J. G. Quintel

James Garland Quintel (born September 13, 1982), known as J.G. Quintel, is an American animator, voice actor, television writer, producer and director best known as the creator of Cartoon Network's Regular Show, in which he voiced the characters Mordecai and High Five Ghost, and the HBO Max series Close Enough, which he also voiced the character Josh. He was formerly the creative director for The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack, an animated series that aired on Cartoon Network from June 2008 to August 2010 and a writer and storyboard artist on Camp Lazlo from 2006 to 2008.

J. G. Quintel
Quintel in 2011
Born
James Garland Quintel

(1982-09-13) September 13, 1982
Hanford, California, U.S.
NationalityAmerican
EducationHanford High School
Alma materCalifornia Institute of the Arts
OccupationVoice actor, animator, writer, producer, director
Years active2003–present
Known for
AwardsPrimetime Emmy Award (2012), Nicktoons Film Festival Producers Choice Award and Student Animator Award (2005).

In December 2009, ASIFA-Hollywood nominated Quintel for an Annie Award in the category of "Directing in a Television Production" for his directing work on an episode of The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack. In September 2011, the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences nominated Quintel for a Primetime Emmy Award in the Outstanding Short-format Animated Program category for Regular Show. He most recently worked for Cartoon Network Studios in Burbank, California developing episodes for Regular Show.

Quintel got the inspiration for his work from Matt Groening, Mike Judge, and his old boss Joe Murray.

In May 2017, it was announced that TBS has picked up a new animated series by Quintel, entitled Close Enough, a co-production of Cartoon Network Studios with the newly-established Studio T, which was later revealed to premiere on HBO Max.[1]

Early life

Quintel was born and raised in Hanford, California, the son of Terri (née Morris) and James Allen Quintel. Quintel is the grandson of Hawaiian-born Stephen Arnold Quintel and Portuguese immigrant Laudalena Costa, from the Azores. He has a younger brother, Payton Dean Quintel.[2] According to Quintel, Hanford's geography is "kind of flat" and there "was not a ton to do" when he was growing up in the 1980s and 1990s, so he and his friends were always looking for ways to entertain themselves, features Quintel would later incorporate into his animated television series Regular Show.[2]

Into his teenage years, Quintel loved drawing and watching cartoons such as The Simpsons, Beavis and Butt-Head and The Moxy Show, as well as British shows such as The League of Gentlemen and The Mighty Boosh.[3] He often played the video game ToeJam & Earl, the influence of which Quintel later described as "the perfect platform for Mordecai and Rigby" characters of Regular Show.[2] Quintel also became influenced by rock music from the 1980s and later added 1980s music into Regular Show.[2]

In 1997, Quintel began attending Hanford High School.[4] In 1998, when Quintel was 16 and a sophomore at Hanford High, Quintel's father James gave Quintel a video camera, which Quintel used, along with Lego men and crude paper cutouts, to create a few minutes of stop motion film for several short film projects at Hanford High School.[3][4] To expand his artistry, Quintel took an AP literature class and a pottery class at Hanford High as well as took a summer class where Quintel learned how to animate films and make flip books.[3][4] Quintel also worked at a movie theater[5] and at "a lot of minimum wage jobs," just as 23-year-olds Mordecai and Rigby work for minimum wage at a park.[2] In May 2000, Quintel was nominated as a 12th grade California academic all-star from Hanford High School.[6]

Career

After high school, Quintel attended the California Institute of the Arts in Santa Clarita, California. At CalArts, Quintel and about 20 fellow students, including now-voice artist Sam Marin, developed their short films by throwing title names (such as "lollypop" or "candy") into a hat, drawing them out, and reading them aloud at midnight as a warm-up, where they would each then rush back to their desks in a marathon effort to make a film in 48 hours based on the one word drawn.[2] In the spring of 2005, this CalArts process led Quintel to put together a short animated film about an ambassador who loses his cool during a benign encounter.[7] Quintel titled his new film The Naive Man from Lolliland.[7] Moreover, as Quintel's first exposure to the animation industry, Quintel obtained a 2004 internship at Cartoon Network Studios to work on the TV series Star Wars: Clone Wars. At CalArts, Quintel would also meet another student by the name of Pendleton Ward, with whom he would later work with on the Cartoon Network series The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack. Ward would later use his experience from Flapjack to go on to create the Emmy Award-winning Cartoon Network series Adventure Time.

During the fall of Quintel's fourth year at CalArts, The Naive Man from Lolliland won both the Producers Choice Award (an Apple G5 computer and a copy of Bauhaus Software's Mirage animation software) and the Student Animator Award (US$1,000 and a copy of Softimage XSI 3D computer graphics software) at the 2005 Nextoons Nicktoons Film Festival.[7][8] In response to Quintel's success at the 2005 Nicktoons Film Festival, Fred Seibert, an entertainment entrepreneur and television and film producer, identified Quintel as "an original talent to watch out for in the future".[8] Quintel's hometown local newspaper, the Hanford Sentinel, noted Quintel's success at the 2005 Nicktoons Film Festival as being one of 2005's moments from a memorable year.[9] In December 2005, Quintel graduated from the California Institute of the Arts with a BFA degree in character animation.[10]

At about this same time, Quintel passed a test and began working as a storyboard revisionist for Cartoon Network's Camp Lazlo.[3] In May 2006, Nicktoons Network announced that Quintel would be one of six judges at the 3rd Annual Nicktoons Network Animation Festival.[10][11] In 2007, Quintel entered his short film, 2 in the AM PM, in the 30th annual Spike & Mike's Sick and Twisted Festival of Animation.[12] In 2 in the AM PM, two slackers are left alone to run a convenience store/gas station on Halloween night, where candy filled with drugs creates a mini-nightmare.[13] Quintel later used some of these 2 in the AM PM characters in Regular Show.[2]

In 2008, Quintel pitched Regular Show for the Cartoonstitute project at Cartoon Network by using a storyboard, with his reasoning that "I don't think me verbally pitching such an odd concept would have made any sense to anyone."[2] In 2009, Cartoon Network ordered more episodes of The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack as well as greenlit Quintel's project, Regular Show.[14] The agreement upon the premise of Regular Show was that the series would be about two park groundskeepers, Mordecai (a 6-foot blue jay) and Rigby (a hyperactive raccoon),[15] who try to entertain themselves at their jobs while doing anything they can to avoid work and escape their everyday boredom.[14] Along with his success at getting approval to develop Regular Show, in December 2009, Quintel and director John Infantino were nominated for an ASIFA-Hollywood Annie Award in the category of "Directing in a Television Production" for their directing work on the Candy Casanova episode in Season 2 of The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack.[16] However, American animation director and fellow CalArts graduate Bret Haaland subsequently took the director Annie Award in February 2010 for Haaland's work on The Penguins of Madagascar – Launchtime.[17] Nine months after Quintel was nominated for an Annie Award, Regular Show debuted at 8:15 P.M. EST on September 6, 2010.[18] In September 2011, while the first season of Regular Show was being aired, Quintel was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award in the Outstanding Short-format Animated Program category as executive producer and creator of Regular Show.[19] However, his Regular Show series was beat out for the award by the ABC animated special, Disney Prep & Landing: Operation Secret Santa.[20]

By March 2012, Quintel was directing a crew of about 35 to develop each episode of Regular Show, which takes about nine months to go from idea to final product.[4][21] Quintel has most recently worked for Cartoon Network Studios in Burbank, California developing episodes for Regular Show and provided his real voice to the 23-year-old blue jay Regular Show character Mordecai.[4] In commenting on his voice acting, Quintel noted how he has an easy-going nature and never yells in real life, so he had to learn how to yell as the Mordecai character.[2]

Following Regular Show's conclusion in January 2017, Quintel announced his next project: Close Enough, an adult-oriented series about a young couple and their daughter in Los Angeles. The series was initially expected to premiere later in 2017 as part of a planned adult animation block on TBS. However, the cornerstone of that block was a Louis C.K.-helmed series called The Cops, and when Louis was accused of sexual assault earlier that summer TBS re-tooled their entire schedule, shunting Close Enough into development hell despite having its entire first season produced. It was later resurrected when TBS' parent company WarnerMedia Entertainment announced the launch of a streaming service, HBO Max, that would feature original exclusive content.

Filmography

Film
Year Title Director Writer Animator Actor Role Notes
2005 The Naive Man from Lolliland Yes Yes Yes No Short film[7]
2006 2 in the AM PM Yes Yes Yes Yes Gas station employee #1 Short film[12]
2008 Horton Hears a Who! No No Yes No Additional storyboard artist
2015 Regular Show: The Movie Yes Yes Yes Yes Mordecai / High Five Ghost/ Additional voices Storyboard artist

Television
Year Title Director Writer Producer Animator Actor Role Notes
2004 Star Wars: Clone Wars No No No Yes No Apprentice storyboard revisionist
2005–2008 Camp Lazlo Yes Yes No Yes No Storyboard artist, revisionist[3]
2008 Phineas and Ferb No Yes No Yes No Writer, storyboard artist
Episode: "Jerk De Soleil"
2008–2010 The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack Yes Yes No Yes No Creative director, storyboard artist
2010, 2017 Adventure Time No Yes No Yes Yes Blue Jay Writer, storyboard artist
Episode: "Ocean of Fear"
Voice only: Episode "Ketchup"
2010–2017 Regular Show Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Mordecai / High Five Ghost (seasons 2-8) / Additional voices Creator, story, executive producer, storyboard artist[2]
2012 Hall of Game Awards No No No No Yes Mordecai
2016 The Amazing World of Gumball No No No No Yes Mordecai / High Five Ghost Episode: "The Boredom"
2020 Close Enough Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Josh Creator, story, executive producer, storyboard artist

Awards and nominations
Year Award Category Work Result
2005 Nicktoons Film Festival Producers Choice Award[8] The Naive Man from Lolliland Won
2005 Nicktoons Film Festival Student Animator Award The Naive Man from Lolliland Won
2010 Annie Award Directing in a Television Production[16] The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack: Candy Casanova Nominated
2011 Emmy Award Outstanding Short-format Animated Program[19] Regular Show: Mordecai and the Rigbys Nominated
2012 Emmy Award Outstanding Short-format Animated Program[22] Regular Show: Eggscellent Won
2013 Emmy Award Outstanding Short-format Animated Program Regular Show: A Bunch of Full Grown Geese Nominated
Emmy Award Outstanding Animated Program Regular Show: The Christmas Special Nominated
2014 Emmy Award Outstanding Short-format Animated Program Regular Show: The Last LaserDisc Player Nominated
gollark: I am vaguely aware of this, yes.
gollark: Why would there be lower frequency sounds in the 16kHz?
gollark: But you'd only get higher frequencies like that.
gollark: Oh, different things, I see.
gollark: A square wave decomposes into infinitely many sines. Can't do that to sines.

References
  2. TheBasementCouch (October 16, 2011). "NYCC 2011: Regular Show Interview w/ J. G. Quintel, Sam Marin, and William Salyers". The Basement Couch. youtube.com. Retrieved March 8, 2012.
  3. Swarm, Barbara (September 8, 2005). "Leisure: Animated dreams". Hanford Sentinel. Retrieved March 13, 2012.
  4. Bentley, Rick (October 30, 2011). "Hanford High's JG Quintel has cartoon career". The Fresno Bee. Retrieved March 13, 2012.
  5. MoniqueJ (September 12, 2010). ""Dude, we're 23 years old! We can't keep busting holes in walls!": The interview with "Regular Show"'s JG Quintel". Monique Blog. Archived from the original on October 11, 2011. Retrieved March 13, 2012.
  6. "And the Nominees Are ...". Fresno Bee. May 21, 2000. p. A18. |section= ignored (help)
  7. "French filmmaker wins Nicktoons top prize". UPI Entertainment News. September 12, 2005. Retrieved March 13, 2012.
  8. "Nextoons: The Nicktoons Film Festival Announces 2005 Winners". Market Wire. September 12, 2005. Retrieved March 13, 2012.
  9. Swarm, Barbara (December 31, 2005). "Lifestyle: 2005 in review: Moments from a memorable year". Hanford Sentinel. Retrieved March 13, 2012.
  10. Baisley, Sarah (May 23, 2006). "Judges Set for 3rd Annual Nicktoons Network Animation Festival". Animation World Network. Retrieved March 13, 2012.
  11. DeMott, Rick (July 10, 2006). "Nicktoons Hits The Road On Cross-Country Mobile Tour". AWN News. Retrieved March 13, 2012.
  12. Dunne, Susan (March 8, 2007). "Cartoons With A Twist". The Hartford Courant. p. 16. Retrieved March 13, 2012. |section= ignored (help)
  13. "18th Annual New Orleans Film Festival Oct. 11-18 '07". Gambit Weekly. 28 (40). October 2, 2007. p. S1. Retrieved March 13, 2012. |section= ignored (help)
  14. Levine, Stuart (August 14, 2009). "Cartoon draws more shows: Cartoon Network has greenlit two series and picked up additional episodes of a third". Variety (Daily). p. 3. Retrieved March 13, 2012.
  15. Hibberd, James (August 14, 2009). "Cartoon drafts a pair of comedies". The Hollywood Reporter. 411 (4). p. 3. Retrieved March 13, 2012.
  16. "ASIFA Annie Awards & Nominations 2010". Tea time news from around the world. B4Tea.com. January 8, 2010. Retrieved March 13, 2012.
  17. Anna Robinson (February 7, 2010). "2010 Annie Awards nominations: Dec. 1, 2009, winners: Feb. 6, 2010". Alt Film Guide. altfg.com. Retrieved March 13, 2012.
  18. Shattuck, Kathryn (September 6, 2010). "What's On Today". New York Times. Retrieved March 13, 2012. |section= ignored (help)
  19. Bentley, Rick (September 8, 2011). "KGPE launches new Sunday NFL show". The Fresno Bee. Retrieved March 13, 2012.
  20. Bentley, Rick (September 14, 2011). "KFRE to air high school HD football". The Fresno Bee. Archived from the original on July 12, 2012. Retrieved March 13, 2012.
  21. "Cartoon Network Brings the Funny to WonderCon 2012". Action Figure Insider. actionfigureinsider.com. March 8, 2012. Retrieved March 13, 2012.
  22. Regular Show | Emmys.com
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