Animation fan Kenny Bullard has recently been posting some terrific, difficult-to-find independent animation on YouTube, including Will Vinton and Bob Gardiner’s CLOSED MONDAYS (1974), Borge Ring’s ANNA AND BELLA (1984), Osamu Tezuka’s JUMPING (1984), Bill Kroyer’s TECHNOLOGICAL THREAT (1988), and Henry Selick’s SLOW BOB IN THE LOWER DIMENSIONS (1990).

Best of all, Kenny has posted two rare Oscar winners from 1960 and 1961: Gene Deitch’s adaptation of Jules Feiffer’s illustrated story MUNRO, and Dušan Vukotić’s ERSATZ, which was the first foreign film to win the animated short Oscar. If this isn’t an excellent use of YouTube, then I don’t know what is.

MUNRO (1960)

ERSATZ (1961)

Story artist Jenny Lerew has posted a perceptive rant about mediocrity in TV animation. Of course, she’s right, but unfortunately I don’t think many decision-makers in the TV animation biz are listening. In her piece, Jenny discusses Brad Bird’s superb FAMILY DOG special from the ’80s, which is happily now available in its entirety on YouTube. Check it out below.

Reason #7 (of 12) for the Implosion: The trailer for EVERYONE’S HERO.

Don’t ask…because I don’t know.

UPDATE: Mike Guerrero writes to let me know these are called Cubees, and they’re produced by a company called Takara. They were sold at the Disney Store for a while.

UPDATE 2: Cabel Sasser posted on YouTube this video of an even more extreme Disney Cubees display which he saw recently in Japan recently.

Cartoon film collector Joe Busam recently post this slide show of his progress painting a nursery, in the style of a generic early-1930s cartoon, for his soon to be born grandson. Joe told me the backstory on this home project:

When daughter Susi asked me to paint a mural for the nursery, she requested 1930s cartoon characters. Specifically she wanted the style of the Harman & Ising WB cartoons. We both have always love them for their style and unique energy. However she didn’t want recognizable characters. Once we established a theme I went to work researching the cartoons for barnyard animals. I then put together the farm kids who are actually the two main characters from Pagan Moon in disguise. Originally the color scheme was going to be based on two strip Technicolor. As it turns out Susi liked the original B&W layouts so much that when I added color it seemed anti climatic to her. Full spectrum color turned out to be too much. In desperation, I added a tint to the original B&W art and that clicked with both of us. Now that I see it enlarged on the wall I think it was a wise choice. More colors would have been pretty overpowering.

Busam is an animator at the PPS Group, a commercial production house in Cincinnati, Ohio. He also works in digital film restoration/preservation and last year produced a dvd, Monster Kid Home Movies, which has received a lot of positive reaction.I’d love to be able to hire him to do my whole house this way.(Thanks, Joe Dante and Tim Lucas)

Toronto-based Chuck Gammage Animation recently produced a couple appealing and cartoony hand-drawn PSAs for “Sport-in-a-Box”, a new initiative of the United Nations Association in Canada.

The “Spider and Fly” spot (watch HERE) was animated by Sam Chou, the “Zebra and Lion” spot (watch HERE) was animated by Blair Kitchen. Both were designed by illustrator Hal Mayforth.

Mark Mayerson has a short but insightful commentary about the (sad) state of CG feature animation in the US and the hope that exists beyond the current slate of mind-numbingly repetitive and uninspired CG filmmaking:

We had A Bug’s Life and Antz and now The Ant Bully. We had Finding Nemo and Shark Tale. We had Madagascar and The Wild. And we’re due for a plague of rats. There’s Ratatouille, Flushed Away, Rats Amore and One Rat Short.

When you take the genre conventions and add settings or subject matter that have already been done, you’re in danger of boring the audience.

Something very interesting happened in the comics field that may relate to what’s going on in animation. From the 1960’s onwards, comics fans argued for longer, more serious works. While Marvel and DC, the two main companies, did adapt to a degree, they stuck with superheroes and continued to market to their established fan base.Cartoonists finally took matters into their own hands and started doing personal work that broke out of genre conventions. Between the importation of Manga and mainstream publisher interest in the graphic novel, Marvel and DC have been reduced to minor players in terms of sales and artistic importance.

You won’t see this as bonus material on the LOONEY TUNES GOLDEN COLLECTION dvd series.Here is a brief sequence from the 1944 George Pal Puppetoon, Jasper Goes Hunting featuring a rare, authorized, cross-over of one studio’s star cartoon character appearing in another studio’s animated short subject series. This cross-over was approved shortly before Leon Schlesinger sold his studio, and characters, lock stock and barrel to Warner Bros. Nothing like this would happen again until Daffy Duck and Porky Pig Meet the Groovie Goolies in 1972 - and the cameo appearances in Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (1988). Mel Blanc does the vocals (of course) and Robert McKimson drew the animation. Paramount owns the rights to this film, all the Puppetoons, Fleischer cartoons and Terrytoons… (don’t get me started)… so don’t hold your breath expecting to see these on dvd anytime soon.