Direct TV posted this press release on May 23rd with a somewhat apt misprint in its network listings.

Considering the direction Cartoon Network is going with live action programming, this “typo” may portend the shape of things to come.

You read about it in Flip, and now you can see it in person. Thursday night, Jerry Beck and his 16mm projector are the opening act for Janet Klein & Her Parlor Boys at the Steve Allen Theatre in Hollywood.

Janet and her boys play authentic 20s jazz music live, and I start the proceedings by providing about 45 minutes of vintage musical shorts and cartoons in glorious monophonic, non-digital 16mm movie projection. It’s a lot of fun - and if you’re in the area, I highly recommend you join the crowd. Janet and her band are pretty amazing! Here’s that fun clip again, of Janet teaching you how to play Tonight You Belong To Me on the Ukulele.

Thursday, June 7th, 8:00 pm
The Steve Allen Theatre
4773 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood
(West of Vermont, across from Barnsdale Park)
$15 323-666-4268 for reservations
More info at JanetKlein.com

Look out, Jiminy Cricket!

I think this promotional paper mask from the 50s, being offer for sale on Toyzine.com, is scary enough to kill insects on sight!

(Thanks, Adam Blake)

Leonard Maltin, aware of my interest in old-time animation publicity materials, sent along this image (above) from Benjamin Hampton’s 1931 book A History of the Motion Picture.

This picture got me thinking about how, back then, each individual cartoon short was treated as special as a live action feature. Stills, publicity art, posters, sometimes lobby cards and newspaper ads were created for individual cartoon shorts. And all that old promotional material seems fun to me, like the image above.

We’ve come a long way since then.

Today, Cartoon Network and Disney Channel may mount an occasional bus poster or billboard for one of their new series (mainly in New York or L.A. to attract advertisers), but publicity for individual episodes is pretty rare. There are some exceptions to the rule: The Simpsons has always done it; Frederator creates original postcards for each of its shorts. But those are special cases. I guess my point is, promotion of animated TV series, not to mention individual episodes, is practically non existant these days.

It’s just one of the differences between the business then and the business now. And it’s one of the reasons why I prefer the business then.

Jake Friedman sent this one in. Above is a still from Chuck Jones Now Hear This (1963). Below is a Morse Code decoder. Jake says:

I spent a few minutes trying to decode one with the other, hoping it spelled “Eddie Selzer eats sh-t” or something like that. Maybe Brew readers will see something in it…?

Any ideas? A prize to the reader with the cleverest “translation”. (Winner will be at the sole discretion of the Brewmasters. No deadlines, we’ll pick a winner sometime next week).

Here is some nice eye candy. This music video by Faithless, which I believe premiered at the Cannes Film Festival last week, for a Coca Cola marketing operation (Coke’s M5 project), is dazzling. French designers Sara Prince, Pierre Marie, the animator Emmanuel Linderer conceived it. Paranoid NOW, a group of designers, animators, directors and graphic artists, led by Sophie Gateau and François Vogel, produced it.

Check out the video here and great behind-the-scenes info here.

From our friends at Mental Floss.

If you think the animation business is tough, try selling blankets.

Michael Marrer of Brackney Hills Knitting obtained a licensing agreement with Classic Media for Rocky & Bullwinkle & Friends and Dudley Do-Right knitted products. He knew this would be a niche market, but he’s been surprised to see just how difficult it would be to sell them. He wrote me me for some advice:

We are very frustrated in finding ways to get the word out. To date we have not had any inquiries about them. So … how to reach the Rocky & Bullwinkle fans out there? We are working on some
sweaters to be released this fall, plus we have a Wossamotta U design coming for blankets too. More character designs will come out once we see some sort of action in the marketplace.

Not to be a shill, but these look pretty cool to me. I’ll probably pick up a Peabody and Sherman wrap for those cold winter nights. But I have no idea how one sells blankets.

However, I recommend to anyone with products like this to try advertising right here on Cartoon Brew. Everyone interested in obtaining blankets like these is probably reading this blog.