Calling all filmmakers: The Nicktoons Network Animation Festival is accepting animated shorts (up to 10 minutes in length), between now and May 31, 2006 for its 3rd annual competition. This year Frederator Studios is partnering with both Nicktoons and Kidscreen Magazine to select the shorts for the fest.The festival will kick off with a two-day live event at the Nicktoons Studios in Burbank, Calif. on Saturday, Aug. 12 and Sunday, Aug. 13, 2006. Selected entries will air on the Nicktoons channel during August and one will be selected to win a $10,000 Grand Prize. Rita Sreet and Eric Homan are co-producing and judges (to be announced) will include Seth (Family Guy) MacFarlane. Any animation technique is acceptable: Flash, traditional cel, stop motion or CG. For more info go the Nicktoons Fest website or check out their blog.

Tomorrow afternoon, Saturday, April 29th, ASIFA-Hollywood is holding a special film program focusing on the music in classic Hollywood cartoons. Animation historian Daniel Goldmark will be there to discuss the music and musicians behind our favorite cartoons. Bring along your copy of Daniel’s great new book, TUNES FOR ‘TOONS and get it autographed. Meet us at 3:00pm, over at the American Film Institute, in the Steven Ross Screening Room (Warner Bros. Building). The address is 2021 N. Western Ave. in Hollywood, CA (a block north of Franklin Ave.). Directions to AFI campus HERE. ASIFA-HOLLYWOOD members admitted FREE, non-members gotta pay $10 bucks.

If the goodie-goodie Harvey Comics aren’t punishment enough for you, then this news ought to brighten your day. Apparently the mischevious antics of Little Audrey, Little Dot, Wendy the Witch and even Richie Rich contained the requisite comeuppance spanking scene enough times for someone to start a website devoted to them. These and other kinky discipline sequences in comics are part of spankingtoons.com.(Thanks to our pal Milton Knight for bringing this perversity to our attention)

The debate over Disney’s SONG OF THE SOUTH rages on. Though it’s not much of a debate… everyone wants it released on home video. Song-of-the-south.net has a great FAQ to get you up to speed. Golden Age Cartoons has a continuous thread on the subject. And of course there is the petition. Brett Wickham just wrote a passionate plea, on LaughingPlace.com, for a common sense release of the film:

Come on! Everybody knows the film was conceived in a less socially evolved time. If you truly don’t think people will “consider it in the context that it was made” then frame it for them. “Song of the South” deserves a proper seat at the celebration of a more evolved Disney - a U.S release on every available format for everyone to see.

Speaking of common sense, what kind of image is that (above) to place in the original lobby cards for the film? Three little boys, facing away from the camera, staring at poor little Ginny who has been pushed in the mud. Doesn’t this film have enough controversy?

Thad Komorowski has posted three classic Columbia cartoons on his blog Identifying Animators and Their Scenes: THE FOX AND GRAPES (1941, dir: Frank Tashlin), CHOLLY POLLY (1942, dir: Alec Geiss) and THE SCHOONER THE BETTER (1946, dir: Howard Swift). Interesting sidenote: Chuck Jones acknowledged that he based his Roadrunner/Coyote series on the Tashlin short FOX AND GRAPES. These cartoons are next to impossible to see nowadays in the US so enjoy them on Thad’s blog.

The largest literary festival in the US, the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, takes place this weekend (April 29-30) at the UCLA campus. On Sunday, at 10am, I’ll be speaking at the festival’s only animation-related panel, called “Animation: New Frontiers in the Art & Medium.” Honestly, I have no idea what that topic means, but at 10am on a Sunday, I can hardly be expected to know what anything means so it shouldn’t be much of a problem. The panel is hosted by esteemed cartoon historian and NY TIMES animation writer Charles Solomon. Other panelists include authors Daniel Goldmark (TUNES FOR ‘TOONS: MUSIC AND THE HOLLYWOOD CARTOON), Mark Cotta Vaz (THE INVISIBLE ART and THE ART OF THE INCREDIBLES) and Norman Klein (SEVEN MINUTES: THE LIFE AND DEATH OF THE AMERICAN ANIMATED CARTOON).

Admission to the festival and the panel are both FREE. Other events that may interest BREW readers are the following: “Ray Harryhausen in Conversation with Richard Schickel” (Saturday, 10am), “Chip Kidd in Conversation with Charles Solomon” (Saturday, 11:30am), and “Mike Mignola in Conversation with Nick Owchar” (Sunday, 2:30 pm).

Any day now ANIMATION BLAST 9 should be wrapped up and sent to the printer. I’ve passed my biggest personal hurdle on the issue - the article on animation storyman John Dunn-and it’s well on its way to being completed, with only a few more interviews to follow through on. This week I expanded the magazine from 100 to 108 pages to accomodate a larger piece on Dunn (it’s 32 pages now). Even with that expansion, the longest piece in the issue is still Taylor Jessen’s incredible 33-page history of the animated feature TWICE UPON A TIME. It’s going to be a good issue.

Here are a few random gag drawings and sketches by John Dunn that I had to cut out of the issue recently.

(click on pics for bigger versions)