From Concept to Creation: How Toonstar is Shaping the Future of Animation with AI and Web3

In this groundbreaking episode of The Edge of Show, host Josh Kriger sits down with John Attanasio, the Co-Founder and CEO of Toonstar, to dive deep into the powerful fusion of AI and blockchain in entertainment. Before the writer’s strike and Hollywood’s AI debates reached headlines, John was already pioneering community-driven animation powered by blockchain tech and machine learning.

Live from Venice, California, in front of a studio audience, this episode unveils how Toonstar is revolutionizing interactive animation through projects like The Gimmicks and Space Junk. You’ll learn how Toonstar slashed production times from 18 months to just one week using their AI-powered animation stack and how community members can now co-create stories with AI tools in a fully on-chain environment. From South Park-meets-WWE-style narratives to co-creating NFT characters, this episode is your front-row ticket to the new frontier of Web3 media.

Key Topics Covered

• AI-Powered Animation Workflow:
  Toonstar built a proprietary tech stack using machine learning to automate facial expressions and character animation, allowing for episode production in under a week.
  
  
• Community-Driven Storytelling on Blockchain:
  Projects like The Gimmicks and Space Junk allow NFT holders to co-create storylines, submit characters, and influence plot arcs—recorded immutably on-chain.
  
  
• Real-Time Social Engagement with AI Characters:
  With Space Junk, community members interact with an AI character, “Wellbecca,” to generate backstories, visuals, and even comic panels in real time.
  
  
• Ownership and Royalties Through Blockchain:
  Toonstar enables perpetual royalties and on-chain provenance for community-generated content, ensuring creators are recognized and rewarded.
  
  
• AI Voice Acting and Narrative Personalization:
  The show features the first AI-voiced character in an animated series—adding nuance and personalization that evolves as the character “learns” to be more human.
  
  

✨ Episode Highlights

"We're doing episodes in a week. That’s at least 60 to 80 times faster than traditional networks." — John Attanasio

"To go direct to community, you need to produce at the speed of social media." — John Attanasio

"Space Junk’s Wellbecca is a robot voiced by AI... and she becomes more human over time—by design." — Josh Kriger

"With blockchain, if your story becomes part of a show, you get credit and royalties. That’s ownership." — John Attanasio

"We saw a fan-favorite character in The Gimmicks explode with fan fiction. That became Season 2." — John Attanasio

‍

‍Transcript:‍

Josh Kriger: Hi, everyone. Welcome back to Edge of NFT podcast. Today, we're excited to revisit an electrifying episode with John Attenasio, the co-founder and CEO of Toonstar. Before the writer's strike ignited discussions about AI's role in the creative field, John was already at the forefront of innovation, exploring how AI and blockchain can redefine interactive storytelling. And he actually practiced what he preached in some really fascinating ways with Toonstar. So in this conversation, he shares the origin story of Toonstar and how they're pioneering community-driven experiences like projects such as The Gimmicks and Space Junk. And this episode is really critical to understand the current landscape of the intersection of blockchain and AI and entertainment, and to get your creative juices flowing on how you can apply AI to your project or your life. So I know you're going to enjoy this one.

Intro : Welcome to The Edge of Show, your gateway to the Web3 revolution. We explore the cutting edge of blockchain, cryptocurrency, NFTs, ordinals, DeFi, gaming and entertainment, plus how AI is reshaping our digital future. Join us as we bring you visionaries and disruptors pushing boundaries in this digital renaissance. This show is for the dreamers, disruptors, and doers that are pumped about where innovation meets culture. This is where the future begins.

Josh Kriger: Welcome to The Edge of NFT with your hosts, Jeff Kelly, Ethan Janney, and Josh Krieger. The podcast that brings you the top 1% of NFTs today and what will stand the test of time. We explore the nuts and bolts of the business side and also the human element of how NFTs are changing the way we interact with the things we love. This podcast is for the dreamers, disruptors, and doers who are pumped about this ecosystem and driving where it goes next. Join us as we delve into the fascinating world of AI and Web3 and entertainment with our guest, John Atasnacio from ToonStar. This is a special episode, I should mention, as we are live in Venice, California at Kin with a studio audience. Let's hear the audience. And alongside with our friends at Startup Coil and our great studio audience of curious technology aficionados who made this conversation possible. So let's meet John, the co-founder and CEO of Toonstar, a next generation animation network designed for the mobile age. John is an alumnus of University of Southern California Marshall School of Business. Any other USC's? in the house, a couple, cool. And Toonstar is a web 3 animation studio at the forefront of interactive storytelling and community experiences. They are the creative minds behind the Gimmicks, amazing project, an innovative community-driven animation NFT project that empowers creators and fans with creative control and commercial benefits. Let's give it up for John. Hi. Hello. All right. So normally good afternoon.

John Anastassio: Good afternoon, Venice, California.

Josh Kriger: Good afternoon. So normally Ethan does the intro. That was probably my first time in my life doing the intro. How'd I do? Excellent. I thought it was really good.

John Anastassio: All right.

Josh Kriger: Yeah. Ethan, look out.

John Anastassio: I think you have a future in this.

Josh Kriger: Maybe. 250-something episodes so far. Let's keep going. So look, Toonstar is pretty amazing. It's creating a new world of possibility for creators. And I just love to kick it off and engage folks with sort of the genesis of it all.

John Anastassio: Yes, so how far back should I go to, like, childhood? We'll go to childhood. We'll start there. I mean, if it matters. Okay, okay, if it's relevant. Yeah, I mean, so Toonstar, the best way to describe us is we call ourselves a web three story studio. I'm one of the founders. The other founder, her name's Louisa Huang, and we both come from the studio world. So we met at Warner Brothers. Before that I was at DreamWorks and she was at Disney. So we spent a long time in the studio where we would say, better or worse, there's some good parts, there's some things that we think need some challenges. And basically came up with the idea for Toonstar. There were a couple things, like we were in the digital media group was our last role and we were doing a lot of experimentation at the intersection of technology and storytelling. We're involved with a group, there's, I don't know how many people remember Maker Studios. It was one of the original sort of OG MCNs. So we were on the team that was sort of, you know, trying to figure out how to like, take the relationship with Maker Studios and integrate that into the broader studio. And, you know, it was a great experience, a lot of learnings. And I think what it did is it really kind of like opened our eyes to this idea of the creator economy. And this notion that creators can connect with fans directly. There was this really, you know, sort of interesting type of storytelling that was taking place. And I think that was sort of like the first like aha moment for us. It's like, wow, like, you know, this whole idea of direct to community, direct to consumer is fundamentally changing in a lot of ways thanks to technology. And then the other part of it is like being in the studio system, we had a chance to work on a lot of animated properties. You know, fortunately, and I'm, spoiler alert, I'm Gen X, so I'm a child of Saturday morning cartoons. My brother's a comic book artist, so I grew up going to Comic-Con before Comic-Con became what it is today. And we just, you know, it's always like animation has always been an amazing storytelling medium to myself and my co-founder. It's such a great way to build characters and character worlds. And it's also a great commercial medium when you look at, you know, some of the most, you know, some of the most successful IP properties, they are animated properties. And so it was always odd to us that when you looked at the animation ecosystem, it was very much like a private club, and it was the same people on rinse and repeat, whether it was like writers, showrunners, voice talent. And that was always a head-scratcher, because to us it's like, wow, this is such a great storytelling medium, why don't more people have access to it? Do they all live in the valley, too? Yeah, maybe. I don't know. They're from everywhere. But I think that was the moment where it's like, listen, there are so many creative voices out there. There's so many diverse voices out there that aren't getting a chance to tell their stories in animation. And you sort of put those two things together, and that was the inspiration for launching Toonstar. And I think the idea at the beginning was like, you know, what would Disney, DreamWorks, you know, look like today, given sort of the tools, technologies, and sort of what's happening with creators and communities? And that's, you know, enter Toonstar.

Josh Kriger: Great. And I think because you're smaller, I think that it comes with some nimbleness and agility to try some new things, right? And along those lines, you guys have really been pioneers in the AI front. We just came from an event at UTA talking about AI. And I understand you've been doing a lot of speaking lately on the topic, given how newsworthy it is and how important it is in terms of where things are going. I'd like to sort of dive into how you're using ai Specifically because i think these broader conversations are Exciting but let's get specific and really understand the use Cases of this and how it applies to the entertainment industry Which, you know, we're all part of in some shape or form if We live in la or we turn on tv or our phones, right? So let's start with the production side of the house. And in ai, what have you done with ai? What's been your sort of ai journey with production?

John Anastassio: Yeah, and so it's on the production side and we're in, you know, our company we've been around for about seven-ish years. And when, you know, we launched the company, the idea is that we really were focused on this notion of like, okay, if you're going to build characters and tell stories direct to communities, and when we started, our focus was on social media. And if you're going to do it on those kind of platforms, you're going to need to come up with a, you know, completely different like production process and also build a new kind of like animation technology. And so that's exactly what we did. So we built an animation tech stack. That allows us to do high-quality animation very quickly. It's analogous to a gaming engine, so there are other types of technologies out there that do a similar type of thing. But really what it's doing is it's automating a lot of the labor-intensive processes of animation. Facial expressions, certain movements, that's what the In this case we're using machine learning which is a type Of ai, that's what it's doing. It's very effective and we've Had a lot of success with that primarily because one, we're Able to produce first and foremost a quality product but two, it Gives us the speed and the speed and this is sort of our I guess one of our kind of like thesis is Is that to go direct to community and direct to consumer, you need to be able to produce at a speed that they're accustomed to, right? So if you think about social media, people, everyone, you know, I see people with phones, like you're on it every, like, what, every five minutes sometimes, certainly every hour. So you're on there and there's a cadence that you expect, and that's what you're looking for in terms of content and conversations. So our belief is that you need to be able to produce somewhere in that area if you want to have success on social media. So that is, you know, that's how we're, you know, the... Again, the tech stack is machine learning that's helping us do this production. But I think the real benefit is the speed, the quality and the speed. And then what that does, it allows you to have these really unique interactions with the audience. Because all of a sudden now, you're creating characters that live in social media. And you can have these conversations near time, almost real time, but there's a heavy cadence to it. And now, all of a sudden, you have a deeper connection to the characters, the content. Also, the content becomes more relatable because what you can do is you can drop in, you know, timely topical things. Like, we do a lot of, like, you know, pop culture type, you know, narratives. And so, we can take something that's trending and all of a sudden drop that into the storyline. Now, all of a sudden, it feels more relevant and relatable. And again, all those things, the goal is to deepen the connection with the audience and that character.

Josh Kriger: And so that's you know, I think that's a interesting, you know sort of use on the one one use on the production side Yeah, yeah, I mean it's it seems like a critical part of the puzzle that was missing otherwise to create a type of animated content that is very relatable to the current attention span of today's consumer and So what's the time savings there, if you could quantify it? You're an OG in the world of animation relative to where we were before.

John Anastassio: Yeah, I mean, so if you look at the, you know, again, this is like, there's a spectrum of how long it can take to do animated content. But traditionally, animated content, if you look at a series that is on a network, right, those can take a, you know, up to 18 months to produce, sometimes up to two years to produce. Now, there's obviously a variation on that, but that's if, you know, that's what you're looking at in terms of like something you might see on network TV. We're doing, you know, we're doing episodes in a week. And, you know, one, this is like a fun fact, and this is sort of some of the stuff we were doing prior to Web 3. We've got the largest animated channel on Snap Discover. And, you know, the thing that actually gets us is sort of like under, I think, underappreciated about Snap is that the audience we get actually is bigger than what you would see on a network TV. And I think a lot of people don't either know that or don't sort of give it the credit that it probably should get. But, you know, that, like, that sort of, you know, that is like, that's a, I think, a really, a key way to, you know, leverage it.

Josh Kriger: I'm doing the math in my head. I think it's at least like 60 to 80 times faster than where you are. I mean, that's pretty incredible.

John Anastassio: Yeah, I was going to say, like, I was trying to do the math too, and that's faster than I was doing. But to sort of break it down, it's like we can do, we can do a five, you know, call it a five to eight minute episode in a few days. So that gives you a sense of how you know how quickly you can you can do it now You know you back bump that up against a network episode generally those run about to you know 22 minutes But you can you know that's that's about the speed that that we can do and interestingly The the thing that actually sort of slows it down a bit is less on the production side It's more on the creative development side, which is the story writing and sort of storytelling part of it

Josh Kriger: So this crazy flashback came to my mind that I probably am not supposed to share out loud. But with the old election with Obama, in the Gangnam style trend, I had this idea to make a Gangnam style Obama video go viral. And I ran out of time, and someone else did it, because it took too long for my animator to do his magic. But if I had the technology you had, I would have beat college humor to the punch. That's right. Exactly. Yes.

John Anastassio: You could have been relevant and had that viral video moment.

Josh Kriger: So that's pretty cool. But you're also messing around on other sides with the characters, too, right? Yeah.

John Anastassio: So that's one use case. And again, on the production side, we've been using that for years. And, you know, you mentioned, so our first project in web 3 was a project called the gimmicks. We co-produced it with Mila Kunis, and it was actually the first weekly community-driven animated series in web 3. And, you know, we had a lot of success with that. You know, community's been great. We just launched our third web 3 series in a year, two weeks ago. It's called Space Junk. Space Junk stars John Heder, stars Tony Cavallaro from Righteous Gemstones, and it's created by his name's Dominic Russo. Dominic Russo is the creator of Workaholics. So you've got this, you know, crazy, talented, you know, team behind Space Junk. Creatively, which I could talk about. much time we have, but creatively the concept's awesome. It's about like the unsung heroes that are garbage men and women in lower earth orbit. So it's a very, you know, we call it. It could be all of us after AI. Exactly. That's maybe, that could be where we're heading, exactly. But it's, you know, we call it a workspace comedy. So creatively, you know, biased, but we think it's, you know, it's very funny. But the AI part of it is we actually have the first AI voice character in an animated series that's in Space Junk. You know, which was, you know, it's certainly got a lot of attention. And, you know, for us, we thought it was appropriate because it's AI voicing a robot, so it's a robot voicing a robot. And we thought there was something kind of like inherently, you know, funny about that. But the cool part about it is when you hear the voice, and this is kind of like part of the creative process, is as we were doing the voice, it actually sounded too human for us at the beginning. And we're like, well, wait, we need to make this sound more like a robot. So we actually made it sound more like a robot because Part of the idea and the character arc of well becca is She's a robot but as she hangs out with this crew she starts to Sound and sort of act more human over time. So it's by design. So we had to sort of back it up and say, okay, let's go more Robotic and then over time she's going to start to sound more Human. All that's done through ai.

Josh Kriger: And I feel like the humans are going to be more robotic if they spend too much time with her too, right?

John Anastassio: Right.

Josh Kriger: Yeah.

John Anastassio: They might start sounding more robotic.

Josh Kriger: Very cool. Yeah. And you know, you, you didn't stop there in terms of your use of AI cause you've also applied it to, to social, which I think is one of the more interesting use cases. I was talking to someone before I was going to interview you and they were like, yeah, I haven't heard, heard about that. Yeah. And, you know, it seems so relevant in terms of how is Ai going to integrate into the social experience of learning About content and being engaged and being part of a community. So i'd love to hear about those use cases.

John Anastassio: So that's another use case we got into with space junk. And so the idea was first like, you know, and again, like, okay, how can we use AI in new different ways just, you know, beyond the production side. And so we're like, oh, this is cool. We have a character named, well, Becca, who's actually voiced by AI. What if we take her and actually make her the creative co-pilot for the community? So then we're like, okay, this could be a really great use case for character generation, for story generation. Because part of the projects we do, the core theme to our projects are they're community driven. They're community driven storytelling, it's community driven on chain experiences, but it's all about the community and the community drives it. And so for us, it's like, well, gee, why can't we take AI, Put the ai in the hands of the community and let them use it Like chat gpt. Let them use it like dolly and Mid journey. And help them create their own Characters, help them create their own, you know, backstories And, you know, and sort of go, but all within the space Junk canon. And so what we did is we have a Character, well, becca, who is just that. And if you're a token holder in You get to go to her, and she's going to help you write your backstory for your character. She'll also then help you take your backstory and then turn that into a visual representation of your character. And then she'll help you turn that into a comic panel, and then turn it into an animated short. And so that all is being powered by AI in cooperation with the user, the community member, and they're working together to create this cool thing within the space junk canon.

Josh Kriger: And I would wager that the opportunity to co-create that experience is as valuable to the community as the output that they create.

John Anastassio: Yeah, and I think that's what really we've noticed. So we have an A-B test, and the A-B test is For the gimmicks, we used ai on the production side for the Gimmicks, but we didn't use ai on the community-facing side. And what we did for the gimmicks is we allowed the Community to do the same thing. They could write back stories. And if your back story, and i can't make this up, but we Created a social layer. We were told it was the first Social layer in web 3, and it's called the dick punch. This is where it's nsfw, sort of, i guess. So is our podcast, so you're fine.

Josh Kriger: This audience is mature.

John Anastassio: They signed their waiver. Everyone seems mature. But we spell it differently. So it's DIC, which stands for Decentralized Inclusive Community. So it's very thematic to the ethos of Web3. But the cool part about it, it was a social layer. So it was our version of the Facebook poke. And what it allowed the community to do is, like, if someone goes in there and you write your backstory, you know, in this case, you weren't being helped by AI. You just go write your backstory. If the community thought your backstory was the coolest, they'd give you the most dick punches, and then you'd actually get to voice your character as a cameo in an episode, which now all of a sudden becomes, like, really cool because you get IMDB credit in a Mila Kunis-produced Animated series and the community absolutely loved it and all of a sudden now your character comes to life You get to voice it and you show up in the series And so but the first the first version of that was like we didn't use AI so it was very manual process you did it yourself for space junk now we're using AI as Again, like you're sort of like, you know creative copilot the stuff the amount of output and the conversion has gone 10x and And so what that's told us is like, yes, it really helps, you know, to your question. And there are some creatives that don't want help, don't need it, and they're great with a blank sheet of paper. But I think there are a lot of aspiring creatives and people that want to tell stories that could use some help. Maybe you want some structure. Maybe you just want some ideas to riff off. And I think when you sort of look at some of the greatest storytellers of all time, they'll tell you they, you know, some of their work is derivative. They, you know, Tarantino worked in a, you know, in a, I think it was a blockbuster. Is that accurate? I think it was a movie rental. But he notoriously is someone that has, you know, watched so many movies and they clearly have influenced his storytelling. You know, there are a lot of people that can use sort of help in certain ways to still have the essence that they want to be part of the output, but just a little bit of like, you know, help along the way.

Josh Kriger: Let's take a pause to shout out one of our favorite partners. For tech innovators facing legal challenges, Zubu Lawler is your go-to law firm. They focus on understanding your technology and business model before addressing legal requirements. Specializing in blockchain, AI, VR, AR, quantum computing, and more, ZuberLawler offers expert guidance in capital raising, IP transactions, M&A, litigation, and compliance. Visit ZuberLawler.com for cutting-edge legal solutions. Yeah, I mean, it's sort of interesting from the perspective of, you know, how people think about disabilities or impairments today versus 10 years ago. And I feel like we all have blockers in our lives where we're better at some things than others. And yet, if we didn't have those blockers, Why not create a story? Why not do something outside your comfort zone? Essentially, you're enabling the community to accelerate getting uncomfortable. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

John Anastassio: And I think the other thing we found, too, is like it's always helpful like prompts are very helpful because we've done again like a lot of, you know, a B testing. And again, we're always trying to figure out ways to have our community participate in the narrative, whether they're creating characters or help drive where the narrative is going to go and story arcs go. And prompts are always more effective because it's a starting point and it's something you can riff off and it's something that you maybe, you know, you know and you can sort of move from there. And I think that's just it. It's like the aid of that prompt versus just complete blank.

Josh Kriger: So you built up your own stack, but are there tools and Technologies that you recommend to folks that they can use that You've messed around with and that the audience can actually take with Them and sort of mess around with at home?

John Anastassio: We built our own tech stack. I would say if you want to Experiment with ai, go play with chat gpt. There's a lot you can do with it. Play with mid journey, play with dolly. Chat gpt if you want to produce text. If you want to produce images, dolly and mid journey are great. Experiment with it. Really what happens, i think Co-pilot is a good way to see this. It's like an assistant. It's a co-pilot. Essentially you're in the director's chair. The more you play with it and the more you give it sort of a Command and you give it a certain prompt and you see how it Reacts, the more you're going to get comfortable with it. and you're just going to learn and it's going to learn you because actually it will start to figure the things the way you think and it's going to start to give you things where you're like oh yeah this is better and it's getting better because it's actually figuring out what you're trying to ask it. So I think there's just getting in and play with those tools and once you're in there it's like wow like they're really really really powerful.

Josh Kriger: Cool. Well, um, speaking of powerful tools, um, you know, this is edge of NFT, and I think we at least have to go down the web three rabbit hole a little bit, um, because blockchain has not exactly been fully embraced by the entertainment industry yet. We've had Fox on the show. I don't know if you all know Fox has done some blockchain work with a new sort of studio BCL and Warner Brothers has dabbled in it. But, you know, you've really embraced blockchain for Toonstar based on what you learned, you know, from Stoner Cats and whatnot. I'd love to sort of understand what you see as the strongest utility for animation in blockchain and in the type of community that you're building.

John Anastassio: Yeah, I mean, I think the biggest sort of positive use case is that it's about ownership. And I think this idea of you come in and you actually have ownership in what we're all building together, and you actually have a stake in it. So if you come in and the project becomes the next South Park, becomes the next Simpsons, and you play a role in that happening, You actually have, you know, some skin in that upside. So I think that is, you know, one of the sort of big promise of it. I think the other promise is just the nature of being decentralized and this idea that, you know, If, you know, and again, like we've done work in Web 2 prior to Web 3, and now we're like, you know, deep in Web 3. And I think one of the challenges of Web 2 has been that because it's centralized, this idea of like, hey, I build up a community, I build up fans, and then the algorithm can change overnight, and all of a sudden now my fans go away, or I reach 5% of my community because the algorithm changed. And I think that lack of control is an issue in Web 2. And I think Web 3 and the blockchain can help solve that. And I think the last thing from a creator, because I think these benefits depend on whether you're a creator storyteller or whether you're a fan. And I think the other benefit on the creator standpoint, and I think this is what we're hoping we're trying to build, is that when you look at the traditional studio system, It is very much, you know, a, that's a gatekeeper economy. And I don't know how many people here are, you know, have tried to sell a show to a streamer. You've, you know, you've tried to get something made. It is very difficult. It's become increasingly difficult. Even if you have had success, getting something sold is very hard. And so, and then it's about can you even get it made. So, there are challenges, clearly, everybody has seen now. in that sort of traditional gatekeeping system. And I think what Web 3 provides is this new possibility of like, oh, wow, actually, I can go get something made. I can reach an audience directly, and I can control it, I can own it, and hopefully through that, we're going to have new stories and characters that weren't getting made in the, you know, the traditional system.

Josh Kriger: So, I think a lot of Web3 folks have sort of gone through that Hopium experience where they had this full vision of unlimited possibility, but reality has hit and there's been use cases that have worked and use cases that haven't worked in a more sort of precise way. I'm curious for you all, what did you try with blockchain that worked really well and what did you try that didn't work and you had to sort of adjust course?

John Anastassio: Yeah, no, it's a great question. I'll say the stuff that worked really well was the community-driven storytelling, like inviting the community into the canon. And again, when we launch these projects, it's like we're not launching projects that Let's go build out. That's a way to do it. That's not how we've done it. But there are projects where it's like here's a picture and We're all going to buy an nft and take these pictures and turn it Into something. Our approach has been we're Going to have a canon. We're going to have these very Talented, at least as a starting point, writer, voice talent We're going to launch it, and that's going to be almost a prompt for the entire community. And then we're going to let everybody come in, use that as a starting point, and then help figure out where we take this thing, where the characters go, where the first season goes, what new characters, spin-offs. I mean, gimmicks I think is a good example. We, the first season, actually, sorry, the second season fully came from the community. So we did the first season and it was like, gimmicks is like, best way to describe it, it's like South Park meets WWE. And then what happened was is we had a character called Chico the Luchador. And in that first season, through the wikis, everybody, and it's sort of like those mind map, you know, like Sherlock Holmes mind map where you see, you know, the strings and they all point to one character. That's what we saw happening with Chico the luchador. It's like everybody was writing about how their character was like related to him or, you know, a friend or foe or whatever. But it all went back to Chico. And we're like that, there's something there. So we took all that essentially fan fiction. That is the second season. So second season of the gimmicks was called House of Chico. It was the first all Latino animated series in Web 3. And it came from the community. So to me that's, you know, that I think is a great success because like look, We let the community participate, and they helped us come up with the second season, which was another hit. And I think the social layer probably is the other part of it, like this idea that we had a social layer where people, again, it's funny, but it's on theme, like the dick punch, where you can get social cred, you can vote with that, you can send each other DMs. And I think that social layer is so important because it brings, and I think it all probably comes back to utility. And it's like our projects have this kind of utility about co-creation in the community. So I think that's sort of the biggest positive. I didn't get to the, but go ahead, yeah. No, I think you covered both, right? Okay, the challenge, but yeah, I think that's, no, I did, I did.

Josh Kriger: Yeah, yeah, you covered both. You know, I think at the same time that this is all, quote, a giant experiment, you've really been a pioneer here. And I find what you've done at this intersection of AI and blockchain and entertainment remarkable. And, you know, I'm really excited to see where you go next with that. I also think there's an element of controversy in terms of what you're into. If, like, this whole room was full of your community, everyone would be, like, cheering right now. But what, you know, we're in the middle of a writer's strike, and I just saw a story a few hours ago that an actor skilled is thinking of joining the team. You know, if there are a bunch of writers in the audience right now, I think they would be a little bit intimidated by this idea potential of crowdsourcing content and then potentially having your audience turn into your actors too, I guess, in some extent, especially with animation. I'm sure you have a lot of friends that are writers, and you've thought about this a lot, and you certainly are embracing technology. I just wanted to get your perspective on the writer's strike and what we can expect as an outcome here. you know, in coming months.

John Anastassio: Yeah.

Josh Kriger: That's a big question.

John Anastassio: There's a lot to unpack. But I mean, so on the first part of it is the, so the embracing, so how creatives and writers can embrace community involvement. I think we have, again, with our projects, two great use cases. So I'll take the gimmicks. And this is what, you know, this is what I enjoy about our projects is these are live. This is not theoretical. It's not conceptual. These are live case studies. And they're out there right now. And so for our first project, it was written by David Wright and Dave Eilenfeld. They wrote for Family Guy and Star Trek Lower Decks. So they were the guys that did the gimmicks. Now, you know, talented, successful writers, they came in and they embraced this idea of, hey, we're going to let the community come in and, you know, play with the story, play with the characters. And I'll tell you, it's a balance. And I think it is a mindset that I think, you know, people, and if, you know, there's a top-down philosophy, there's a bottom-up, and there's something where I think you do both. You know, we're not, you know, I think studios traditionally have been top-down where it's like here's the thing and it goes out, and we're not going to let the community play with it, touch it, do fan fiction. I know there's some outliers, but generally that's kind of the approach. There's the other approach of where it's going to be 100% bottom-up, where it's like the community is going to drive everything. Our approach is a combination of the two, where we start kind of top-down, we bring the community in bottom-up, and we let it sort of interact together. And I think, you know, it's something where, you know, creatives, storytellers, and honestly, I think it is something where you need to get used to. Because the thing I would say is that younger audiences, and as I said, but spoiler, like I'm Gen X, right? So, you know, I don't fall in the, you know, Z and Y class. But younger audiences, and I think it still even applies to my generation to a certain extent, are now being accustomed to active engagement. And don't, you know, you don't need to look anything further than social media and that's how we've been trained. It's like, you know, I want to engage in some way. Whether it's a like, share, follow, that's one level. Or whether it's I want to get in and co-create and add to the narrative. I want to create my, you know, my own stories. That is how younger generations, you know, and I call it active engagement. That is what I think, you know, is the future. And I think, to me, my advice is just be like, you know, get comfortable with that notion because I think there's a lot of success and potential to be had there. And the other thing I'd say is it doesn't mean that you have to give up your creative vision because, again, you know, Space Junk, Dominic Russo, he's the creator of Workaholics. You know, that's a, you know, it's a very well-known, successful series. He's done the same thing. And these guys are the quarterbacks. And I think one of them, I think it was David Wright, had this great example of, as the creative quarterback, it's like going to the airport. You know where the airport is. But guess what? There are a lot of different ways to get to the airport. And so I think as long as you have a strong creative vision that's driving, hey, I know I'm going to get to the airport. but there are all these sort of different ways I can get there and they're like detours and things and there's some like great detours to take and you can learn something from those things. And so I think being comfortable with that notion, but still saying, hey, I'm going to take the vision here, but being open to that kind of, you know, like interaction is, I think it's, you know, we believe bias, but I think that's, you know, key to success.

Josh Kriger: Cool. I want to give this very engaged audience a chance to ask some questions, but I have one more, so if you're out there, think about what your question is, and we'll definitely try to get to it. What are other nascent technologies you're exploring, and how does the Apple announcement that just kind of went down make you think about your industry a little bit differently?

John Anastassio: Yeah. That's a good question. I mean, so, you know, as far as other nascent, you know, and we started talking about AI, but the other thing, you know, I'd say AI is like, and, you know, so AI is polarizing. There's no doubt, you know, we've been, I've been places where I've been lauded for talking about AI, and I've been places where I've been assaulted, not physically, but digitally assaulted for things of, you know. About, you know, AI and what we believe, but I think, AI to me is a transformative technology. The comparison I use is the printing press. There's a lot of conversation around AI taking everybody's job and replacing human beings. To me, that's an extreme, very extreme narrative. You actually rewind, and this is interesting. The printing press was invented in the 15th century, so you're looking at 600 years ago. An interesting narrative, 600 years ago, people were talking about machines taking their jobs, a la the printing press. And now you fast forward, what happened with the printing press? Well, actually, more jobs were created than replaced. More industries were created than replaced. And a lot of people would actually attribute the printing press to the Renaissance. So that's history has said that. So I think this idea of like, you know, we have new technologies and they're going to open up new ways of stories. They're going to open up opportunities for new storytellers. You know, I think that is the big, to me, sort of big promise. So yeah, so short answer, like I would say like, you know, AI is, The apple question you had around the vision pro. I don't know. To me, apple has been transformative in my life. You talk about, i think it was steve jobs was saying, they Went from personal computing to mobile computing now to spatial computing. The first two were transformative for me because personal commuting when I got my first word processor changed my life. And again, I'm Gen X, you know, but I'll never forget that feeling of like, oh my God, now I have a word processor to do these, you know, these kinds of things.

Josh Kriger: I mean immediately when I think of Toonstar I think about using this headset to be your character interacting with other characters interacting with the actual like characters in the show and actually like participating in a live version eventually of the making of the next episode.

John Anastassio: Yeah no I mean and I think there's like in the end I think they're like very I think again, yeah, no, no, no, I mean, and I think there's, I think the potential of it, I get, you know, the point I was going to make about Apple is I just, you know, I, to me personally, I'm biased, but I wouldn't bet against Apple because I've seen what they've done with those future iterations. And I do think this is probably the thing that gets us closest to that.

Josh Kriger: And again, it's version, you know, version one, but it's expensive and it's big, but it could lead to many things just like the first computers, right?

John Anastassio: Yeah, exactly, exactly. And I think Bob Iger made an appearance, and there's no coincidence, he made an appearance at the conversation they were having about the Vision Pro. And I think the reason is, yes, there are a lot of applications to what you can do with entertainment. Yeah, so exciting in theory.

Josh Kriger: Cool. Does anyone in the audience have a burning question? Let's see a few hands raised. I don't know if we have other mics. Here we go.

Outro: First off, this is really fascinating because at the advent of the writer's strike, because they're losing royalties, perpetuity, and with that, with the advent of blockchain technology, that can bring it back, but more for decentralized people that might not know that they're writers, but as they participate, they become writers. So my question is, does your production company have the infrastructure right now to pay out the users? And how is that infrastructure?

John Anastassio: That's a great use case for the block chain and that's what it's Intended to do. Short answer is yes. We have that infrastructure. We not only have a tech production tech stack but we now Over the last two plus years built web 3 tech stack. And but basically what that is is like we're building on these blockchains So we've done projects on our first project was on Solana second project was on avalanche. We just launched space junk is on Theta We're gonna do our next project later this year is on another chain So we're building on all these different blockchains and to your questions like yes like those blockchains are the things that record exactly what you're saying and so I think that's where There is promise with the combination of when you think about what you can do with AI and the blockchain or just creation, right? Like we have somebody in our community that creates a story and they create a backstory that actually is now on blockchain. And so there's provenance to the story they created. They own that. So now all of a sudden there's a record of that. And then if that monetizes, that's theirs. They own that. If that potentially ends up as part of another story, there is a scenario where you can get royalties on what they've created, and all that stuff is being recorded and tracked on chain. Same thing I think eventually can happen with, if you think about using AI for voice performance or you use AI to basically write a story, those models have to be trained by people. If you opt in to train a model and part of whatever you contributed becomes part of the output, Now there's a scenario where you can actually get paid on wherever that goes because you, you know, had part of, you know, basically creating that final product. So it's almost like it is like an idea of like royalties, but it's like perpetual royalties. And then there's an interesting, you know, I don't have to go too far on this tangent, but we were at this thing and it was, you know, Will.i.am was just talking about this. Sorry. Your AI is working overtime. I saw him the previous day too. He is making his rounds.

Josh Kriger: I think the interesting thing he talked about was this idea of essence.

John Anastassio: And you as a creator, what is your essence? And, you know, in music, there is a whole idea of like Prince, Michael Jackson, they have an essence. And their essence is influencing other songs that are actually going to get, you know, generated. So is there a way to take that essence and even though like maybe you're a living artist, but maybe you're not a living artist, but it doesn't matter. If you have that essence and people want to use it and mix it and turn it into something else, then you should probably get paid for that. And it's almost, it potentially could be, come like a passive income. So, you know, these are all sort of like use cases that are kind of out there that are, you know, again, like futuristic a little bit, but I would say not that futuristic.

Josh Kriger: Check out fyi.ai. That's Will's new company that he's very passionate about and doing a lot, and I think it's very relevant to where we're at right now. I think there was another question. We have time for one more. All right. Yeah, sure.

Ad: So I'm curious if you could make a bet. You mentioned you have a character that is voiced by AI. When do you think, to give you a guess on what year, you have two characters voiced by AI, written by AI, having dialogue with each other?

Josh Kriger: Okay, two characters having written by each other, having dialogue with each other, you know, dating each other's brothers, sisters, all that stuff.

John Anastassio: Yeah, so what year? And you know, so I'll say like, I'll qualify that by saying like, whether it's us or somebody. Yeah, I actually don't think that's too far off. I think that's something you see. I think you potentially could see that, you know, That's a problem. Predictions are always wrong. You can see that in a year. We were talking about that earlier. I think there's a dating app where you can create a tinder Or a bumble and create a digital version of yourself. So then the digital version of yourself can go hang out with Someone else's digital version of themselves and they decide Whether they like each other or not. If they do, then you can decide to meet in real life. But there's this like, this interaction happening in the digital world that's in theory I guess is supposed to make it more efficient. Personally, I prefer to have that pain myself. Like you lose something in the, that's like.

Josh Kriger: Yeah, it's all worth it, right? All that pain when you finally do meet the right one. Right, right. But, and then you don't have as many stories to tell your friends about the wrong ones either. Yeah, right. This has been really amazing. I learned a lot. I'm so appreciative of your time, John. Where can folks go to learn more about Toonstar and find you on the web?

John Anastassio: Yeah, so if you want to find our work, so we're on the web, so it's toonstar.com, and you can check out our company there. Also, you know, we love, if you want to check out our projects, the first project is called therealgimmicks.com, so you can go there. And then Space Junk is on spacejunkies.xyz. But the best way to just Google gimmicks and Google Space Junk, and that'll get you to the websites. And you can go in there, and the content is not token gated, so you can watch the content, you can watch the episodes. And then if you want to get in and vote, if you want to, now we're up to a cosmic dick punch, so if in Space Junk you want to cosmic dick punch somebody, or you want to create your own character, your own backstories, or even get an opportunity to have a cameo in an episode, then you can purchase one of the NFTs and become part of the community.

Josh Kriger: That is a call to action if I've ever heard one. Okay, we've reached the outer limit at the end of NFTs for today. Thanks for exploring with us. We've got space for more adventures on the Starship. So invite your friends and recruit some cool strangers that will make this journey also much better. Go to Spotify or iTunes, rate us. right now and say something awesome, then go to edgeofnft.com to dive further down the rabbit hole. Look us up on all major social platforms by typing edgeofnft with no spaces and start a fun conversation with us online. Lastly, be sure to tune in next time for more great NFT content. Thanks again for sharing this time with us today.

John Anastassio: Thank you. That was awesome. Thank you.

Intro : We've reached the outer limit at the edge of show for today. Thanks for exploring with us. We have room for more adventurers on our starships, so invite your friends and cool strangers to join our journey. If you're among the hundreds of thousands following us on Spotify, iTunes, iHeartRadio, or watching us on Maiko or YouTube, please hit that subscribe button, rate us, and make an awesome comment too. And don't forget to pass this episode along to a friend or two who would benefit from it. Doubling back to again, recommend checking out myco.io, where you can watch The Edge of Show and earn for your time and attention. That's m-y-c-o dot i-o. Don't forget to visit theedgeofshow.com, the as part of the domain name, where you can learn more about collaborating with us, and also subscribe to The Edge of Weekly Newsletter for the latest Web3 news, events, and show drops. In addition, connect with us on all major social platforms by searching for The Edge of Show. Join the exciting conversations happening online. Lastly, be sure to tune in next time for more great Web3 and AI content. Until then, keep pushing the boundaries. Thanks again for hanging out with us today. The views and opinions expressed on The Edge of Show reflect solely those views and opinions of the show hosts and its guests. Please make sure to do your own research. Our show is not financial advice. You understand that you are using any and all information on or through this podcast at your own risk. Whenever making financial decisions, we recommend doing your own research and talking to your accountant for financial advice. From time to time, we may feature sponsored content on the show for which we receive value, and we may share links for which we receive a commission if you make a purchase through one of these links. Refer to our website, www.edgeofnft.com, for our full disclaimer, terms and conditions, and privacy policy.

People and Resources Mentioned

• John Attanasio
  
  
• Josh Kriger
  
  
• Toonstar
  
  
• The Gimmicks
  
  
• Space Junk
  
  
• Dominic Russo
  
  
• Will.i.am
  
  
• FYI.AI
  
  
• Zuber Lawler
  
  
• Solana
  
  
• Avalanche
  
  
• Theta
  
  

👤 About Our Guest

John Attanasio is the Co-Founder and CEO of Toonstar, a Web3 animation studio revolutionizing storytelling through AI and blockchain. A veteran of Warner Bros., DreamWorks, and USC Marshall School of Business, John co-created The Gimmicks and Space Junk—two of the first animated series allowing fan participation through NFT ownership and on-chain storytelling. Under his leadership, Toonstar has become a pioneer in real-time animated content, AI voice acting, and community-driven IP development.

LinkedIn: John Attanasio
Website: Toonstar
Twitter: @toonstarhq

‍

‍