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Dan Milano is an American voice actor, puppeteer, writer and director. He was one of the creators of the Fox sitcom Greg the Bunny and performed the title character Greg. He is also one of the voice actors and writers of Robot Chicken, and was nominated for an Emmy for writing on Robot Chicken: Star Wars 2. Dan Milano with Warren the Ape (2010)
Dan Milano is a versatile and prolific creative talent who has worked on various projects in animation, film and TV. He is best known for co-creating and voicing Greg the Bunny, writing and voicing Robot Chicken, and developing Star Wars: Detours.
- January 1, 1
- Northport, New York, USA
Dan Milano is a puppeteer, writer and voice actor who co-created and starred in \"Greg the Bunny\" and \"Warren the Ape\". He also worked on \"Robot Chicken\", \"Star Wars: Detours\" and several animated shows for Nickelodeon and Dreamworks.
- September 10, 1972
Dan Milano is a voice actor and producer who worked on various projects, including \"Blade: The Series\", \"Robot Chicken\" and \"Dawn of the Croods\". See his full filmography, ratings, reviews and photos on Rotten Tomatoes.
- Creators Dan Milano and Eric Robles break down the wild and wonderful development of Glitch Techs as it enters its second season.
- Cynical Expectations... and a Roadmap
- Checking Our Guts
- Listening to the Team
- Connecting With the Fans
By Dan Milano, Eric Robles
Updated: Aug 29, 2020 2:56 pm
Posted: Aug 28, 2020 3:05 pm
Produced by Nickelodeon Animation Studios for Netflix, Glitch Techs is an animated sci-fi comedy series about a unique team of teens that protects citizens from real-life video game creatures, or “glitches.” The underdog series, frozen in production by Nickelodeon before finding a home on Netflix, is gaining traction with fans as both a surprisingly earnest love letter to gaming culture and clever science fiction for the entire family. With 10 new episodes dropping this month, co-creators Dan Milano and Eric Robles look back on the creative trajectory of their series and the influence of their collaborative crew.
Back in 2015, in his office at Nickelodeon Studios, Eric kept a box of ideas under his desk. His first animated show Fanboy and Chum-Chum had finished production and, like many creators, he was expected to come up with other potential properties as part of an overall creative deal. Over time, boxes upon boxes filled up with sketches, doodles, pitches and thumbnail storyboards. Some were based on whims, others on months and months of development, but all inspired by childhood and the kinds of shows he’d grown up with.
Nickelodeon’s head of development at this time was Jenna Boyd, who had suggested that Eric meet with Dan, a TV/feature writer she felt would make for a good creative partner. They connected over mutual interests and began developing a series based on a video game the company was looking to adapt. But as interest in that idea waned, Nickelodeon studio head Russell Hicks urged Eric back toward his box of ideas, where Russell had unearthed a sketch of a boy and a robot fighting video game monsters under the handwritten title “Glitch Techs”...
Meanwhile, the changing world around us had made it clear we could no longer take gender inclusion for granted. As our two lead characters developed into a male/female relationship dynamic, it was obvious that as role models they could be an example and help to normalize a healthy ideal to children, including our own. But even by this point, the heart of the show had yet to surface.
Once the show was green-lit, we decided to bring in some writing consultants, particularly from the gaming culture, to widen our understanding. Through friends, contacts and network connections we were able to amass a group of writer/creators, many with direct ties to the gaming world. Felicia Day and Sandeep Parikh were well known for The Guild and Legend of Neil, Ashly Burch had written for Adventure Time and her own gamer-centric series of web shorts, Hey Ash Whatcha Playin. Mike Mika was a game designer and studio head from Other Ocean Studios and a beloved gaming fan/historian. Gabe Swarr, a devout gamer, had been developing several projects for Nick at the time, including the interactive game Roboburger, before going on to develop the new Animaniacs for WB. Aaron Lemay was Senior Director at Odisi Games and creator of The Gamers Way, Jeff Trammell was a gamer and young winner of Nick’s writing fellowship, Sarah McChesney was a writer/performer developing for HBO, Brad Bell had co-created the web series Husbands, and David Anaxagoras was writer/creator of the Amazon series Gortimer Gibbons: Life on Normal Street.
To break ice with the group, we asked the consultants to list their most cynical expectations of a Nickelodeon series about video game culture, not expecting that their answers would become the clearest roadmap for the missing element of our show - its conscience. They picked apart the way force typically was celebrated more than intelligence. We discussed the “nerd” tropes that continued to paint anyone who expressed passion, emotion or even a hint of obsession as abnormal underdogs - despite such feelings being the norm among so many in the audience. Gamers in particular were often shown as toxic, lazy, intolerant and detached from reality. References to nerd and gamer culture were typically pandering, lacking any real understanding or nuance. Among them, “gamers” and “female gamers” were treated as separate concepts, with the latter being treated as some rare unicorn - despite the actual demographic being closer to 50/50.
As creators, we cannot express the excitement of deconstructing all these elements or the value of having such a diverse group of individuals express what shows and video games had meant to them growing up and what had been sorely missing from their diet of esteem and inclusion. Other kids were now not only sharing the toys in the sandbox, they were giving them a higher purpose. And clearest of all was that these ideas did not require lessons or speeches or spotlights of any kind in our series. All they needed was honest inclusion. They were a factual part of our and our childrens’ everyday world. All we needed to do was write what we all knew and reflect the world we saw, rather than lean back on what seemed typical of children’s TV.
Although off to a good start, it was clear the characters should not remain archetypal and that they be defined by more than a single trait (a shortcut often employed in early development). Context and motivation in our stories would be key. Nobody, not even our digital AI glitches, would be cast in the role of a villain. Ideally, audiences would be able to understand all sides of a given conflict, whether they agreed with the character’s motives or not. Supporting characters were treated like main characters, ensuring there were truly no small parts and that even the smallest lines were an opportunity to showcase strong personalities.
While hiring, it was important to look for diverse talents and to make ourselves open to those individual points of view. Once we saw how outside input was elevating our project, we became hungry for more. We might get along with a writer or an artist because they shared inspirations and senses of humor, but that feeling of comfortable fraternity that might have normally made for a hire in the past was now seen as a potential roadblock. It was important that everyone come from different backgrounds and have different perspectives on the material. After all, what does it benefit the creativity of a show to hire multiple people with the same foundational ideas?
Building an original IP amid the hundreds of licensed properties that so many studios were developing during this time was an exciting prospect. Glitch Techs was wholly original, but of course felt familiar enough due to homaging so many genres. It seemed to be the perfect Trojan horse for fresh ideas and so we started to revise our goals concerning gamer culture. We wanted the show to be a love letter to the very best that gaming and fandom had to offer, while also modeling behavior that would work against the potential for toxicity. We wanted to take a well-rounded look at gaming concepts and avoid overt lessons so viewers could draw their own conclusions. We wanted to celebrate the power of being informed, the value of vulnerability and the practice of healthy emotional intelligence.
All of these things required deliberate application and presence of mind to maintain. Inclusivity in our media culture is improving all the time, but for children of the ’80s like us, the truth is that some of the most insidious forms of exclusion come when we get tired and let our brains default to auto-pilot. There are moments where we would catch ourselves - or allow others to point out that we had resorted to things that were typical, reliable and sometimes tainted.
When writer David Anaxagoras suggested adding a Muslim female to the cast, Nickelodeon suggested we ensure a thoughtful depiction by taking on a consultant. As a result, we met with Sue Obedi of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, who graciously consulted on our scripts and animatics. What would be the point of including characters for children to truly identify with if we allowed ourselves to accidentally misrepresent their truth?
It helped that instead of waiting for a studio to assign us a consultant late in the process, we made it an organic part of our early writing process. This allowed for most changes to be implemented well ahead of time, leading to interesting changes that came with unforeseen benefits, rather than forced changes added begrudgingly to otherwise “perfected” work. That said, sometimes a piece of feedback WOULD come to us late, or at a stage where we were not particularly in the mindset for consulting.
We’ve had to literally force ourselves to stop mid-way through a justification about a gag. It slows down the day. It opens us up to criticism and potential adjustments we don’t want to make or discuss. But because we’ve replaced our notion of “compromise” with “collaboration," we learned to listen. In many cases, we would discuss details of context and intent. But when there wasn’t time for an entire discussion, we allowed ourselves to just trust. At the end of the day, most of these notes should not require justification.
If we trust and respect our team, if something was important enough for them to bring up, we had to assume it would be important to others. Over time we found that the willingness to adjust these kinds of details only served to elevate them, providing the show with an originality and nuance we can look back on and be so very proud of.
When depicting gamers, it was important to stay true to the mindset. In our pilot, we devised the initial meeting between our co-leads as one in which our male lead, Hector (aka High Five), is shoved by the antagonist and helped up by our female lead, Miko. Looking back, we’d drawn subconsciously on the trope of a bullied individual meeting up with an ally, who shows up conveniently in an almost western-style heroic fashion. But the context of the scene was an online game, and one that writer Ashly Burch took issue with. “What kind of gamer in a PVP match stops to help some rando?” she said. “If anything, she’d think, ‘Sucks to be him,’ and happily move on with one less competitor to worry about.”
This seemingly small suggestion was one that did require a significant re-board at a time when we were absolutely NOT in the mindset to make changes. But by spending the time on the solution instead of the problem, we not only addressed the note, but developed a far better meeting for our characters, now revised as them literally being thrown TOGETHER by the antagonist. This made Five being victimized a problem for Miko as well. He was now in her way, and for her to advance she needed to deal with him. The two characters remain out for themselves, but now as they parted ways we were able to establish them with a common rival - motivating them to team up more organically later in the sequence.
We screened our animatics in Nickelodeon’s newly-built screening room, placing them on the big screen where everyone could get a cinematic feel for what we were creating. Among our crew and those who would visit, a great deal of the commentary was around the characters and dynamics as being not just fun, but earnest, relatable and often surprising. Though we never lost sight of our child demographic, we were endearing ourselves to people our age and older - kids of the ’80s who ate that same sugar cereal on Saturday mornings but now appreciated the value of having them fortified with vitamins. There’s still plenty in the show that feels familiar, things that can be called out as traditional, things that will qualify as tropes, intended or unintended. But on the whole we found that there was so much more for us to enjoy and felt encouraged that others might feel the same.
When we look at Glitch Techs we see everything we set out to create. A fun tribute to Saturday Morning cartoons that draws on gamer culture in a genuine way and uses the genre as material for relatable stories rather than a gimmick to trigger nostalgia. It is earnest and open-hearted and, though it is in no way perfect, we take great pride in being its co-creators and far more in being true fans of our crew, who helped us make something that surprises and entertains us no matter how many times we watch.
Ultimately, the conscience of the show is what evoked the passion of its talent, who like us became addicted to deconstruction and collaboration. They not only gave us so much of themselves during production but in their continued support long after. Through word of mouth and custom artwork, the team has used the #glitchtechs hashtag to share their pride. They’ve connected with the fans who have validated their work for us all and whose constructive opinions help shape it for the future.
At a time when we are all so desperate to look ahead to a better world, we are deeply thankful to have helped bring about something that lets young faces to not only see themselves on TV, but in a world where they are all united equally as a team. If the Glitch Techs audience continues to grow on Netflix, we hope they and Nickelodeon Animation will allow us to produce more shows utilizing what we’ve learned. Regardless, we will take these lessons to all of our future productions. While it was always our dream to build strong entertainment, Glitch Techs gave us our first taste of what it means to truly help build a strong community.
Dan Milano is an actor, writer, creator, director, and producer known for Dawn of the Croods, Glitch Techs, Robot Chicken, and Greg the Bunny. See his biography, filmography, and awards on TMDB.
Apr 20, 2021 · Dan Milano is one of the executive producers and showrunners of the Netflix adaptation of the best-selling dragon books by Tui T. Sutherland. He and Christa Starr are adapting the books for television with Ava DuVernay and Warner Bros. Animation.
