Disney’s Chicken Little
getting inflatedThere is nothing more American, and commercial, than the good ol’ Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. And it’s also a great chance to see some of our favorite cartoons stars blown up as 80 foot balloons!This year Spongebob Squarepants, Disney’s Chicken Little and the Red & Yellow M&Ms will lumber along Broadway, joining such animated floats as Sesame Street muppets (PBS), Tutenstein (NBC Discovery Kids) and Barbie (If you count those CG direct-to-video movies as animated).

My interest in animation and my day job as editor of PC WORLD and DIGITAL WORLD usually don’t intersect much. Here’s a nifty exception: Our Web site has a short but nice story by my colleague Narasu Rebbapragada on Rick Sayre, Pixar’s Supervising Technical Director. He talks a bit about the technology behind THE INCREDIBLES–and the technology in his own life, which is why we’re running the article.

One of the most exciting developments in the on-line animation world as of late is the emergence of animation artist blogs. These have been popping up left and right, and I have a feeling there’s still many more of them to come. No doubt plenty of artists already have websites where they post their artwork and resumes, but these blogs are an entirely different animal. They are current and alive, not a static gallery of images, but a powerful communication medium - forums for sharing ideas and techniques, inspiring artwork, gripes and opinions, and educating one another about the art and business of cartoons. True to the personal nature of blogs, each one focuses on different aspects of the art, reflecting the tastes of the individuals running them, but what they all share in common is that they offer an utterly unique perspective on animation that can’t be found anywhere else.

With animation so incompetently represented in the mainstream media (the most recent example, this article), blogs have the added benefit of allowing artists to directly communicate with and educate the public about cartoons, rather than relying on filtered and ineffective third-party reportage. Here are some of the newest arrivals on the scene: The Ward-O-Matic by director/designer Ward Jenkins (of Primal Screen in Atlanta), Punch Pants by the Ghostbot director/designer collective comprised of Roque Ballesteros, Alan Lau and Brad Rau, and Seward Street and Persistence of Vision by DreamWorks animators Jim Hull and Ethan Hurd.

BG painter Seonna Hong (MY LIFE AS A TEENAGE ROBOT, TEACHER’S PET) gets some love from the NY TIMES for her solo show “Animus,” currently at the 5BE Gallery (504 W. 22nd Street, 2nd Floor, Chelsea, NY).
(via art.blogging.la)

One is one of my least favorite world figures; the other is my favorite cartoon voice actor. It’s probably a sign I’m a nut, but as I was looking at the photo with an MSNBC report on Arafat’s failing health, my first response was, “Hey, he looks like Mel Blanc!” But you be the judge…

If you want to see DAFFY DUCK FOR PRESIDENT, the new four-minute cartoon based on a 1997 Chuck Jones book, you could go out and blow a lot of money on the LOONEY TUNES GOLDEN COLLECTION VOLUME TWO set. OK, you’re getting that set anyhow, and should, but if you haven’t gotten around to it yet (or, like me, are waiting for an Amazon shipment), you can still see the new Daffy cartoon. Yahoo lets you watch it online here, in an apparently exclusive deal with Warner Bros.. (If you still hold out hope that an unexpected recount may make the mallard our next president, you might also want to check out DaffyForPresident.com, which offers an MP3 of a hip-hop campaign song and some screen savers, among other items.)Chuck, despite not being with us any more, is the only guy credited in DAFFY DUCK FOR PRESIDENT’s opening, but the short was directed by Spike Brandt and Tony Cervone. It’s an odd combination of comedy and civics lesson that vaguely reminds me of Chuck’s 1939 short OLD GLORY (which is also in the GOLDEN COLLECTION 2 set, by the way).This cartoon does feel like it’s based on a book that Chuck Jones did in 1997–which I don’t mean as a compliment–but it’s a pleasant way to spend a few minutes, which I can’t say about all the cartoons that Jones was actually involved in as an active participant in his later years. The backgrounds and color styling are particularly nice.You do sort of get the feeling that the only reason anyone saw the 1997 book as material for a new short is the Jones connection, which makes one wonder: Are there any other Jones stories out there that someone is going to decide need to be adapted into a cartoon? Was WILLIAM THE BACKWARDS SKUNK ever animated?

Turner Classic Movies will debut a new monthly half hour program tomorrow morning (Saturday 10/6 at 9:30am EST/ 6:30am PST), CARTOON ALLEY, a showcase for classic cartoons in the Turner library.Now that Cartoon Network has abandoned their classic library (Boomerang doesn’t count in my book - and besides, the rumors of that channel going with exclusively pre-school programming have been getting hotter with each passing month), it’s great to see TCM pick up the ball, and hopefully present these cartoons as the classic films they are. The first outing highlights Warner Bros. cartoons with Clark Gable charicatures (Hollywood Steps Out, Coo-Coo Nut Grove, Malibu Beach Party), the second episode (in December) contains Christmas themed cartoons and the third (during January) features various Oscar nominees. The show is tucked away at wee hours so set your VCR’s & TiVo machines. Consult the schedule on their website for showtimes.

The trailer for Pixar’s final Disney release, CARS (Directed by John Lasseter) is online here.