Doodlebops — Jamie Waese

The Doodlebops

In 2004, Cookie Jar Entertainment hired me to develop a TV show to promote music and movement to preschoolers. Over the next five years, I produced 65 episodes, an animated spin-off, a traveling theater show, a video game, and a licensing program for toys and other merchandise.

Reflecting on the experience from my current perspective as a software designer, I would describe my role as a cross between a principal designer and a product manager. I worked with our clients, CBC and The Disney Channel, to determine their needs and desires. Then I hired and managed the creative and production teams required to make it real. We had a tight budget and delivery schedule, so it was my responsibility to set the vision, ensure quality and minimize churn across the various departments.

Challenge

Develop, sell, produce and deliver an educational show for preschoolers that promotes music and movement. Include preschool-friendly choreography instruction in every episode.

Constraints

Shoot it for $187k per episode with union writers, actors, and puppeteers. Every episode needs to be approved by:

Educational advisor
The Disney Channel
CBC

Also deliver versions in French, Spanish, Mandarin, Gaellic, etc.

Visit my store for merchandise and items from the set

Live Tour

Shortly after launching on CBC, Feldmans took us on a cross-Canada mall tour, and then a soft-seat theater tour. In our third year of being on the Disney Channel in the US, Feld Entertainment (producers of Disney on Ice, Barnum & Bailey Circus, etc.) produced an 80-city US tour and then repeated it the following year. I co-wrote the show with Carl Lenox and Daniel Franklin, and co-directed it with David Connolly, who also choreographed. The show sold out three performances at Madison Square Garden in New York and went on to play at Staples Center in LA, Sony Center in Toronto, Disney World in Florida, and many other venues across the US and Canada.

Toys & Record Sales

About halfway through our run, Mattel signed on to produce a toy line. What an incredible experience watching our quirky little children’s show take on a life of its own. When our album and DVD came out we had a month-long run of being the #1 seller on Amazon.ca.

Episode One

The original show can still be found on YouTube. We shot it in an old movie theater that had been converted into a television studio called Pie In The Sky. There wasn’t enough room to build all our sets at once, so we block shot the whole series, shooting all the scenes we needed for each set at once. Then we’d take a week off, tear down the old set and build the next, then go back and shoot all the scenes for that. We didn’t have enough money to shoot a real concert in our first season, so the concert scene at the end is just another set in the same studio. I shot the audience insert shots at a live show that Kids’ CBC happened to be hosting in Winnipeg one weekend.

Animated Spin-off

Once we reached 65 episodes of the live action series, CBC expressed an interest in changing the format of the show. Having just watched the Beatles’ Yellow Submarine, I proposed we create an animated spin off in which a real life fan joins their favorite rockers in a psychedelic place called the Doodle-net and together they go on an adventure. CBC seemed to like that idea and so the Doodlebops Rockin’ Road Show was born. We made 26 episodes as a co-production with teams in Toronto, Argentina and Germany.