Chương 114: 111.1 Cartoon Network, A Special Massage, Disney's Counter-Attack and Mark's Benevolence.

Disclaimer: The story takes place on an Alternate Earth with a slightly different timeline of events. Therefore, people may be born earlier, later, or not at all. This gives me more freedom to write about the characters as I want.

Additionally, the characters in my story are not accurate portrayals of their real-life counterparts. Please remember that this story is just a wish fulfillment tale set in Urban Hollywood with some fantasy elements due to the system's shenanigans, so please don't take it too seriously.

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Opening Author's Note: After a short conversation with a zero a reader here at webnovel. I think we might have found the solution to the problem of people not being able to properly comment on the paragraph they want.

Even though I suffer from the same problem, like I need to comment on the paragraph above, the one I actually want to comment on is so that I can actually comment on said paragraph.

It's very annoying and it makes opening the paragraph comments for a particular one quite hard and because of that people can't even open the paragraph comments where I post photos that I spent hours making or finding.

The solution to this might actually be very simple, it is to just post a shorter chapter. My chapters when they are on the lower side of word count can range from 5k to 5.5k and on the higher side it can go upto 7.5k to 8k. So chapter 111 will be divided into 2 parts 111.1 and 111.2 to see if it helps.

Also I would like to thank all my patrons for supporting me –

Davidmcnasty, James Sm***, Haze2343, Joakim Jönsson, Don Chikadon, LETSGOO, Rycork, Dwhateverprof, Randall Cook, OCBR, J. AD, Alex Huy**, Siddharth Ra**, OtakuEmperor, Rex2000m, Navasu69, Strange Loop Sleuth, Matias Alber**, Jeremy Phil***, mozart 111, Mitchell Ho****, saad ai* za***, Jeff Bil***, Daniel Mor****, Moneymancer, Ryan Big***, Steven Mul***, Matt, Carlos Bi****, Caleb Wo***, Sean Sm***, Kahurangi__, Jacob Hi****, Руслан Мэ***, Hyuga Tobirama, Active Ragdoll, Corderro cac****, Josh Kingston, Luci All***, Philippe Techer, Peter, Anderson Lu***, Cairo Pon***, Clutch R*** and Jose Newcomb.

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Recap of the Previous Chapter –

Mark met up with the engineers at Nvidia and discussed the future of their company with all of them, as well as the new organizational order and why they needed to go a much simpler route with their NV1 chip.

The scene then changes to George, who wanted to thank Mark for the new script of Phantom Menace that he was able to write with the help of the IWA. Mark decides to share a little secret with him so that he can foster a friendship with the man. He tells him about his intention to buy DC from Warner.

George warned Mark not to dally, as Disney might also be having the same thoughts, as he heard rumors about it. Mark then asked for a favor and told him that he wanted to write a book on a character based on Star Wars. He gave him his blessings and asked for the name, to which he replied with the Mandalorian.

With that, we see the last scene where Ron is in a renegotiation with Mark, due to them voluntarily giving up their cut to save costs. Mark is the one with the advantage, and he ruthlessly squeezes them for things he could get in return for giving up that cut of the profits.

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~ Quote of the Chapter ~

Attitude is the "little" thing that makes a big difference

We don't make mistakes, just happy little accidents.

You are always one decision away from a very different life.

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[Insert Image of Ted Turner Here.]

Ted couldn't remember the last time when he was this excited for something, [Hannah Barbera]'s remastered originals like the beloved [Scooby Doo], had already made [Cartoon Network] one of the most watched cartoon channels in America.

But according to the surveys, it was the news of the new cartoons that drove the number of people signing up to the sky. So much that even they were struggling to keep up with the constantly increasing numbers of new subscriptions.

The number had already reached over a million homes.

His secretary would be here any minute now with the details on how the two new shows were performing. After watching the trailers for [Dexter's Laboratory] and [Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles], he had commissioned six episodes from HB for both series.

And now it was time to see just how well these two shows were performing, the first was a student animated film project that slowly grew into something that he was happy as a part of Cartoon Network's catalogue of shows. While the latter was a classic - TMNT was a beloved IP here in America.

No matter how much the comic book industry failed, fails or will fail in the future. The turtles were a crowd favourite and with the new age animation techniques and with the financial backing of Marc Spector to ensure quality. The fans had went wild when the first episode of TMNT dropped on their channel.

But what he didn't understand was how could [Hannah Barbera] even keep up with this blistering pace of work. After all, they had not only remastered their original catalog of shows with better art style, animations and new voice artists for the side characters.

But they somehow also had enough resources left over to create these two new incredible shows.

Looking at his watch, he saw that it was around 10 a.m., so he knew Marc should be free by now as he was already somewhat familiar with Marc's schedule after working together with him for months.

And with it being a weekend, He was sure that Marc wouldn't be shooting the Killing Joke as young director wasn't really in a hurry to finish his new film in a rushed manner.

'He should be free now; I will just call him up and ask.' He thought to himself as he gave a call to Marc's personal number.

*Ring*

"Hello? Ted?" Mark asked as he put down the brush.

[Insert Image of Mark Spencer/Marc Spector Here.]

"Hi, Marc! Yes, it's me. I hope I didn't catch you when you were busy." Mark looked at his paint-covered fingers, when he heard the question and ruefully smiled.

He put the colour palate aside and decided to go wash his fingers.

"No, it's fine. I just finished painting the new cover for my book. How have you been, sir?" He said, taking one last look at the painting.

[Insert painting of The Mandalorian Here.]

It looked fantastic, his skills in other fields of art were improving really quickly as well. His prodigal learner perk really helped him a lot in learning new skills and mastering the older ones with less effort.

"Do you have time to talk?" He asked, not wanting to disturb the artist in the middle of his work.

"Of course." Mark replied casually as he put the phone on speaker. Finally setting the painting aside he left to wash his hands while still talking with Ted.

"Also, Mark, could you not please call me sir. We are business partners and hopefully friends in the future, so call me Ted." Ted said, wanting to build a good rapport with the highly influential man.

"Sure, Ted. So has the Cartoon Network's expansion been going well?" He spoke a bit louder so as to be heard.

"Even better than what we estimated, Mark. My estimates of 350,000 and yours of 500,000 were blown right out of the water." He felt giddy to share the news.

"By how much?" Mark was a bit surprised that the channel was doing even better than by his own estimates.

"Over a million homes have subscribed to our channel; [Cartoon Network] is officially in the Big Leagues now. My secretary will be here in a few minutes with the ratings as well." Ted replied with a huge grin on his face.

"Holy.. I knew the remastered originals would be popular.. but I really didn't think it would attract this many viewers." Mark replied with geniune surprise as he came back and lounged on his chair to relax.

He really felt like getting a "special" massage so he left a voice mail for Rose to come into his office, as he was in need of a massage.

"Well, I might have an answer for that. Our market analysts found that it is mainly because of two reasons.

1. The Power Of Branding. With Eidolon and TBS collaborating together, we've created a lot of publicity around Cartoon Network. And;

2. Nostalgia. These cartoons were their childhood favorites, but now they are back with improved animation quality. What's not to love?" He could hear the glee in Ted's voice, but his pleasant surprise was when he saw Monica Bellucci enter the room.

[Insert Image of Monica Bellucci Here.]

She mouthed to him that Rose was tied up in some other work, but also that she would be happy to give him a massage. He gestured for her to come closer and had her sit on his lap as he whispered in her ear.

"Are you sure about this? You know how my massages usually end, right?" He asked her by whispering in her ear while she sat her firm curvy butt on his lap.

Even though he could have easily muted himself on the call and talked with her like normal, this closeness they shared was something he was enjoying.

Hearing his question, she smirked and leaned closer to whisper in his ear. "It ends with my mouth wrapped around that thick cock of yours."

"You don't need to do this if you don't want to, as I never force my employees to do something against their will." He whispered back with a serious look, telling her that she didn't really have to do this if she didn't want to.

"But, sir, I want to. I'm your personal secretary, and it's my job to satisfy all your needs, both over and under the desk." She whispered as she stood up from his lap and went behind him.

She took out the bottle of cold-pressed sweet almond oil out of the cabinet behind them, where Rose said she usually put it in. And poured a generous amount into the palm of her right hand and gently dripped it onto his head as she began to give him a scalp massage.

Meanwhile, Ted continued speaking, unaware of what was going on with Mark. "But they also estimated that our numbers might fall if we don't pump new original shows."

"This brings me to the reason why I actually called you, Mark."

"Hngh." He groaned when she firmly bunched up his hair into his fingers and squeezed them.

His hair was still on the shorter side compared to how he liked to keep it. Though she was happy, it was because it was much easier for her to give him the head massage with shorter hair.

Ted took his grunt as his confirmation to continue, so he carefully worded his question, because he felt like he was asking for some sensitive information.

"You don't have to answer this question if it's something like a company secret or proprietory information. I wanted to know how did HB make so many remastered originals and have the resources to create two new shows?"

"Hmm, it's not exactly a company secret but definitely something I would like to keep under wraps for a few months if not a year or two at the very least."

"Mark, I give you my word that I won't tell anyone else." He seriously replied making a promise to keep the secret.

"Great, well.. what we did was combine the old with the new. And we did it with the help of Pixar." Mark replied casually after hearing Ted give his word. He knew Ted, was a man of his word and seeing the profitable collaboration the two had he wouldn't risk it by exposing the secret.

"You see, even though Pixar is an animation studio, Its own image rendering technology is still a bit behind on being capable of rendering the finer details of animated models like finger movement, facial expressions and such."

Ted hummed in understanding, after all he himself was thinking of buying an animation studio as well after seeing Marc's success.

"But if it's just the background of the scene with not too many minute details, then it works really well. So, for the remastered originals, I had HB and Pixar collaborate together."

"With HB being responsible for the finer details and Pixar being responsible for the background. Ted, you can't imagine just how much this trick speeds up the animation process."

"And the best thing, because the expressions and movements are all hand drawn, the end result looks very high quality."

"So you combined hand-drawn animation with computer-generated ones; it's genius, but how do HB and Pixar collaborate so well even though they are separate companies?" He asked coming to understand the innovative solution that Marc came up with.

"Well, you know I own them both, right?" Mark asked back.

"Yeah." He replied with a nod.

"Well, before owning them, I had them collaborate together in this very way to see if they could work together to create two short films for me." Mark replied with a smile as the pleasure from massage brought a pleased smile to his face.

"The two short films that are shown every weekend night on Cartoon Network causing our ratings to peak. You know a survey says it's become like a weekly ritual to watch 'em with friends or family." Ted replied come to the realization.

"I am glad it worked out so well for us. Also, the other reason why HB is able to keep up with this schedule is because I funded them for expansion."

"They now have 3 times the amount of animators that they had before, and now, nothing gets outsourced to animation studios in southeast Asian countries to save costs." Mark said with pride, he spent a lot of money setting up the new HB. But he knew it would be a gold mine for him in the future, the place where every aspiring animator would want to work at.

"Damn, you must have spent a lot setting all that up." Ted was impressed with Marc's risk taking nature, it was the mark of a successful entrepreneur.

"It wasn't cheap, I will say that."

"By the way, if you have that much money lying around, you should really buy TMNT quickly. I heard Disney is looking to enter the comic book industry."

"Fu** not them again." Mark's frustration was clearly perceived in his voice.

"It's like we're fated to be enemies or something."

"Huh? What happened?"

"Well, I heard something similar from George just a few days ago."

"We were discussing a company and he advised me to buy it quickly as Disney might try to start a bidding war with me."

"Oh, by the way. Ted, I need two time slots for the new shows that will be released somewhere around September."

"I didn't know HB was working on something new already.. tell me about it."

"Oh, it's not HB.. It's from my other animation studio that's in Japan."

"One is about boxing, and the other is one of the best-selling manga in Japan that has also formed a cult-like following here in America."

"It will be done." Ted replied giving his approval of Mark's request.

"Thank you very much." Ted said to someone else in the background, probably his secretary.

While doing the massage, Monica straddled his lap as she was doing his arms. After being done with his arms, she slid down from his lap, kneeled in front of him, and took off her heels.

Putting her hands on his clothed manhood, she found it to be as hard as a rock.

She looked him in the eye and mouthed, "Please let me take care of it for you."

He nodded his confirmation as she tugged at his belt buckle with her fingers and carefully unzipped his pants.

"Mark, I just got the numbers." Ted's voice called out.

"Hngh." He could only grunt as he felt her take the tip of his shaft in her mouth.

"The average viewership of the first three episodes of Dexter's Laboratory amongst our subscribers is a solid 71%."

"That's pretty good. It looks like the promotion worked out." Mark replied with a chuckle, while he interlaced his finger with her hair, firmly grabbed the back of her head, and gave it a tug to gesture for her to take him deeper.

"That it did, but not as much as it did for the turtles." Ted replied, sharing the laugh, happy at their success.

"TMNT had an average viewership of 82% for the first three episodes amongst our subscribers. Breaking all the records of our other shows till now, its premier episode had a viewership of over 94% amongst our subscribers."

"We've already turned Cartoon Network profitable with just the ad revenue."

"Now, that's great news."

~ A few hours later ~

There was a knock at the door of his office.

"Sir?" He heard Rose ask for permission to enter.

"Ah, yes, Rose, come on in," he said, granting her permission.

As soon as she walked in, he asked about where she had been, when he asked for her a few hours ago.

"Where have you been, Rose?"

[Insert Image of Rose Headey Here.]

"I am sorry, sir. But there had been a little emergency, and I had just had to go in person to make sure things were okay and to double-check if the information was correct." She replied in an apologetic tone as she lowered her head.

"What happened? And what information?" He asked back puzzled.

"Well, sir, the junior director of Beauty and the Beast has quit." She replied, wincing at being the bearer of bad news. But unlike what she thought, he didn't shout or raise the voice or even look slightly angry because of the news.

"So, Kirk Wise chose to quit?" He asked calmly, tapping his fingers on his desk, thinking of why Kirk would do something like that, as he had been having such a great collaborative experience while working together with the team at Eidolon Animations.

"Yes sir.. he has been poached by Disney, who paid his severance fee and a hefty sum to hire him for their movie."

"According to the rumors, they are also working on an adaptation similar to the one we are making about Beauty and the Beast." That statement made him raise his eyebrow in surprise, and he nodded to himself as he muttered under his breath.

"The more things change, the more they stay the same." He imagined Eisner as Thanos with his purple head and ugly chin, saying that infamous dialogue, 'I am inevitable.' in his mind.

He sighed and then said it out loud as he scratched his head. "Ah shit.. It looks like it's going to be an all-out war now."

"I really just wanted to have a quiet year and focus on being productive but I guess sometimes the gloves have to come off."

"Sir I also heard that he mostly did it because a close relative of his was in the hospital and he really needed the money."

"It was Gary who had told me about this and requested that I ask for leniency on behalf of his friend."

"So you went to the hospital to check if the news was true?" Mark asked as he connected the dots and decided on his next course of action.

"Of course, sir. I was able to talk to the doctor who was attending them."

"I couldn't glean much information as I was an outsider but I could tell that it was an actual issue and not something being made up just to fool us."

"I see, how much have we already paid him? And does he have enough to cover the hospital bills?" Mark asked, thinking about doing a good deed.

"Gary told me that he doesn't but I am not really sure if you can trust that and we have paid him almost 55% of his salary as a down payment already."

"And according to the contract it doesn't look like we are going to be able to get back that down payment."

"It's fine; I don't need that down payment."

"What I need you to do is pay him the remaining amount that he defaulted on. And tell him that we wish him luck with his future endeavors, and we will pray for the steady recovery of his relative."

"But, sir, are you sure we should help him?!" she asked, surprised, though deep down she felt a respect for her young boss like she had never felt before; his kindness had truly touched her heart.

"Rose, I have made up my mind; I'm sure about what I am doing; do not worry about it." He said, in a determined tone, that showed that his mind was already made up.

"I need you to go tell Evelyn that she doesn't need to look for a new director as I will be the one who will be taking the helm and replacing Kirk to finish the production of Beauty and the Beast."

"Yes, of course, sir." She replied with a bright smile as she left his office, she felt proud to work for a man like her boss.

— To be continued…

In the next episode of F̶A̶L̶L̶O̶U̶T̶

*Cough* *Cough*

I meant in the next chapter of Hollywood: Head-Hunting System.

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Word Count: 3208 words (after excluding the disclaimer, opening Author's Note and the closing Author's Note.)

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{Closing Author's Note: I am glad that I was able to upload this chapter on time while actually I am a few hours early but I guess that is better right? Anyways I will just do my mandatory patr. Eon plug and be on my way thank you for reading.

If you guys want to read ahead of the public release or if you guys like my work and would like to support me then please do subscribe to my pat reon it really helps me out, as it reduces the amount of work I need to take on and can focus more on my writing.

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