My Life as a Cartoon Network Intern
I interned on Mighty Magiswords and Apple & Onion, in the summer of '17
The CNS Summer Internship
This is a retrospective journal entry about the summer of 2017, when I was an intern at Cartoon Network. I remember that summer as being one of the most exciting periods of my life, a time when possibilities seemed as boundless as the endless sprawl of LA. In 2023, the Cartoon Network Studio buildings in Burbank were shut down, and show production was moved elsewhere. Between these historic buildings being closed and the upheaval of the animation industry in the last few years, in many ways that experience I had as an intern now feels like a memento of the past. I hope this entry can help provide a window into what that experience was like. Welcome, to some of my favorite memories!
Note: This is a loooong post and may get cut off if you are receiving it via email. To read it in full, click on the title!
Getting The Job
In 2017, I was in junior year of college and extremely desperate: I was to graduate in a year, and I knew the chances of landing an internship and getting my foot in the door of the animation industry were getting slimmer every semester.
It took hundreds of applications to various internship and apprenticeship programs and hearing nothing back, until…
I received an email in March that the studio had reviewed my application, and I’d be moving to the next round which involved a “remote video interview” - this consisted of recording my answers to a set of interview questions. The questions were pretty typical, and I taped my answers as best as I could without letting my hopes rise too much. After so much rejection, I was wary that this could lead to anything.
To my massive surprise, I received an email a month later requesting a follow-up interview, this time in person! I was studying in Pittsburgh and unable to travel to the studio, but opted for a Skype interview instead where I got to speak with the producer and two production managers of Mighty Magiswords. Shortly after the interview, it was all confirmed - I’d been selected as an intern for that summer!! I remember absolutely losing my mind with excitement - it felt like my life was opening up in front of me and everything I’d been working so hard for was finally starting to pay off.
Some details:
It was located at Cartoon Networks Studios in Burbank, CA. For interns based out of state, there would be no relocation or housing assistance provided.
Summer internships were slated for June 6 – August 26, 2017.
The position was paid at CA minimum wage ($10.50/hour), and also had the option for school credit.
I’d be sharing my position with another intern Tabatha, and as a result we would be switching off our time at the studio, with each of us spending 2-3 days a week at the office at most.
I was able to coordinate with another intern named Lex and the two of us made plans to rent out an apartment in Burbank for the summer. We were able to find a place just a short 10-15 min walk away from the studio, as well as from the main Burbank shopping area, and within a few weeks I was on my flight to LA!
The Interns
We had 16 interns total, mostly assigned to Cartoon Network shows, although I believe 2 or 3 were working with the Adult Swim branch. The interns were from all over the country, with a variety of goals - some were aspiring storyboard artists, some were interested in the writing/production side, and others had found success creating fan content online. As for me, I knew that I wanted to pursue an art department job that let me draw and paint for a living. To this day I still keep in touch with many of my intern friends, and a lot of them have since permanently moved to LA and are working full-time jobs in the animation industry!
The Studio
Cartoon Network had two main buildings that show production was separated into. The iconic smaller white one had a comfy, artsy vibe, and the larger black building felt more like a corporate office. I had been assigned to work on Mighty Magiswords and Apple & Onion, and since both shows were being produced on the 5th floor of the black building, that’s where I spent the bulk of my time.
This was the lobby of the white building - a cozy space with show posters, a pool table, and various awards and memorabilia.
The iconic stairwell in the white building was filled with drawings and graffiti from animation legends and CN employees - almost every inch was covered, and you could feel the passion and the love poured into the space. These walls were later completely painted over in 2023 when CN shut down operations in the building, taking a piece of animation history with it… (Calvin Wong and others were able to immortalize the stairwell as a 3D model that you can view here)
The floor I worked on in the black building mostly consisted of offices, cubicles, and meeting rooms, but there was also a lounge area with a TV and gaming setup. The vibe of the floor was very calm - occasionally people would play games on the TV (usually Mario Kart I think??), but for the majority of the day artists would be working quietly in their cubicles.
The Crew
As an intern, I worked directly with the production crew for Mighty Magiswords and Apple & Onion. The two PAs, Sam and Christian, and the DPA, Moriah, were so incredibly welcoming and kind, and I would receive assignments directly from them. The Production Manager Rochelle Perry was so sweet to me as well, and was always giving me the files for art tests so that I could try painting in the show style if I wanted to. I got to meet and chat with some of the artists working on the shows as well (for some reason one of the conversations that I vividly remember was with Drew Green about Dream Daddy: A Dad Dating Simulator).
Occasionally I would hop over to the other floors to visit my other intern friends when they also had free time. Each level had its own show-specific decorations and various types of snacks, candies, and drinks, making the building very fun to explore.
In addition, the staff who were running the events programs for CN employees were doing an AMAZING job - I’ve worked at many studios since this time, but this summer at CN had the best events program to date out of any work experience I’ve ever had.
They hosted figure drawing sessions, catered summer BBQs on the rooftop of the white building, organized a whole-ass beach day along the Pacific Coast Highway, threw an employee arts & crafts fair, curated internal gallery exhibits, and planned various talks and seminars from studio employees about TV Development, storyboarding, drawing and more!! (To whoever was responsible: thank you so much for your work, and please let me know if I could also hire you to event-coordinate my life.)
The Workspace
Tabatha and I shared a small cubicle that had a desk and a monitor and only one of us would ever be there at a time. We would alternate which days we came in, typically just 2 or 3 times a week.
Most of the work we did consisted of transcription tasks - making sure the dialogue in the scripts matched the dialogue in the animatic, formatting the script, etc. There was one exciting afternoon when I got to meet Stephen Fry(!!) at a voice record session, who was in the studio that day to record some lines as Onion’s dad in Apple & Onion.
Oftentimes, the assignments I had to work on only took a couple hours to complete at most, and so the rest of my time was spent developing my Intern Pitch - a summer-long project that each of us was working on, to be finished and presented by the end of the program in August.
CNS Fest
June 29, 2017
That summer, CN hosted an internal arts & crafts fair for employees to sell prints, books, stickers, and other goods. I signed up and promptly got some prints made locally at Color Images in Burbank.
On the day of the festival, things were going pretty smoothly, and I was chatting with the other artists and buying prints for myself, when I heard a very familiar voice… only to look up and have a miniature heart attack when I realized Deedee Magno Hall (Pearl from Steven Universe) was right in front of my table! I was and still am a massive fan, and I definitely blacked out a little bit from the shock, but I did manage to give her one of my prints for free.
Summer Activities
One of the plus-sides of only being in the studio 2-3 days a week due to the shared schedule was that I had a LOT of free time to work on my pitch and explore LA! Here are some absolute favorite memories from the summer, although there were so many others I didn’t have space to include.
Gallery Nucleus | June 30, 2017
4th of July Pool Party | July 4, 2017
Painting at El Matador | July 18, 2017
The Getty Museum | July 19, 2017
My 21st Birthday Party | August 5, 2017
Visiting Walt Disney Studios | August 10, 2017
Peter Chan’s “Simple Things” Show at Giant Robot | August 19, 2017
Intern Pitch: Girl Gang
August 17, 2017
Finally, as the end of the internship program neared, it was time: each intern was to present their Intern Pitch as part of a weeklong showcase, where we would get to pitch our project to the full-time Cartoon Network staff.
The project could be anything of your choosing: a show bible, an idea for a comic book or short film, or even a concept for a board game. I decided I wanted to pitch concept art and story ideas for a graphic novel called Girl Gang. These were original characters that had been floating around in my head for a while, but the time I spent over the internship really helped me kick my butt into gear and put some time into developing a set of character designs and other illustrations.
The pitch ended up going super well, there was a great turnout of interested employees in the room who asked a lot of thoughtful questions at the end! I grew so much, not just as an artist but also as a “producer”: the experience taught me that it’s just as important of a skill to understand how to present your ideas to an audience in a concise and compelling way.
If you’re interested in seeing some of the pitch images I made for Girl Gang, I ended up posting them online here!
The Last Day
August 25, 2017
With the intern pitches wrapped up, it was time for this summer-long adventure to come to a close. On our last day, the production crew was so sweet to take Tabby and I to a black-light bowling alley to celebrate the end of our internship! If memory serves correctly, I think we also both received signboards from the crew wishing us farewell… I believe mine might be in storage, but if I ever find it I’ll be sure to update this post with a photo of the board.
The Experience
This summer will always stay firmly cemented in my heart as one of my favorite experiences as a young adult, on the cusp of true independence. This might be the first time in my life that I felt really truly free - not just in a physical sense, but also in the sense that my dreams felt like they were within grasp. I had made some real progress towards my goals as an artist, and although I knew that didn’t mean all of my problems were magically solved, it kind of felt like I had made it.
I’ll never forget how LA looked on my flight back to the East Coast. There was a moment on the plane where everyone had fallen asleep and as I looked outside, I could see the lights of a city stretching on for miles across the desert. I still think it’s one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen.
Wow, it’s so cool to see some retrospective insight on some of the inner workings of CN during that time!
I was never really into Cartoon Network until 2020, right after the Lockdown happened. By that time, I really got into Adventure Time and Regular Show, and from there I started binging all of the other awesome CN classics like Samurai Jack, the Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack, the Amazing World of Gumball, Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends and Powerpuff Girls.
With all the stuff going on with the animation industry, especially CN, you can’t help but feel this melancholy nostalgia for what was, and there’s a part of me that wishes I grew up on CN (especially during its Silver Age) as it feels like it was such a fun, amazing time to be alive and that I missed out. But at the same time, I’m glad I got into it all when I did because I know I can appreciate it all more than I probably would have as a kid, especially with how inspiring it’s been for me as an aspiring creator.
Thanks for the awesome post!
Thank you so much for writing this! I loved reading it. It sounds like such a special time in your life, and it’s so wonderful to hear about a place that has a kind, fun, welcoming culture. People really make all the difference in a working environment, no? And your work is phenomenal, especially your use of color ❤️