Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Obscurity of the Day: Free For All
In a familiar tale of the comic strip business in the last quarter of the 20th century, Free For All was yet another college paper strip that hit the bigtime because syndicate execs were trying to duplicate the past successes of Doonesbury and Bloom County.
Brett Merhar's Free For All debuted in 1992 in The Collegian, the paper of Colorado State University. In 1995 it was picked up by the Greeley (CO) Tribune where it apparently ran until 1998. King Features picked it up and began syndicating the strip on April 27 1998.
Free For All featured a cast of arrested development X-generation kids, originally in a college setting, and later in the syndicated version trying to make their way in the great big world. The strip was intended to be a bit on the raunchy side and closely emulated the hip tone of Bloom County if not the level of humor.
The strip fell flat and seems to have been canceled sometime right around its one year anniversary in 1999. But Merhar had bigger fish to fry -- he moved to L.A. and by 2003 had talked the premium TV cable channel Showtime into signing Free For All as an animated cartoon. In promoting the TV series he avoided mentioning the fact that the strip had been a flop, carefully choosing his words in interviews to leave the impression that it was a big success and still in syndication.
I haven't seen the cartoon but apparently the raunchy factor was turned way up, characterized by one writer as "South Park without the bleeping." Seven episodes were produced for the first season, but Showtime didn't pick up the option for any more. If you saw the show and liked it, you can purchase episodes online at Amazon.com.
Labels: Obscurities
Comments:
"Free for all" was syndicated by King features until 11/99 for the daily effort and 12/99 for the Sunday.
The artwork was quite bad, often resembling "Doonesbury" tracings, and the humour never left school. The artist was notoriously lazy, offering recycled strips with new word bubbles, until whole strips were rerun without any change.
The artwork was quite bad, often resembling "Doonesbury" tracings, and the humour never left school. The artist was notoriously lazy, offering recycled strips with new word bubbles, until whole strips were rerun without any change.
# posted by 
: 2/06/2009 1:36 PM
: 2/06/2009 1:36 PM
Hi Anonymous -- Might you be able to cite your source for the end dates of the strip? I'd like to check a paper to get exact dates.
Thanks, Allan
Thanks, Allan
Although it's already been 6 years without any new comments, I just like to point out I just discovered the TV show last week and was intrigued it had been a comic strip before, and yes, it does look like a copycat of what Trudeau and Breathed had done before, and not a good one.
The animated version isn't any better with it's shift to a dysfunctional family sitcomy approach and R-rated touches (it was Showtime after all, if it had been on HBO we'd have more of the same).
Interestingly for the TV show they had brought in Merriwether Williams as head writer. She had previously worked on Spongebob Squarepants and after this bombed went on to do Camp Lazlo and Adventure Time for Cartoon Network and My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic for Hasbro. At least this proved she could handle risque stuff when she can (I know people gave her s--t on MLP anyway).
As for this Brett Merhar, he seems to have fallen into obscurity himself, despite having done an original series for YouTube I've never heard of. Reading what you think of him, he seemed like somebody who simply played with the system as I put it, at least, knew how to walk the walk and talk the talk. Kinda like the creator behind "The Boomdocks" (anyone remember that strip?), who already complains at the show being taken away from him after stepping down from that mess. I'm sure he's doing fine on his own, hopefully not sulking at the years he's wasted on "Free For All". :-P
He does have a YouTube page which seems to not be updated in quite a long time, mostly showcasing clips from "Free For All" and several episodes of an original series called "Beverly Hills Anger Management". Probably worth a check if you have time. If you at least want to see what the animated "Free For All" was like.
https://www.youtube.com/user/beverlyhillsam/videos
I see though this year the Dutch comics website, Lambiek, added Merhar to their "Comiclopedia", here's your chance to see what a typical daily "Free For All" was like.
https://www.lambiek.net/artists/m/merhar_brett.htm
The animated version isn't any better with it's shift to a dysfunctional family sitcomy approach and R-rated touches (it was Showtime after all, if it had been on HBO we'd have more of the same).
Interestingly for the TV show they had brought in Merriwether Williams as head writer. She had previously worked on Spongebob Squarepants and after this bombed went on to do Camp Lazlo and Adventure Time for Cartoon Network and My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic for Hasbro. At least this proved she could handle risque stuff when she can (I know people gave her s--t on MLP anyway).
As for this Brett Merhar, he seems to have fallen into obscurity himself, despite having done an original series for YouTube I've never heard of. Reading what you think of him, he seemed like somebody who simply played with the system as I put it, at least, knew how to walk the walk and talk the talk. Kinda like the creator behind "The Boomdocks" (anyone remember that strip?), who already complains at the show being taken away from him after stepping down from that mess. I'm sure he's doing fine on his own, hopefully not sulking at the years he's wasted on "Free For All". :-P
He does have a YouTube page which seems to not be updated in quite a long time, mostly showcasing clips from "Free For All" and several episodes of an original series called "Beverly Hills Anger Management". Probably worth a check if you have time. If you at least want to see what the animated "Free For All" was like.
https://www.youtube.com/user/beverlyhillsam/videos
I see though this year the Dutch comics website, Lambiek, added Merhar to their "Comiclopedia", here's your chance to see what a typical daily "Free For All" was like.
https://www.lambiek.net/artists/m/merhar_brett.htm
According to family sources Brett Merhar was found beaten to death 8/14/16.
# posted by : 8/15/2016 9:47 AM
: 8/15/2016 9:47 AM
Damn, such a sad end for that guy I suppose. Obviously Free For All was his peak all the long (if there was one).
I recently purchased a book collection "The Best of Free for All" (which, despite the title, seems to have every strip from the syndication run.)
The last daily strip printed in the book is dated November 20, 1999.
As for the final Sunday strip, the final five Sundays reprinted doesn't have dates on it, but assuming it went chronologically, then the final one should have ran on December 5, 1999.
Hope this helps!
The last daily strip printed in the book is dated November 20, 1999.
As for the final Sunday strip, the final five Sundays reprinted doesn't have dates on it, but assuming it went chronologically, then the final one should have ran on December 5, 1999.
Hope this helps!
Here’s the truth. After about 8 months of Free For All being nationally syndicated, both a production company wanting to turn his comic strip into an animated feature film, and NBC wanting to turn it into the first prime time series since The Flintstones came a calling. Brett went with NBC. His Sunday’s were very time consuming - some of them taking as long as 40 hours to complete, so no he was not lazy. He was a perfectionist with his art and often had 3-4 endings for each strip. He kept honing and honing till he was happy. His deal with NBC took almost a year to complete. King Features, his syndicate, was very eager and stood to make a lot of money. Brett asked them to hold off on making the deal till he had more time under his belt, more time to get the rhythm of doing a daily strip. He told them the deals would still be there a year later.
King Features told Brett they would do the deal with or without him. There was no way he was going to let his comic strip become a TV show without him. He knew he didn’t have time in his week to do both. He was spending 60+ hours a week drawing his strip. He looked at the future of print newspapers. Saw them as a dying breed and made the heartbreaking decision to quit his strip and go for the tv show. King Features put a tremendous amount of pressure on him, but they had been his dream since he started drawing comics. He loved his editor.
The deal was done and Brett moved from Denver to Los Angeles, Then the unthinkable happened…NBC had an animated series called “Bob, GOd and the Devil.” God was voiced by comedian George Carlin, who was controversial. NBC stations south of the Bible Belt refused to air a show with Carlin playing God days before it was to premiere. NBC lost millions and decided to not be in the animation business. Free For All didn’t go.
Brett used his money and found two producers to do a proof of concept short. Showtime picked it up. They brought in a showrunner who wasn’t a good fit, Brett being new to Hollywood didn’t have much say, and the show didn’t get picked up for a second season.
Brett went on to animate two more pilots but it was an uphill battle for him to get another show on the air.
He was an incredibly talented person. It was his dream to do a comic strip and he was the youngest to ever be syndicated at the time Free For All first appeared all over the country in newspapers.
King Features told Brett they would do the deal with or without him. There was no way he was going to let his comic strip become a TV show without him. He knew he didn’t have time in his week to do both. He was spending 60+ hours a week drawing his strip. He looked at the future of print newspapers. Saw them as a dying breed and made the heartbreaking decision to quit his strip and go for the tv show. King Features put a tremendous amount of pressure on him, but they had been his dream since he started drawing comics. He loved his editor.
The deal was done and Brett moved from Denver to Los Angeles, Then the unthinkable happened…NBC had an animated series called “Bob, GOd and the Devil.” God was voiced by comedian George Carlin, who was controversial. NBC stations south of the Bible Belt refused to air a show with Carlin playing God days before it was to premiere. NBC lost millions and decided to not be in the animation business. Free For All didn’t go.
Brett used his money and found two producers to do a proof of concept short. Showtime picked it up. They brought in a showrunner who wasn’t a good fit, Brett being new to Hollywood didn’t have much say, and the show didn’t get picked up for a second season.
Brett went on to animate two more pilots but it was an uphill battle for him to get another show on the air.
He was an incredibly talented person. It was his dream to do a comic strip and he was the youngest to ever be syndicated at the time Free For All first appeared all over the country in newspapers.
# posted by : 6/14/2022 1:08 AM
: 6/14/2022 1:08 AM
Thank you for the information. Sometimes I think the decisions we make or break really do affect the future of our lives.
Post a Comment
