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While Cartoon Network continues to abandon cartoons in favor of live-action productions, this article in yesterday’s NY TIMES reaffirms how important animation is to Nickelodeon’s success. These paragraphs stood out in particular:

“Animation really is the heart and soul of our business,” Ms. [Cyma] Zarghami said. It accounts, she said, for more than 70 percent of annual revenues from advertising and licensing of consumer products.

Witness the results from the network’s recent 24-hour “SpongeBob” marathon, capped by a single new episode and the first television broadcast of “The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie” (2004). Those “SpongeBob” episodes accounted for 25 of the 40 highest-rated shows on cable for the week, each drawing from 3.3 million to 6.6 million viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research.

The TIMES piece was “coincidentally” timed with today’s announcement by Nickelodeon of their upcoming slate of animated productions. Among their new shows is EL TIGRE: THE ADVENTURES OF MANNY RIVERA, created by my pals Sandra Equihua and Jorge Gutierrez (pictured above). I haven’t seen any of the episodes yet (the show premieres March 2, 2007), but visually, I’m pleased to report that EL TIGRE features some of the most kick-ass eye candy I’ve seen in a TV production in recent years.

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LEN LYE’S PEANUT VENDOR

December 12, 2006 5:45 pm

Stop-motion animation teacher/historian Ken Priebe (The Art of Stop Motion Animation) has posted on YouTube what he calls “the creepiest puppet film ever made”, an experimental piece by filmmaker Len Lye in 1933. Don’t watch it with the lights off…

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Richard Williams Interviews Ken Harris

December 12, 2006 12:15 pm

Thanks to digital tools available nowadays like Flash and various CG packages, everybody knows how to move a character, but very few understand how to make a character act and emote. There’s a lot more thought involved in the latter, as is made clear in this insightful mid-1970s discussion between animation legends Richard Williams and Ken Harris. And don’t forget, Ken Harris has an entire website dedicated to his work at MasterAnimator.com.

The Harris and Williams photo above and the link to the interview both come courtesy of Hans Bacher.

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Fantasia Overrated?

December 12, 2006 1:59 am

“[FANTASIA] is a mishmash of pedantic narration and erratic tone (the finale’s soul-sucking demon gives the death of Bambi’s mom a run for the money in the childhood trauma department), and, frankly, some of the animated sequences now seem dangerously akin to screensavers.” That’s the assessment according to PREMIERE magazine’s list of the 20 most overrated movies of all time.

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Brew Holiday Gift Guide: Laugh-O-Grams

December 11, 2006 3:45 pm

The sixth in a series of holiday gift-giving suggestions from your pals at Cartoon Brew.The big video event this week for Disney buffs is the release of the new Disney Treasures wave – particularly the incredible must-have More Silly Symphonies (take my word for it – you want this!). However, Inkwell Images just released a perfect companion piece which will also make a great gift (to yourself or that animation geek closest to your heart), The Legendary Laugh-O-Grams Fairy Tales. I just got my copy and it may be Ray Pointer’s best release yet. The DVD contains exceptional copies of four of Disney’s earliest known cartoon shorts (from 1922 – way before Mickey, Oswald and Alice). Bonus materials include Disney’s first educational film, Tommy Tuckers Tooth (also from ‘22) and an excerpt of a rare audio interview with Laugh-O-Gram employee Rudy Ising. Perfect accompaniment to the above mentioned Silly Symphonies dvd and Neal Gabler’s excellent new Disney biography.

Cartoon Brew Holiday Gift Guide
Stuart Ng Books
Animated Soviet Propaganda dvd
Terr’ble Thompson book
Scott Bradley cd
Silly Symphonies book

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Live-Action Year Without A Santa Claus

December 11, 2006 11:54 am

From the “What Were They Thinking Department”: NBC has produced a live-action remake of the 1970s Rankin/Bass holiday special THE YEAR WITHOUT A SANTA CLAUS. The special premieres tonight. I think the still above of the Heat Miser and Snow Miser tells you everything you need to know about the production values on this new special.

(Thanks, Mark)

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Genndy Tartakovsky’s Nicorette Commercial

December 11, 2006 1:23 am

This Nicorette commercial is the first spot I’ve seen directed by Genndy Tartakovsky (DEXTER’S LAB, SAMURAI JACK) since he became connected with The Orphanage. I’m somewhat ambivalent about the spot at the moment, but the graphics are undeniably slick and there’s some snappy timing throughout. Besides Tartakovsky’s direction credit, other talent on the spot includes Webster Colcord (animation supervisor), Brian Kulig (cg supervisor), and Jonathan Rothbart (vfx supervisor).

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