“Artist on Artist” started with the working title “Mind of Mothersbaugh,” and was actually being shopped as a documentary on Mark Mothersbaugh. The original vision came from my time spent on Yo Gabba Gabba Season 4. Which is where I got to meet Mark. Unlike most celebrity interactions, Mothersbaugh lived up to exactly who I hoped he’d be. Quirky as you’d expect. But incredibly refreshing— if you could keep up with his mind. He would float in a way, from idea to idea, but if you weren’t keeping up with his leap, you’d quickly get left behind, and ultimately miss the beauty of the thought.
Hence the title “Mind of Mothersbaugh.” If you aren’t too familiar with Mark Mothersbaugh, he is the frontman for Divo, but he’s also a great composer, a talented inventor, a painter and… well if you really want to see him, do research on his children and how he came to adopt them. Incredible stuff.
When we were wrapping the show I approached Lance Robertson, aka DJ Lance Rock, to feel out Rock’s thoughts on feasibility. We got the thumbs up and went to work.
A sizzle for “Mind of Mothersbaugh” was created using two separate interviews from Mark that we poached from the web. The goal all along was to be anything but traditional, and to use a mixed medium to share Mark’s thoughts. So we landed on stop motion animation, flip book style drawings and puppets.
The piece was well received, but ultimately Mark passed on it. So we rebranded it “Artist on Artist” and attempted to make it a series where one artist told the story of another artist. A bit of a flailing attempt to repurpose a lot of hard work in hindsight.
In the end, zero regrets. It’s actually a really good representation of the way Echo Tango thinks, creates and collaborates. Enjoy!