Television Writing
After Paul Rugg joined Acme Comedy Theater, Rugg and McCann were recruited by Tom Ruegger and Sherri Stoner of Warner Brothers Animation for freelance scripts. Ruegger then brought both Rugg and McCann aboard at Warner Brothers, where they worked as part of Jean MacCurdy's brain trust on Animaniacs and Steven Spielberg Presents Freakazoid!. McCann later worked on Pinky, Elmyra & the Brain, a spinoff of Pinky and the Brain, which was ironic: the first script he'd written for Ruegger had been an experimental workup of a spinoff from Tiny Toons, using Elmyra as the main protagonist.
Along with being the creative force behind Freakazoid!—along with Rugg—McCann performed the voice for Douglas Douglas, Dexter Douglas' father, and for Hero Boy. The Freakazoid! character Lord Bravery was actually drawn to look like John P. McCann.
McCann has received a Peabody Award and been nominated for seven Emmys—including one for songwriting—and has received three Emmy Awards: one for Animaniacs (as a writer), one for Freakazoid! (as a producer), and one for Pinky, Elmyra & the Brain (as a producer). At Warner Brothers, he worked not just on those titles, but also on Ozzie & Drix, Batman Beyond, and a speculative series based on the character Lobo from the Superman Comic Strips that never got off the ground. He also produced a couple of public service announcements for the U.S. State Department (in a joint project with Warner Brothers Animation) that featured Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, in which Cambodian people were warned about the dangers of picking up stray ordnance from the ground. He remarks that the project took him to Washington D.C. once, and Cambodia twice. McCann also won a Prizm Award in 1999 for helping to raise public awareness about the dangers of drug addiction (but in a funny way, of course).
The release of the first Freakazoid! season DVD occurred in July 2008, and that double-DVD remained in Amazon's top ten for family-friendly releases, boxed sets, and television animation for weeks.
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