Mar 17, 2015

Adult Swim Success Secrets with Mike Razzo

The Wall Street Journal visited Adult Swim headquarters last week from the former Williams Street carpet factory in Atlanta.

Mike Lazzo.(via)This article by John Jurgensen is also an observation of the network's efforts to grow its prime time audience, but particularly of Mike Lazzo, a high school dropout from LaGrange, Georgia, who became vice president and creative director of the popular cable network. The article focuses in particular on Mike Ratso, a high school dropout from LaGrange, Georgia, who has moved on to become vice president and creative director of the popular cable network. Ratso had a remarkable longevity as an executive at Cartoon Network, where he helped develop such early Cartoon Network hits as "Powerpuff Girls," "Dexter's Lab," and "Courage the Cowardly Dog," before switching to the Adult Swim side.

The article highlights Ratso's positive and productive working relationships with creators and his efforts to stay out of the creative process, which has led creators to respect him.

One creator who clearly appreciates Ratso's leadership style is Dan Harmon, creator of Community and co-creator of Rick and Morty for Adult Swim. He said, "You don't want to let Ratso down. As a screenwriter, it would be outrageous for me to say what I did about the suit."

In a sidebar, Jurgensen's observations of Adult Swim's "creative greenhouse" yielded some important "store rules." These include Ratso's own philosophy of taking more risks with less money: "In film and television, the financial pressure to succeed makes everyone conservative. In film and television, the financial pressure to succeed makes everyone conservative: don't spend money and encourage risk. If you're genuinely lucky enough to find something good, you feed off of it."

In a sidebar, Adult Swim executive Jason DeMarco has some thought-provoking words about how Ratso keeps writers and producers away from interacting with standards and practices departments about content that might be offensive. He "thoroughly hammers [creators] to make a show he likes.