Arlene Klasky


Arlene Klasky Csupo is an American animator, graphic designer, producer and co-founder of Klasky Csupo with Gábor Csupó. In 1999, she was named one of the “Top 25 Women in Animation” by Animation Magazine. She is most known for her work with Nickelodeon in the 1990s and early 2000s. She, along with her ex-husband Gábor Csupó and Paul Germain, co-created the animated series Rugrats.

Career

Klasky studied animation at the California Institute of the Arts, becoming designer of signage and logos for architectural projects after graduation. She entered the music industry as a designer for major record labels such as A & M Records.
Klasky later moved out of graphic design and into film, joined Robert Abel and Associates doing special effects and graphics for film. She left to do freelance title design for New World Pictures and then for Marks & Marks and California Film, another company she co-founded, where she designed on-air promos, station Ids, and titles with graphics.

Klasky Csupo

was formed with Gábor Csupó in the couple's two-bedroom Hollywood apartment in 1982. The company later was moved to Seward Street in Hollywood. They designed the logos for 21 Jump Street, Anything But Love, and In Living Color; produced music videos for Beastie Boys and Luther Vandross; Simpsons shorts for The Tracey Ullman Show; shorts for Sesame Street; and the opening titles for In Living Color.
In 1989, after the birth of Klasky and Csupo's two sons, Klasky Csupo was asked by Nickelodeon for ideas, but Klasky felt she didn't have any since she mainly watched her sons go to the bathroom. Rugrats was inspired by the boys and what they would say if they could talk. The series started in August 1991 with the unaired pilot "Tommy Pickles and The Great White Thing." Rugrats went on to become one of Nickelodeon's most iconic and successful television series, winning three Emmy Awards, with Klasky as co-creator, executive producer, and designer several of the series’ major characters. Klasky was the creative force behind the box-office hits The Rugrats Movie and .
Aaahh!!! Real Monsters premiered on Halloween in 1994, their second cartoon show to be aired on Nickelodeon. In 2003 she made the spin-off All Grown Up!; in the USA, it aired from 2003-2009 on The N, 2003-2006 on Nickelodeon, and 2004–present on Nicktoons TV.

Personal life

She was married to her business partner Gábor Csupó before they started their animation company and have two sons together from their marriage. Tommy Pickles' appearance from Rugrats is based on her younger son, Brandon. Her older son's name was Jarrett. She is of Polish-Jewish and Russian-Jewish descent.