Star Trek: The Animated Series At the age of sixteen, Wise abandoned film-making for writing, determined to become a professional science fiction writer. The following year Wise sold several SF short stories to various anthologies. This led directly to his first television writing job, an episode of
Filmation's animated
Star Trek series entitled "How Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth," written in collaboration with
Russell L. Bates. The series as a whole won the only Emmy any
Star Trek series has won in a non-technical category, for best children's production.
Buck Rogers, Wonder Woman, He-Man and Mighty Orbots After a successful stint of live action work, writing for
Glen A. Larson's
Buck Rogers (the "Space Vampire" episode) and the
Lynda Carter series
Wonder Woman, Wise returned to animation in the 1980s, collaborating on many of the animated endeavours of that period such as
He-Man and
Mighty Orbots.
Transformers Wise also wrote
Transformers episodes during the second and fourth seasons, including the
Optimus Prime origin story "War Dawn", the comedy chase format of "Kremzeek", and the final three episodes of the original G1 series "The Rebirth", which Wise was forced to edit from five parts to three due to diminishing popularity of the franchise. During this period Wise also wrote scripts for
Jem and
My Little Pony.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles In 1987, Wise was given the call to develop and write a five-part animated television pilot based on an independent comic,
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Wise helped change the darker toned black and white
Mirage title into a fun, bright, cheerful animated show. Wise left after the ninth season, writing and story editing over 100 episodes.
Disney and Batman: The Animated Series Wise next worked on
Disney's ''
Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers, and Mighty Ducks cartoons, and also wrote three episodes for Batman: The Animated Series'', "
The Clock King," "
The Strange Secret of Bruce Wayne" (based on
Steve Englehart's comic book story), and the origin story of
The Riddler, "
If You're So Smart, Why Aren't You Rich?".
Other animated series and live-action projects He wrote the
Battletoads animated pilot episode, as well as the two-part pilot for
C.O.P.S., "The Case of C.O.P.S. File 1." He wrote some episodes of Defenders of The Earth. He wrote and story-edited such comic-based series as
Cadillacs and Dinosaurs and
''Jim Lee's WildC.A.T.S.'' He also developed, story-edited, and wrote most of the 26 episodes of Disney TV's
Mighty Ducks: The Animated Series. During this period he also wrote and produced the live-action film
Beastmaster III: The Eye of Braxus, and was the first writer/story-editor on an animated interpretation of
Zorro.
Go! Media Entertainment Wise's TV writing career ended with his work on Zorro in 1997. He was later founder, owner and CEO of the multi-media company Go! Media Entertainment from 2005 to 2010. Go! Media Entertainment consisted of the publishing imprint
Go! Comi, and the digital entertainment division . Go! Comi was a moderately successful imprint (amongst the titles published were the Eisner-nominated
After School Nightmare, adapted by
Mallory Reaves and edited by
Brynne Chandler), but 's digital entertainment app was unsuccessful, leading to the company's bankruptcy.
Other work He wrote the final episode of the fourth series of the
Doctor Who-related
Gallifrey audio drama series for UK-based
Big Finish Productions. In 2019, David was announced as part of the team developing a television series based on the life of decorated dog hero
Sergeant Stubby, serving as a prequel to the 2018 animated feature film
Sgt. Stubby: An American Hero (with which Wise had no involvement). Two years earlier, he was announced to be writing a feature adaptation of the graphic novel
Pet Robots for
Animal Crackers producer Blue Dream Studios. Both projects were written alongside his wife Audry Taylor and artist and animator Scott Christian Sava, and remain unproduced. ==Personal life==