Thursday, September 23, 1999

Wrap this Marshmallow, honey

Since they were fourteen, Mark Smith and Vincent Lacava have been collaborating together on art projects. They created the character design and animation in Sony's "Wheel of Fortune" and "Jeopardy" online games, and now they created a seamless interactive cartoon for Cartoon Network.com called "The Marshmallow Money Show." Characters like "Money," whose voice is Rob Roth's of the "Click and Drag" club at Mother and Vincent's 13-year old son Keith McKurdy does the voice for "Trey" (a green sock-like character). I chatted for a bit with Mark at their launch party at Sweet & Vicious on Spring Street where he told me most of their guests were art and creative directors in the interactive world and a Western Boot maker. Stacey, a florist who works on Spring Street, came bouncing over in pig-tails and a short plaid skirt and boots, hopped on Mark's knee and began hugging him with compliments on how great and wonderful he is. She popped back off and went away and he said, "I've never met that woman before in my life." Guess that's what happens when you launch a fun, successful cartoon!