12-YEAR-OLD SIMI ANIMATOR GETS RUNNING START IN SHOW BUSINESS.

Byline: Associated Press 

Producers of the Nickelodeon show ``Oh Yeah! Cartoons!'' see all kinds of presentations from new animators. But when John Reynolds of Simi Valley, came to the studio, it was highly unusual.

``He came in with his characters all drawn with their dialogue, and a sense of a story and what he wanted to get over in that story,'' said series creator and executive producer Fred Seibert.

The animator for a seven-minute short ``Terry & Chris,'' to be shown on ``Oh Yeah'' this fall, is just 12 years old.

John, a seventh-grader in Valley View Middle School, is now working with animators and voice-over actors to prepare the cartoon, one of 39 to be shown during a year of the series.

He's also having meetings with producers and directors about other cartoon ventures he literally ``dreamed'' up.

``It just came to me, like a daydream. I started drawing and didn't even think about it,'' John said of the pictures he drew of a boy, Chris, and his cockatiel, Terry - dramatizing their adventures in panels that resemble storyboards used by Hollywood animators.

The bird is able to talk, and also pop his own head into the likeness of anybody he imitates.

``John draws a lot; everywhere we go he brings his paper,'' said his mother, Sandy Sumpter, a teacher's aide at Santa Susana Elementary School in Simi Valley. He drew his first cartoon in first grade.

The inspiration for ``Terry'' is Petrie, a cockatiel given to him a year ago by an aunt.

After drawing a yellow and gray bird with white legs and orange cheeks, John said, ``he had to belong to somebody, so I drew Chris.''

Last summer he went to Sony Studios in Culver City with his father, Ray Reynolds of Chatsworth, a camera operator for ``Jeopardy!'' and ``Wheel of Fortune'' and an acquaintance, Butch Hartman, who works for Nickelodeon and had seen the drawings.

After a contract was agreed upon, John's project was assigned to Hartman, the story was blocked out on real storyboards, and the boy helped pick the cast of voice actors. Chris Marquette, 14, is portraying Chris. Veteran voice-over actress Kath Soucie (the voice of Phil and Lil in ``Rugrats'') is also in the cast.

Still ahead is the laborious drawing and painting of the 10,080 12-by-9-inch cels required for a seven-minute cartoon.

``John is learning what I learned in school - how to storyboard, how to animate, how to time, how to design characters. It's all acquired skills,'' said Hartman, a graduate of the animation program at CalArts in Valencia.

Hartman said he is learning too.