As a fan of both SEINFELD and SUPERMAN, I’m delighted with the new combination live action/animation “webisode”, premiering today, entitled “A Uniform Used to Mean Something”.
Sponsored by American Express, the four-minute film was co-written by Seinfeld and directed by Barry Levinson (Diner, Rain Man). Patrick Warburton does Superman’s voice. There’s also a nice Behind The Scenes piece, but it doesn’t say who animated Superman (the original AmEx Seinfeld/Superman commercial in 1998 was animated by the Warner Bros. Classic Animation division - these webisodes were animated by UNPLUGGED STUDIOS in Toronto using Flash).

“I’ve always felt that characters should be uncomplicated, then put the complicated things into the animation.” - Grim Natwick

“The mechanics of moving the human figure cannot be isolated from the motivational drives and dramatic meaning of any action, without rendering it empty and useless. It is primarily the emotional content of an action that is of interest to an audience, and the goal of animators must be to express this in graphic motion; not merely to move arms, legs and bodies around in space. At this point it will become possible to deal with ‘realistic subjects’ and make them exciting and believable.” - John Hubley

“A designer knows that he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, THE LITTLE PRINCE

“I believe licensing usually cheapens the original creation. When cartoon characters appear on countless products, the public inevitably grows bored and irritated with them, and the appeal and value of the original work are diminished. Nothing dulls the edge of a new and clever cartoon like saturating the market with it…I don’t want some animation studio giving Hobbes an actor’s voice, and I don’t want some greeting card company using Calvin to wish people a happy anniversary, and I don’t want the issue of Hobbes’s reality settled by a doll manufacturer. When everything fun and magical is turned into something for sale, the strip’s world is diminished. CALVIN AND HOBBES was designed to be a comic strip and that’s all I want it to be. It’s the one place where everything works the way I intend it to.” - Bill Watterson, CALVIN & HOBBES

(Thanks to Nick Cross, Harry McCracken and Jim Korkis for the quotes)

Stop-motion legend Ray Harryhausen will discuss and present five newly restored prints of his classic fairy tales which he produced, directed and animated in the forties and fifties at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences on Friday April 23rd at 7:30pm.Mother Goose Stories (1946), The Story of Little Red Riding Hood (1949), Hansel and Gretel (1951), The Story of Rapunzel (1951) and The Story of King Midas (1953) will be presented in new 35mm prints, blown up from the best surviving materials of the 16mm originals by the Academy Film Archive. Additional footage of abandoned projects also will be screened.A panel discussion with Mr. Harryhausen and those who helped him preserve the films will be hosted by Leonard Maltin. This program is part of the Academy’s annual George Pal Lecture on Fantasy In Film. Admission is only $5.00 for the general public. Check the Academy’s website for further details and ticket information.

A Michigan man who had gone to see THE TRIPLETS OF BELLEVILLE was severely beaten after he shushed a man who wouldn’t stop talking in the row behind him. According to this ARTICLE, “the 51-year-old victim was hospitalized with multiple fractured ribs, a collapsed lung and several facial lacerations that required stitches.” Let this be a lesson to potential shushers: if you’re going to tell an obnoxious moviegoer to shut up, make sure it’s an old granny or little child that you could take on in a fight.

There’s a great discussion going on at the CartoonRetro.com forum about classic Disney animator Fred Moore. The thread includes plenty of drawings by Moore and numerous insights into why his work was so appealing. It’s sad to think that while solid appealing draftsmanship was once the foundation of the animation industry, today it is an anomaly that has to fight its way through the vast sea of ugliness and incompetence that is FAMILY GUY, FAIRLY ODDPARENTS, HOME MOVIES and RUGRATS.

René Laloux, French director of the animated cult classic FANTASTIC PLANET (1973) died of a heart attack on March 14. He was 74. An obituary (in French) can be found HERE.

Tying-in with today’s debut of SCOOBY-DOO 2, Slate.com posted a piece trying to figure out the worldwide appeal of Shaggy, Velma and the rest of the Scooby gang.
They talk to group of reporters and TV producers, but are unable to come up with any concrete conclusions. The Washington Post’s Hank Stuever summed it up best: “Kids should meddle, dogs are sweet, life is groovy, and if something scares you, you should confront it.” What needs to be explained about that?
(Thanks to Mark Mayerson for the link.)

Not to dwell on the FILMATION library, but this follow-up story of its sale to ENTERTAINMENT RIGHTS notes that the company plans to use the library to start another “kids channel”. Seeing as Ted Turner began CARTOON NETWORK on the bulk of the Hanna-Barbera library, this is an intriguing idea.But do we need another “kids channel”? The obvious answer is: No. We’ve already got CARTOON NETWORK, NICKTOONS, TOON DISNEY, BOOMERANG… not to mention NICKELODEON, DISNEY CHANNEL, ABC FAMILY, HBO FAMILY, WAM!, DISCOVERY KIDS to name but a few.What we need is a “Classic Cartoon channel” aimed at grown-ups. A TV LAND or TCM for vintage animated films. A home for the UPA cartoons, the Terrytoons, the Harveytoons, Walter Lantz, Screen Gems, Ub Iwerks, Fleischer and Famous Studios libraries; classic independent and international animated shorts and feature films; as well as episodes of Crusader Rabbit, Rocky & Bullwinkle, Roger Ramjet, Beany & Cecil and Q.T. Hush.ENTERTAINMENT RIGHTS and VOOM’S ANIMANIA HD are poised to enter a crowded marketplace - hoping to build a business using classic (and not-so-classic) animation as cornerstone programming. I wish them luck. To paraphrase HE-MAN: “They have the Power!”. The power to create a new kind of animation station - one that doesn’t exist, but can and should.