Mike Judge and Don Hertzfeldt’s THE ANIMATION SHOW is back for a second edition, and it’s another fine film line-up. They recently announced the program and opening theatrical dates at TheAnimationShow.com. Included in this year’s festival: the terrific WARD 13 which Rita wrote about yesterday, the debut of Don Hertzfeldt’s epic short THE MEANING OF LIFE, the impressive-looking CG short FALLEN ART, and films by the likes of Bill Plympton, Amanda Forbis, Wendy Tilby and Georges Schwizgebel. Fireworks will be provided by Pes.

All that, plus this excellent poster by Tim Biskup…

The United Nations has announced the release this week of The Three Amigos, a series of 20 short, professionally produced animated Public Service Announcements designed to encourage the use of condoms to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS throughout the world. The three animated condom characters are named - get this - Shaft, Stretch and Dick.

“The launch today at the United Nations by Firdaus Kharas, Producer and Director of the series, signifies the start of the world’s largest integrated behaviour modification programme. The Three Amigos is a groundbreaking HIV/AIDS prevention strategy, strongly supported by Nobel Laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who has called the PSA’s “a powerful communicating tool”, has written an open letter to broadcasters around the world which he calls “an impassioned plea” to “use these PSA’s. They cannot be played enough”. The Three Amigos is currently playing continuously in South Africa, the Netherlands and Canada. As of today, an international roll-out will offer the PSA’s free to broadcasters, NGO’s and community groups in any country.”

I’m a huge stop-motion fan, so was interested to score a DVD copy of Australian filmmaker Peter Cornwell’s WARD 13 last week. In addition to some impressive awards in 2004 for this 14:35 minute-long mental trip, Cornwell’s short boasts some pretty spectacular fight scenes. The website for the film is also pretty tricked-out (www.ward13.com.au) and includes a few tidbits of backstage info like:

“The seemingly endless corridors of the Art Deco hospital in WARD 13 are in fact just three 75cm-long modules which clamped together on a metal L-profile slide rail. In many shots, the camera appears to track smoothly with the characters as they run or motor down the corridors. In fact, both camera and figures were stationary, and it was the corridor modules that were moved along with each frame. The size of the movement varied with the apparent speed of the characters. As each module moved out of frame, it was carefully detached from the others and reclamped at the front, perhaps with different model furniture and props or a fake door flat.”

Definitely worth seeing for the animation in the action scenes.

Yesterday while Steve Jobs revealed the new iPod in San Francisco, the electronic wizards in Japan revealed their own cutting edge technology. For the cutting edge of your butter knife, that is!This new “super toaster” introduced by Sanyo imprints Winnie The Pooh on your white bread. Now you can have your Pooh and eat it too!

Daily visual inspiration for the rest of ‘05. Sweet! Here’s an awesome BLOG where somebody (”Filboid Sudge”) is uploading the 1944 day-by-day illustrated diary of animation great Irv Spence. Irv was an animator in Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera’s Tom & Jerry unit at the time, and he kept the diary throughout the entire year of ‘44, documenting daily events at MGM and in his personal life. This was during the height of WWII so there’s plenty of references to victory gardens, gas shortages and the like. I’ve seen the entire diary and there’s beautiful energetic drawings throughout, somewhat reminiscent of George Lichty’s newspaper comic GRIN & BEAR IT.

One of the gigs I have had the privilege to work on recently was THE NICKTOONS FILM FESTIVAL (last episode on this Sunday at 7:00 pm, PST) with Frederator Studios. As a co-producer, I got to screen a ton of really great cartoons from around the world. And while we were still doing our call for entries I got to ask my friends for suggestions on shorts they’d like to see submitted. One great friend, Rick Sayre, said, “You would be totally hip to run WEEBL AND BOB.”

Now, if you don’t know Rick there are three interesting things to consider about him. One: he can find the best chocolate and wine in any town in the world - always an important asset for a good friend. Two: he’s one of those genius types that works over at that little old shop called Pixar and served as supervising technical director on THE INCREDIBLES. Three: you try to listen when a cool guy like that gives you advice.

Ever since Rick clued me in to Weebl, a.k.a. U.K.-based Jonti Picking, I’ve been hooked on the Flash series WEEBL AND BOB as well as his other Monty Python-esque and perversely silly shorts like THE LORD 3. The WEEBL AND BOB series definitely has its particular following, but I highly recommend it simply for its shameless surrealism-meets-every-ball-shaped-guy world. Plus, if you want to get a full dose of Weebl-ism, there’s a brand new DVD out on the site. (Go to http://www.weebl.jolt.co.uk/)

After you check out WEEBL AND BOB, I also suggest going HERE and checking out the “toons” header. There you’ll not only find odd little gems like the can’t-get-that-damn-music-out-of-your-head KENYA and a really super out-there series from Michael Firth called SALAD FINGERS.

The next time someone chides you for collecting stuff, send them to this website.Scroll down to see this guy’s impressive “Cartoon Figures Collection” (near the bottom of this long-loading page). And you call yourself a collector?

Animator Joanna Priestley is celebrating 20 years as an innovative independent artist with a new 2-DVD anthology of her work. The two discs, titled FIGHTING GRAVITY and RELATIVE ORBITS, collect 16 of her animated short films, and contain many bonus features, including 4 documentaries providing behind-the-scenes glimpses into the animation process. She is self-distributing the discs and packed them with high-quality transfers and fun bonus features. Her unique animated films are full of compelling themes dealing with gender, love, aging, human rights, and candy(!).Joanna Priestley is the founding president of ASIFA-Northwest, and she runs an apprenticeship program through her studio in Portland, Oregon.Please visit www.PrimoPix.com for more information.