Kyle A. Carrozza

Kyle Adam Carrozza (born May 19, 1979) is an American former animator, voice actor, and musician. He is best known as the creator of Cartoon Network's Mighty Magiswords (2015–2019) and the animated short MooBeard: The Cow Pirate for Nickelodeon's Random! Cartoons.

Carrozza worked as a storyboard artist for Fanboy and Chum Chum, Animaniacs, The Casagrandes Movie and The Fairly OddParents: A New Wish, as well as a character layout artist for The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water. As a musician, he frequently composed and performed under the name TV's Kyle, and was featured on Dr. Demento's radio show and The Funny Music Project.

In June 2024, Carrozza was arrested on two counts of child pornography possession.

Early life
Carrozza was born on May 19, 1979 in Catskill, New York. His father worked as a teacher for Catskill Middle School and as a photographer. He studied under cartoonist Brian Mitchell during the summertime. He graduated from Catskill High School in 1997 and in the Art Institute of Philadelphia in 1999.

Animation
Carrozza's first animation profession was as an in-between animator and clean up artist for Jon McClenahan's StarToons, specifically working uncredited on the Animaniacs episode "Bully for Skippy". Carrozza would eventually return to the franchise as a storyboard artist for the reboot series in 2020.

Carrozza also worked for Knowledge Adventure under their Funnybone Interactive division doing character designs, animation and voice-over for selective CD-ROM titles such as JumpStart. He would later produce and develop his own animated short for Nickelodeon's Random! Cartoons, "MooBeard: The Cow Pirate".

He went on to be a storyboard artist for Fanboy and Chum Chum, Fish Hooks, Doc McStuffins, Bravest Warriors, The Casagrandes Movie and The Fairly OddParents: A New Wish, and a character layout artist for The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water.

Carrozza created Mighty Magiswords, which premiered in 2015 and was billed as Cartoon Network's first digital series made specifically for online. The shorts were later developed into a TV series which premiered on September 29, 2016. The characters in the series were created by Carrozza in 1996, and the project was first pitched to Cartoon Network in 2005–2006 (as Legendary Warriors for Hire), and to Mondo Media in 2007–2008 as "Dungeons and Dayjobs", before Cartoon Network picked it up in 2013. The series concluded in 2019 with the remaining duration being released on Cartoon Network Video and Boomerang.

Music
Carrozza began producing music since the early 1990s, releasing most of his songs online under the name "TV's Kyle". He is proficient in the accordion, keyboards and music software such as GarageBand. Many of his songs can be heard on his BandCamp, and are frequently played on the comedy music Dr. Demento show and on The FuMP.

Personal life
He is married to Lindsay Smith, character designer and voice artist who also worked on Mighty Magiswords as a designer and as a recurring voice actress.

Legal issues
On June 20, 2024, Carrozza was arrested for possession on two counts of child pornography. Several former colleagues, such as animation artist Nico Colaleo, Mighty Magiswords storyboard artist Luke Sienkowski (professionally known as Luke Ski), and The FuMP, have announced their disassociation with him as a result. On their X accounts, Sienkowski stated "I will no longer be working with Kyle A. Carrozza" and that "Our animation podcast has been taken down by the network that was hosting it," in reference to the podcast Carrozza and Sienkowski ran for Otaku Generations entitled "Kyle and Luke Talk About Toons", while The FuMP stated that "we have removed Kyle's listing from the Artists page and removed his songs from the random player at the bottom of the site. However, we are not going to delete his songs from the archive entirely. To do so would be to rewrite history and deny he was ever an important part of The FuMP."

Meanwhile, Colaleo stated that "I've avoided hanging out with Kyle Carrozza for the 15 years I've known him," alleging that this was because "he gave me a weird vibe." Needlejuice Records, who collaborated with Carrozza on a successful Kickstarter campaign for his music, also announced their disassociation with him and have removed all his music from their roster.

Influences
Carrozza cites the works of Bob Clampett, many Spümcø alumni (e.g. Bob Camp, Jim Smith, Eddie Fitzgerald, Lynne Naylor, etc), Doug TenNapel, Bill Kopp, Bruce Timm, Ken Mitchroney and Jhonen Vasquez as his main inspirations. Carrozza was also heavily influenced by anime and tokusatsu shows (e.g. Super Sentai, Kamen Rider, etc.) and would frequently implant references to them in his works.

Carrozza's music styling was influenced by the works of "Weird Al" Yankovic, They Might Be Giants and numerous artists, with the two former inspiring his use of the accordion in his works.