Genndy Tartakovsky

Genndy Tartakovsky (Геннадий Тартаковский) is a Russian-American animation director and producer of Russian origin and one of the greatest minds behind Cartoon Network.

Born in 1970 in the USSR to Jewish parents, Genndy moved abroad with his family, afraid of anti-semitism. First they went to Italy, where he picked up art from their German neighbours' daughter. Then they moved to the USA, where he eventually got into California School of Arts (because he was too late to apply for a business school). There he embraced his future career as an animator and made his first two shorts, one of which eventually became Dexters Laboratory. While schooling, he formed a strong friendship with Craig McCracken and Rob Renzetti (My Life As a Teenage Robot), which often shows in their cooperation between series. Currently, after working on Sym-Bionic Titan for Cartoon Network, he has moved on to Sony Pictures Animation, which has announced that he is directing Hotel Transylvania.

His notable works include:

Tropes applicable to him and his works include:

Animesque: Most of Genndy's cartoons follow this, mainly because he was inspired by Japanese animation.
Art Evolution: He used to be so horrible at art he couldn't draw a circle.
Aside Glance: Many of his characters' silent reactions to something odd or stupid taking place often involve this, either directly to the audience or another character.
Getting Crap Past the Radar: Genndy is either in love with this trope or owes it money. Sym-Bionic Titan's Radar entry is pretty much its recap.
Development Hell: The Movie of Samurai Jack is in here, and interest is needed at hand. It is rumored that Genndy may be directing Hotel Transylvania to help fund the project.
Lock and Load Montage: Genndy's apparently a big fan of these; they can be found quite frequently in all of his cartoons.
Ms. Fanservice: If there's a young woman in one of his cartoons, expect her to almost always be a Fetish Fuel Station Attendant.
Rule of Cool
Thick Line Animation: Consciously averted with Samurai Jack, but his previous and subsequent works have this style.
Widget Series: But as Sym-Bionic Titan proved, this trope has never looked so cool.
What Could Have Been: Genndy had two chances to get into directing films, none of which came to be. First being a sequel to The Dark Crystal, which ended up in Development Hell. Second being a film of Astro Boy, which later ended up being finished in another studio unrelated to him, and did so poorly that it closed them down.