. So Fairly Oddparents actually got canceled five times, and I made sure that it kept going each time they had a wrap party for us. That's when you close the show down. You have a big party for everybody. We had five wrap parties for Fairly out parents. And I kept saying, it's not over yet. I let them think it was what parties. I guess it's called a wrap party. When you wrap up the show, you're done. So we're done. Everybody's done. Thanks, everybody. Great couple seasons, I'm like, no, I'd be at the wrap party going, no, we're gonna keep going. And sure enough, about two months later, they would call me. You know, we really feel we want to keep going. I would pray a lot, man. I pray about everything. I'm a Christian guy, so I'd pray about everything. But I would be like, you know, I know the show's gonna keep going. The show has legs. When a show has legs, it means it can keep going. The show has legs. But then I would say, what if we did a half hour special? What if we did. What if we added a character? What if Cosmo Wanda had a baby? What if we added a magic pet? You know, that kind of stuff. So when you can add things to the show to make it more interesting for the powers that Be they tend to get a little more interested.

[Josh]

One of the most, I guess this was like a monumental memory in my childhood was when you did the collaboration between Fairly Oddparents and Jimmy Neutral.

[Butch Hartman]

Oh, yeah, the Jimmy Timmy Power Hour.

[Josh]

What was the business move and decision and creativity behind that?

[Butch Hartman]

Good question. I get asked this at comic conventions all the time. Well, it was great because Jimmy Neutron was another show at Nickelodeon being created at the exact same time Fairly appearance was going on.

[James]

You know the guy that created that show?

[Butch Hartman]

Oh, yeah, yeah, it was. Well, the guy who created it lived in Ohio. I think it was Ohio or Illinois. But Steve Oudekerk, the producer of the show, lived in California, so he'd be in the studio a lot.

[Josh]

The thing that fascinated me about that was that the animation styles are completely different.

[Butch Hartman]

Absolutely. Yeah.

[Josh]

2D one's like 1 3D.

[Butch Hartman]

Yeah. One was done by computer. Jimmy Neutron was done CG computer graphics and then Fairly apparently was done hand drawn digital. We would just do it that way. But at the time for Jimmy Neutron, there weren't a lot of CG shows on TV. That was like 2003. Like there were CG shows, but not a lot. So Jimmy Neutron was out and basically we were all in the same building. So we're walking around saying hi to each other. The writers of Jimmy Neutron are over here and the writers of Fairly Apparent. One day we're all in the kitchen hanging, having coffee or whatever, and we're like, wait a second. You've got a kid in your show named Jimmy who's 10, who does science. I've got a kid in my show named Timmy who's 10 who does magic. What are we, morons? We need to combine these shows. And so we're like, what can we do? Let's think about it. So we pitch the idea to the execs. They're like, we love that idea. And so we. And when you do a special, you got to make it special. That's what the whole word is. Right. It can't just be an episode of the show. What can we do? Let's have them cross worlds. Let's have Timmy go into Jimmy's world and become 3D and have Timmy go in or have Jimmy go into Timmy's world, become 2D. So we did that and it's called the Jimmy Timmy Power Hour. And it was the highest rated special of the whole year. Just did gangbuster numbers and made us all look great. Right? So like, let's do another one. The network says we did another one. We did three specials. Jimmy, Timmy, power hours to three of them. And hope you guys saw them. I think they were pretty fun. Yeah, they were pretty fun.

[James]

What in the world is your creative process like?

[Josh]

Because.

[James]

Because, you know, I'm here the last minute or so listening to you. Obviously, the thing I'm thinking about is you're coming up with. Think about young kids. Their attention spans are so short, they're so quick. You're having to make engaging, interesting, you know, long content for years and years and years, episode after episode, you have to deliver. It's on you.

[Butch Hartman]

Yeah, you're the.

[James]

You're the man behind the show. What's your creative process like? How are you coming up with all these ideas? It's fascinating to me, genuinely.

[Butch Hartman]

Great idea, bro. I mean, you know, I wish I could say I had, like a cult that was bubbling with magic potions in it or something, but quite honestly, if you love what you do, you're gonna do it every day. Sink or swim. You know, a lot of us will say that we'll do what we love for free, and we really would. I mean, you love the Dodgers, right? You would spend any amount of money to go see a Dodger game. Oh, yeah, probably right. You went to the World Series last night. I mean, but like, I would draw and create whether I was getting paid or not. It's nice that I get paid, don't get me wrong. But I just love creating stuff. And when you're on a deadline, when you're doing something under contract, when a network's paying you X amount of dollars to deliver 20 half hours in 18 months, you gotta do it. You gotta come up with the idea. That's why you hire these creative people to come around you. It's not all just me. I'd like to say it was all me. But I've had incredible teams of writers, artists that have helped me. I've gotta be the leader in many cases. But, man, I love what I do. I'm like, hey, what's a cool idea? You're driving down the road, you see some funny billboard. That's funny. That'd be a cool idea. Someone pitched an idea once, was a one sentence, ide. Timmy goes to work with his dad. Timmy goes to work with his dad. We never had him gone to Timmy's dad's work. What is that like? And Timmy's dad's a pencil pusher. He always said, I'm a pencil pusher. So he works at a pencil factory. What's it called? Pencil Nexus. Okay. That's Cool pencil Nexus. And they go there and it's like Willy Wonka's chocolate factory, but it's all made of pencils, you know, like, that's pretty funny. So that's where an idea can spring out of, you know. But having creative people around you, building the right team is important. But being the driving force has got to be on you every single day. Because think about it, how many. Like Elon Musk? I know he's got hundreds of creative people around him, but end of the day he makes the calls, right? I mean, I'm not Elon Musk, but I'm a version of him in a way. It's like. It's like you want to be Elon Musk, but Elon Musk, there's a lot demanded of him. And so the other thing too, about being successful, there's a scripture in the Bible that says, to whom much is given, much is required. Everybody wants the big house, they want the big car, they want the name on the door. But, man, there's a lot that comes along with that, you know, and some of us aren't ready for it. Some of us become ready. Some of us don't care about. If you care about your name on the door more than the product, it's never going to work. It's got to be the product first. And then all the other accolades or whatever will come, but it's got to be end of the day, man, long after I'm gone, the fairly odd parents will still be aired, people still be laughing, you know, that's all. That's what I care about the most.

[James]

It is crazy.

[Jack]

You said something that I honestly reflected on myself a little bit because I was wondering, you know, I do a lot of like the back end business for like the school of hard knock. Because I was like, why do I enjoy doing what I do so much? And I realized that growing up, I'd always play like these strategy games on the computer where I would build like economies at scale and like.

[James]

And like.

[Jack]

And I was like, I was like building up like almost like economic economies and like.

[Butch Hartman]

Like the Sims game.

[Jack]

Yes, like Sims, exactly. And I was like, oh my gosh, I'm just doing that. But in real life, within a business with people and resources. And I. Look, I'm. What I'm kind of curious though, is when we look at our channel and we say that going luck is. Is you viral once, okay, by chance.

[Butch Hartman]

Anybody can do that, but to do.

[Jack]

It consistently, there's a formula. And so when you go into a Show, like, before you look at our videos, it starts off with a hook, and then there's education or entertainment, and then there's a closing. Is there a formula to creating a great show?

[Butch Hartman]

Great question. There absolutely is. It's not the exact same formula all the time, but the elements are always there. You've got to have a great set of characters, number one, and a great concept. But the characters come first, concept, second. Here's why, like, I could. Let's look at a show like the Office. You ever watch the Office? Do you like the Office?

[James]

Yeah.

[Butch Hartman]

Yeah. Funny. Calm down. It's fine. A lot of people like the Office. Very successful show. But my point about the Office is the Office takes place in an office. It's like the most boring environment of all time. But the characters are really fun, so they create great characters. Star Wars, I truly believe, was such a success back in the 70s when it first came out, because not only was it a space adventure that was done really well, but the characters were great. Luke Skywalker, han Solo, Chewbacca, C3PO, all that stuff, right? How many space movies have been made? Tons. How many can you name that were just awesome, Right? Very few more bad movies get made than good ones. You know why? Because everybody's throwing darts at the dartboard, right? But every once in a while, you got someone who's really good at darts and they could throw it and hit the dart, hit the. Hit the bullseye, right? So. And you might even have talented people that get more than one shot at the dartboard. But not every movie they make is great, you know, but they. If you even look at Sylvester Stallone, Rocky, he created a great character. That's not the high concept of that movie. He's a boxer, big deal. But he's such a great character you want to follow. He's the underdog. Is Rocky going to win? You want him to win really bad, right? But is he gonna. You know, you don't know it. Everything's leading up to that big fight, right? So how do you construct that narrative? How do you. So, everybody. Basically, to answer your question, the formula is you gotta follow a character from point A to point B, and he's gotta succeed a little bit, then fail, then succeed ultimately at the end. Ultimately at the end. That's.

[James]

I just saw Samuel L. Jackson the other day, you know, was asked, like, some of the best advice that he got throughout his career. And he talks about when Bruce Willis told him that you wanna find Wal. One character that you. That you can ride out for your entire career to where it will never be a box office flop. In particular with, you know, Sylvester Stallone, he had Rambo and Rocky.

[Butch Hartman]

Yeah.

[James]

And then you have all these other guys that have seven or eight movies with the same character.

[Butch Hartman]

It kind of reminds me of Arnold Schwarzenegger is another one. The Terminator, all that stuff. Yeah, there's. And there's not too many of those lately. I mean, maybe there kind of are a little bit. Maybe Hugh Jackman with Wolverine maybe. Could be one for sure, you know, or like maybe Deadpool, I think something like that. But those characters are what people fall in love with and they'll watch that character anywhere. So I really knew when we went into doing Fairly Oddparents and Danny Phantom and my other shows, even if we're in a white background with no background at all, the people got to tune in to watch these characters. So the characters have to be strong.

[Jack]

So it's funny you say that is you can pair yourself along with a really strong character. You can also put yourself in the wrong box or maybe you put yourself. You get tired of that box. And I think someone that I think of that talks about this is Matthew McConaughey and he talks about how he got sick of doing rom coms. And so he had to, even though people in, you know, companies were throwing him millions and millions of dollars for these roles, he was just like, look, I can't do it because I'm going to be stuck in this box. And so he literally stopped making movies for two years.

[Butch Hartman]

Yeah, I'm going to stop making movies for two years. Can't do these movies. I can't do rom coms anymore. But he stuck to his principles. He set a principle in his mind and stuck to it and fortunately it paid off for him. That's really great, but you're exactly right. I mean, you can like Jim Carrey's another example, who is really, who did a lot of comedies at the beginning of his career, then decided to switch over to dramas. Right. I think a lot more of his comedies were successful than his drama. I could be wrong. I mean, don't nail me on that one, but, you know, I prefer myself. I'm really good at making fun comedic stuff and I love doing that and I love making it all the time and I love, you know, will I do a dramatic cartoon someday? I'd love to. I'd love to do something like an anime ish type of thing or a more of a serious kind of a feature film, how to Train youn Dragon. Something like That I could definitely do it. But right now, with running your own studio and stuff, it's like I'm looking at an array of different types of things now that we're doing not just the fun comedies for this age group, but now for this age group. That's also a thing you got to think of too. Everything you make, every story you tell is a product. It's. Who's it for, though? Like, who is this for? That shirt, that jacket, who is that for? I mean, who is this for? Who's gonna buy it? How many will they buy? It's like, which item will go viral, right? Which one of these will go viral? Like you were saying, anyone can get a viral video. Whether it's like, don't you love that online? Like, you'll shoot something for. I'll do a 10 second video of this. It'll get 4 million views. And then you do a whole video. You plan it, you write it, and nobody watches. You're like, really?

[James]

Sometimes it's the stuff you never expect.

[Butch Hartman]

Exactly, exactly. But then, like, again, when you can find that formula and that sweet spot, that's what. But it takes work. It takes. Even with Fairly Oddparents, we, you know, the first couple seasons, we really didn't know the characters as well. But fortunately we were able to do multiple seasons where I could find the sweet spot of that character. That character, he'll say this really funny. And then getting to know the voice actors too. The guy who does Cosmo will do this perfectly. The girl who does Wanda will nail that perfectly. Let's give her that line. So it's discovering all of that.

[Josh]

You not only did the Fairly Oddparents, but you also created Danny Phantom. What was the thought process of wanting to start another show and how did that one end up also becoming a success like Fairly Oddparents?

[Butch Hartman]

Oh, thanks. You know, it's funny about that one. That was an opportunity that showed up that I was ready for, thank goodness.

[James]

And what are opportunities like to you?

[Butch Hartman]

Oh, they're like comets. C O M E T S Opportunities are like comets, I always say, because they are really cool and beautiful, but they don't come around very often and it might be a long time till you see another one, you know. So I always say seize that opportunity. But I was doing Fairly Oddparents. I did like a year and a half. Fairly Oddparents was doing great on Nickelodeon. The heads of Nickelodeon took me out to dinner. Let's go out to dinner. Okay. And it was a typical Hollywood thing in Beverly Hills went to this really nice restaurant, me and these two gentlemen. And they're like, we love Fairly Oddparents. It's doing great. We want to pick up more. I'm like, oh, that's great. Thank you. You know, that's wonderful. Do you have anything else? I'm like, now what would you say in that situation? I feel like, because the opportunity is right there.

[James]

Yes.

[Jack]

You have to say yes.

[James]

Sell it first and then figure it out.

[Butch Hartman]

Exactly right. Well said. You guys are thinking, fortunately, I already had something. I didn't have it. I wasn't making it up. I said, I do have something else. It's called Danny Phantom. And I thought of Danny Phantom. My mother lived in Las Vegas. I lived in la. She wanted to move out to la. So I went to Vegas, picked up my mom in a moving van. And I'm driving a moving van from Vegas to la. It's like a five hour drive. And all along the way, I knew Nickelodeon was looking for a boys action show. Like, boys action show. Boys action show. It'd be kind of cool. I'm driving and I'm like, what would be a cool boys action show? And I think if I could come up with a cool name, that would really help, right? Because I thought when I was a kid, I loved a show called Johnny Quest. You ever heard of Johnny Quest? Yeah, super cool name. Johnny Quest. That's a great name. What would be a cool name like Quest? And I'm like, okay, Lightning, that's a cool name. Or like dynamite. That's cool. I thought I landed on the word Phantom. Phantom's really cool. So I'm going like Billy Phantom, Bobby Phantom. And I went, danny Phantom. That sounds really cool. So by the time I got back to la, I had this show idea called Danny Phantom. And I was gonna make him like a ghostbuster, like a Scooby Doo type of thing. But then we decided to make him a superhero with like superpowers, like one of the teen Titans or X Men or something. And so that's what I pitch. At that moment, that dinner, I said, I got this thing called Danny Phantom. And he goes, great, let's make it. It was that quick. So now I'm making fairly odd parents.

[Josh]

They just had so much conviction in you that they were like, we're ready to rock.

[Butch Hartman]

Because most of the time, and I've asked these guys this since. I go, did you buy the idea or buy me? They're like, we were buying you. You could have said anything.

[Jack]

James, what do they always say? Credibility.

[James]

We're just talking about this. Credibility kills all bad attitudes.

[Butch Hartman]

Well said, well said.

[James]

But if I'm not mistaken, with this show, like the execs that had approved it initially, they got wiped and you had to kind of re pitch it.

[Butch Hartman]

That's true. I mean, it's funny because I pitched, I pitched a show to these guys. Let's make it. Let's do it. Awesome. And like eight months later, those guys were gone out of Nickelodeon. They had moved on to other things. So the new people that came in, this happens in Hollywood, all the new people came in, they wanted to kill everything that those guys had approved because they didn't want to get blamed for it if it failed. That's what happens in Hollywood. New execs will come in and wipe the slate. Because if a movie goes through that the previous regime created and it bombs, everybody gets blamed. Right? But fortunately, again, I prayed a lot about this one too. They kept Danny Phantom going because this new exec that came in really liked me as well. The credibility was still there. So they were like, make Danny Phantom. So now I've got two crews of people going. I got the fairly oddparents crew, writing, drawing, voice acting, all that, and Danny Phantom writing, drawing. So now I got two crews to deal with every single day. So I'm running two shows at a time. And so now it's like, how can Butch do all this? But I knew I could do it all because I was psyched to do it. I was excited every day. And so then that's just how that started.

[James]

I kind of have a little two parter for you real quick. You know, firstly, you mentioned earlier something that we preach a ton to fellow content creators and creatives. Right. Is that you realized that you needed to learn the business side of the industry that you were in. Yeah. Which a lot of people, they're very creative, you know, maybe they know how to go viral, but they get taken advantage of when they go into a certain industry. What did you learn about navigating your way and your relationships with these big executives so that way you didn't get taken advantage of and that you understood your worth when you're going into these meetings, when you're getting taken out to dinner and you made sure to maximize the amount of return that you got for all the work that you were putting into the dinner?

[Butch Hartman]

No, that's a very good question. Like, one thing I realized in my prayer time, I was like, you know what? I really felt that the Lord was leading me to become more than just an artist because Artists are amazing, right? Artists are great, they're talented. But at the end of the day, you can always find another artist. You can always find another person to draw this thing. You want this table built? Great. This guy built this table. You can find another person to build it. Right? But who sells the table? Who owns the table? Business. Business, right. What else are they making at the table? Business. So that's where, like, the guy who runs Disney makes way more money than the person who's drawing for Disney. You know what I mean?

[James]

Yeah.

[Butch Hartman]

And I kept going, how does that work? How does that work? Right? How do I get to be. And it was about making money so I could buy all this stuff. I didn't want. I didn't care about that. I wanted to, like, leave a legacy for my kids, people coming after me. I wanted to build more than just me, Right. I wanted to leave something behind. The Bible says that a good man leaves an inheritance to his children's children. It's a great scripture, you know? So I'm going, how can I get more out of this and maximize. Like you said, how can I maximize my opportunity here? I've got to become a businessman. And so a lot of artists, a lot of creatives will put their headphones in and it's nine o', clock, put headphones in, they'll draw till lunch. Lunchtime, headphones come out, delete. Headphones, go back in. And, you know, they'll, you know, just put their headphones in all day. I start taking my headphones out and meeting people. People. Hey, how's it going? Butch Hartman. Nice to meet you. You know, I'd go to the executive floor as opposed to, you know, just staying on the artist floor or whatever, but just getting to know people. What opportunities are there? You guys looking for what? What other shows are there? And it ended up in. In Result. And I. I got an agent. I got an agent and a lawyer that really helped me out because you get these contracts, okay, you're gonna make 20 shows in 18 months. Here you go. I could just sign it, but I might be signing my life away. I put my contracts in front of a lawyer and an agent who are like, oh, no, no, they got this wrong. We're going to ask for this. We're going to ask for this. So I got smart people around me. I got smart people around me who knew the contract world way better than I did. Then you have meetings and by the way, is it fun to have a contract meeting? Not all the time, because you are a creative guy. You Want to be drawn. You don't want to talk about numbers, but you got to make yourself become more than what you are.

[James]

My favorite business concept that I love to learn about and see executed from different business owners and just people in different industries is this concept of vertical integration.

[Butch Hartman]

Yeah.

[James]

And I look at, you know, a cartoon. You know, we were talking about earlier how Donald Duck made Disney billions.

[Butch Hartman]

Yeah, it did.

[James]

Your shows made Nickelodeon a lot of money.

[Butch Hartman]

Oh, yeah, they did.

[James]

And so when you look at the cartoons, you've got licensing, you've got merchandise, you've got all these different things. What were all the different revenue streams that you made sure that you as the. Yes, you're the brains behind it, but you made sure that, hey, I'm getting compensated here. I'm making sure that I'm not getting taken advantage of. I'm making sure that I'm getting all of these different verticals, all these different revenue streams are coming to me.

[Butch Hartman]

Well said. Very good. There's like, you know, when I had this lawyer, I had several lawyers. One of my lawyers was like, okay, we're going to make sure you never get paid less than this. That was called a floor. We're going to put floors in your contract. I'm like, what's floors in my contract? Yeah. Let's say, you know, there's a. There's a financial upheaval in the studio or whatever. They can never pay you less than this. And that really paid off at one point, like, they couldn't. Couldn't drop my salary. One of my lawyers said, you're locked for life on the show. Like, so no matter what iteration of my stuff comes out, I get paid for it. That kind of stuff. Right. So those little guarantees that are in there and the percentages for, like, let's say, merchandise, for example, nowadays you could never get a deal like I had. My deal was made 25 years ago. The deals now are, like, infinitesimal compared to the percentage now. I didn't get a huge percentage, but I got way more than they're given now. Now. Right. Networks got smarter, networks got wiser, I guess, or they, you know, back then, they didn't know what was going to hit. It's like, you know, like when George Lucas sold Star wars, the network, the movie company didn't think they was going to sell any toys at all. Ah, you can have all the toys, George. We don't care. So now George Lucas got all the toys. Right. So that was a dumb mistake. So little. Little lessons like that go a long way. So now it's like anything could be lightning in a bottle. We're going to make sure everybody. Well, the. The studio gets the lion's share because the studio's taking the risk. They pay you to develop your show and make your show, and if it's a flop, they lose. But if it's a hit, they get the lion's share of all the profit. And you get. You definitely get a profit out of it, but not as much as the studio gets because you sell the rights to them. These days, what I do is I don't sell my rights to anybody. I own the rights to everything and I license things out.

[Jack]

Something that I love is that you said that you learned all the aspects of what goes into making a show. Because I'm a personal, big believer in that. You can't delegate things effectively unless you really know what kind of goes into them and what it actually requires. And so I'm kind of curious. You go from animator, show producer to actually. I mean, you're pretty much running two, multiple different shows at one time. And they don't teach that in school of how to manage people. So did you have a mentor or what did that process kind of look like to actually learn what it goes from just being a part of the show to actually running the show?

[Butch Hartman]

Really good question. Listen, I'm not perfect at all. I had to learn through the school of hard knocks. By the way, you know the actual expression, the school of heart knocks you. You hit your head, you scrape your knee. You might say something wrong to somebody, you might make a wrong decision, but you learn along the way. I've always been kind of a people person where I enjoy working with people. But when you're a boss, it really changes the dynamic in the room. Like when the boss comes in, everybody stops, like the whole everybody, because you're no longer one of them. You know, you've sort of become on this different. When you can hire and fire people, people get. They get intimidated by you. And you don't really expect that. At first you're like, hey, it's just me. It's the same guy. We used to hang out together, right? And so that changes. Hiring your friends changes, right? It's like, hey, I'm your friend, you gonna hire me? But now I know this friend, and I know this friend doesn't work very hard. So if I don't hire them, they're not my friend. But I made the mistake of sometimes hiring friends, and then they would, of course, do what I thought they would not do. Their work. And then now I've got to let them go. Now we're really not friends, right?

[James]

So.

[Butch Hartman]

So there's very hard decisions in there. But I really knew that I had to step up my game or else I would lose this opportunity. I've got to learn how to manage people. I've got to put my pencil down and handle this HR meeting. I've got to deal. One person has an issue, I've got to deal with it or whatever, but I've got other creatives that can handle this. I don't need to be the one doing the work all the time. My wife and I hired a coach a couple years ago, and he drew a line on a whiteboard, was a battlefield, and he put these little dots like soldiers. But then he drew a control tower in the middle of the battlefield, like an observation tower. And he put my wife and I in the observation tower. He goes, you guys are in the observation tower. You're. You're commanding the battle. But your problem is you're getting out of the observation tower and coming down on the battlefield all the time. You're trying to help all the time, right? And I kept going, man, because that's why I'm exhausted. I'm down on the battlefield all the time.

[Jack]

That is such a good.

[Butch Hartman]

I like that. Cool.

[Josh]

And I need.

[Butch Hartman]

I need to be. I need to be in the observation tower, staying healthy.

[James]

Hey, hey, we're keeping that one.

[Jack]

That one's going to the bank for sure.

[James]

Butch Harbor's observation tower. I'm always go back to that one.

[Butch Hartman]

That's cool, though, isn't it? It was a great observation. And then my coach drew on the board. He drew a line. He drew a line, and he put my age on the first part of the line. Then he put the number 80. He goes, so here's you now, now, and here's 80. What are we celebrating when you're 80? What are we celebrating?

[Jack]

End of life?

[Butch Hartman]

We're sitting at a table like this. We're all raising a glass. We're cheering. You know, it's. What. What have we done between now and age 80 right now? I was like, 58 at this time. I'm 60 years old now, but, like, I got 20 years till I'm 80. You guys have a lot longer, more than. More time than I do, but, like, for the next 20 years. And even back then, I kind of had this mindset when I'm 75, 80 years old, what am I thinking? What am I celebrating? Vibrating, you know? And that's Your goal. That should be your goal. Your time frame. That's, you know, on your tombstone. Every birth date and your death date, and there's a dash in the middle, and that's your life. The dash is your life. So what have you done with your dash? Did you want to do something your whole life or did you actually give it a try? You know, did you try it? Look what you guys are doing. I love what you guys are doing because this is doing really great. And I, I, man, I, I cannot wait 10, 20 years from now to see where you guys take. This is going to be so exciting. Exciting. Have me on when I'm 80, will you? Okay, I'll be back.

[Jack]

100.

[Butch Hartman]

I'll be back. Well, I'll be robots, by the way.

[Josh]

20 year anniversary of this podcast, that's.

[Butch Hartman]

The 20 year anniversary. Have me back. But we'll show this clip and then you can have me on. But I mean, you got. By the way, you guys could be doing that or you could have some other. The other millions of things you're going to be doing between now and that time is going to be so cool to see because you guys are all entrepreneurs, which is great, but I meet so many people that aren't, you know, but they say they want to be. So it's tragic. Sometimes when I see people that really have a lot of potential, they're too fearful to exercise it, or they're too, you know, they don't think they have it in them, you know, too intimidated sometimes.

[Josh]

Josh brought up running teams, but, Raina, you have your own studio.

[Butch Hartman]

Yeah.

[Josh]

And so you obviously come from the other side of like, hey, I'm pitching shows, I'm running the show, I'm creating it. And then now with the studio, do you have other people pitching you shows? What is that like? Because you're coming from. Not like the, you're coming from both perspectives. Not just like, oh, I'm an executive and I'm going to look at these shows. You're coming from the perspective of like, I was on the other side of the table.

[Butch Hartman]

Yeah, for sure.

[Josh]

What is that like?

[Butch Hartman]

Yeah, that's very good. You know, I used to be an actor and I would audition for parts. Right. Come in. Audition. Thank you. Come into a room like this. Thank you very much. And you'd leave. Right. I'm like, well, I want to be at the table with those guys. I don't want to be an act because, again, I could always find another actor. You can't always find another production. Right. So. So people Pitching me shows now is quite interesting, but I can handle it now because I know exactly what to expect. But again, you don't ever take it personally if you're the person pitching and someone says no, it's really hard. But don't take it personally because it's not what they're looking for right now as an actor too. It's just, you come in, you do a great job, you can do the part. But you know what? They wanted a blonde person because the other actor has dark hair. It comes out in something simple like that. So when somebody pitches me a show, I look just like those guys looked at me all those years ago. I look at the person, person. I go, can I trust this person with a million dollars? Can I trust this person with $5 million? Can I, can I trust them to run this show and deliver me a product that I can use later on down the road?

[James]

Right.

[Butch Hartman]

What's the person done Where I just met a young man recently, about 29 years old. This guy's going places. He's, he's very talented, very humble. Already he's got investors for his project. He's already started. He's already started the ball rolling and it's like, wow, you did that before you even met me. That's great. I mean, you can trust. I'm saying trust, but he looks like he's a good bet. You know what I mean? There's a lot of experience there already.

[James]

It reminds me of that concept that no doesn't mean no, it just means not yet.

[Butch Hartman]

Well said. Yeah, it's true.

[James]

I want to shift gears a little bit. One of my favorite answers I've ever received in an interview was when you were kind of talking about finding your fulfillment when you were in Hollywood and you said to me that I stopped answering. I stopped answering to Hollywood and started answering to Jesus.

[Butch Hartman]

Yeah.

[James]

How important has your belief in God, your belief in Jesus played a role into your life? And I want to talk about that for a little bit.

[Butch Hartman]

Oh, thanks, man. No, that's a, that plays everything. It plays every role in my life because prior to me accepting Jesus, I was just me. It was just my own decisions, my own heart, my own thoughts and experiences. And I was a very limited person. We all are. Like, you know, I was like, when fairly odd parents got picked up, I was 35. I had all the experience of a 35 year old man, you know, and believe me, at that time I didn't know anything. I still don't know everything and I never will. I'm Never perfect. But with Christ in my life, I realized that had to die to myself. Like Jesus is all about dying to yourself and helping others. You know, it really, truly is that way. Because at first it was all about me, me, me, me, me, what can I get for me? And that runs out of. You run out of gas with that really quickly. You can only get so much for yourself. But when you start giving out and you start at least thinking about other people, praying for other people, helping other people, all that stuff, you know, that really makes a change in your heart, you know, Jesus isn't after your money, he's after your heart. Because I got news for everybody. When you leave this earth, all the money stays here. It all stays here. And who's going to. There's even a lot of scriptures in the Bible that talk about who's going to get what you leave behind. Someone's going to get it, someone's going to deal with it. You know what I mean? A lot of these people you interview, I see them, I'm like, man. And I hear their words and I hear their attitudes and I'm like, yay, they made all the money, but where's it going after they leave here? What have they done with it now? Maybe they've done great things. Hopefully they have, have. But the Bible says build up for yourself treasures in heaven. And those treasures are people. There's all the treasure in the world up in heaven. They don't need treasure up there, they need people. They need the right hearts up there. And you guys can ask yourself this too. Do you want to have somebody on your team with a ton of money? Oh yeah, that would help. Or would it? But it'd be better if they had a ton of money and the right heart behind it, you know? Wouldn't that be better? Yeah, yeah, it would be. So that's where. So Christ really changed my heart. That's what really happen.

[James]

One of the probably lowest points of my life ever. I remember I was, I was a junior in college at the University of.

[Butch Hartman]

Texas, like two weeks ago. Right.

[James]

Not too long ago. And I had never really dealt with like, anxiety before.

[Butch Hartman]

Yeah.

[James]

But I was kind of dealing with it like a lot.

[Butch Hartman]

Sure.

[James]

To the point where, like, where I was just. My mind just could not stop racing to the point where like, I was literally. I went like at 11 o' clock at night, night to the University Catholic center, which is like the Catholic Church. I just, I just remember walking from.

[Butch Hartman]

Like the chapel or something.

[James]

Yeah. From my, like, apartment. Because we were born and Raised Catholic. I mean, I feel like as I've gotten older, you know, I definitely, you know, growing up in the Catholic church, I'd like go in there just because I was, you know, born, you know, baptized, confirmed. But I would say now I, I go to a little bit more of like a non denominational church, more kind of just Christian church.

[Butch Hartman]

Yeah.

[James]

But I remember just going there just because, like, I just felt comfortable there and was just trying to have conversations with God and just talk to God and everything. And what that anxiety I realized stemmed from was just I kept having this perpetual thought that was, you know, why the hell do people like work their asses off all for one day? Like, it's just going to be over, you know, like I was going to college. We were, we were probably growing the channel. We were probably super, super small compared to where we are now. But just, I just kept having that thought and I couldn't avoid it. I was like, I was like, oh, yeah, I'm doing my schoolwork, I'm doing my, my business stuff, but it's all going to be over when one day. And to me, where I really found the fulfillment and comfort was knowing that you just have to live for something bigger than you. And that even though your time here is temporary, your eternal life, your life after Earth is actually going to be with God. And that's what does last forever.

[Josh]

Yeah.

[James]

And I feel like that was kind of something that really found that fulfillment for, for me. For you. When did you have a moment when you were kind of like in Hollywood when you kind of faced that similar, you know, sort of thing where you were like, you were constantly just, just like waiting on the phone to pick up, you know, dealing with all these different business executives. Could you tell us a story maybe when you kind of dealt with that?

[Butch Hartman]

Oh, man, it's so funny because I'm so much older than you guys. I had so many more moments where that can happen. Let me ask you this. If you, if you were fearful every day and had no way out of it, wouldn't that be kind of a terrible thing? Horrible, horrible thing. Be. It'd be a terrible thing. That's why people do deal with anxiety. All fear is, is negative belief and it's negative faith. There's faith, which means you're hopeful something's gonna happen. But fear is like, like you're terrified something's going to happen. You know, you're believing in something negative that might happen and it hasn't happened yet. It's like fear of flying the plane Might crash. Well, that's true, but maybe it won't. Most of the time it won't. Right. So you have. It's all how you look at things. For me, I never wanted to go to church ever. But there was always that pull in my heart. It's not even about going to church. It was about getting a relationship with Jesus for me. My wife started going to church before I did. We had two little girls.

[James]

Girls.

[Butch Hartman]

See, I was raised in a very chaotic home. I was raised in a home where. Kind of a broken home. My parents got divorced. I have three younger brothers, and my dad and mom were divorced. There was always a lot of chaos in my house. And so I grew up in a house where everything was kind of exploding all the time. Right. There's just problems all the time. And my wife was raised the same way. And so now we got two people that are married and they're. We were survivors, basically. So you got two survivors, and it's either my way or my way. How are we going to reconcile that? Right. Well, we got to open ourselves up and agree to come together as opposed to being like this. I can't be separate from you all the time. Why am I even married to you in the first place? Right. If you want to get into business with somebody, you gotta be willing to open up your heart and accept that person. Amen. And you have to realize that acceptance means compromising yourself. It means changing your heart.

[James]

Heart.

[Butch Hartman]

It's like, well, I'm not going to talk to that person. Why not? Well, they offended me. Okay, how long is this going to go on? One of you's got a break, right? And then what.

[James]

What.

[Butch Hartman]

What prevents us from breaking? It's pride. Pride is like, I'm not. I'm not talking to them. What if you could change the rules a little bit? What if you could be the one that says, hey, let's talk, and break the wall down a little bit? Right? That's going to soften your heart, and it's going to blow the other person's mind. And now their heart's going to soften, too. Christ is all about softening people's hearts. Hearts. That's what he was about. He showed up under a rule system that had been in place for thousands of years, and they weren't going to break those rules. But he came in going, all those rules you're following, you guys have kind of gone nuts on the rules. You're straining out a gnat to swallow a camel. He says, meaning you're looking at this Little small thing and you can't see the big thing that God has for you, right? Let's get rid of the little small nitpicky stuff and start loving each other. And they couldn't handle, handle that because it wasn't about them anymore. It was about others. But Christ is all about others. So I did my best as a leader to treat people the way Christ would. I wasn't perfect at all the whole time. Believe me, nobody is. But I would try and approach every situation like, what do I do about this? What can I pray about? Who can I pray for? Fairly odd parents got canceled five times. I'm praying this back in. There's a scripture that says Mark 11, 23, 24. Whatever things you ask for, when you pray, you believe, you receive them and you'll have them. I thought, hey, if I believe this, if I pray about it, I'm going to get it back. And it would always come me to back well, but it doesn't happen because you pray. Well, I want, I'd hate to see what happened if I didn't pray, right, by the way, I could have been in fear the whole time. They're canceling the show. Could have gone right into the depths of the abyss. Could have gotten full of fear, totally scared, lost my hair, chewed my nails off, right? Taken tons of drugs and pills or whatever. But I thought, I'm just going to give this to the. I'm just going to give this to the Lord. The Bible says, cast all your cares on me in first Peter 5, 7. And I'm going to do that, you know, so people handle things in different ways. I don't ever want to like hit somebody over the head and say you got to do it this way. But for me, this is what works for me.

[James]

But you were in Hollywood, Butch. And, and the entertainment business in Hollywood, they don't a lot of that part of that industry, you know, they're not super receptive to people talking about their faith and that being a big part of them.

[Butch Hartman]

Why is that, do you think?

[James]

Maybe because it's parsley from some of the people that it's run by.

[Butch Hartman]

Yeah, well, here's why. That's a very good answer. But Hollywood's all about what?

[Jack]

Me, Me.

[Butch Hartman]

Right? What is Jesus all about? Everybody else. So Hollywood's all about the self and Jesus is all about the non self. He says in Matthew, the book of Matthew, if you want to follow me, deny yourself and follow me.

[James]

Right?

[Butch Hartman]

You got to come last. Because if you don't follow me by the way Jesus doesn't have an ego. He doesn't want you to follow him because he's an egomaniac like a movie star would be or like. Like a politician would be. He wants you to follow him because he knows that's what's best for you. You guys have parents, I'm assuming, right? They would, growing up. Please listen to me. I'm your dad. I know best for you. I went down that road. I know what mistakes there are, right? Listen to me. Your dad's imploring you to listen to him. Maybe you don't listen to him and you fall into a hole because he told you not to go down there or whatever, right? But your dad's not doing it because he has an ego. Your dad's doing it to protect you. Jesus is doing it to protect. Hey, Butch, don't go to that party. Why not? There's a lot of weird things that part don't go there. Everybody else is going, but everybody else is going to wake up the next day and regret that they went. That kind of stuff. You know what I'm talking about? So there's those moments in your heart you need to realize, like, God's got a better plan for me, right? I'll stay home tonight and I'll make up another show that I'll sell next week or something like that rather than go hang out and party, you know, I'm not trying to condemn anybody for doing that, but that was just my.

[James]

Mindset whenever you were questioning your faith. Faith, though, you know, not just in God. But I want to ask you, how did you know Jesus was real?

[Butch Hartman]

I knew he was real because I started like you, like. Like you were saying, am I doing. What am I doing this for? What am I doing all this for is this. There is a. There's a limitation on everything we have in the world. Everything's temporary. This table's going to dissolve someday. My body's going to run out of gas someday. We all. Every. Everything you see around you is temporary. It does not have. Oh, excuse me. It has an expiration date, right? But Jesus does not have an expiration date. The Bible says he's the same yesterday, today, and forever. The last word is forever. He's the same. If it said he's the same yesterday, today and until 2070, one doesn't say that he's yesterday. It's day and forever. And that's where faith comes in, is believing that he's real, right? I do believe he's real because there were so many Eyewitnesses that saw him.

[James]

Him.

[Butch Hartman]

That saw him die, that. That were there, that witnessed him witness all the miracles that he did. And they went to their deaths knowing that it was true. They had a chance to, To. To say it's. These guys were all about to be killed and they had a chance to repent and say it's not true to save their own lives, but they still got killed because they believed it was true. I'm not going to lie about this. I know this is true. So I know that he's true. I've seen evidence. I've seen evidence of it in my life, seen ev. Evidence of it in my job, in my heart and my finances. I've seen miracles in my life. I've seen so many things. And I live my life by this now. And I want other people to know about it too. And by the way, it's their choice to believe or not. I would never force it on anybody. You can't.

[Josh]

I always love talking to, you know, Christians that are successful and especially from.

[Butch Hartman]

Maybe one will come in here someday.

[Josh]

Especially from a financial perspective. Yeah, because in Mark there's a parable about Jesus talks about the rich man. We're basically the rich young ruler. The rich young ruler. And like, he won't, you know, like.

[Butch Hartman]

I forget the first the rich young ruler is a young, A young rich guy. Let's imagine like a young musician or something like that in today's world, comes up to Jesus and goes, I love what you're doing. How can I have what you have? What do you think Jesus says to him? Jesus says, awesome. Sell everything you have. Have and then follow me. And the guy has a choice to make. And the guy says, and the Bible says, he went away sorrowful, for he had many possessions. His possessions meant more to him than what the Lord had for him. I would ask you guys, what's more important to you? Your eternal, your, your. The rest of eternity or the couple million dollars with the things that you have right now, the perishable things that you have.

[James]

It's not a question.

[Butch Hartman]

Yeah, I'm glad to hear that. It's not a question yet. So many people don't see it that way. It's all about the possessions. That's all I care about. All I care about is how much more I can get. Because think about it. What are you going to be, Scrooge McDuck and dive into a pile of money and swim around in it? I mean, how much money can you have? Yes. Having a lot of money is Great. But having it. The Bible says to be a blessing, you're blessed. To be a blessing, you need to bless other people with your finances. I always ask people, too. I teach Christians this all the time. I have a book called Christian Creativity about how Christians can make money in the marketplace. I'm like, don't you want to buy somebody a car or pay somebody's rent or buy them a house? Wouldn't that be kind of cool to do? My wife and I bought tons of cars for people. I don't say this to brag. I just say because the Lord made it possible. I got more satisfaction out of buying that person a car than buying myself a car. To see their eyes light up, to see the impossible come true for them. They've been praying for something like that. And you can make that happen.

[James]

Happen.

[Butch Hartman]

That's what it's about for me.

[Josh]

It's basically that, you know, you got all these blessings and you're almost acting as a vessel to give that to others.

[Butch Hartman]

Yeah, well, I am a vessel because you're a vessel, too. And so are you. And so are you. Whatever the world, you're going to have two things. Pour. Pour into you. The world's going to pour into you, or Jesus is going to pour into you, or something else is going to pour into you, right? What? Like if I were to fill this up with other substances is. Just name something. It would really change your attitude about what you're going to drink out of, right? If I fill this full of gasoline, I wouldn't touch it to drink out of it, right?

[James]

But why not?

[Butch Hartman]

Maybe I would, but, you know, but whatever. If this bottle is you, what are you putting into this? Right? I can start dropping little dots of little drops of ink in there, and sooner or later, all this dark stuff is going to get in there and fill this bottle. It'll be totally blown black. But then I could reverse the process. I could begin filling it with more water, and eventually that black would go away and then would become clear again, right? So during our whole lives, stuff is going in. It's going in, it's going in, and it's filling it up. But what are you putting in there? Like, I wanted my kids to be raised in a home that was free of chaos, and that's why I talked about my home. So my friend said, you should go to church. I went go to church. What, are you kidding? But I looked at my two little girls. I'm like, I'd rather at least try and have a house of peace than have A chaos like I grew up in. So I started going to this church. Then you got to find the right church. Which church do I go to? Right. So my wife and I found this great church. It started really pointing us right to these scriptures, like, you know, scriptures like, love your neighbor as yourself. What? You know, do you guys love yourselves? Of course you do. You have your own best interest at heart all the time. What if I love that guy just as much I love me? How's that work? Right? What if I wanted to go up and give that guy some money or go and pray for that guy or go up and help him in some way? You know? I mean, a lot of people don't even think that way. I didn't think that way until I did. Until the Lord changed my heart. My heart. That's all about the heart.

[Jack]

I'm curious. You said that you and your wife come from kind of chaotic backgrounds in terms of how you were raised, and now you're a father married. How are you raising your children differently from how you were raised? And what are those things that you're teaching them that you wish you were taught as a kid?

[Butch Hartman]

Oh, good question. My girls are. I have two girls. They're grown now. I have a granddaughter now, which is kind of crazy. She's nine months old. I have two daughters. They're both in their late. My oldest daughter's 30. My youngest daughter's 27. My wife and I have been married 33 years. We both got saved and found Christ at the same time, my wife and I. So we got to grow at the same time, which was cool. We had nothing to unlearn, thank goodness. We got to just learn about the Christian life. But the way I raised my daughters differently in Hollywood was I kind of kept them away from whatever I thought was a bad influence. I didn't let them go to parties just to be politicians, popular, you know, I didn't let them date until a certain age, things like that. And to be honest with you, the rule was you can have a boyfriend when you're 16 years old. And so here's 16 coming up. I'm like, oh, boy, this boyfriend. Yeah.

[James]

So.

[Butch Hartman]

But you know what's funny? They never had a boyfriend until they were like, my daughter got married, never having a boyfriend. My oldest daughter, just like his siblings.

[James]

All of his siblings are the exact same way.

[Butch Hartman]

Yeah. And like. And like, but. And again, the rule. But I told my daughters, here's the deal with getting a boyfriend. You're either going to break up with him or Marry him. Those are the only two choices. You're going to date him till you marry him, or you're going to break up. So there's just understand that, you know, don't date around like I did. You know, don't. You don't want to do that. That's stupid. That just breaks hearts, you know? That's why if you believe in Christ, you got to believe in the enemy, the devil, he's out to tear families apart. Right? Because family, I come from a broken home. It's sucked in many ways. Right. I mean, are you able to survive? Absolutely. Is it the best? No. It's like, if I cut my hand off, can I survive? Yeah. Is it the best? No. Right. When a family's torn apart, hearts are broken, hearts are changed, hearts are damaged. Right. In fact, my wife and I are pastors now. We deal with people with broken hearts all the time. You're dealing with them like you're talking to, you know, people have had a. A broken childhood, they've had a broken marriage, broken relationships, and they're just sad and they're broken. And as a pastor, you're trying to fix that. You're asking the Lord to fix it. And the only way to fix it is for those people to, number one, to forgive. That's a hard one. Forgiving. Right? That's another way. I taught my daughters how to forgive. I taught myself how to forgive. I had a lot of anger about a lot of things. Anybody from a broken home would. And I was like, I gotta forgive. I gotta forgive. Otherwise, when you don't forgive, it's like drinking poison. Poison. Hoping the other person dies. I want you to die, but I'm going to drink the poison over here. Right? And so that's what bitterness and resentment and offense will do.

[James]

So, Butch, we like to end these podcasts off with two questions.

[Butch Hartman]

We're ending.

[James]

Yeah.

[Butch Hartman]

You guys. Okay, I did bore. You guys get anything out of this at all? Did the whole audience? Did you guys get anything out of this? Okay. I hope I didn't bore anybody.

[James]

This is hands down one of my favorite conversations I've ever had.

[Butch Hartman]

Until Tom Cruise comes in. This has been my favorite one.

[James]

Tom on all ass.

[Butch Hartman]

I get it, though. Tom Cruise is awesome. I would love to meet that guy.

[James]

Oh, you will next time we leak with him.

[Butch Hartman]

Is he taller than I am? He must be way tall. He's super tall.

[James]

Ah, you're not. But anyways, Butch, you know, if me and you die, how. How old are you now?

[Butch Hartman]

I'm 60 years old. I can't believe you for 60. Thank you, bro. So lighting in here. Thanks for bringing the good lights in.

[James]

So, Butch, if. If me and you died tomorrow. Yep. What would your last message to the younger generation be?

[Butch Hartman]

Wow. My last. My. My last message to you guys would be, please don't be afraid. There are so many opportunities out there. And if you're. If you're afraid, if you let fear rule your life, you're going to miss out on what God has for you. God has so many amazing things for you. Is it going to be hard? Yes. Will it be challenging? Absolutely. Will you have doubts? Of course you will. But if you trust the Lord, he's got your best interest at heart. It's like my little granddaughter. She can't walk yet, but she's learning. When she takes that first step and falls on her knees, do I get mad at. At her? No. Because I know she's learning. Right? I know she's going to take that second step and she's going to. Pretty soon it'll be second nature. Won't even think about it. When you take that first step into your destiny, you're going to not be great at it at first, but it's going to become second nature to you. So take that first step. Don't be afraid.

[Josh]

I love that.

[James]

And.

[Butch Hartman]

And watch Fairly oddparents. That's why I would add that last part.

[Josh]

Let's go and get another show that.

[Butch Hartman]

Just came out, right? Yeah. It's called the Garden cartoon. It teaches kids about the Bible. You can find [e-mail] check. Check it out.

[Josh]

Congratulations on that.

[Butch Hartman]

Thank you, buddy.

[Josh]

I guess our last question for you, Butch, when it's all said and done, how do you want to be remembered?

[Butch Hartman]

Wow. I want to be remembered as a guy who gave his all so that other people could have a better life. I guess I can't reach everybody but the few people I can reach. I just want to make sure that I made their lives better. Maybe made them laugh, made them feel good. I want to make people feel better than they felt before they made met me. Put it that way. I hope that's deep enough. That's. I really want something super profound.

[James]

And the guy that invented their childhood.

[Butch Hartman]

The guy that invented your childhood. That's really cool. When people say that to me at comic conventions and stuff, they. I never made that up. They're like, you. I. I swear to you, at comic conventions, every other person as you made my childhood, I'm like, man, that means. That means the world to me. I never get tired of hearing them.

[James]

I love that Butch. Well this was absolutely amazing. You know, for everybody watching right now guys, be sure to like and subscribe for amazing content we've got coming every week. Because every week we're bringing you guys, the most incredible business owners, creat and all industries directly to you all for them to give you their best advice to become successful just like them in today's world. We're gonna put the links down to your socials for everybody to follow along with you and your Butch Hartman on across all platforms.

[Butch Hartman]

Butch Hartman? Yeah, actually on X I'm fairly odd father but I don't go on X very much. But it's Butch Hartman on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and where can everybody check out.

[James]

The studio that way you know when it comes time when we have a cartoon to pitch you, we know where to go.

[Butch Hartman]

Dude. Yeah, it's just called Butch Hartman Studios. Really easy, really easy to remember.

[James]

Member which har Studios. Everybody else watching guys, do yourself a massive favor. Let's take action right now. Go down to the link in the description of this video. We put the link in there to Join the Number 1 Most Powerful Entrepreneur community and network for entrepreneurs in the world. We've got 7,000 like minded entrepreneurs in there that get to hop on live calls every week with the millionaires and the billionaires that we interview on this channel. So we can't wait to see you on the inside. With that being said, we'll see you in the next episode.