Last week I had the pleasure of being the guest speaker for Dave Levy’s animation career class at SVA (School of Visual Arts). It was a lively conversation, owing to Dave’s skillful moderation and plenty of excellent questions and comments from the SVA senior class. A significant portion of our discussion revolved around comparing and contrasting the Los Angeles and New York animation scenes. Dave Levy has summarized and expanded upon that class discussion with this post on his blog. It’s a thought-provoking read for artists both east and west.

The good news: It’s still there!
The bad news: It’s been “improved”.

Brew reader Brent Swanson sent in this recent photo. I have mixed feelings about the restoration (above right, which I guess was done several years ago - I never paid much attention to it, despite the fact I drive by it several times a month). I suppose it’s a bit more “on-model”, but it lacks the charm of the original (above left).

I know what you’re all wondering. Where will I be later this week?

Well, Thursday night (2/7) I’ll be at the Steve Allen Theatre, showing vintage 16mm cartoons and shorts as the warm-up for Janet Klein and her Parlor Boys. Ticket info here. UPDATE: Janet’s got the flu! The Thursday show is cancelled! Join us next month on Thursday March 6th.

And Friday night (2/8) I’ll be attending the Annie Awards at Royce Hall on the campus of UCLA, where I will be proudly accepting an award from June Foray. Tickets still available.

So now you know. Hope to see some of you at one (or both) of these events.

Licensing old songs has been a staple of TV advertising in recent times, but could licensing animated shorts become the next trend in the world of commercials? Brew reader Joshua points out that a GMC Yukon Hybrid commercial aired during yesterday’s Super Bowl repurposed animation from Marcell Jankovic’s 1975 Oscar-nominated short Sisyphus. Watch the commercial above.

The message delivered is not entirely effective but that’s not the fault of Jankovics’s animation, rather in how they decided to use it. In fact, it’s to Jankovics’s credit that a short film he made over thirty years ago looks as fresh and vital as any contemporary piece of animation. So who’s next? Will other ad agencies take a cue and begin making use of visually striking animated shorts like Norman McLaren’s Begone Dull Care or John Hubley’s The Adventures of an *? Considering how well some of these films hold up graphically, and also the fact that the average TV viewer has never seen these films, there are a lot of fascinating possibilities.

And speaking of Marcell Jankovics, last week I wrote about his rarely seen (but must-see) animated feature Fehérlófia. The comments in that post are well worth reading including a particularly nice commentary about Jankovics’s work by Aeon Flux creator Peter Chung.

Not only was it a really good Super Bowl game, but Coca-Cola scored a touchdown with a terrific animation-related commercial titled “It’s Mine,” starring Underdog, Stewie from Family Guy, and, well, you’ll just have to watch to see the third character. Everything about this spot just works: an unlikely mash-up of cartoon characters, a complete story told in one minute with a sweet feel-good ending, and funny filmmaking throughout (even the shot selections are humorous). In fact, the non-animation crowd that I watching the game with actually cheered at the commerical’s ending. There’s something that doesn’t happen often.

Credits for the spot, which mixes live and CG, can be found at Duncan’s TV Ad Land, and an in-depth analysis of the commercial can be found in this blog post by Richard Buran. But before you go any further, watch it below.

This post is only slightly on-topic, as I want to give a plug to a new soundtrack CD for one of my favorite live action sitcoms of the 1960s.

La-La Land Records has just released a limited edition CD that contains the musical score for the TV series My Favorite Martian (not to be confused with Filmation’s god-awful My Favorite Martians). The album contains the music cues created by composer George Greely, who cleverly combined ’50s sci-fi musical motifs (i.e. heavy use of the Theremin) with ’60s atomic/ lounge/space age pop. It’s a lot of fun to listen to while driving, which is what I was doing when I first heard it.

In an effort to connect this to animation history, I’ll point out that the My Favorite Martian opening title animation was done at the Howard Anderson optical effects house, with animation by Chuck Jones unit animator Lloyd Vaughan (who animated the titles for a another show, also produced by Martian’s Jack Chertok, called My Living Doll - anyone got an episode of that?).

The only place you can order this CD is at La-La Records website. You can watch numerous episodes of My Favorite Martian free, online at AOL Video. And for info on the My Favorite Martian comic book and the illo above, visit Scott Shaw!’s Oddball Comics.

Director Simon Laganière’s new music video for the Quebec duo Tricot Machine uses artwork that is entirely knitted. Over 700 unique knitted pieces were created for the video by Lysanne Latulippe of the fashion label Majolie.

(Thanks, Simon Boulianne)

One of the silliest cartoon shows ever contrived by network executives and foist upon kids, back in those deep dark days of network Saturday mornings, was based on the toy Rubik’s Cube.

At long last, a fan website devoted to Ruby Spears 1983 ABC series Rubik the Amazing Cube is here — with everything you ever wanted to know about the show, including episode guides, character profiles and, should it ever be forgotten, clips of the show itself.

Happy Groundhog’s Day!