ANONYMOUS KING OF TV CARTOONS GETS HIS DUE

Jeffrey Scott is one of the most prolific writers in television, having churned out more than 300 scripts in the last nine years--including an entire season’s worth of episodes for some series.

But because all but a handful of his scripts have been for Saturday morning cartoon shows, Jeffrey Scott also has been one of the most anonymous writers in television.

Until two weeks ago, anyway. That was when he won a $10,000 Humanitas Prize from the Human Family Educational and Cultural Institute for an episode of “Jim Henson’s Muppet Babies” that was judged to have done the best job of any animated children’s program during the last TV season in communicating values “that enrich the viewing public.”

“It feels wonderful to finally be acknowledged,” Scott said the other day, reflecting on his award. “And to get a prize for spiritually uplifting material--that’s better than the Emmy! That’s what I want to do. It’s wonderful to entertain, but I want my work to be spiritually uplifting, too--to put something in that a kid can walk away with.”

The Humanitas judges certainly did. They lauded the story, in which the Muppet characters worried that one of them was about to be sent away, for its “fresh and imaginative assertion that people need people . . . that each individual is lovable and that we can conquer our fears only by facing them.”

Now, Scott, a 33-year-old native of Los Angeles, may be able to have his cake and eat it, too: Another episode of “Muppet Babies” is up for a daytime Emmy Award next week as best animated program--and he wrote it.

Actually, any episode of the delightful CBS cartoon series that might have been nominated would have born Scott’s name: He wrote all 13 half-hour installments of the first season. He is credited with having developed the show for TV, using the junior versions of Henson’s familiar Muppet characters (Kermit, Miss Piggy, Fozzie, Gonzo, etc.) that had first appeared in the movie “The Muppets Take Manhattan.”

Knocking off whole seasons of series is something Scott has been doing since 1978, when he wrote all of the episodes for ABC’s “Challenge of the Superfriends.” In subsequent years he has done the same thing with such Saturday morning cartoon shows as “Superfriends,” “Spider-Woman,” “Pac-Man” and “The Littles.” He also has written multiple episodes for “Spider-Man,” “Trollkins,” “Pandamonium” and “Dungeons & Dragons.”

At present, he is finishing work on the second season of “Muppet Babies” and writing most of the scripts for a new Saturday morning series for NBC, “Hulk Hogan’s Rock ‘n’ Wrestling.”

“Don’t say I’m a workaholic,” Scott protested, “because that conjures up an alcoholic. I do it willingly; I’m not trapped.”

He comes by his penchant for wanting to entertain naturally. His grandfather was Moe Howard of the Three Stooges; his father, Norman Maurer, produced some of the Three Stooges’ movies, created (according to Scott) the first 3-D comic book and later worked at Hanna-Barbera Productions, where he gave Scott his first TV job in 1976 as an assistant story editor on “Dynomutt.”

Scott (who said he changed his name from Maurer in 1978 because it was too difficult for people to spell and pronounce) also has written for prime-time television, listing episodes of “Lobo,” “Mr. Merlin” and “The Powers of Matthew Star” among his credits. But he said that short of creating his own series and having control over it, “creating in this fantasy realm of Saturday morning is much more fun.”

Although childless himself, Scott also likes writing for the cartoon shows because they speak directly to children.

In accepting his Humanitas Prize, he said, “I have always felt that there is no one in a better position to bring greater ethics and moral character to the world than those who write for children. This is true, I believe, because there is a chance to give kids some understanding and guidance while they are still young and impressionable, and before they have fixed their ideas in stone--or destroyed their ideas by being stoned.”

But that doesn’t mean Scott wants to stay in Saturday morning television forever. He already has written an animated feature film, “Starchaser: The Legend of Orin,” due out this summer, and said that he is negotiating to write an animated Muppet movie. His long-term goals are even grander: to move into producing for both TV and films.

Indeed, part of the reason for his feverish, seven-day-a-week work schedule, Scott readily confessed, is the financial rewards it brings.

“My goals, which are not to make money, need money to run,” Scott explained. “I want to become respected and powerful enough--and I mean that for its positive attributes--to be able to put out product that will enrich society, that will raise the morals and ethics of society.”