Thank you Richard Corliss for selecting Looney Tunes Golden Collection #5 as one of the Top Ten DVDs of 2007 in this week’s issue of Time Magazine.

The Looney Tunes DVD actually ranks #4 for best of the year on his list. What would your favorite DVD of 2007 be?

Sweet!

Check out this nice little commercial Christmas card for Apple, now up on the apple website www.apple.com. It was directed and animated by Drew Lightfoot, with character design by Shane Prigmore, at LAIKA/house.

(Thanks, Tom Knott)

A New York area casanova who seduces the ladies with Looney Tunes? Gawker.com has the NSFW details.

(Thanks, Anne D. Bernstein)

The moody (and primarily CG) opening titles to Tim Burton’s latest film, Sweeney Todd, have been posted exclusively on Broadway World.com

FYI: Today’s Daily Variety has a special section focusing on animation. The print edition has a cool faux-celluloid cover advertising The Simpsons Movie. Among the articles within (all available online), “Why ‘Beowulf’ passed Oscar test but ‘Alvin’ didn’t,” Bill Plympton commentary on traditional hand drawn animation, and a piece on the Oscar chances of foreign animated features (namely Tekkonkinkreet and Persepolis) written by some guy named J. Beck.

This JibJab video is a lot like the dream I had last night after seeing The Pixar Story at the Egyptian. What a great film — and just like the Pixar features themselves, I found it very inspiring.

Speaking of Pixar, The Food Network has been running a special episode of their series Dinner Impossible shot at Pixar’s Emeryville studio. In Pixar Movie Mission the chef has 6 hours to feed the entire staff of Pixar, with recipes based on Pixar characters from Finding Nemo, Cars and Ratatouille. Worth watching just to see Brad Bird introduce the Food Network cook — with Lou Romano was one of his “assistant chefs”. It airs again on January 19th at 3:30pm ET/PT.

(Thanks, Evan Spiridellis and Andrew Atteberry)

The Internet is home to many embarassing animation “contests” nowadays, but none moreso than this new one called “Animation Procreation” sponsored by Dailymotion and Animation Magazine. When I saw the above banner plastered on the homepage of videosharing site DailyMotion last week, I immediately thought two things: “Who the hell is Loren Bouchard?” and “Why would I want a development deal with him?”

I originally assumed he’s just the latest two-bit development exec at some TV network. But as it turns out, he’s not even that. He’s a show creator: one-half the creator of Home Movies and solo creator of another awful looking and sounding “Adult Swim” series I’ve never heard of, Lucy, Daughter of the Devil.

Perhaps the contest organizers can explain what a four-month “development deal” entails with a guy who himself is at the mercy of producers and networks, who has no production resources, and who has no money to invest in your project. Add a dollar to this stunning prize package and it still won’t buy you a cup of coffee at Starbucks. Then again, maybe getting advice from the person who’s responsible for this is reward enough:

The Dailymotion contest page offers this gem: “Loren Bouchard will watch all the videos and judge based on originality, animation style and potential for development.” Because if there’s anybody who’s qualified to judge originality and style it’s an artist whose own work exhibits neither traits. After this, you may as well have your parenting skills judged by Britney Spears.

Why would any half competent artist who aspires to create quality work want to receive advice from the creator of some of the most embarassing work this medium has ever seen? If DailyMotion and Animation Magazine had any true desire or intent to encourage new talent, then they would have offered a prize that was meaningful and relevant to creators. As it is, this “contest” is a slap in the face to animation artists everywhere.

Times Square Spectacular: Lighting Up Broadway by Darcy Tell, traces the story of the famous Times Square advertising signs, as seen in cartoons like Lights Fantastic. It’s illustrated with numerous rare photographs, maps, restaurant menus, theater programs, magazine covers, postcards, sheet music, and archival documents. What makes this especially interesting for animation historians is Tell’s special tribute to Douglas Leigh, the man who created such Times Square billboards as the legendary Camel cigarettes “smoke rings” sign - and more importantly, his animated light boards, animated by Otto Messmer for 37 years. A beautiful tribute to the Great White Way.

(Thanks, J.J. Sedelmaier)