Genndy Tartakovsky - Career

Career

Craig McCracken acquired an art director job at Hanna-Barbera for the show 2 Stupid Dogs and recommended hiring Robert Renzetti and Tartakovsky as well. This was a major turning point in Tartakovsky's career. Hanna-Barbera let Tartakovsky, McCracken, Renzetti, and Paul Rudish work in a trailer in the parking lot of the studio, and there, Tartakovsky started creating his best known works. Dexter's Laboratory grew out of a student film with the same title that he produced while at the California Institute of the Arts. Tartakovksy also co-wrote and pencilled the 25th issue of the Dexter's Laboratory comic book series, titled "Stubble Trouble". Additionally, he helped produce The Powerpuff Girls and has directed many episodes, serving as the animation director for The Powerpuff Girls Movie. All three projects were nominated repeatedly for Emmy Awards, with Samurai Jack finally winning "Outstanding Animated Program (For Programming Less Than One Hour)" in 2004 – the same year he would win in the category for Outstanding Animated Program (for Programming One Hour or More) for Star Wars: Clone Wars.

Star Wars creator George Lucas hired Tartakovsky to direct Star Wars: Clone Wars, a successful animated microseries taking place between Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith. The series won three Emmy awards: two for "Outstanding Animated Program (for Programming One Hour or More)" in 2004 and 2005, and another for "Outstanding Individual Achievement in Animation" (for background designer Justin Thompson in 2005). Tartakovsky is not involved in the follow up series, and has no plans to work on future Star Wars projects.

Genndy served as animation director on the 2006 pilot episode of Korgoth of Barbaria, which aired on Adult Swim but was not continued as a series. He was made creative president of The Orphanage's Orphanage Animation Studios and was the director for a sequel to The Dark Crystal, but the film was not completed under him. He also directed a series of anti-smoking advertisements, one for Nicorette in 2006 and two for Niquitin in 2008. He created a short in 2009 entitled Maruined for Cartoon Network's Cartoonstitute program, which has yet to be officially aired or otherwise released. In 2010, he created storyboards for Jon Favreau's Iron Man 2. Tartakovsky's last TV series for Cartoon Network, Sym-Bionic Titan, aired between 2010 and 2011. He had hoped to expand on the initial 20 episodes but it was not renewed beyond its first season. On April 7, 2011 an animated prologue by Tartakovsky for the horror movie Priest premiered online.

In early 2011, Tartakovsky moved to Sony Pictures Animation, where he made his feature film directing debut with Hotel Transylvania (2012).

To date, Tartakovsky has amassed 13 Emmy nominations and three wins. He has also been nominated four times for Annie Awards, winning once for Clone Wars.