Inspiration - Part 1

When I began this project, I made a short list of the people and things that gave me the inspiration to tackle my own creative projects - specifically, this project - Jabloo! Some have been around since my childhood, and others I've only discovered in the past few years. Here's what keeps me shooting for the stars:

Jim Henson and The Muppets
The godfather of all things creative - warmth, imagination and... fun, of course! The older I get, the more I realize what an influence he's been on myself and a score of others.

Nolan Bushnell
Founder of Atari, creator of Chuck E. Cheese, and so much more. I used to write him letters when I was eleven, and he wrote back a few times... or so I thought, until I realized it was his secretary taking pity on me.

Seth Godin
Marketer supreme, and defender of innovation. I love the guy, and got to see him speak in Philadelphia on his speaking tour for his book The Dip. I read his blog daily, and his book Free Prize Inside was the push I needed to take on the project that eventually became Jabloo.

Choose Your Own Adventure books
Analog interactivity from the early eighties.

Captain Zoom
Customized flexi-disc records integrating children's names into a spacey song. "Happy Birthday, Steve" was played very often in my youth - certainly not only on July 12th, my special day. Stewart Sloke was the original voice of the good captain.

Homestar Runner
The untouchable online cartoons series that cannot be stopped, and has integrity and credibility beyond compare.

Arj and Poopy
Amazingly animated cartoon series, featuring comedian Arj Barker and animated by Bernard Derriman. Pushes the boundaries of Flash by recreating, and updating, that classic Warner Brothers animation style.

Bitey Castle/Brackenwood
The animated world created by Adam Phillips. Ditto on the above - this is groundbreaking Flash work.

Smeshariki
I know very little about this Russian cartoon series, but I absolutely love the warm, friendly style. I'd love to see a translated version someday - for now, I watch the short episodes and try to absorb as much of the Russian language as I can.

Happy Tree Friends
The ultra-violent tone of this series couldn't be further from the concept of Jabloo - but I love love love the Flash animation style - it's a great little kick of pure, unrestrained entertainment.

FableVision
A media company from Boston, MA, that uses storytelling as an innovative and compelling way to educate children. FableVision's CEO and Founder Peter Reynolds is a force to be reckoned with.

I plan to go into some of these in more depth in the future, elaborating on the ways they've kept my creative juices flowing as I've worked to develop Jabloo, and pushed me to keep the quality bar as high as possible. I find it's helpful to keep lists like this available, so none of that valuable inspiration mojo has a chance to slip away.