RE: Your new “Scissor Sisters” music video
Nobody wants to see a male striptease in animation…EVER.
PS: The year is 2004, not 1984. Stop re-using stale Eighties character designs.

Look familiar?
It shouldn’t. These are images (mainly original title graphics) from the LOONEY TUNES GOLDEN COLLECTION V.2 that have been restored to these classic cartoons for the first time in over 50 years. And wait’ll you see the restored versions of these cartoons that follow the titles. If for no other reason, this is why you should support the Golden Collection series - which goes on sale Election Day, November 2nd.

Saw THE INCREDIBLES tonight. The last time I felt this good was after seeing THE IRON GIANT.Brad Bird taps into my inner geek like no one else. I loved the film, which - along with the recent X-MEN movies, the Raimi SPIDER-MAN films, the 1941 CAPTAIN MARVEL serial and Fleischer SUPERMAN cartoons - ranks with the best superhero movies ever made. If you are a Pixar fan or a comic book freak; if you loved THE IRON GIANT, love superheroes, CG movies, great art direction, amazing visuals, action films, personal dramas, family films, and great fillmmaking… you will love THE INCREDIBLES. From it’s grainy 16mm newsreel opening to its 2-D stylized end title crawl - it’s a blast. It blows away those Soprano sharks and patriotic puppets. Pixar is six for six. Yay!

This 3-hour Windows Media lecture by character designer Chen Yi-Chang (MULAN, TARZAN, ATLANTIS) contains a lot of solid insights. Also, here’s a couple articles worth reading: a 1975 interview with Ken Harris conducted by Richard Williams (posted on the promising new blog SewardStreet.com) and this 1990 interview with Mark Kausler conducted by John Cawley for his book HOW TO CREATE ANIMATION.

Animation historian and ASIFA-San Francisco prez Karl Cohen saw THE INCREDIBLES yesterday. Here’s what he thinks of it:

Brad Bird is just about to be recognized as one of America’s greatest feature directors. The last time I had so much fun seeing a feature for the first time was when I saw the original STAR WARS. Pixar’s THE INCREDIBLES is that good. I was grinning from ear to ear most of the time and was on the edge of my seat half the time. It is full of action, adventure, delightful twists and turn, amazing inventions, great surprises, etc. Never a dull moment is an understatement. It combines the best elements of fun from films that range from James Bond to Spider-Man. It combines those elements into a new entertainment package that is simply incredible. Pixar’s animation seems flawless, the voice actors are exceptional, the actors can really convey a full range of emotions, the background art is stunning - in short a film this great only comes along once every decade or two.

I saw a check disc a few weeks ago, but tonight I got a physical copy of the finished product in my hot little hands. The LOONEY TUNES GOLDEN COLLECTION Volume 2 is (in my humble opinion) even better than the first volume released last year. Better cartoons, fantastic restorations, great sound, improved packaging, and amazing bonus materials.Obviously I’m a bit biased. I was a consulting producer on the project, contributed to several on-screen sound bites and audio track commentaries. You can read about the contents elsewhere - I’ll just tell you I’m proud of this beautiful product. Is it perfect? No. The package artwork could be better, the menu graphics are… well, ugly, and I made a small boo-boo in one of my commentaries (I refer to My Dream Is Yours at one point on my commentary for YOU OUGHT TO BE IN PICTURES, but say Two Guys From Texas instead - my bad). There is also a reference on the packaging to disc 4 containing SINKIN’ IN THE BATHTUB. This was an error. SINKIN’ will appear on a future volume (though fans of earlier black & white Looney Tunes will be happy with numerous clips from Foxy, Buddy and Beans cartoons sprinkled in the various bonus documentaries - heck, there’s even a few “incorrect” clips from TIN PAN ALLEY CATS placed on the docs, for good measure).The new short, DAFFY DUCK FOR PRESIDENT is a real surprise! It’s funny, well made, and… educational! Fits right in the dvd along side OLD GLORY and SO MUCH FOR SO LITTLE.LOONEY TUNES GOLDEN COLLECTION Volume 2 will live up to your high expectations. “Thank you’s” for making this dvd set a reality should go to George Feltenstein, who oversaw the project for Warner Home Video; Constantine Nasr and his team at New Wave Entertainment for putting the bonus documentaries together with such care; Rick Gehr, the unsung hero behind the restoration process; and all the experts who lent their time and knowledge to making this set teriffic: Michael Barrier, Greg Ford, John Kricfalusi, Milt Gray, Mark Kausler, Daniel Goldmark, Keith Scott, Ruth Clampett, Stan Freberg, June Foray, Leonard Maltin, Willie Ito, Bill Melendez, Corny Cole and many others I’m forgetting at the moment.No matter what happens on Election Day, this dvd is guaranteed to make you feel better. Buy it!

From the current issue of TIME Magazine:

“Brad and I were in the first year of the character-animation program,” recalls Lasseter, “and we bonded with our love of cartoons. At that time animation was thought of as something just for children. But Brad and I believed animation was for everybody. That’s the way Walt Disney made his films. That’s the way Chuck Jones made his cartoons.”

Read the whole piece by Richard Corliss here.

I had the pleasure of meeting Harald Siepermann at Annecy earlier this year. He’s another one of those incredible animation talents whose work is instantly familiar though his name may not be. In recent years, he’s contributed character designs to many Disney features including BROTHER BEAR, MULAN, TREASURE PLANET and TARZAN. Here’s a few of his designs from the latter film:

He’s also one of the co-creators of a popular European comic/animation character named Alfred J. Kwak. The Kwak comics and animated series never made it into the US so I was rather unaware of what it was all about when I first met him. A British friend at Annecy however was duly impressed to meet Siepermann at the festival and tells me that the show is one of the most intelligent and well-produced children’s animated series he’s ever seen.

So when Harald emailed recently to tell me about the newly released Alfred J. Kwak illustrated book, I asked if he could send over a short bit about the character’s history that I could share with Brew readers like myself who may not be familiar with the character. I’ll let Harald tell you the story…

Alfred J. Kwak, the main character of the book, was born as a stage character for a UNICEF children’s musical that Herman van Veen, a popular Dutch entertainer/singer, was asked to create in the early-Eighties. He was not visualised; Herman was doing all the voices and characters by himself, very Danny Kaye-like. After making Herman’s acquaintance backstage one day , I started to do comic strips with the duck, funny enough in collaboration with Hans Bacher [production designer, MULAN].

We were approached by a producer to work on a concept for a 52-part TV-series. The series was produced in Japan, directed by Saito-San, who also was the director of the legendary KIMBA THE WHITE LION. It premiered worldwide (excluding the US) in 1990 and won numerous prizes, mostly because we kept the socio-critical theme of the stageshows. We had episodes about apartheid, whaling, greenhouse-effects and lots of other issues, even about the Third Reich (Hitler was a crow in our show).

This new book, ABGEMACHT IST ABGEMACHT, which in English might be called A DEAL IS A DEAL, deals with the rights for children, ratified by the United Nations fifteen years ago, and plays against the backdrop of a war over oil. Similarities to recent events are absolutely intentional, though we never mention words like Iraq, Bush or Islam. Even if this all sounds very educational, 99% of everything connected to Alfred is purely fun and entertainment. Only if you look a bit deeper, will you see the issues.

The book is not available in the US, but can be picked up from Amazon-Germany.