Joe Ansolabehere is an American writer and producer. He is the co-creator of Recess and Lloyd in Space with partner and friend Paul Germain; they form the team Paul & Joe Productions. He also served as a story editor on the first 65 episodes of Rugrats, as well as a co-producer and story editor of the first season of Hey Arnold!
Contents
Early life and education
Ansolabehere is the oldest of five brothers. His brother Stephen is a political scientist and Frank G. Thomson Professor of Government at Harvard. His brother Paul is a vice president of Anagram in Minneapolis, and his youngest brother, Louis, is a computer technician. As children they moved around often, living in Detroit, Champaign, Reno-Sparks, and Minneapolis.
Ansolabehere graduated from the University of Nevada, Reno, and then went to UCLA for film school, where he was introduced to animation.
Career
In the early 1980s, Ansolabehere partnered with Steve Viksten to write screenplays. Together they wrote and sold several comedy screenplays, including Surfin CIA, Exterminators, Crooked Affair, and Sitting Ducks. None of their scripts were ever produced, and by the end of the 1980s, Ansolabehere found himself working for his friends at Rhythm and Hues as a producer of computer animation, mostly for commercials. While working at R&H, Ansolabehere was contacted by an old friend from UCLA, Paul Germain. Germain had recently co-created (with Arlene Klasky and Gabor Csupo) and sold the show Rugrats to Nickelodeon, and was looking for writers.
