Larry Schwarz

Larry Schwarz (born January 20, 1970) is an American animation producer, entrepreneur, writer, and photographer. He was the founder and CEO of now-defunct cartoon studio Animation Collective. He is best known for creating Kappa Mikey.

Early life Schwarz was born in 1970.

In 1992, Schwarz graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a political science degree.

Career Rumpus Toys After attending law school, Schwarz realized that he wanted more playfulness in his career causing him to start a toy brand. In 1996, while living with his parents, Schwarz began designing his own plush toys under the Rumpus Toys brand, an online-only toy company. According to Animation World Network, Rumpus became "a company selling character-based plush toys online, backed up by Flash-animated segments featuring [Schwarz's] characters." By winter of 1997, Schwarz was able to produce a small lot of his toys in China. Toys designed by Schwarz included friendly Monster in My Closet, organ-displaying Gus Gutz, programmable alarm clock toy Wake Me Willy and cat toy Harry Hairball.

Schwarz's goal was for Rumpus to become an entertainment brand that created animated films alongside toy sales, "like Disney." By April 2002, however, the Rumpus website had shut down, and the new domain holder announced that Rumpus Toys has "closed its doors."

Larry Schwarz and his Band Schwarz is the CEO of Larry Schwarz and His Band, which produced Alien Dawn (2013-2014) for Nicktoons Network and Team Toon (2006-2013) for Cartoon Network. Both series, produced in partnership with Fremantle Media Kids and Family Entertainment, were created by Schwarz.

In February 2020, Schwarz announced that he is producing Dinosaur, Mermaid, Racecar, Pufferfish along with Believe Entertainment Group. In 2023, he co-wrote and published young adult adventure The Jules Verne Prophecy with Iva-Marie Palmer. He is also a photographer who has published male photography work in books and online.