Lake Geneva: Is Mayor Todd Krause About to Blow the Biggest Deal in Town?

There’s something rotten wafting over the clear waters of Lake Geneva, and it ain’t the fish fry at the local supper club. No, friend it’s politics. The nasty, small-town, back-slapping, whiskey-breathed kind. The kind where a handshake’s just a veiled threat and progress is a four-letter word.

Word on the street is Titmouse the wildest, weirdest, most deliciously unhinged animation studio this side of Hollywood is looking to plant a flag in the Midwest. A real one. With jobs. With talent. With a chance to turn this quiet tourist trap into a creative nerve center. Think Pixar with tattoos and motorcycles.

And what does our good ol’ boy Mayor Todd Krause do with this golden goose cooked to perfection and handed to him on a silver platter?

He starts whispering sweet nothings to his even gooder ol’ boy pal, former Mayor Tom Hartz the man with a grip on a sleepy little restaurant and an outsized grip on the local establishment’s cojones. That’s right: instead of luring a bleeding-edge tech-and-art juggernaut to the lakeside, the Mayor might blow it all to prop up a cafe that sells trout almondine to retirees and brandy Old Fashioneds to the local rotarians.

Jesus, Todd.

This isn’t just bad politics. It’s lunacy. We’re talking about the chance to bring in real jobs animators, writers, designers, freaks of all stripes. People who actually make things, instead of just refilling water glasses and counting tips. Titmouse is the kind of outfit that turns forgotten places into creative boomtowns. Portland, Vancouver, Toronto they planted flags there, and the cities came alive with weird energy. Art. Noise. Youth. Money.

Lake Geneva, by contrast, is still clinging to the idea that summer tourism and seasonal fudge can carry a year-round economy. That’s not strategy that’s delusion.

But here’s the rub: the old guard doesn’t want change. Not really. They want control. And nothing scares a small-town machine more than a bunch of LA weirdos with bright hair, union demands, and an allergy to dress codes.

The question is: will Mayor Krause throw the future under the bus for one more round at the table with the old boys? Or will he step aside and let Lake Geneva become something other than a postcard with a parking problem?

This isn’t a zoning issue. It’s a war for the soul of the city.

And as usual, the people who think they’re in charge have no goddamn clue what’s at stake.

A Fowl Enterprise: How Titmouse Became an Animation Powerhouse

Once a niche player in the cartoon underground, Titmouse now sits at the grown-ups’ table of entertainment. Its irreverent business model and surprising discipline offer lessons for an industry in flux.

In an unassuming studio in Burbank, California, nestled among the industry giants and corporate glass boxes, sits Titmouse. The name alone has long been a litmus test: those who snicker don’t know the company; those who nod knowingly have likely worked with it or wanted to.

Founded in 2000 by husband-and-wife duo Chris and Shannon Prynoski, Titmouse was never supposed to be a serious business. It began as a T-shirt company. Animation, at first, was a side hustle. Two decades later, the side hustle has become a serious player. Titmouse now operates studios in Los Angeles, New York, Vancouver, and most recently, Toronto a rare expansion at a time when many independent studios are shrinking or shuttering.

From Adult Swim hits like The Venture Bros. and Metalocalypse to Netflix originals like Big Mouth and The Midnight Gospel, Titmouse produces hundreds of hours of animation each year. It’s among the few independent studios with a multi-city footprint and a truly cross-border production pipeline.

And the client list reads like a who’s who of the streaming era. Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, HBO Max, Paramount+, Hulu, Peacock, and Disney+ have all hired Titmouse to bring projects to life. In an era where every streamer is desperate to stand out, Titmouse offers something others can’t: a distinct voice. It doesn’t do “content.” It makes shows with personality.

The rise of Titmouse is an anomaly in an industry where consolidation and IP hoarding have left little room for independents. Disney and Warner Bros. dominate in scale and catalog. Startups often exit fast, either by acquisition or implosion. Titmouse, by contrast, has stayed fiercely private and oddly principled. It has no outside investors. It resists franchise obsession. And it lets its shows be weird.

That contrarian approach has paid off. In 2020, Titmouse became the first animation studio in North America to ratify a union contract with The Animation Guild for its New York studio, a move many insiders thought suicidal. Instead, it helped the studio attract top-tier talent. In an industry where burnout is rampant, Titmouse is seen as a rare island of stability chaotic in style, but unusually well-run behind the scenes.

“People confuse ‘irreverent’ with ‘disorganized’,” says an executive who has worked with the studio. “Titmouse is not disorganized. It just doesn’t pretend to be something it’s not.”

That authenticity has become a calling card. While other studios chase safe bets and toy sales, Titmouse thrives on niche appeal. It doesn’t aim for mass-market blockbusters. It makes content that feels like it shouldn’t exist and then finds an audience anyway.

The business model is lean but aggressive. Titmouse keeps a tight grip on production, running in-house facilities across North America. It avoids the sprawling bureaucracy of larger rivals. It has also leaned into streaming’s appetite for adult animation, a segment that has exploded in recent years. The gamble is that the long tail of streaming content needs more than just sequels it needs identity.

Still, Titmouse is betting on a different kind of future one where audiences value originality over polish, and where animation is not a genre but a medium.

The bird may be small, but it is scrappy. And in an industry where so many players pretend to be something they’re not tech companies disguised as media firms, legacy studios masquerading as startups Titmouse’s biggest asset may simply be knowing exactly what it is.