Harald Siepermann points out an interesting European commercial recently created for Evian called “Waterboy.” The simple, yet effective, spot was designed and directed by the Paris-based design team Soandsau (Sophie Deiss and Jean-Christophe Saurel) and can be viewed HERE.

The man who talked for “the talking magpies” has passed away. Comedian and comic actor Dayton Allen has died. He was a mainstay at the Terrytoons studio who, in addition to Heckle & Jeckle, voiced Astronut, James Hound, Lariat Sam and my favorite of his, Deputy Dawg. He also voiced Professor Weirdo, Fearless Fly and Flukey Luke on The Milton The Monster Show for Hal Seegar. Mark Evanier has a fuller obit on his site.

From the AP: An image of Popeye sits in an exhibit dedicated to the cartoon character at the Museum of Television and Radio in New York Saturday, Nov. 13, 2004. The museum unveiled a retrospective Saturday featuring rarities and collectibles from the cartoon hero’s career as Popeye celebrates his 75th birthday this year. Click here for the full story from the Associated Press.

In the world of online auctions, it’s practically impossible to compete with eBay–but for cartoon and comics fans, Heritage Comics does, with a series of ongoing auctions that includes an amazing array of high-quality stuff. Their site is well-done, and they publish glossy catalogs for some of the auctions that are a treat to peruse whether or not you actually bid on anything.

Up at the moment are scads of terrific vintage animation posters, including ones for Felix, Dinky Doodle, Flip the Frog, Oswald, Krazy Kat, and (drool!) Scrappy shorts. (If you’ve got a spare $45,000 or so, you can get in on the bidding for an original poster for MICKEY’S NIGHTMARE.)

Wonderful stuff–drop by the Heritage site and take a peek.

With those 99¢ Store dvds of Van Beuren’s TOM & JERRY flying off the shelves, interest in this early talkie cartoon duo has never been higher. To the rescue come David Gerstein and Pietro Shakarian with a brand new website devoted to the underappreciated rubber-hose pair.Hosted by Cartoon Research.com, this new Van Beuren Tom & Jerry page is an illustrated filmography, loaded with good information and fun images. David and Pietro are still fine tuning the site and will be adding a few final pieces to the filmography within the next few weeks - but it’s officially open to the public as of today. Good work, guys!

Mike Mallory dropped us this note:

Ed Kemmer, star of “Space Patrol” on TV and the cheesy sci-fi film “The Spider”, has died at 84. What’s not as well known is that he acted out Prince Phillip in the live action study footage film made for Disney’s “Sleeping Beauty.”

Crusader Rabbit TV syndication salesmen have a drink and blow off a little steam (circa 1957). Click on image for larger picture.
(Image courtesy of TheImaginaryWorld.com)

Here’s something exciting. Joe Horne is producing new Flash episodes of THE ADVENTURES OF STEVIE & ZOYA. It seems only appropriate to post this while I’m in New York, since Joe is a native NY’er and School of Visual Arts grad, not to mention that the cartoon is set in a futuristic New Yorx, NY. The original STEVIE & ZOYA interstitials appeared on MTV in the late-’80s, the network’s first animated serial. These new episodes don’t look anything like the old ones, but Horne has always been a visual experimenter. His personal projects - MTV’s THE SPECIALISTS (for LIQUID TELEVISION), ESPERANTO FAMILY (for MTV Europe) and the “El Hombre” segments from PEEWEE’S PLAYHOUSE - all have highly distinctive styling. The new STEVIE & ZOYA are no exception and it’s some of the funkiest Web animation I’ve seen in a long time. Guerilla Flash cartooning one could call it - raw and immediate - Joe creates each episode in under a week, making them during his spare time in the evenings; during the days he’s working on Bill Kopp’s Tom & Jerry revamp at WB.

Understanding the production process of these shorts helps explain the unique visual results. Each episode is like an animated improvisation. After deciding the rough plot and action of each short, Horne creates a list of characters, props and backgrounds he needs for the episode. He then plugs the required items into Google’s photo search engine and finds all the artwork (i.e. photos) on the Internet. These photos are then combined with his own artwork. It is a Webcartoon in the truest sense; the cartoons would be impossible to produce without the images he finds online. To add that extra personal touch, Joe also creates the soundtracks himself in Acid.

He’s produced five episodes to date, but plans to make quite a few more. According to Horne, the impetus to create new episodes of STEVIE & ZOYA was quite spontaneous: “Glen Murakami walked up to me one day and said, ‘You should make some more of those Stevie and Zoya cartoons, Joe.’” And so he did. Thank you, Glen. At the moment, the cartoons are only being emailed to friends, but if anybody wants to post the Flash shorts on their site for free, Joe told me he’s down with the idea of sharing them with a larger audience. Drop me a line and I’ll hook you up with him.