Jason DeMarco

Jason DeMarco’s story is basically a wild ride through the heart of adult animation, hip-hop, and late-night TV chaos. After snagging his film degree from Savannah College of Art and Design in ’96, he kicked things off as a production assistant at Turner Network Television. Not exactly glamorous, but hey, everyone starts somewhere. Pretty soon, he helped launch Toonami, which, if you grew up in the late ’90s or early 2000s, you probably remember as the gateway drug to anime for an entire generation. By ’98, he was locked in at Cartoon Network, doing the writer/producer thing, mostly for Toonami. Then came Adult Swim. DeMarco was right there at the start, helping shape the weird, late-night block that would become a pop culture juggernaut. He bounced between Cartoon Network and Adult Swim, producing original shows like IGPX and Big O, and then shifted to Adult Swim full time in 2009. He’s the reason Toonami came back in 2012, saving countless Saturday nights from boredom. But DeMarco didn’t just stick to TV—he dove deep into music, launching Williams Street Records and the Adult Swim Singles Program, not to mention helping pair Killer Mike with El-P, which pretty much birthed Run The Jewels. He’s executive produced a mountain of albums, tracks, and music videos, and even ran the Adult Swim Music Festival. He’s also behind Adult Swim’s anime originals, like FLCL Progressive and Alternative. Now, as SVP at Adult Swim and Warner Bros Animation, he’s steering the ship on all things anime and action, still keeping Toonami weird and wonderful.