Howie Mandel - Comedian/Actor

By: Dominick A. Miserandino

Howie Mandel, who is releasing "Bobby's World" on DVD, takes a look back at what made the cartoon so special.

DM) It seems that between releasing the "Bobby's World" DVDs, your touring and the "Tonight Show," you're pretty busy.

HM) It's really not that hard. If I go and do a "Tonight Show," it's six or seven minutes. If I do a concert, it's 90 minutes. If I do an interview for "Bobby's World" about the release, that's only another 15 minutes. So by the end of the day I've done three hours worth of work, which to the regular person is a quarter of what they're doing.

DM) Will this "Bobby's World" DVD release be one of many?

HM) Well, you release these things and if they fly then you have more. There were 84 original episodes and it was rated No. 1 and No. 2 Saturday morning program on the Fox Children's Network. It hasn't played domestically since 1999 and we figured it was time to make it available to people who have never watched it. We're releasing five in May and we have 84 more to choose from.

DM) How did you choose these five?

HM) These were the ones that I remembered and the ones that I looked back on and made me laugh. When I went into "Bobby's World" I had no idea it would be a success. I had been doing the Bobby voice as part of my night club adult act for years. I couldn't imagine it to be appropriate as it was, so we sat down and told stories that happened to us in our childhood, to our children, or what was happening in our house. They were all basically based on the truth. We just depicting these stories that were funny and poignant to us and as luck would have it, they just took off. So these are all stories from my life.

DM) Why did "Bobby's World" end?

HM) Well, we did it for nine years, No. 1, and the Fox Children's Network moved it into a different direction. It was the direction of the Power Rangers and other great stuff. It was more towards action adventure and we weren't in that category. Everything runs its course and that was it. When we went off we were still No. 3 and we had told a lot of stories that happened in our life. At the time my kid was getting older and we were also running out of stories to tell.

DM) Do you hope that the series will come back?

HM) Now I do. Now I have new stories and I feel refreshed and there is talk of "Bobby's World eventually coming back and I would be happy to do that.

DM) It sounds like you needed the time to recharge.

HM) The success of "Bobby's World" and the success of any stand-up act comes out of life experience. I needed time to stand back and go through a lot more experience in life and then I have something to write about, joke or to animate. My point of reference is life in everything that I do.

DM) How involved were you in "Bobby's World" beyond the writing aspects?

HM) I was totally involved in "Bobby's World" from the time we started the idea of "Bobby's World" to sitting with the artists on how he would look, to the script meetings, to the music, to the lyrics, to the songs. I was involved in every way.

DM) Were the other characters besides Bobby based on your own life too?

HM) We were a very small circle of writers. Everybody brought to the table their own life experience. Gail Matthius, who played the mom, is a good friend of mine. She would always talk about her mom. It was a real mom, a good mom and it was a wonderful character, so it was based on Gail's mom. The success of "Bobby's World" was that it touched a lot of people. I got a lot of letters that said, "Bobby is just like my son/daughter." That's why the family's last name is Generic. Uncle Ted is based on uncles that we've all had. I had an uncle like that. We all did.

DM) Was the father based on yourself (Howie Generic)?

HM) Yep, that was me as a father. At the same time I was the voice of Bobby. So while I was doing the show, I was also a father and it did reflect how I tried to handle things in my own home.

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