Woodpecker Update

Props to Ruben Procopio — who worked at Disney animation for many years, and whose father was a sculptor at Disney for 35 years — who has been doing great sculpts for Tracy Mark Lee and Electric Tiki. The Woody Woodpecker statues he did are particulary great (and I should know, I have ‘em myself).
Speaking of Woody, my friends at StoryMakers Studio tell me that response to our announcement last week about the big Salute to Woody Woodpecker and Walter Lantz at the Chinese Theatre in Hollywood has been tremendous.
Preceeding a screening of 12 Lantz classics, they’ve got a panel with June Foray, Maurice LeMarche and Billy West, who will now be joined by animator Phil Roman and our friend Leonard Maltin — sounds like a fun evening. The panel will be video taped and available online at a later date (to be announced). I’ve been informed there is still a small block of seats available for the live event – which for Cartoon Brew readers is free. To sign up for the event, or to reserve your online viewing pass, click here. If you sign up for the live event or an online viewing pass, you can post questions for the panel.

The Three Robbers

For those who doubt it - Hand drawn animated features are alive and well in Europe. Case in point: Die Drei Rauber (the Three Robbers).
Unfortunetly, as stated here before, this is one of dozens of foreign animated films produced every year that don’t get distributed in North America. Our friend Sinem Sakaoglu writes:
I thought it might interest you to know we’ll soon be premiering (so far only in Germany and France) the feature version of The Three Robbers (based on the book by Tomi Ungerer; Gene Deitch produced a six minute short version for Weston Woods in 1972)
It was a relatively small crew that made it all happen and though I now have a few more gray hairs than when I started the project (I did production management and overseas supervision), it was a fun and rewarding time… Hope it gets over to the other side of the pond.
So do I. It looks cute. See the trailer here.

Where Do You Like To Work?

Every artist has their favorite place to work, but it’s unlikely that any of those places offer the amusing view that animation filmmaker Chris Harding finds in Kansas City. He writes about his inspiring scenery in this blog entry.

More Backgrounds

We’ve plugged the blogs of both Hans Bacher and Rob Richards numerous times recently. Both are putting a spotlight on the unsung work of background painters in animated cartoons. Today, Richards posts a composite of the pan shot showing the three dimensional cave (actually an intricate miniature live action set) in Popeye the Sailor Meets Sindbad The Sailor. Fleischer artisans clearly put a lot of thought, hard work and artistic know how into these Stereo-Optical “set-backs”. Considering how some of these elaborate shots only appear on screen for several seconds, I encourage Rob to create more composites of these. They certainly deserve a closer look.

Get Well, Mel?

Above and below are two parts of one interesting piece of WB ephemera that that one of our readers (who wishes to remain anonymous) acquired recently. We believe it may have been a first, more informal get well card to Mel Blanc very shortly after his catastrophic auto wreck on Jan. 24, 1961. This would have been before Chuck Jones did his Magnum Opus card - almost 4 feet long that showed all 14 WB characters lying side-by-side in bed with thermometers in their mouths being attended by a doctor and a nurse with the Doc saying “I don’t know what is wrong with them, they have all lost their voice.” The names seem roughly right for 1961. But were Maltese and Scribner there at that point? Perhaps it was created for another?
Can any of our readers, researchers and historians attribute who it was done for, and who drew it???

Music Vids by Shoji Goto and Jamie Mason

These two recent music vid discoveries make me very happy.
• “Umo” is a primarily stop motion video directed by Shoji Goto for the all-female Japanese group OOIOO. The energetic uninhibited filmmaking in this piece is a true delight. Peep it here or download a better quality Quicktime version here (28mb).
• “Frog Dance” is an inspired bit of Flash animation by Jamie Mason (aka Hobo Divine) produced for the Nick Jr. series Yo Gabba Gabba. It’s mighty rare to see anybody today pull off this type of super-limited animation with such charm and vitality

The World Is Your Canvas

Who needs pencil and paper? Italian graffiti artist and painter Blu paints his animation onto the ground and walls. His latest piece, Fantoche (posted below), was created earlier this month during the Fantoche Animation Festival in Switzerland. It is a brilliant and inspiring creative accomplishment, not to mention an obviously staggering amount of work:
lu also creates hand-drawn animation and is the subject of a forthcoming documentary, the trailer for which can be viewed here.

Ottawa 2007 is here!

The 2007 edition of the Ottawa International Animation Festival kicks off today, and as always, Ottawa’s artistic director Chris Robinson has pulled together a solid lineup of programs. Sadly I can’t make it this year, but if I were going, here are some of the things I’d be checking out:
• The opening night feature: Persepolis.
• Masterclasses by Joanna Quinn and Tomasz Baginski
• The International Showcase screening which includes the world premiere of the Goofy short How to Hook Up Your Home Theater, the first film to come out of Disney Animation’s new shorts program.
• Panels about advertising in animation and blogging in animation. The blogging panel includes the other half of Cartoon Brew, Jerry Beck.
• A lot of design-oriented programs this year including a four-part UPA retrospective, a tribute to Zagreb Film director Dušan Vukotić, and a program showing animation influenced by New Yorker cartoonist Saul Steinberg.
• The competition screenings are always one of the strongest parts of Ottawa, and this year’s selections are no exception. All of this year’s major shorts are playing up there including Koji Yamamura’s A Country Doctor, Luis Cook’s Pearce Sisters, Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski’s Madame Tutli-Putli and Don Hertzfeldt’s Everything Will Be OK, but there’s always a lot of pleasant unexpected discoveries at Ottawa as well.

Amp XGames by Three Legged Legs

The young Santa Monica animation studio Three Legged Legs continues to impress with each new project they turn out. Reza Rasoli, one of the principals in the studio, wrote to give me a heads up on their latest campaign, “XGames” for Amp energy drink. The three Amp feature the most extensive traditional character animation that they’ve produced to date. They’ve also posted an excellent case study that showcases the artistic talent and concept artwork behind the Amp spots.

Who Needs Cartoons When You’ve Got David Duchovny

It’s that time of the month again to bring some attention to Cartoon Network’s repudiation of cartoons in favor of transforming itself into a second-rate knockoff of Disney Channel and Nick. Yesterday’s Hollywood Reporter offered details on the network’s latest live-action project: a pilot deal with actor David Duchovny. According to the article, the show “centers on a junior high school student from a long line of newsmen who turns his school AV Club into a hard-hitting citywide broadcast.” For the project, Duchovny is teamed up with producers of live-action kids shows that had aired on Disney Channel and Nick like Even Stevens and The Secret Life of Alex Mack.
Additionally, throughout the month of October, Cartoon Network will be airing nightly reruns of the live-action series Goosebumps. An original live-action made-for-TV movie of their animated series Ben 10 will debut in November. And last week, CN debuted the live-action/animated series Out of Jimmy’s Head, a spinoff to their live-action film Re-Animated.
Earlier coverage of live-action on Cartoon Network:Our first post in April 2006The New Cartoon NetworkMore About Cartoon NetworkMost Ironic Exec Quote of the WeekMore About The New Live-Action CNCartoon Network’s Re-AnimatedAnother Live-Action Show On Cartoon Network

Looney Tunes DVD Uncensored

I’ve gotten more than several emails from readers concerned about edits, cuts and omissions from forthcoming Popeye and Looney Tunes DVD collections. Let me assure you that classic cartoons on both these series will remain uncensored on their upcoming DVD releases. Scenes, such as this brilliant take-off on Cab Calloway (that’s Porky Pig above, in Frank Tashlin’s Porky At The Crocadero), remain completely intact in Looney Tunes Golden Collection Vol. 5.
In fact, the DVD will not only include the uncut suicide gag from Clampett’s Hare Ribbin’ (two frames pictured below), in which Bugs hands his opponent a weapon to blow his brains out, the DVD will also include the alternate “director’s cut” version (bottom image) in which Bugs Bunny himself pulls the trigger!

Billy Collins Action Poetry

BCActionPoet.org is a delightful series of eleven bite-sized shorts, each set to a poem by US Poet Laureate Billy Collins and read in an amusingly dry tone by Collins himself. The films were commissioned by The Sundance Channel, in partnership with J. Walter Thompson, and the individual shorts were farmed out to various commerical animators. Some of the standout pieces which I thought were able to graphically complement and build upon, but not parrot, Collins’s evocative words, were “The Last Cigarette” by Will Hyde of Superfad, “Forgetfulness” by Julian Grey of Toronto’s Head Gear Animation, and “No Time” animated by Jeff Scher.

Cartoon Q&A

In today’s edition of South Florida’s Sun-Sentinel, television columnist Tom Jicha answers reader’s mail. Here is a slightly edited version of today’s first question (you can read the complete version here):
Q. What do you think of adults watching cartoons? Since your sense of humor is counterintuitive, I assume you won’t even dignify an adult watching a cartoon. But the writing in cartoons is sometimes brilliant and the jokes go way over most kids’ heads. I’d appreciate your opinion on adult cartoon watching. - S.E., via e-mail
A. If you’re out of your teens and still watching Bugs Bunny and Donald Duck, I don’t think I’d want you baby-sitting my kids. But The Simpsons, King of the Hill, Family Guy and South Park are among the smartest shows on TV. Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim apparently has some gems, too, although they’re not on my TiVo Season-Pass list. Going back a bit, Rocky and Bullwinkle worked for adults and kids for different reasons. I still get a kick out of those on DVD.
Well I don’t know about you, but as someone who still enjoys Bugs Bunny and Donald Duck - often over the antics of South Park and Family Guy - I’m insulted. Couldn’t Jicha have chosen two other characters to make his point than Bugs and Donald? Couldn’t he have used Clifford and Blue’s Clues? What would you suggest?

Jim Smith Artwork Auction

Spumco bigshot Jim Smith is auctioning some of his layouts from the original Ren & Stimpy series on eBay. The prices are reasonable and there’s some nice drawings available. Here is the complete listing of art.

Schulz and Disney

Here’s a book that I recently picked up. The unlikely pairing of Schulz and Disney on a book cover was simply too good to pass up. The cover also offers the interesting revelation that when Schulz draws adults, they end up looking like King of the Hill characters. Thankfully it’s not something he did often.

Twice Upon a Time

Animator director Ward Jenkins has posted an interview on his blog with writer and historian Taylor Jessen, the foremost chronicler of the innovative and overlooked animated film Twice Upon a Time (1983). Ward also interviewed the film’s art director Harley Jessup and will be posting that discussion next.

Animondays

Starting today, animator David B. Levy (president of Asifa-East) starts a new blog, Animondays, which he will update once a week. I’m really looking forward to this, as David has become one of my favorite commentators on animation with his clever, informative columns in the ASIFA-East newsletters and his excellent book, Your Career in Animation: How to Survive and Thrive. Here’s hoping David catches the blogging bug and adds AniTuesday, AniWednesday and so on, to his schedule.
Speaking of Mondays, next Monday night I’ll be presenting my Worst Cartoons Ever! screening for ASIFA-East in New York City. I’ll only be in the city for two days, (as I’m en route to the Ottawa Animation Festival) and I’m hoping to see as many of my old friends and Brew readers there as I can. This is a great way for everyone to meet up and say hello.
The screening will take place at NYU, Tisch School of the Arts, 721 Broadway (between Waverly and Washington Place), Room 017 at 7 PM. The program is technically for ASIFA-East members and NYU students/faculty/alumni only. However, if you are not a member of ASIFA (and you really should be) or not affiliated with NYU, please contact me by Thursday Sept 13th - and I’ll put you on the list. Should be fun… I can’t wait to inflict this bad stuff in the Big Apple.

Mid-Atlantic Comic Con

Just a reminder that for those of you on the east coast, The Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Convention is the end of this week, September 13 through the 15th at The Clarion Hotel in Aberdeen, Maryland. Among the events scheduled are an in person appearence by Virginia Davis who will talk about working for Walt Disney at the start of his career - and a screening of Ray Pointer’s Alice In Cartoonland program featuring some of the earliest Alice Comedies. Thad Komorowski is running two separate programs of classic animation, A Salute To Frank Tashlin and Golden Age Cartoons there as well. Consult the convention website for more information.

Who’s Who in The Autograph Hound

Jeff Pepper of 2719 Hyperion offers up a well annotated who’s who of celebrity caricatures in the Disney short The Autograph Hound (1939).

The Chestnut Tree

Bert and Jennifer Klein just finished producing a very charming 4-minute hand drawn short called The Chestnut Tree. It was directed and animated by a young woman named Hyun-min Lee, who is making her directorial debut. The film was executive produced by Don Hahn. Sorry for the late notice, but it’s screening this weekend for Academy qualification with the filmmakers present at both of the Sunday showings.

When Richie Rich was cool

I know it’s hard to believe, but Richie Rich was a cool dude once.
Once upon a time the character, originally created by Harvey Comics in 1952 as a companion feature in Little Dot, actually had a personality, clever stories and appealing comic art chiefly by animator Steve Muffatti, and cartoonists Warren Kremer and Ernie Colon.
Leslie Cabarga and I spent the summer mining the Harvey Comics vaults and cherry-picked the best of the original Richie Rich comics of the 50s and 60s for a new trade paperback volume due out next month. This is the second of several high quality Harvey Comics reprint books we are compiling for Dark Horse.
If you’ve only been exposed to the latter spin-off comic books of the 1970s and 80s, the cheap animated TV shows or that Macaulay Culkin movie, I urge you to give this volume a look. Amazon has just put our Richie Rich book up for pre-order and has posted the the first several pages, including the entire first six-page Richie story from Little Dot #1 (click the Search Inside: Amazon Online Reader option).

Cartoon Museum Benefit at Pixar

San Francisco’s Cartoon Art Museum is holding its fourth annual fundraiser at Pixar Animation Studios next Saturday. Tickets are $200. a piece, a bit steep but all the money goes to keeping the Museum alive. Animation art is a large part what the museum preserves and celebrates. In fact, a Mary Blair retrospective featuring rare concept art, advertising illustrations and children’s book illustrations will be opening in late October and run through March 2008.
At next Saturday’s fundraiser Pixar’s Mark Andrews (Story Supervisor), Dylan Brown (Supervising Animator)and Sharon Calahan (Director of Photography) will be guest speakers. A premiere screening of a new short, Our Friend the Rat, with in person commentary by director Jim Capobianco, will highlight the evening presentation in the main theatre. For more info on the Pixar event, consult the Cartoon Art Museum website.

Animated Manhattan

Inspired by the book Celluloid Skyline, which examined the depictions of New York in live-action film, the blog Ironic Sans has a delightful on-going series of posts called “Animated Manhattan” which looks at how New York City has been represented in cartoons throughout the years. So far, they’ve documented an eclectic assortment of animated pieces including features like Fritz the Cat and Madagascar, TV series including The Critic and Futurama, and one-off projects such as the Tom & Jerry short Mouse in Manhattan and the opening titles to Late Night with Conan O’Brien.

Bozo’s furniture

P.S. Forget about the Disney furniture collection.
This Saturday you can bid on Bozo’s personal furnishings. The property of Larry Harmon (a.k.a. Bozo the Clown) is being auctioned off in New York by Tepper Galleries (click on the Sept. 8th preview for detailed information). Nothing too weird is listed, no 16mm prints of Laurel and Hardy, no cels of Butchy Boy. Just a bunch of classy furniture.
What a clown!

Magoo’s Christmas Carol

Calling all cartoon historians! Animator Darrell Van Citters is researching and writing a book about the classic UPA TV special Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol. All primary interviews and research have been completed, but Darrell is now looking for anyone who might have additional relevant information, documents, artwork or photos regarding these crew members: Lee Mishkin, Sam Weiss, Steve Clark, Tom McDonald, Hank Smith, Ed Solomon, John Walker, Xenia DeMattia and Earl Jonas.
Anyone who has any information or artwork from either Magoo’s Christmas Carol or The Famous Adventures of Mr. Magoo is strongly encouraged to contact darrell.vancitters (at) renegadeanimation.com.

Looney Tunes Golden Collection Vol. 5

I’d be remiss if I didn’t update Brew readers to the forthcoming Looney Tunes Golden Collection Vol. 5 - which will be released on October 30th, available from your favorite online retailer or at a brick and morter video store near you.
Details of its contents have been floating around various websites for a couple of weeks. TVshowsOnDVD.com has the best listing - but even their information has a few omissions and errors: for example, the Snafu and Hook cartoons are actually part of Disc 3 (not Disc 2) and the Walter Lantz Hook cartoon, “Take Heed Mr. Tojo”, and the Private Snafu cartoon “Gas” are unfortunately not included, despite what others on the Internet have reported. There are a few things on the set that nobody has mentioned yet. Disc 1 has a bonus section featuring of over a dozen rare Bugs Bunny Show prime time TV commercials for sponsor General Foods, for such products as Tang and Post Cereals. I’m particularly delighted with the inclusion of these little advertising gems, most transferred from 35mm elements, which were produced during the waning days of the original studio.
And then there are the restorations (see comparison below: laser disc frame at left, DVD frame at right) and several newly restored original titles… but I’ll be telling you much more about that in the weeks to come. For now, mark the date: October 30th.

Ratatouille Art

A new Pixar film usually means another great Chronicle Art Of book and, at the other end of the spectrum, another neat looking Little Golden Book.
It’s easy to overlook the Golden Books - and difficult to find them - even in major bookstores. I just came across the Ratatouille one at my local Ralphs supermarket this morning. It’s a 24 page delight (especially for $2.99), with gorgeous art, credited to Scott Tilley, Jean-Paul Orpinas (illustrators) and Tony Fejeran (designer). As a long time fan of vintage Little Golden Books, the recent Pixar volumes are excellent additions to the collection.

Have you noticed how Pixar’s character merchandising art translates perfectly in two-dimensional and hand drawn versions? That’s due, of course, to the characters basic design and Pixar’s cartooning aesthetic. It’s also due to the calibre of artists assigned to create this ancillary artwork. One particularly cool looking publicity project was a series of images inspired by A.M. Cassandre’s vintage French posters, designed and painted by Stephane Kardos (above) and Eric Tan. It’s this kind of attention to detail, and sense of style, that keeps Pixar ahead of the pack - on screen and off.

Animation History Round-Up

Golden Age comics by animation artists Rod Scribner and Dan Gordon.
Even B-animation studios get love online: “Why we love Famous cartoons.”
Terrytoons animator Carlo Vinci: Artist first, animator second. A valuable lesson if there ever was one.
The greatest Warner Bros. background painter: Paul Julian.Ample evidence here, here and here.
Lovely pre-production art from Dick Williams’s Raggedy Ann and Andy.
Rubber hosey goodness: The Office Boy, a Flip the Frog short by Ub Iwerks.

Killer Koko

Mike Van Eaton’s latest acquisition is a killer. An original Koko the Clown drawing, apparently related to (or for) the 1922 film called The Mosquito,signed and dated by Max Fleischer. Click on image above to see a larger version. The intriguing inscription reads “My Dear Raoul, Here’s wishing you success with my new productions. Sincerely, Max Fleischer, 1922″
Raoul Barre perhaps? If anybody has a copy of “The Mosquito”, I would love to see if this is one of the opening drawings.

Bugs Bunny’s Autobiography

Once again the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive provides a new piece of the giant jigsaw puzzle that is the history of animated cartoons.
Steve Worth has scanned sections of a December 1945 issue of Coronet magazine which includes an autobiography of Bugs Bunny (illustrated with original images loosely based on the storyboards from A Hare Grows In Manhattan (released in May 1947). Anybody have any guesses as to who did the art?

Hanna Barbera Treasures

Here’s an early heads up on one of the several books I’ve been working on this past few months. It’s just been announced publicly in the latest edition of Diamond Comics Previews, so I see no reason not to mention it here. The Hanna Barbera Treasury is a unique coffee table art book celebrating Hanna Barbera’s legacy (mainly the 50s and 60s TV series) through visuals including original production art, rare merchandising material and obscure comic books. It’s shaping up rather nice, I’m having a lot of fun with it, and it’ll make a nice gift for that cartoon fan on your holiday list. It’s being lavishly produced by Insight Editions, the folks who did the Surf’s Up and Monster House coffee table books. Look for it to go on sale in October.

Popeye Song Folio

One of the best pieces of Fleischer Popeye memoribilia ever created was a 32 page compilation of sheet music, the Popeye Song Folio, published by Famous Music in 1936. Brotherly Love, Clean Shavin’ Man, I Wanna Be A Lifeguard, King Of The Mardi Gras, and of course, Popeye The Salior - and others - are each illustrated with a nice piece of art by one of the studio’s top artists (Willard Bowsky?). Coincidentally, with you know what going on sale next Tuesday, Brew reader Joe Busam has posted several of the best pages of the Song Folio on photobucket. These songs are great - and this is a perfect warm up to the restored cartoons which will soon be here.

Before and After

(Click on images above for larger version) The painting above left is original art from Fleischer Studios Technicolor two-reel special The Raven and how it may have looked on screen in 1942. The image at right is a blurry 16mm frame grab of the same shot - the way it looks today as it sits unrestored and essentially unavailable to view. ASIFA-Hollywood is working with the UCLA Archive to help preserve neglected films like this (and in fact, The Raven may be ready later this year). It’s a real crime that these animation classics are allowed to rot in the vaults of the mega corporations who own them. The Raven is one of the Fleischer’s lesser efforts, but can we really judge it in the horrifying condition as it now exists?
If you’d like to see a larger, more complete version of the gorgeous background painting above, click here. And for those of you who might like to own it, the piece is being sold at auction by S/R Labs sometime during October 22-23, 2007, along with more than 250 fine pieces of animation art like it. S/R is an animation art conservation center that specializes in restoring vintage cels and paper (as well as doing ceramic, porcelain and oil conservation). They do good work.

Yogi reads Playbear

Reader Lliam Amor spotted this 1968 Gene Hazelton Pete Alvarado (see Mark Evanier’s comment) Yogi Bear Sunday comic strip original on the Heritage Auction site and thought it was interesting because (a) “the great line work & paste up marks” and (b) “the fact that Yogi has no hesitation about reading Playbear in front of the young and impressionable Boo Boo…”

KidRobot does Underdog

Just in time to clear the stench of that current Underdog movie debacle from my memory cells, come these delightful KidRobot figures that restore the fun designs of the original characters.
Click here to see close-ups of (and get ordering information for) these cool vinyl figures of Underdog, Polly, Riff Raff, and Simon Bar Sinister. Like a breath of fresh air - these characters look great in three dimensions!

Raggedy Ann & Andy and Disney Dance Band

Don Brockway’s IsntLifeTerrible.com is a new entry on the blogging scene and well worth checking out. He’s done a couple posts in the past week that have caught my attention. The first is a nicely written appreciation of Dick Williams’s feature Raggedy Ann and Andy - A Musical Adventure which is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year. The other post offers a stellar collection of downloadable MP3s of 1930s and ’40s British dance band recordings of Disney songs. My iPod thanks you Don.

Op-Ed Cartoon

Does it mean anything that filmmaking icons Ingmar Bergman and Michaelangelo Antonioni passed away the same week The Simpsons Movie opens? Jeff Stahler’s editorial cartoon yesterday nailed the sad truth about current movie going tastes, and the general public’s ignorance of film history.

Spider Pig

Sure, The Simpsons Movie made over $70 million this weekend at the box office. But the big winner in all this is the estate of lyricist Paul Francis Webster and composer Bob Harris (anyone know what became of him?).
Webster may have won three Academy Awards for Best Song (including Love Is A Many Splendored Thing), but his lyrics for the 1967 Spider-man TV cartoon theme will apparently live forever. In addition to its inclusion in the three recent Spider-Man live action features, the tune has become one of the most popular gags (re-worked as “Spider Pig”, by Homer) in The Simpsons Movie.
Compared to his other work, Webster must have been slumming when he penned the words for the Saturday morning cartoon show. But like Spider-man and the Simpsons, the song has established itself as a mainstay of popular culture.

LA: Jules Engel Show & Cartoon Mod Signing

Through the end of August, the Tobey C. Moss Gallery (7321 Beverly Boulevard, LA, CA) has on display a show of animation artwork by Jules Engel. It’s a fairly small selection of artwork but includes pieces from Engel’s work on Disney’s Fantasia, UPA and Format Films color keys, and drawings from his personal short films. This Thursday, August 2, from 7-9pm, I’ll be doing a signing of Cartoon Modern in conjunction with the show. We’ll also be doing a short screening that highlights his UPA work and includes rare interview clips with Engel. Brew readers who’d like to attend can rsvp by tomorrow either by sending an email to tobeymoss [at] earthlink.net or calling the gallery at (323) 933-5523.

The Online Animation Conversation

In early-2005, I declared that 2004 had been the year of the animation blog. It was a good year no doubt, but the same could likely be said for every year since then. In fact, the animation blogging community has evolved in leaps and bounds since its nascent rise in ‘04. Today, the conversation on animation blogs is as vibrant and exciting as ever. What makes the community so dynamic is that it’s not just artists and critics posting random opinions, but actively engaging in back-and-forth conversations with one another.
To offer just one example, when Ren & Stimpy creator John Kricfalusi recently posted about his distaste for the stock designs of Disney villains, character designer Harald Siepermann responded with a lengthy post on his own blog that discussed his process for designing the villain Clayton in Tarzan. I can’t imagine a conversation between two such disparate artistic personalities happening prior to blogs but these types of spirited dialogues take place on an increasingly frequent basis nowadays.
Granted, it can be difficult to keep track of all these conversations or even know where to look to find such discourse. But there is no denying that it’s happening, and students and professionals alike now have a tool unlike any other to help develop and inspire their craft. How are we each taking advantage of the possibilities and what can we do to improve the animation blogging community?

The Ultimate Preston Blair Swipe

We’ve posted other swipes from Preston Blair before (here, here, here and here) but this one is the mother of them all!
Steve Stanchfield and Mary Dixon spotted this arcade attraction at the Fowlerville Family Fair (in Fowlerville, Michigan) and it blew their minds:
We were greeted first by a great array of sideshow freaks, including a little guy named ‘Poobaa’ who the barker proclaimed as being the last living Muchkin from the Wizard of oz alive (he was 9 at the time). Poor Poobaa was made to swallow fire over and over to a bored looking crowd of locals.
Then, turning the corner, I see THIS. I’ve seen a lot of things before, but this is far, far beyond the normal Blair ripoff; it’s almost an outsider art homage! I took a bunch of pictures (forgive my not quite perfect alignment of the whole thing…). I have more if you want, but I think these tell the story pretty well. This is a walk though carnival attraction. I didn’t go inside, but I bet I would have seen Red in progression, the policeman and maybe even the hippos from Fantasia…

TONIGHT: Aural Disneyland Delights

Got a few hours tonight? Tune into the online broadcast of Luxuria Music from 7-10pm PST where the guest on the “Kitsch Niche with Strike” will be animation artist and director Jordan Reichek (Ren & Stimpy, Invader Zim). Jordan also happens to be a primo collector of Disneylandia (trust me, I’ve seen the collection) and he’s sharing some of the aural parts of the collection on air tonight including rare recording session outtakes, Disneyland commercials, weird “sing-along” records made at the park and theme park cover songs. Rare photos of the park will also be displayed on the Luxuria webcam. It’s all for free at LuxuriaMusic.com.

Simpsons Movie: 1st Review

Okay, I admit it. I’m excited about seeing The Simpsons Movie. But why are they opening it on the same weekend as the San Diego Comic Con? Over 100,000 first day ticket sales will be busy at the Con buying comics or attending Mark Evanier’s panels. I predict The Simpsons Movie will have a helluva Monday night box office gross, when all the fans get home from San Diego.
In the meantime, I think this is the first official review of the film. It was posted today by the London Times - and it’s very positive.

BG Inspiration

Art director Hans Bacher (Mulan) has started up an incredible new blog called Animation Treasures. He’s painstakingly recreating pan backgrounds from classic animated films currently on dvd (mostly Disney ones) to offer a sense of what the original backgrounds looked like before the characters were composited on top. There’s lots of insightful notes to go along with each image. Truly a terrific educational resource that everybody should take advantage of. Thanks Hans!

Simpsons in Vanity Fair

Vanity Fair has published an extensive oral history about The Simpsons. The piece includes the thoughts of everybody from cartoonist Gary Panter to Fox CEO Rupert Murdoch, as well as many people who have worked on the series including Brad Bird, Gabor Csupo, Kent Butterworth, Bill Oakley, Larry Doyle and Hank Azaria. The same issue of VF also has an interview with Conan O’Brien discussing his time working on the series. I think the following comment from Conan really hits the nail on the head about why the humor on the Simpsons more often than not feels so tired and lacking in spontaneity:
By the time an episode came out, you had maybe heard the script read through like 20 times, and if for some reason the joke wasn’t getting a laugh on the 21st time, you had to rework it. Sometimes your first pitch is your best pitch, but over time, if you revisit it constantly, you’ll grow weary of it, it will start to wilt, and then you’re just coming up with a different pitch that’s maybe not necessarily better. Obviously it’s clearly a strength of The Simpsons that by the time you see it, things have been road-tested and thought about and so much work has gone into it. But sometimes I felt like, “Let’s bake the pie and serve it.”

Jack Zander Interview

Animation World Magazine has an interview with 99-year-old animation veteran Jack Zander whose career includes stints at studios like Romer Grey, Van Beuren, MGM and Terrytoons, as well as running his own commercial studios Pelican Films and Zander’s Animation Parlour. I saw Zander speak in LA about five years ago and his memory was impressively sharp. In fact, he seems quite sharp in this interview as well, though it would have been a more interesting chat if the interviewer had been more familiar with Zander’s history. As it is, it’s still worth a read.
Last year on the Cartoon Modern blog, I highlighted a couple advertising productions by Zander which have been lost to time. I thought I’d share a few more Zander artifacts. At the top of this post is a late-’50s magazine advertisement for his studio Pelican. Below is a 1962 Pelican-produced ad for Jax Beer designed by Chris Ishii and animated by Emery Hawkins. Click on the image to see a set of stills from the spot. And below that is another one of the Jax commercials. The comedy team of Mike Nichols and Elaine May provided the tracks for the Jax spots.