Career
Paden entered the professional animation industry in 1990 as a storyboard artist at Klasky Csupo, the studio behind Rugrats. He joined Warner Bros. Animation in 1991, where he spent five years directing, storyboarding, and writing. During this period he contributed to major Warner properties including Animaniacs and Pinky and the Brain, both produced in association with Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment.3
In 1996 he moved to Sony Pictures/Columbia TriStar Television, rising to co-executive producer over the following decade. His credits in this period include Extreme Ghostbusters (1997), Godzilla: The Series (1998-2000), Starship Troopers: The Animated Series (1999), Spider-Man (MTV, 2003), and Stuart Little 3: Call of the Wild (2005).3
Paden served as supervising director at Nickelodeon from 2005 to 2007, then joined Mattel as a senior director in 2007, taking on development, writing, and producing responsibilities.3 At Mattel he became showrunner for both the Monster High and Ever After High franchises, overseeing approximately 170 shorts and 12 direct-to-video features for Monster High as well as the Ever After High Netflix series. He also produced Hot Wheels Battle Force 5, Max Steel, and Polly Pocket content for the studio. He maintained this role at Mattel through approximately 2017.
In addition to his producing and directing work, Paden is also active as a voice director and voice actor.
Ghostbusters
Extreme Ghostbusters (1997)
Paden joined Extreme Ghostbusters at Sony/Columbia TriStar in 1996, serving as producer, director, and storyboard artist across the series. The show ran for 40 episodes in the autumn of 1997, centering on a new team of younger, college-age ghostbusters operating under the mentorship of veteran Egon Spengler.4
The series was cancelled after a single season following poor performance of its accompanying toy merchandise line. Paden addressed the show's fate directly during an Extreme Ghostbusters cast reunion podcast in 2023, acknowledging that the series existed primarily to sell toys, and that the failure of that merchandise line, despite the quality of the voice cast, animators, and art department, drove the decision to end production.5
References
