Wednesday, July 21, 2004
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What grim and violent ancestors these nice Icelandic natives must have had! The landscape is littered with statues recounting their forbidding exploits. It’s quite a contrast from the cheerful and friendly locals I’ve encountered so far, but maybe I’ll meet a dragon-slaying, mad-eyed marauder at some point. Probably in a bar.

I’ll tell you one thing about these guys, though. They must have instilled their progeny with a doctrine of cleanliness that’s been passed down through generations. This is the cleanest place I’ve ever been. The vehicle below is a spray-truck that circles the pond, its only mission to eradicate the omnipresent piles of goose-shit with a high-pressure water stream.

I spend the day writing scripts and shooting movies of my amused co-workers. This really helps me remember their names. I study the pronunciation every night, but certain sounds I’ll never master.

I’m glad these people are all so nice. It makes the separation from all of my friends and loved ones a little more bearable. I’ve only been gone a week and I miss everybody.

Ken Pontac,
Crying in my beer,
Iceland

Just came back from the comic book shop, where I found this new item: a Heckle & Jeckle Christmas Tree Ornament Set!Dark Horse Comics produced this set, which was sculpted by Yoe Studios. Along with their Mighty Mouse ornament, you can have quite a lovely Terrytoon Christmas Tree! And the perfect gift, under that tree? Why this Harvey/Famous Studios Casper statue, of course!

Speaking of ebay, here’s a toy you’ll never see marketed again: Smoking Popeye!This item recently sold on ebay for $2,551. The box says “See his pipe light up as he smokes!”. This was a battery operated tin toy from Marx, that had Popeye waving his right hand, turning his head, raising his lighted pipe with his left hand, and smoke coming out of his mouth! Well, blow me down!Popeye toys are great because the licensees found him so hard to draw, and many of them feature wonderfully grotesque versions of the character. This toy is also interesting because Popeye is wearing his Famous Studios’ white uniform!

This maybe the coolest thing I’ve ever found on ebay (and didn’t win).

A key cel & drawing from the original, rarely seen opening titles from Paramount’s Noveltoon cartoons - Wow! Click on each image to see a larger version.

Film collector Jim Tucker sent me these cool frame grabs from vinatge intermission trailers that used to run in theatres in the 1940s, 50s and 60s.Have a good weekend!

Marvel at the mind-numbing unfunniness of the latest cartoon-turned-live bomb FAT ALBERT. The most telling example of what passes for humor in this film is when a character asks Dumb Donald why he wears a knit-cap over his head, and the character proceeds to offer an explanation. How about this for an explanation: IT’S A FUCKING CARTOON! Give it a break, Hollywood. Stop turning cartoons into shitty live-action movies and then creating logical reasons for why the cartoon characters don’t look right in live-action. Audiences stopped laughing at this type of lameness sometime in the mid-’90s when John Goodman humiliated himself as Fred Flintstone. Dumb Donald wears a damn knit cap over his head because he’s a cartoon character, and I’m not forking over ten bucks to have some ex-SIMPSONS writer tell me otherwise. I can’t wait for the live-action ALVIN AND THE CHIPMUNKS where some two-bit screenwriter is bound to make a crack about whether Alvin wears pants under his long shirt. Perhaps FAT ALBERT’s only saving grace will be its animated segments (under the able supervision of Bert Klein) which I hear are looking quite good. Too bad the animation crew couldn’t work on a project deserving of their time, effort and talent.

Tom Neely, director/animator of BROTHER, CAN YOU SPARE A JOB?, has an art show opening tonight at the Harmony Gallery (5911-1/2 Franklin, Hollywood, CA 90028; next to Counterpoint Records & Books). The reception is from 7-10 pm. He’ll be exhibiting thirty watercolor paintings. The show also features new acrylic-collage works by Scot Nobles. For more details, go HERE.

Will you be in London on October 27? Want to hear Brad Bird speak and then see a sneak preview screening of THE INCREDIBLES? Then don’t miss the London Film Festival.