Tad Stones describes his early efforts to get Hellboy Animated:
I first pitched Hellboy as an animated prime time show about ten years ago while I was still at Disney. (Hey, they claimed they wanted fresh ideas!) I even produced a little video reel on Adobe Premiere, complete with an animated Touchstone logo. No interest, of course. I was given several logical reasons why it wouldn’t really fit on prime time television, most of which can be summed up in the sentence, ‘It’s not The Simpsons.’ Ironically, I now work at Film Roman Studios where the entire first floor is taken up by artists working on The Simpsons.
[...]
Years later I got really close. [...] But as we worked on the show, it became obvious the executives wanted it safer, calmer and much more kid-friendly than the movie. My favorite exec quote: “Why do we need antagonists?” Finally, after the feature film disappointed at the box office, our production was shut down, fittingly, on Friday the 13th.
Now he’s finally getting his chance to do it right.
(Hat tip to Drawn.)