Apr 24, 2018

Nick produced an interesting mini-series. Then left for years: what happened to "Bug Salad"?

In January 2014, Cartoon Brew debuted "Bug Salad," a promising and entertaining short produced by Carl Faruolo, then director of Nickelodeon's "Sanjay and Craig."

This quirky concept was part of Nickelodeon's Animated Shorts program, the same effort that spurred series like "The Loud House" and "Breadwinners," but unlike other projects, "Bug Salad" took an unwieldy and winding path in the world of television development that included the production of five additional shorts.

More than five years after Farroolo's initial pitch, Nickelodeon recently premiered these shorts on Facebook and Youtube. Faruolo left Nickelodeon earlier this year to join Warner Bros. as the director of the "Animaniacs" reboot. We caught up with Faruolo to learn more about the project's lengthy preparation process.

Faruolo first learned about Nickelodeon's animated shorts program a few months after he was hired to direct "Sanjay and Craig" in 2012, and pitched "Bug Salad" for the first time. The shorts he produced for the program received an immediate positive response.

"They wanted to put it into development as a possible series, so we made an 11-minute (animated) pilot version," he says.

"The pilot version was put up for selection, but it wasn't chosen. So the project was dropped."

Despite these disappointments, Faruolo was excited about the opportunity to develop his own content. He especially appreciated the support and leeway the program gave him.

"They supported my style of humor. It didn't feel watered down," he explains.

"So when the piece died, I thought, 'I did my best, I did what I wanted to do, and that's okay.'"

Russell Hicks, then president of content development and production at Nickelodeon, was not satisfied with the fate of Bug Salad. A few months after the pilot, Hicks turned around and authorized the production of five more shorts for the still-born project. Around this time, Faruolo moved from "Sanjay & Craig" to directing producer of "Pig Goat Banana Cricket" and at the same time began work on "Bug Salad."

For a while, things seemed to be going well; a May 2016 Variety article announced that the episodes would debut as a "short-form digital series," but provided no details about the release platform or timeline.

Eventually, it became clear that "Bug Salad" was once again winding down.

Faruolo believes that part of the problem, at least initially, was Viacom's ongoing billion dollar lawsuit with Google and Youtube; in 2007, the media giant claimed that Youtube had been illegally posting hundreds of thousands of copyrighted The media giant claimed that Youtube was profiting from advertising revenue generated by traffic to hundreds of thousands of copyrighted Viacom clips illegally posted by Youtube users. According to Farroolo, during this period, Nickelodeon was unwilling to post digital content on Youtube because it did not have a suitable platform of its own. In 2014, however, after a seven-year legal battle, just months after Bug Salad's Cartoon Brew debut, the two sides reached a non-monetary settlement.21]

According to Farroolo, turnover at the executive level within Nickelodeon was very high. According to Farroolo, he faced new executives at every checkpoint from pitching Bug Salad to completing the production of the five additional short films. Then in June 2016, Hicks, a strong supporter of Bug Salad, left the company, slowing the process again.

Another supporter of the short story was Mary Harrington, a veteran of Nick's. She was in charge of the shorts program when Faruolo first pitched the idea and served as executive producer on the first short. However, Harrington eventually moved to another department within the company. Despite her misfortunes, Faruolo is grateful for the support she received during the long and tortuous development process.

"At Nickelodeon, I was really lucky to have the support of each of the different executives and studios," he stresses.

"Because of the big changes within the company, I was set up to fail if one of them didn't support me. Every time that happened, okay, here we go again. Let's resell the bug salad." [In fact, Farroolo is optimistic about Nickelodeon's future and approves of Chris Viscardi's appointment as senior vice president of animation production and development. [He was one of the creators of "The Adventures of Pete and Pete" and executive producer of "Sanjay and Craig." I honestly think things are moving in the right direction."

Overall, the creators of Bug Salad refuse to be bitter about their experience in development hell. Rather, Faruolo seems to accept that this type of process is part and parcel of development at any major studio.

"Generally, what you hear from every company is that development takes too long," explains the 35-year-old Faruolo.

"Because if you pitch something now, you have to wait five years to hopefully get a permit."

"Once you build a pilot, it's completely out of your hands. It's not going to be, 'Oh, this worked, let's build it. They're going to test it with kids, they're going to time it with (other) slots, and there are inter-studio politics. It's out of your hands as a creative person."

Most importantly for Farroolo, the Nickelodeon Animation Shorts Facebook page was launched last fall, providing an accessible platform for bug salads to be shared worldwide.

"There are a lot of people who want me to be mad at them," says Faruolo. Why now, why now? ......" But what do I mean ...... If nothing happens, it's going to be worse...... I'm just glad they're there. But at the same time, it's better than them dying on a shelf somewhere."

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