A few words from Mr. Tom Tataranowicz

I thought I'd collect up Mr. Tataranowicz's comments on the board to make it easier for all to read.
Hopefully having his words immortalized won't scare him.

"Cheek to Cheek" from Tom Tataranowicz

Posted by Tom Tataranowicz on Thursday, 12 March 1998, at 7:44 p.m.

Well, Greg Johnson has finally dragged me and my computer-phobic butt kicking and screaming out of the 19th century and into the Misinformation Highway. Since this foray into On-Line-a-Philia (I don't know if that is a word, but if we were still making BMFM episodes, rest assured that I would "make it so") represents the symbolic rupturing of my keyboard hymen, please be patient and kind about my ineptness.

Let me test out this process by answering some questions that Greg said had been posted here recently;

. Chicago was chosen as the locale for the series for the simple, crass reason of sales. Y'see, Chi-Town is one of the major markets, and it is necessary to lock down a station's commitment there in order to sell a syndicated around the rest of the country. Commercial, unimaginative and glamorless, yes. Necessary? Also, yes!

. I really felt that it would be necessary to broaden the arena of our series if we did more. So, here are a couple of ideas I wanted to do if we ever continued with episodes beyond the initial 65:

"The Invasion of Mars" This would have been a five parter which would lay out the whole backstory of the fall of Mars to the Plutarkians. It would also tell the tale of how our studly Mice became Freedom Fighters, etc. Limburger's life before Mars would also be explored. I wonder if I should mention anything about Modo's wife who was actually...? Nah.

"Rock Opera" Since Rob Paulsen, Dorian Harewood, Leeza Miller and Jess Harnell (one of the Loogie Brothers) are all professional singers as well as actors, Greg Johnson wanted to do an entire episode with rock music and singing ala "Tommy". Incidentally, if anyone cares, it was a similar idea that led to the creation of the episode "Rocketh and Rideth". Since Morgan Sheppard is a trained Shakespearean actor from the Royal Shakespeare Co., and the writer, Jess Winfield is also an actor who toured in his theater group called the "Abbreviated Shakespeare Co.", it seemed like a natural.

Well, that's it for now. I appreciate the opportunity to be able to contact fans and am appreciative and gratified by your continuing interest. I will chek in from time to time and will be glad to answer questions when I can.

Stink To Stink from Tom Tataranowicz

Posted by Tom Tataranowicz on Friday, 13 March 1998, at 8:57 p.m.

Briefly, I truly appreciate those of you who answered my whateverthehellyacallit. I don't have much time right now, but I'll try to reply to questions at some point. Actually, it's not that I don't have time as much as it takes me so damn long to figure this stuff out. Pathetic, huh?

As far as providing art for this message board, I have lots of cool and unseen stuff I could share with you, but frankly just don't know how (remember, I'm basically computer illiterate). My suggestion is to bug Greg Johnson to figure out how to do it and I can dole out tantalizing bits.

Anyway, let me leave you with this bit of trivia. When we were first trying to sell BMFM, we came up with a 45 second piece of film. When the series sold, and we were into production, this piece of film became the basis for the Main Title sequence. We added 15 seconds to fill it out to 1 minute. We also had to re-animate it because the designs of the Mice had changed so much between initial concept and final Production designs.

Well, the point of all this is that when we did the final edit on the new animation, I left in one scene of the Mice in the old model as a sort of homage to the sales piece. If you look closely, you can spot it. Just thought you'd like to know. Also, did anyone ever notice that we re-mixed the Main Title and sound EFX after the first season (1st 13 Episodes). I guess "who cares?', but oh well, there it is nonetheless.

Keep your tails limber, Citizens!

Re: Stink To Stink from Tom Tataranowicz

Posted by Tom Tataranowicz on Sunday, 15 March 1998, at 8:55 a.m., in response to Re: Stink To Stink from Tom Tataranowicz, posted by Lania on Sunday, 15 March 1998, at 12:11 a.m.

I gotta tell ya, it is my pleasure to communicate with you guys and (without sounding all "touchy-feely" about it) it is actually an honor for me. Your obvious dedication for BMFM really helps make this job worthwhile. I only wish I had known about this board earlier, but, oh well ...

Just for the record, long posts are fine, I will be glad to answer as many questions as I can (or, on my grouchier days, find interesting), and will happily provided the inside scoop on anything, no matter how trivial, that you may burn to know about the series and/or the behind the scenes making of it. Fer instance, wanna know what, although the reason escapes me, Rick Ungar sounds like? Well, he did the voice for the boss which an angry secretary (whose voice was provided by Rick's assistant, Haya) tosses out the window in the Evil Eye Weevil episode from Season #1. Incidentally, the designs were based on them, also.

The monicker "Willie D" came up a few times in the series. when growing up, the kids in Dorian Harewood's neighborhood couldn't keep his name straight, so he became called "Willie D". When he became an actor and needed to form a company, this became the name of the enterprise. It simply became fun to toss it in as an inside joke from time to time.

Now, I fully realize that this kind of hoo-hah is highly inconsequential and no one may care a whit, but nonetheless, I'll be glad to give you such info if desired.

I consider BMFM a crowning achievement of my long career, one of which I am truly proud. We worked very hard to maintain the integrity of the series all the way to the end, and your dedication seems to have borne out the result. It is gratifying to have a fan base which exists years after the series' demise, and personally, I feel that I owe something to the fans and will be glad to reciprocate however I can.

Well, enuff of this sensitive nineties kind of guy rambling. Talk at ya soon.

Re: All about Charley (to Camilia)

Posted by Tom Tataranowicz on Sunday, 15 March 1998, at 7:39 p.m., in response to Re: Stink To Stink from Tom Tataranowicz, posted by Camilia on Sunday, 15 March 1998, at 5:11 p.m.

well, y'see, McCyber was the first major love of Charley's life. They are the same age, first met in high school and were an item. When they graduated, Jack went off to college, and Charley to Junior College, which she ahd to leave to help out her dad.

That was that for a while until Jack came back on Summer break. hey ecame involved again, and it was then that Charley lost her ... uh, lessee ...how can I say it "P.C.-wise"? Well, y'know, ... they shared something very special. They subsequently became engaged.

However, needless to say, that didn't work out and they went their separate ways. But this relationship is strongly hinted at and is why Vinnie is so jealous in the "Virtual Unreality" episode. This "subtext" is all something I worked out before the writing of the episode, and not something I just made up. I swear. A careful viewing of the episode and listening to the subtlties of the performances will bear this out.

Jack subsequently became one of the country's premier freeelance computer imaging consultants.

That's it for now. Lemme think a bit about how much to reveal about the Vinnie/Charley thing (hopefully the McCyber/Charley tryst gave you enough soap opera for today) and the story of Modo's wife.

Some Answers from Tom Tataranowicz

Posted by Tom Tataranowicz on Tuesday, 17 March 1998, at 3:56 a.m., in response to Re: All about Charley (to Tom Tataranowicz), posted by Lania on Sunday, 15 March 1998, at 10:36 p.m.

Well, I'm burning the midnight oil on a project tonight, just finished watching some crummy "Star Trek" re-run and now wanted to do something halfway constructive, so I figured that I'd answer a few of the questions that you people (or Mice, if I read your bios correctly) have asked. So here goes:

THROTTLE'S LAST NAME: The issue of the Mice's last names came up early in the series. The decision was made not to give them any. There were a couple of reasons as follows:

. I reasoned that Mars is not only the War Planet from our perspective on Earth, but due to the cosmic hoo-hah of the universe, it inhabits that role in all of our solar system's history. This means that Mars had a seriously violent and treacherous history. In such an environment, last names become a liability. Families can be traced and hurt; trails too easily left, records too easily kept, etc. So it came to pass among the Mice of Mars that no one was given a last name. Each Clan could readily identify one of it's own via their antennae. So, even when a more civilized Mars emerged from the barbarous past, this practice was kept.

. Aesthetically, I thought that the simple one word monickers the Mice used contrasted nicely with the overblown and pompous Plutarkian names ala "Lawrence Lactavius Limburger", etc.

. Now, these were my reasons for directing the series in that direction. Rick Ungar may have answers of his own. You'll have to ask him.

PETER STRAUSS: Stoker 1459(?) asked what this actor looked like. I'm sure you've seen him on T.V. many times in T.V. movies such as "Rich Man, Poor Man", Masada", "The Jericho Mile", etc. He also played "Peter Gunn" in the T.V. series of that name as well as starring in the series "Maloney" last season. As for other cartoon voices that he has done, their names escape me, but he says he was the voice of Donald Duck for Disney at one time.

RECORDING SESSIONS: Whenever possible, which ws usually, we recorded the BMFM ensemble. I felt that this created the camraderie and casual interplay to blossom that became a hallmark of the series. For my money, BMFM was and is one of the best acted cartoons ever done. By allowing the actors to play off of each other, many good bits of improvisation and spontaniety resulted. C could go on forever about this facet of the creative process, but I don't want to put you to sleep.

FAN ART: I quickly checked out a lot of it and ... YOU GUYS ARE GOOD! hell, I would have hired some of you at the studio. No lie. Keep up the good work.

LIMBURGER TOWER: I glad some of you enjoyed the running gag of the symbolic emasculation of Limburger by toppling his tower every story. I am proud that we managed to not miss a beat and had lots of fun dreaming up variations on a theme. Incidentally, this particular concept was created by the series original Story Editor, Bob Forward.

FANTASTIC FOUR/IRON MAN: Someone mentioned that the second seasons of these shows with which Greg Johnson and I were involved (don't blame us for the dreadful 1st seasons, we had nothing to do with those) were being re-run on the Saban Network. They are being re-run in the weekday mornings, but fortunately there is no such thing as a Saban Network, so I don't know where they are being run in your areas.

THE VINNIE/CHARLEY ACT OF CONSUMATION: I don't know about the laws in other countries, but since beastiality is illegal in the U.S.A., this always proved to be a tricky issue and a bit of a tightrope act. However, this didn't stop my devious little mind from coming up with a clever story which would satisfy the more twitterpated prone of you and slip by the censors and watchdogs of our children's morality.

Yes, they were going to "do it". No, it is probably not in the context you would think of. Yes, they would remember it. No, there would not have been any little mouse people.

However, just as I was going to assign this story to a writer, I thought better of it. Many good series have lost their creative momentum when the tension of unrequited love was undone and characters became intimately involved. Take "Moonlighting" for example. Funny, exciting and sexy when Dave and Maddie bantered. Once they slept together, the show became a snore. Think how much spice "X-Files" would lose if Scully and Mulder did the nasty. So I shelved the idea. Nuff said?

Now I realize that is not the most fulfilling answer I could give you, but I really feel that I made the right decision. Besides, it probably helped me avoid getting fired. There is a reason why I don't want to go into details here which, oddly enough, leads us to the "tale" of:

MODO'S WIFE: As I wrote earlier, this was part of an "Invasion of Mars" multi-parter I was concocting. The story Modo and his wife in this epic would explain, among lots of other things, why Modo hates rats, how Modo became a Freedom Fighter and, of course, why have we never heard anything of this fair mouse before. However, although I had much more worked out, I really think it would be unfair to you for me to put it out for public consumption.

You may hate me for this, but the reason is that in reality they don't exist. By that I mean that we obviously never did Episodes of this or the Vinnie/Charley thing. What that means is that we never went to script on them. These are well worked out ideas, but the scripting process (I frequently had the scripts go to 8 Drafts before being Final. Ask Greg Johnson, he'll give you an earful) helped define ideas to a razor's edge, eliminated bad concepts and brought life to areas not even thought about. And that's what I feel made for the show that has endeared itself to all of you.

Because the stories don't exist in filmic form, I don't feel that I have the right to make them an official part of the BMFM canon. (But, I gotta tell ya ... they woulda been smokin'!)

So, rather than toss out some half-assed ideas that truly only exist in my head, I'd appreciate your understanding in allowing me to respect you and the series by not going any further than this with these two ideas. In reality, you guys have as much right as I do in realizing these and other ideas more fully in your "Fan Fics". So I'd say, "Have at it!" Boy, I hope this doesn't mean that I'm banned from your Message Board forever.

I was gonna tell you about the "Biker Mice" Album we did, but ... Jee-zus! Talk about a long winded bore! Well, most of you have probably either signed off before this point or hit your heads on your keyboards when you dozed off, so I'll just call it quits. On the other hand, maybe what Vinnie says is true: "Too much is never enough." You guys will let me know won't ya?

Insignificant Answers To Significant Questions Posted (in no particular order) by Lania, Kethry, DG, Stoker(s), Webmaster, etc.

Posted by Tom Tataranowicz on Saturday, 21 March 1998, at 8:27 a.m.

*%&*!?#* Goddam, son of a head cheese!!! Not only didmy 2 German Shepherds, Chaos and Galumpha, wake me up at 4:30 to take them for a walk in the mountains. Not only are they now satisfied and back asleep. Not only is it too early to bug anyone here in California and I am now wide awake. But, I just spent 1/2 hour writing a reply to your questions only to have this damn computer, for reasons I don't understand, sign me off of On-Line with that irritating "Goodbye" voice, and erased or lost everything I wrote before I could send it. I thought last week was Friday 13?

Anyway, I have now retrieved my keyboard from the front lawn where I tossed it, and will try again.

Since I'm up and you can read this at your leisure, I will try to answer some of your recent queries. So here goes:

THE BIKER MICE ALBUM: In 1993, we produced a "heavy metal-ish" rock album of BM music. It featured songs based on existing themes (BM Main Title), individual characters (Limburger: "The Big Man's Coming"), episodes ("The Pits") and catch phrases ("Tail Whippin' Time" and "Ride Free, Citizens" ).

Will Anderson, the Composer for the BM series, wrote all the music and produced the album. I must say, it really came out good! Not only from the point of view of the BM oriented, but to the public in general. I actually listened to it again a month or two ago, and was still pleased with it. It really rocked and had artistic integrity. The music was done by live instruments (instead of synthesizer or computer keyboard instruments) and had a superb singer with an appropriately "metal-ish" sound to his voice.

However, here's the bad part. In it's first season, BMFM was the undisputed #1 syndicated show in America. The album seemed like a sure fire seller and everything was wrapped up. Then came "Power Rangers". BMFM, along with every other show on the air, took a nosdive in both ratings and merchandising sales. Audiences seemed to want one thing and one thing only, that piece of crap, "Power Rangers". So, in that climate, the album was deemed to be commercially unviable and it's release canceled.

Some of the music did subsequently make it's way into the scores of various BM Episodes. For instance, a ballad that was written for the album provided the bittersweet music for when Throttle and Carbine say goodbye at the end of the 3 parter, "Back To Mars". It is at the very end of the episode and lingers over the end BM logo where we usually put the BM theme.

I believe that I heard that the album may have been released in England, but can't swear to it. There, isn't that more than you really wanted to know? Blame my dogs for getting me up so early...

SCRIPTS: As much as I know that fans love this sort of thing, I am sorry to report that there really no "Lost" or unproduced BM scripts or episodes. We worked hard to make every story the best we could and, as a result, only "killed" one script, "Cheese Cadets". Greg Johnson subsequently reawakened that tile, totally reworked the concept, and wrote the Episode which finally made it to air. The version we killed was such an unmitigated piece of crap and had so little to do with the feel of the show that I can't, in good conscience, put it out for public consumption. To do so would be a disservice to the integrity of the series and would ultimately offer nothing to you, the fans.

However, if enuff of you want, I'll talk to Greg and have him scan in a final script of one of the episodes. It will be one that came in very long, and so has material in it that never made it to air. Let me know which episodes were your favorites, and maybe I can find one of them that fits that criteia. OK?

BMFM LIVE ACTION MOVIE: Greg and I, with input from Rick Ungar, wrote a full script for a live action movie. It dealt with some of the same ground as the 1st Episode, but the plot really involved what eacatly was the Mice's mission when they were shot down and crashed onto Earth. It added a new character to the BM canon, a messianic figure named Ares, a really cool new villian named Blackheart, incorporated the Stalkers and featured the usual cast of character explored in rich, new detail.

However, the same fate befell this as did the Album.

Being of Polish descent and highly paranoid (remember what those damn Russians did to my ancestral homeland for nearly 50 years), I'd better not tempt fate any further. So I'll send this off before my computer makes another decision for me.

Talk to ya soon.

For anyone who wants to know how old the Mice are ...

Posted by Tom Tataranowicz on Saturday, 4 April 1998, at 1:06 p.m.

Well, many of you have asked me that question, so here goes:

When we were first developing the series, we, of course, had to figure this out in order to finalize designs. it wasn't long before we had launched into a semi-Socratic nightmare of scenarios.

We figured that since 1 Martian year is equal to 1.88 Earth years, the Mice were really a different age on Mars than on Earth. Now, they are obviously rodents, and mice at that. The outside life span of a Earth mouse is maybe 3 years. So, figuring in the effect "giantism" has on creatures lifespans (e.g.: Whales, elephants, etc. live 70 some years. Smaller creatures (with the exception of occassional deviations like turtles and parrots) generally have much shorter life spans. Since the Bros are "Giant" Mice, we worked this into the equation, figuring that their life expectancy could be 20 times that of a mormal mouse.

You with me so far?

Now that the guys were on Earth, we figured that their biologies would be affected by Earth's accelerated bio-rhythms. That meant there physical age here could change drastically in a short period of time. Then there was the story idea of how they had to leave Earth before they simply burned out and ... oh, who the hell cares, anyway.

Let's leave it at this:

Vinnie: 21 years old Charley: 22 years old Modo: 23 years old Throttle:23 years old

That was the quick and easy company line. Nuff said?

Tom Tataranowicz