Brief Bio of Savage Steve Holland and Bill Kopp

     Savage Steve Holland and Bill Kopp, the creators of the animated Saturday morning Fox Broadcasting show, "Eek the Cat," together comprise a multi-talented filmmaking duo.
    While most filmmakers seldom create both live action and animated features, Holland and Kopp have had successful careers combining the two. Their newest creation, "Eek the Cat," is the finest example.
    Holland is the creator, co-writer and executive producer of "Eek", the naive, well-meaning, but, essentially unlucky schlemiel of  a cat.
    Kopp is the co-writer, producer, artist and voice of "Eek" the resilient little kitty who keeps coming back for more -- and usually gets it.
    Holland and Kopp first met when they were both students at CalArts in the early 1980's. There Kopp won two of the prestigious Student Academy Awards for Best Short Animated Film for "Mr. Gloom" (1984) and "Observational Hazard" (1985).
    While at CalArts, Holland's 11-minute live action short feature titled, "My 11-year-old Birthday Party," garnered top prizes for Best Live Action Short Film at the Seattle Film Festival and Los Angeles Film Expo in 1983.
    It was inevitable that the two would combine their talents on Holland's first feature film, "Better Off Dead" (Warner Brothers, 1984), directed by Holland. It was based on true events in his life. This unusual tragicomical romance starred John Cusack and featured animated sequences designed and directed by Kopp. They again joined forces on "One Crazy Summer" (Warner Brothers, 1986) which starred John Cusack and Demi Moore. In this film, Kapp's animation was an integral part of the story.
Holland says of working with Kopp, "At school, which was a pretty depressing arty place, there was this guy, Bill Kopp, who was very funny and twisted and painted hilarious, but, disturbing paintings."
    "Since I didn't like anybody in the animation program I was stuck in, I lied and told Bill how much "fun" animation was. Drunk and foolish, he switched majors and was trapped and had to be my friend. I guess he caught on though, because he eventually won two Academy Awards in a row. We always dreamed of one day saving the vast wasteland that was this world of Saturday morning cartoons. We were told cartoons were passe. Dead. And from the stuff we saw being produced around us, it was. So, I secretly snuck animation in my live action films. Now, with the help of projects Bill's involved been involved with, like "The Simpsons" and the "Roger Rabbit" shorts, cartoons have made a comeback. I guess the people at Fox finally recognized us for our foresight, incredible talent, genius, humility, and allowed us this show. "Eek The Cat!" We are both grateful and excited and we will not fail!"
    Kopp says of working with Holland, "Working with Savage is a lot like going to the dentist except you're strapped in the chair and you can't run away. Actually, I've always loved Steve’s work. When we were at "school" his work really stood out and he was very, very funny. The other thing that attracted me to him was the fact that he was 21 and could buy beer. And so began a very humorous relationship that keeps on delivering great ideas."
    "We think along such similar lines of bizarre humor that we often come up with the same idea at the same time. Which is both great and scary, but it’s one of the reasons we write so fast when we work together. After years of torturing each other as friends do, we noticed we had a huge stockpile of gags and whacky situations. "Eek The Cat" has proved to be a wonderful place for us to use these funny, but previously unusable ideas. It's like being a big petroleum company and finally finding a place to dump all the toxic waste you have collected over the years. We only hope other people laugh at it."
    For a brief time Holland and Kopp pursued separate endeavors. Kopp worked as writer and storyboard artist on the "Roger Rabbit" shorts for Disney. He also served as animator for "The Simpsons" sequences on "The Tracey Ullman Show" from 1986-87 for Fox Broadcasting.
    Holland directed the 20th Century Fox film, "How I Got Into College" (1988) starring Anthony Edwards and Lara Flynn Boyle. For television, Holland produced, directed and wrote "Encyclopedia Brown" for HBO in 1989-90, and also wrote, produced and directed 18 episodes 18 episodes of "Beans Baxter" for Fox Broadcasting in 1987-1988. He also wrote and directed the CBS 1991 Halloween perennial classic, "The Last Halloween," which incorporated computer generated animation.
Individually, Holland has a producing and directing deal at Sony Pictures and Kopp is writing and directing a feature film based on the cartoon duck Baby Huey for Universal.