Gennadiy Borisovich Tartakovsky is a Russian-born American animator, director
and producer. He is best known for creating the Cartoon Network animated
television series Dexter's Laboratory, Samurai Jack, and Star Wars: Clone Wars
and co-creating Sym-Bionic Titan. In 2011, Tartakovsky joined Sony Pictures
Animation, where he directed his feature film debut Hotel Transylvania, and its
sequel, Hotel Transylvania 2. Although his Russian name Геннадий is normally
transliterated as Gennady or Gennadiy, he changed its spelling to Genndy after
moving to the US. Early life
Tartakovsky was born January 17, 1970, in Moscow to Jewish parents. His father,
Boris, worked as a dentist for government officials and the Soviet
Union national ice hockey team. His mother, Miriam, was an assistant
principal at a school. He also has a brother, Alexander, who is two years
older and currently a computer consultant in Chicago. Before coming to
the United States, his family first moved to Italy, where he lived next to a
German family. There, Tartakovsky says he was first drawn to art, inspired by a
neighbor's daughter. Tartakovsky later commented, "I remember, I was horrible
at it. For the life of me, I couldn't draw a circle."
Tartakovsky's family moved to the United States when he was seven due to concerns
about the effect of anti-Semitism on their children's lives. The family
originally settled in Columbus, Ohio and later moved to Chicago. He was greatly
influenced by the comics he found there; his first purchase was an issue of the
Super Friends. Tartakovsky began attending Chicago's Eugene Field
Elementary School in the third grade. School was hard for him because he felt
that everyone recognized him as a foreigner. He went on to attend
Chicago's prestigious Lane Technical College Prep High School, and says he
never felt he fit in until he was a sophomore there. When he was 16, his
father died of a heart attack. He felt that his father was very strict and was
an old-fashioned man, but Genndy's relationship with his father was very
special to him. After the death of his father, Genndy and his family moved to
government-funded housing, and he began working while still attending high
school. To satisfy his ambitious family,
Tartakovsky tried to take an advertising class, because they were encouraging him
to be a businessman. However, he signed up late and had little choice over his
classes. He was assigned to take an animation class, and this led to his
study of film at Columbia College Chicago before moving to Los Angeles to
study animation at the California Institute of the Arts and there he also
met Craig McCracken. At CalArts, Tartakovsky directed and animated two
student films, one of which became the basis for Dexter's Laboratory.
Reportedly, after two years at CalArts, Tartakovsky got a job in Spain on
Batman: The Animated Series and The Critic. There, "he learned the trials of
TV animation, labor intensive and cranking it out". While he was in Spain,
his mother died of cancer. Career
Craig McCracken acquired an art director job at Hanna-Barbera for the show 2
Stupid Dogs and recommended hiring Robert Renzetti and Tartakovsky as well.
This was a major turning point in Tartakovsky's career. Hanna-Barbera let
Tartakovsky, McCracken, Renzetti, and Paul Rudish work in a trailer in the
parking lot of the studio, and there, Tartakovsky started creating his
best-known works. Dexter's Laboratory grew out of a student film with the same
title that he produced while at the California Institute of the Arts.
Tartakovsky also co-wrote and pencilled the 25th issue of the Dexter's
Laboratory comic book series, titled "Stubble Trouble". Additionally, he
helped produce The Powerpuff Girls and has directed many episodes, serving as
the animation director for The Powerpuff Girls Movie. All three projects were
nominated repeatedly for Emmy Awards, with Samurai Jack finally winning
"Outstanding Animated Program" in 2004 – the same year he would win in the
category for Outstanding Animated Program for Star Wars: Clone Wars.
Star Wars creator George Lucas hired Tartakovsky to direct Star Wars: Clone
Wars, a successful animated microseries taking place between Attack of the
Clones and Revenge of the Sith. The series won three Emmy awards: two for
"Outstanding Animated Program" in 2004 and 2005, and another for "Outstanding
Individual Achievement in Animation". Tartakovsky was not involved in the
follow-up series, and has no plans to work on future Star Wars projects.
In 2005, Tartakovsky was appointed creative president of The Orphanage's
Orphanage Animation Studios. In 2006, he was chosen as the director for a sequel
to The Dark Crystal, but was eventually replaced by Michael and Peter Spierig.
Tartakovsky served as animation director on the 2006 pilot episode of Korgoth of
Barbaria, which aired on Adult Swim but was not picked up as a series. He also
directed a series of anti-smoking advertisements, one for Nicorette in
2006 and two for Niquitin in 2008. He created a short in 2009 entitled
Maruined for Cartoon Network's Cartoonstitute program, which has yet to
be officially aired or otherwise released.
In 2009, it was announced that Tartakovsky would write and direct a
Samurai Jack film from Fred Seibert's Frederator Studios, and J. J. Abrams'
Bad Robot Productions. In June 2012, Tartakovsky said that he had a story to
conclude the series, but the project had been shelved after J. J. Abrams moved on
to direct Star Trek. In 2010, he created storyboards for Jon Favreau's Iron Man
2. Tartakovsky's last TV series for Cartoon Network, Sym-Bionic Titan, aired
between 2010 and 2011. He had hoped to expand on the initial 20 episodes but it
was not renewed beyond its first season. On April 7, 2011 an animated prologue by
Tartakovsky for the horror movie Priest premiered online. In early 2011,
Tartakovsky moved to Sony Pictures Animation, where he made his feature
film directing debut with Hotel Transylvania. In July 2012, he signed a
long-term deal with Sony to develop and direct his own original projects. His
first original project is currently titled Can You Imagine? and will be
produced by Michelle Murdocca. It's described as a "fantastic journey
through one boy's imagination". In June 2012, Sony Pictures Animation
announced that Tartakovsky was slated to direct a computer-animated Popeye
feature film. On September 18, 2014, Tartakovsky revealed an "animation test"
footage, about which he said, "It's just something that kind of represents what
we want to do. I couldn't be more excited by how it turned out." In March
2015, Tartakovsky announced that despite the well-received test footage, he was
no longer working on the project, and would instead direct Can You Imagine?.
Filmography = Film=
= Television= Awards and nominations
References Genndy's Scrapbook
External links Genndy Tartakovsky at the Internet Movie
Database Genndy Tartakovsky at About.com