Just as he took to the skies in 1998’s amped-up summer blockbuster Armageddon, the increasingly busy Ben Affleck may sail the high seas in Michael Bay and Jerry Bruckheimer’s World War II epic, Pearl Harbor. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Affleck is currently in negotiations with the director-producer team to star in Disney’s $130 million-plus range action drama alongside Cuba Gooding Jr., the first confirmed member of the cast.

Bay and Bruckheimer recently received the go-ahead from Disney to get rolling with casting and preproduction, and several actors have since been rumored to be circling the project. Affleck could be one of the actors in line to play one of a pair of pilots dueling over the heart of a young woman – Harbor’s romantic subplot set against the backdrop of the historical Japanese air raid. Other names flying around in recent weeks for possible love triangle members have included Wes Bentley (American Beauty), Jim Caviezel (The Thin Red Line), Gwyneth Paltrow, Charlize Theron, and Felicity’s Keri Russell and Scott Speedman.

All those actors may or may not be actual candidates for the parts, but one thing’s for sure – Kevin Costner, who was reportedly in talks with the Harbor camp for another lead role, won’t be appearing in the film. Bay told E! Online that Costner “wanted too much money . and we think we can make this without any big names.” (Besides Affleck, it would appear.) E!’s Ted Casablanca also claims that Alec Baldwin has just been cast in the role Costner was eyeing. More Pearl Harbor news should be dropping from the skies before long, as Bay and Bruckheimer will soon be shifting into “full speed ahead” production mode to hit their Summer 2001 release target date.

This is David Mandel. I’m the other writer/executive producer on Clerks that Kevin has been so kind in mentioning from time to time.

Like Kevin, I’ve been very upset about what happened to the show and it’s NEW time slot. But he curses better than I do, so I haven’t written before.

But this letter from Anonymous Loon has me pretty pissed off, so I figured I’d get off my ass and post– I used the word “ass”.

Kevin’s point by point response to the Anonymous Loon is right on, every word of it. But I wanted to add one other thing to the discussion. And that is…

This letter was CLEARLY written by someone we FIRED from the show’s animation staff.

Having read the letter a whole bunch and talked with Chris Bailey, here are a couple of things for you to chew on.

1. Anonymous loon blames us for the sheer number of unheard of retakes. Yes, we had a bunch. But as Kevin, Chris and anyone else who has ever worked in prime time animation will tell you, that’s standard. I have good friends working at the Simpsons, Futurama, King of the Hill, and even Mission Hill who I spoke with back when we started the show, and they all explained how especially early on, the animation studios in Korea would have a hard time with the look of the show. Expect 80-90 % retakes they said.

But notice I said this is standard in “Prime time animation”. What it is not standard in, is regular daytime animation, like Duck Tales, Goof Troop and Pepper Anne. This is the stuff Disney TV animation had been doing. We are the first prime time animation they have done, and when they helped us to staff the show, it was with Day Time animators who wanted to work on prime time.

2. The Budget. Again, Anonymous Loon is horrified by our budget of 800 thousand dollars. As Kevin pointed out, it was closer to 750 thousand. The Simpsons and Futurama are over 1 million. IS it a lot of money?? Yes, but again, it is standard for– say it with me– prime time animation.

Anonymous Loon clearly shows once again that he comes from the day time animation world where animation is waaaaaaay cheaper and costs are cut. He/she has never seen money like this spent on a show.

3. The script delays and constant revisions. Yes we worked hard on the scripts and sometimes it took longer than we wanted. And we made lots of changes so we could make it better. Both are no-brainers. But…

Daytime shows don’t have the budget for revisions. They aren’t done at all. And they usually make 65 episodes of a daytime show at once–it’s called a strip show because it can air every day. They have a tight, tight schedule and usually make all 65 in less time than it took us–or any PRIMETIME animated show– to make 6.

Also on Daytime shows, the scripts aren’t usually written by writers of Kevin’s or any of our other writers’ caliber (I suck, and have no caliber). Most day time shows are pounded out by kids right out of school or the animators themselves. they are great for what they are, but at the end of the day, they are making a show for kids. Not for a prime time audience that can read.

4. Anonymous Loon makes several wrong statements–as Kev has pointed out– about how ABC and network scheduling works.

Why?? He has never worked for ABC primtime programming. His experience is with day time Disney afternoon shows. Or Saturday morning stuff.

So where am I going with all this???? Well, as you can clearly see, this criticism reveals Anonymous Loon to be a day time animation guy from Disney animation.

But he clearly has working knowledge of the show–twisted and evil as it is– and has more knowledge early on when he talks about designs not being done and scripts being late/long.

Designs weren’t finished early on, but obviously did get finished. And the scripts got shorter.

So this guy–most animators are guys– was involved early on, and hates us.

Who would be involved early on and now hates us??? Hmmmmmm???

How about a Disney daytime animator who was assigned to the show, had never done primetime work before, and couldn’t cut it??

Our show has a very unique look and style, plus the jokes themselves in the script are somewhat unique (except for the stuff we stole from the Simpsons).

Chris Bailey had to fire a couple of guys who couldn’t draw the way he wanted or make the characters animate properly.

Specifically, there were 2 guys.

Both have since left the company, but neither liked the show and were angry at Chris for not liking their work and frustrated that Kevin and I changed things.

We know who they are. So don’t worry.

But I thought you would like to know. And hopefully when you guys see the show and like it as much as Kevin, Scott and all the people who have not been fired from the show do, you will see that Anonymous Loon is just… well, sad.

Thanks for your time,

David Mandel