Start-Up Links TV Icons From The Past With Wave Of The Future
They're some of the entertainment icons of the past who helped fire the imagination of Sean Griffin as a kid. Now that Griffin is grown up, he hopes to repay the favor by bringing the old heroes of Saturday morning TV into the new millennium, via the Internet.
"I've been influenced all my life by these properties,'' Griffin explains. "My father was a big W.C. Fields fan, and he was a big collector of trains and nostalgia. I believe that nostalgia will have more and more value as we go forward, as things accelerate. There isn't enough time to be in the present, much less think about the future, so people have a tendency to look back.''
Griffin first discovered the possibilities of such technological resurrection when his company, then focusing solely on Web site development, was asked to create a site for Dr. Seuss books and characters. Its success encouraged him to pursue licensing agreements for similar sites with the estates and owners of other kid-culture properties, including Art Clokey, the creator of Gumby, and Sid and Marty Krofft, whose studios produced the ``H.R. Pufnstuf'' and "Land of the Lost'' shows.
"We look at them as a community,'' Griffin says, "that we want to enroll to participate in our site.'' Sometimes that means nailing down an identifiable name for the participant's own site or buying out an already existing site.
"For instance, with Gumby and Pokey there already was a site called `Gumby Girls,' '' Griffin explains. "It was an S&M site. Flexible positions and poses, if you will. So that wasn't OK. That one, we went after. '' Fans now looking for Gumby and Pokey on the Web won't find them doing anything salacious, but the process gave Griffin a real hoot.
Griffin, an ebullient guy with an easy laugh and broad gestures, seems to get a lot of hoots out of life. The walls of his downtown office are filled with colorful examples of what he calls ``process art'' -- maps depicting his often circular process of brainstorming projects and programs for his own company and for the corporations with which he consults. Kid-show collectibles line his shelves. There's a feeling of controlled disorder to his creativity that's engaging.
It wasn't always appreciated.
Stigmatized by a label
Griffin, born in San Jose and raised in Saratoga, was diagnosed as learning-disabled when he hit school. Dyslexic, he didn't deal with information as most children did. Being placed in special classes set him apart. He found himself labeled, different.
"I'm an experiential learner,'' he says, "and so I never quite made it through the school system. I'm very visual, and I credit visual information as one of the keys to my success. Whenever I want to create, I just visualize it and I draw it. '' He points to a sheet of paper, words swirling around it in a circular pattern, some sentences connected by colorful arrows. "I drew that picture of what I wanted to discuss with you here,'' he tells me. "It's my process.''
Griffin's parents -- his mother is a successful real estate broker, his father an architect heading a firm of his own - helped maintain his sense of self-worth. If their son was having trouble learning things the so-called normal way in school, they would give him other sorts of learning experiences.
"I was doing architectural work for my father when I was very young,'' Griffin recalls. "I did architectural illustrations - no schooling but really high-level architectural work - when I was 14 or 15. My father just kept giving me more and more complex things to do, and I just kept doing them. That was a great help.''
Producing illustrations was solitary work, though, and Griffin says he's a "very social creature.'' He took a part-time job as a courtesy clerk at a Safeway supermarket and found that he thrived in the job. "At 17, I was assistant manager of the store,'' he says, "and became their youngest manager at 19. When I was 20, I bought a home in Willow Glen. I was doing very well.''
But the mercurial Griffin was looking for something with a little more flash. When Ross Perot entered the scene as a presidential candidate, Griffin went up and down the West Coast staging rallies. "When Ross stepped out of the race, I still was very thankful for the experience,'' Griffin says.
His idealistic political work next led him into a series of projects in the charitable sector. He worked in gang intervention in South Central Los Angeles. Participating in another program of community development, he began to establish technology contacts, which multiplied when he returned to Silicon Valley and volunteered with Joint Venture: Silicon Valley Network.
There followed work with a variety of valley start-ups and organizations. He participated in the founding of the Digital Clubhouse Network, aimed at narrowing the gap between technology haves and have-nots, and Project Digitally Abled, using technology to expand the horizons of the disabled.
But it was when he became involved with the Dr. Seuss Web site in late 1995 that everything came into focus, he says. "StudioFX got started with that,'' he says. "I had to start making more of a living; I was running out of all the money I had.''
StudioFX now holds Internet licenses for more than 65 cartoon characters, but Griffin isn't limiting himself strictly to the Saturday morning set.
He also has lined up veteran Hollywood photographer Bruno Bernard's archive of approximately 80,000 photographs - "He was the `Vargas Girl-type' photographer in the '30s, '40s and '50s'' -- for one of his nostalgia Web sites.
He has made arrangements with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to launch its Galactic Trader Web site, offering NASA collectibles, toys and apparel. "All the NASA Web sites are fragmented out there, with huge URLs,'' Griffin notes. "We're bringing them into one spot, linked through StudioFX. If you want to go right to the links for the Hubbell telescope or the MIRV station or whatever, you'll be able to.''
A similar agreement with the Major League Baseball Players Alumni Association will permit him to offer their sports memorabilia and collectibles. He also has a deal with Glencoe, a maker of models, and is in negotiation with a number of other nostalgia/entertainment/collectible entities, he says.
Impresses other creators
Gumby creator Clokey has said he's "amazed at Sean's talents and his entrepreneurial abilities. ''Griffin mentor Nolan Bushnell, the video-game entrepreneur, terms his skills "very impressive.''
"He's very creative,'' Griffin beams in response. "When we get together, it's like an idea-fest.''
Acknowledging he's "extremely ambitious,'' Griffin says the goal of StudioFX is "to create an entertainment/hobbyist destination that can excel in commerce through the power of the Internet.'' It's the sort of talk that gets a guy noticed in boardrooms, but Griffin also hasn't forgotten the circuitous route he took to get to this point.
"A third of our (30) employees are differently abled, ''he notes. A receptionist with limited vision offers warm greetings. A quadriplegic graphic designer creates computer art, moving her cursor with an infrared wand attached to her head and blowing air into a tube instead of clicking on a mouse. "Creativity rules,'' Griffin explains, "and they're an under-utilized segment of the population. They show what's possible.''
He has a good idea of what's possible because he still remembers the labeling of his early school days, the doubts that he would be able to learn or do much.
"My experience with school has really been a blessing,'' he says reflectively. "I would encourage people not to be discouraged, persevere and never, ever give up. It's not easy to grow up and find your niche in life. I really hated that learning-disabled label. I rebelled against it, and I worked it into a challenge. I found the opportunity with it. And I said OK.''
Almost like a Saturday morning cartoon hero.
Contact Leigh Weimers at lweimers@sjmercury.com or (408) 920-5547. Fax (408) 271-3786.