"Growing Pains"
David Slack Talks About Developing Teen Titans for TV

This interview was conducted in September 2004

DAVID SLACK has written for numerous animated shows including "Jackie Chan Adventures", "The Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot", "Tarzan", "Totally Spies", and the upcoming "Hi Hi Puffy Ami Yumi". He is currently serving as a Story Editor and Producer on the hit series "Teen Titans." David took some time out of his busy schedule to talk about what goes into making TEEN TITANS the mega-hit it has become.

Story Editor and Producer,
DAVID SLACK

Bill Walko: David, thanks for taking the time to sit down and chat about the show. First off, why don’t you tell us a little about yourself and what you did before TEEN TITANS.

David Slack: I'm a writer. I've been doing this since professionally since 1999. I started on a show called The Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot". I did about seven scripts for that. After that, I did Jackie Chan Adventures" with Duane Cappizi, who's sort of my mentor. He's now doing the new "The Batman" - which I think looks awesome. I worked on a number of other series, like "Totally Spies" and "Tarzan."

BW: So how did you become involved with TEEN TITANS?

David: In the summer of 2002 I was approached to possibly work on "Teen Titans" - when I was story editing "Jackie Chan Adventures" at the time. A story editor is basically responsible for rewriting all the scripts. So a writer will turn in a script, and a story editor will go in and fix things that maybe need a second pass. So I came on as Story Editor for Teen Titans. There was a some initial development that had been done. But Sam [Register] wanted Glen [Murakami] and I to to take a second look at it. So I did a new series guide for the show and a new series guide, and started working on the pilot. It was basically Glen, Sam and I talking about what we wanted the show to be, what the influences would be, what the rules would be, what mattered and what didn't.

Now I'm working as Producer on the show with two Story Editors - Rob Hoegee and Amy Wolfram - so I don't have to pull any more all-nighters [laughs]. Basically, it's up to us to try and make sure each script is as good as or better than the last.

BW: Were you involved in the development process? At what point were they at when you began work on the show?

David: Glen had rough designs at that point. One of the first things Glen showed me was a Robin in a halfway-to-Nightwing costume. We were considering throwing out the red shirt and green underpants. He was still playing around with character designs. Actually, the designs hanging up on my wall I don't think are final. Starfire and Raven have changed a bit.

As far as the tone and feel of the show, nothing had really been set yet. Sam has this thing called the squint test, which comes from photography; If you don't look at it and immediately know what it is, it isn't gonna work. You gotta look at the heroes, and know they're heroes. Same with the villains. Anything you need to explain started to feel like it wouldn't work.
"To me, the fun ALWAYS lay in this group of teenage friends hanging out, arguing, having fun. All those things make the show relatable."

Not that it wouldn't be complex... it just wouldn't be complicated... if that makes sense. We wanted it to be emotionally complex but with plots that are not complicated. Glen and I talked a lot about STAR WARS in regards to that. One thing I always noticed about STAR WARS was that you can watch them without a bit of dialogue. "Stolen data tapes? Wha--? Oh, they're gonna blow up that thing? Great!" So we wanted to create something like that.

Originally, I remember Glen and I had a discussion about why the original STAR TREK was better than STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION. And Glen's argument was that it ultimately came down to the fact that it was emotional. NEXT GENERATION sort of got lost in its own mythology of transporter buffers and posotronic brains and all that stuff. The original Trek was Spock as the super ego, McCoy as the id, and Kirk in the middle having to make the choice. So we leaned towards more emotional stories like that.

The other thing we realized early on, was that the Titans had to be metaphors for people we knew. In school. everyone falls into roles. So we took the Titans apart and analyzed who they would be if they were just ordinary kids. So Robin becomes the serious student, Starfire's the foreign exchange student, Cyborg's the jock, Raven's the goth girl, and Beast Boy is the class clown.

BW: Right. I remember reading that you guys saw them as "The Breakfast Club."

David: Yeah, that was something I had brought up when I was trying to get the job [laughs]. To me, the fun ALWAYS lay in this group of teenage friends hanging out, arguing, having fun. All those things make the show relatable.

BW: Were you a fan of the comic book series?

David: One of the reasons they brought me on is that I'm NOT a comic book guy. I've read some -- I've read a lot, actually, now. I wasn't into comic books much though. Instead, I was reading science-fiction. I knew about the Teen Titans through their one appearance on - was it the Superfriends? - when we were much younger. Anyways, I was a big Spider-Man fan growing up. So I was pretty unfamiliar with the Titans growing up. So I dug into a huge stack of the stuff that George [Pérez] and Marv [Wolfman] had done - all of which is entertaining and brilliant. Really cool to look at and really revolutionary.

My role on the show was that when Sam and Glen would get into some argument about "What Super-Adaptoid could and could not do" to sit there and go, "Guys, no one knows what you're talking about anymore." We wanted the show to appeal to a broader audience so we didn't want to get too lost in the Titans mythology of stuff. So one of the things I brought was UNfamiliarity with the property. And I think that helped bring a fresh perspective to things.
"But we were able to find our way of doing it that fit our show and I think we still honored what that character of Terra was: a lost, mixed up teenage girl whose a lot stronger than she realizes."

That said, I've really enjoyed working with Marv, who's a great writer. And we've done our best at every turn to honor the spirit in which that original comic book was created. Like the stuff we did with JUDAS CONTRACT. For a lot of reasons, we couldn't do what they did in the comic book exactly. For one thing, they did it very well so what's the point in doing it again? But we were able to find our way of doing it that fit our show and I think we still honored what that character of Terra was: a lost, mixed up teenage girl whose a lot stronger than she realizes.

BW: So does the series series guide help direct the writer as to what type of stories you are trying to tell on the series?

David: Yeah. The series guide has a lot of stuff about the squint test. And this show was meant to be a lot of fun. And what drew me to the show was, I was a big fan of "G-Force" or "Battle of the Planets" - whatever you'd call it - when I was a kid. So I quickly realized this was my opportunity to do "G-Force." And what I liked about "G-Force" was that it seemed like it was made for me. Fun, exciting. So I put guidelines as to what kinds of stories we were looking to tell.

We wanted stories that were immediately understandable that would have VISUAL twists. So, you'd think that there was just this person in a tank.. and then, wow, it turns into Plasmus. Visual twists rather than more narrative twists. Now when we bring a writer on, I explain the show as a metaphor. Every episode can be reduced to a metaphor in which the Titans are just ordinary kids dealing with situations normal kids would deal with. The episode ONLY HUMAN - where Cyborg faces off against a bully - deals in metaphor. Even the episode HOW LONG IS FOREVER gets into the metaphor - that question you ask yourself with childhood friends - will we still be friends when we grow up?

So that's how I approach writers now. To look for a metaphor in the experience of childhood that we can then blow up to super-heroic proportions.

BW: How did you develop the ‘voices’ or speech patterns, of each character? Do you direct writers on that? And how do you keep them consistent?

David: Yeah, well, that's part of a Story Editor's job to make sure the voices are consistent. I catch a lot of contractions people may put in for Starfire. That's one of the things all writers try to do - to make sure they write the characters the way they should sound. Yeah, each character has his own voice and specific sense of humor and I definitely try to provide coaching on that. I think Starfire is the most pronounced because she has a strange way of speaking and approaching things.

My favorite joke with Starfire is when she approaches her little marionette puppet in SWITCHED. Initially the joke we had in there was how the puppet looked relative to her. Then, at a certain point, we realized "What if she's never SEEN a puppet before?" Things like that with Starfire you have to think outside the box. That, and all the alien words you have to make up. It takes a certain ear.

BW: Do the writers direct any of the sight gags or super-deformed segments? Or is that mainly the directors?
"I think Starfire is the most pronounced because she has a strange way of speaking and approaching things."

David: That's about 50/50. The scripts are fairly thorough in their description. We don't have a whole lot of time and the storyboard artists have to work pretty fast. So we try to give them as much to go off of as we can. I think of the script as a scaffold they can trick out.

An episode like FRACTURED is probably a good example of how much is on the page and how much is put in later. The mouth-switching gag I scripted in there. And there was some other stuff I had in there - like Starfire's head flying around and Raven's hair. Put then there's other pluses... Cyborg had a line "Why does the whole world look like my Grandma's fridge?" And they actually drew Cyborg-grandma.

We have such phenomenal story board artists and directors. And these guys work so hard to make it that much funnier. I send the show off at one level and they take it up another level. So I try to give them as much as possible, but a lot of the gags come later. So, yeah, I'd say it's about half-and-half.

BW: Do you think it's a harder show to work on because it's so kinetic and has so many sight gags?

David: It is and it isn't. I think it's a harder show to work on because we all love it so much. When you're working on a show, you always care. But TITANS got under everyone's skin. We all just wanted it to be excellent. It was Glen's first time running his own show. It was my first time developing and fully story editing. We just did whatever we had to do to get things done and make it excellent. Sometimes, we all wear ourselves out over it. But it's because we just want the show to be fantastic.

We all came back with what we thought was a really good first season ... then the pressure was really on to not let that slide. So we all wind up spending a lot more time to get things exactly right. But you don't notice it as much because it's ultimately rewarding. I mean, I've pulled more all-nighters on this show than I can count. But I'll be there at five in the morning writing the very last scene of something and feel really gratified by how it's coming out.

But with TITANS, you have to keep pushing the envelope. Like with FRACTURED, for instance. I think it took us a good 10 hours to figure out how that story was going to work. Glen, Michael Chang [the director] and I were all in Jerry's Deli at 2am arguing whether reality could crack or rip. So you put in a lot of hours to get things right.

In the end, it's worth it and it's a lot of fun.

Want to hear more from David Slack?
David Slack Reveals Secrets Behind The First Season >> click here