Tina Fey as Sarah Palin, SNL

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​My partner Craig and I first came up with the concept of Splash City in 2010. Obama was President, and the country was still breathing a sigh of relief from the close call of Sarah Palin as Vice President. Thank you, Tiny Fey and Amy Poehler.
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Amy Poehler as Hillary Clinton, SNL

Fascinated and excited by the influence of pop culture on social change, our idea was to create a cartoon world with a dysfunctional setting like “The Simpsons,” but one that left the audience with more than cynicism. We wanted to offer hope, and possible solutions. More Obama, Peanuts-like, and Leslie Knope.

Amy Poehler as Leslie Knope, Parks and Recreation

 "Amy did an improvised talking head in the very early days -- like the 3rd or 4th episode -- where she had just accidentally knocked over a table in the courtyard and smashed a bunch of bottles. Her line was about how she was shattering those bottles like she was shattering the glass ceiling, or something kind of meh, and she got super cocky and looked back at the men sweeping up and improvised something like, 'Am I breaking into the boys' club? I dunno. I mean, just look at all those bitches cleaning up after me.' It was obviously way funnier than what we had written, but also a light bulb went off for us, where we realized in that moment we had been writing her character wrong -- that she should be more fun and loose and not so uptight and 'politician'-y. Changed the course of the show with that one line." - Michael Schur, Parks and Recreation Co-creator and Showrunner

Splash City first appeared as a website with videos, slideshows and articles written by the characters, designed for the viewer to play around in. "Splash in the City" was a page of blogs "written by" Mzzz Pink, Ms. Bee Haven, Miss Guided Light and Lisa Hearditall. The music we found for the page sounded like the "Sex and the City" theme, but the "Splash in the City" women were writing about quite a different topic. They were fashionable women trying to get "off The Wall." 

Arianna Huffington briefly considered "Splash in the City" as a blog for the Thrive section of Huff Post. Our opening line to her reflected the reason we were using "cartoon icons" in our blogs: “What was your favorite cartoon character as a child? Answer honestly, does the character match your personality? If the answer is yes, that’s the projective nature of cartoon.” "When you look at a photo or a realistic drawing of a face, you see it as the face of another. But when you enter the world of the cartoon, you see yourself." - Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. ​My favorite cartoon character as a child is Tweety Bird for I always loved the way he outsmarted the cat with a smile, while Craig's is the road runner. He enjoys sports cars.

​Amy Poehler on what she learned from filming Inside Out: “It’s OK to be sad.”– Elle Hunt June 15, 2015 “… our constant pursuit of happiness as human beings and as parents sometimes gets in the way of real growth…”  In the past, Poehler has spoken of a prevailing culture of cynicism in which​ "not caring is supposed to be cool, commenting is more interesting than doing, ​and everything is judged and then disposed of.”

​​The website alone didn't express our deepest intentions for the world we created. We then wrote a series of life fables that take place in Splash City, with some of the "Splash in the City" blog ideas making their way inside the stories. 

Using the transformational power of story, our book series "Playing in 3D": A Playful Approach to Personal Transformation using Cartoon, Story, and Wonder was designed to promote self-reliance in an age of learned helplessness. ​In each book, "Cartoon Mentors" share their experience of acquiring a particular attribute of a "3D" growth mindset. 

​“Today's technology is playing in 3D. But what about us? Are we playing in 3D? Or are we stuck in a flat, 2D state of mind? Hi. I'm Ms. Bee Haven from Splash City, a place where we risk becoming ourselves in a Fitz-In world.” - Ms. Bee Haven

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​After finishing the first three fables, we wanted to make their magic last beyond the turning of the last page. It was important to us to prevent the kind of feeling we'd both experienced after attending a weekend motivational seminar or retreat. Returning to work on Monday, you often lose the inspiration you gained on Saturday and Sunday. 

​From that place, Bathology was born; a fun and simple way to maintain a playful and wondrous attitude by taking the story with you into the bath and your daily life.

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Bathology added a new dimension to our cartoon world. We now had a series of books and a transformational daily practice that, after watching a playful slideshow overview, play expert Dr. Stuart Brown called "very impressive." ​We also had a product.

Testing our concept at a New York wellness fair, we received enthusiastic and positive feedback. The woman in the booth next to us had a white board with bullet points and charts to showcase her life coaching business and very few customers, while our colorful booth was filled with people fascinated with our cartoon characters and books. Although intended for adults and young adults, preteen girls loved the Mzzz Pink buttons, and I learned how much cartoons are beloved by so many people. Seeing that their favorite cartoon characters as children matched their personalities was a big draw. The laughs and the "a-ha!' looks on their faces was priceless.

Why is Play Important?
​with Stuart Brown, M.D., Author of
"Play: How It Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination,
​and Invigorates the Soul"

​Amy Poehler’s Smart Girls website: “Change the world by being yourself” 
​About: We emphasize intelligence and imagination over “fitting in.”
We celebrate curiosity over gossip. We want you to truly be your
​weird and wonderful selves!

We now knew there was an audience for our books and Bathology. However, we quickly learned that running a small business wasn't the right path for us. It felt forced, like we were caught in the "Fitz-In" world we parody in Splash City. While I packaged books and soaps, the first draft of "Splash in the City" the film project - the bigger dream - was collecting dust.

​Looking back, it wasn’t time for Splash City to have the most impact. We suspected the coming years would be difficult, but we couldn’t possibly imagine what was to come, a gargantuan cultural division based on a tidal wave of fixed mindsets and narcissism. It makes the threat of Sarah Palin seem like a small blip on the downward spiraling screen.

​Choosing to keep our focus on the best of humanity, we wrote the next two books in the series.

Book Zero, “It’s the Dance” by Mzzz Pink, is a type of introduction to Splash City and reflects our hierarchical and narcissistic culture, while Book Six, “Rise Up to the Wave” by Justin Tide, reveals the adaptability and growth mindset needed to surf it. 

“What’s a 3D person? A pioneer and an innovator.
A person who navigates the unknown and surfs the waves of change. Someone whose operating system is set on joy, not fear.” - Mzzz Pink​

When a dear friend whose viewpoint I deeply respect (and who Splash City's cosmic guide, Danie Starbright, is named after) read "It's the Dance" and declared this must be a television series, I realized it was time to come full circle. Craig and I knew from the beginning that television is the best medium for Splash City.  Cartoon icons on the covers of the book offer a projective tool, but an animated series gives the Splash City world a full-length mirror.

So, I dusted off the draft of "Splash in the City" and started writing. Having spent a lot of time in the trenches with these characters across the past decade, writing the episodes was fun, and felt like hanging out with old friends. 

​ Amy Poehler, “Yes Please” 2014: 
“If you can surf your life rather than plant your feet,
you will be happier. ​Maybe I should have called this book
Surf Your Life. The cover could feature a picture of me
​on a giant wave wearing a wizard hat.
​I wonder if it’s too late. I’ll make a call.”

Through their projective and therapeutic nature, both our television and book series were specifically designed as an alchemical soup for transformation. They are not only timely, but a needed and enjoyable intervention.

​Contemporary TV series like “A Million Little Things,” "Shrinking" and especially "Ted Lasso" do more than entertain. They raise the bar for television by offering hope and solutions to our personal and societal difficulties.  They also give me hope there's a place for "Splash in the City" in today's market.

​I also have hope there is a pathway out of this cultural ditch. First, the adaptability, playfulness, and self-awareness that comes with adopting a growth mindset needs to become ingrained into the culture, and more popular and fashionable than the alternative.

Secondly, we need to laugh at ourselves. Both can be found in "Splash in the City," and who better than Amy Poehler to help with that?  I wonder who her favorite cartoon character as a child is.

​Deborah Whitaker
As both a psychotherapist and a screenwriter, Deborah has spent over 30 years conducting therapy sessions like plot lines and character arcs that needed extensive rewrite and has written four transformational screenplays. She is also the author of "Looking Glass Sky," a thought-provoking parable on the art and science of self-love and is the co-Founder of Splash City Studios. She lives near the seacoast of New Hampshire. 

Craig Cloutier
Craig’s passion in life is to uncover the art and science of the dream. This passion has taken him on many exciting journeys, starting with a bicycle ride across America at the age of 20, operating a successful tropical design business which began in New York City, working on Tony Robbins’ event staff for 8 years, and creating, producing, directing and hosting the television series “Power of a Dream.” He is co-founder of Splash City Studios and lives near the seacoast of New Hampshire.