MEMOIRS OF A HOLLYWOOD UNKNOWN, BOOK TWO

FIVE DECADES WRITING, PRODUCING, AND SURVIVING IN HOLLYWOOD: KIDS’ SHOWS

by Terrence McDonnell ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 1, 2026

The true stories of a writing team working on kids’ programming in Hollywood.

In these pages, McDonnell continues to recount his Hollywood adventures alongside his writing partner, Jim Carlson, spanning the 1970s to the 1980s. The author goes into great detail about each project, this time concentrating on children’s programming and entertainment. He describes the shows, puts them in context of the larger industry, breaks down the individual episodes he wrote, and dishes some behind-the-scenes dirt when he’s got a good story to tell. Many of these projects are shows likely to be unknown to most readers—series like the SF cartoons MASK or Spiral Zone—but his editorial commentary still contains plenty of intriguing tidbits. Spiral Zone, for example, was based on a toy line for boys, and McDonnell notes it was darker than anything he and Carlson had ever written for animation: “Based on the show’s premise,” he recalls, “this show was a dystopian series about near-desperation.” The author gives readers an insider’s look at the developmental meetings behind many of these projects (“Nobody cares how you dress,” he observes; “We care about how you do your job”), and he relates with rueful humor the unexpected setbacks he and Carlson encountered, as in the case of Mayday! Mayday!, in which two kids in the Sierra Nevada are menaced by a pack of ostensibly wild dogs who couldn’t stop wagging their tails during filming. “It was hilarious,” he recalls. “They were so adorable, and not one canine in the pack was showing its canines.”

McDonnell strikes the pitch-perfect note of a smart, sassy underdog throughout, delivering the stories of the shows that went well and the ones that flopped with equal relish. 1988’s Pound Puppies and the Legend of the Big Paw, for instance, made under $600,000 against a budget of $6 million and is widely considered one of the worst animated movies of all time. “After I screened the movie for my dog recently,” the author writes, “he got up and pooped in front of the TV.” The author smoothly relates industry trivia (the grandson of TV’s Captain Kangaroo left a picture of his grandfather on Mount Everest; actor Strother Martin was a champion diver in his teens and taught swimming to the children of Hollywood stars, including Charlie Chaplin), and he warmly recounts meeting living legends like Ray Bradbury and Ray Harryhausen. The specific episode details he discusses will be of interest only to the most obsessively completist fans of programs like Goof Troop or James Bond Jr., the latter a show about the superspy’s nephew that has never been re-aired, but the mixture of wry humor and warm affection that fills these reminiscences will easily win over readers. He writes of writer/director Howard Cohen that their “time together was usually spent in gales of laughter”; the same can be said of working on shows like X-Men: The Animated Series, Beetlejuice, or The Pink Panther. McDonnell explains the inner workings of the show-writing process (both as a writer and as the supervisor of other writers) with skill and insight. He doesn’t shy away from the frustrating or sordid stuff, but the overriding tone is one of gimlet-eyed celebration.

A funny and lively collection of tales about toiling in the Hollywood trenches.

Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2026

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: May 28, 2026

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

ENTERTAINMENT, SPORTS & CELEBRITY | GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | GENERAL NONFICTION