Mike Van Eaton has unearthed the original art to a rare Looney Tunes promotional book from 1939 - apparently created exclusively either for motion picture exhibitors or merchandising licensees. He sent me scans of the pages (below; click on each to see a larger image).

1939 was an interesting year for Leon Schlesinger’s studio. The text page here refers to Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies as being “constantly before the public as they are played in over 8500 theaters throughout the Unites States and Canada”. Wow. If it were only so today. Note that “Elmer” (nee Egghead) was promoted as the star of Merrie Melodies, while Bugs Bunny was considered only as an “incidental character” (see the last page). Were they really planning further cartoons with “Spunky” (from Now That Summer Is Gone), “Patrick Parrot” (From I Wanna Be a Sailor), “Little Eva” (from Uncle Tom’s Bungalow) or “Fluffnums” (from “Porky’s Romance”)? I don’t think so. And for some reason Sniffles rates both a full page portrait (by Charlie Thorson) and is included with the “incidental characters” as well.

Van Eaton is selling most of the pages individually. He has the originals on display at his gallery in Sherman Oaks, California. Contact Mike directly if you are interested in acquiring some of these pieces.

That’s today’s topic of discussion on the Cartoon Brew Facebook page. We’re planning a refresh of the site and want to hear from Brew readers how you’d improve the site’s design and layout, and which technical features and additions you’d like to see implemented on Cartoon Brew.

Meltdown Comics in Hollywood is celebrating the “wonderfully mesmerizing phenomenon of ’80’s era cartoons” with a gallery show opening this Saturday (4/5). Gag Me With A Toon features a fine array of artists (including Jim Mahfood, Roman Dirge and 24 others) re-interpreting their favorite little blue creatures and transforming robots from that mind numbing decade, in a show show curated by artist Steven Daily. Sneak peek online here.

(photo via)

The great American diplomat and Presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson may have well been talking about Li’l Abner creator Al Capp when he said, “Nothing so dates a man as to decry the younger generation.” In the final decade of his life, Capp launched vitriolic attacks against everybody and anything that didn’t adhere to his extremist views, even going so far as to label student protests against the Vietnam War as “mugging, vandalism and thievery.” Another example is this video clip of Capp going to meet John Lennon and Yoko Ono just so he could verbally berate them:

Capp’s antics became the subject of a colorful documentary—This is Al Capp—that premiered on NBC’s “Experiments in Television” on March 1, 1970. What makes it especially relevant to Cartoon Brew is that the special was co-directed by animation designer and director Ernie Pintoff, who created classic cartoons like Flebus and the Oscar-winning Critic. (Pintoff and his writing partner Guy Fraumeni also directed two other documentaries for the series—”This Is Marshall McLuhan” and “This Is Sholem Aleichem.”)

Somebody has posted onto YouTube the first twenty minutes of the Al Capp documentary (viewable in two parts below). Capp comes across as a one-man Fox News Channel—reactionary, naive, and intellectually vapid. Still, it’s somehow entertaining to hear such hostile bile coming from the mouth of a famous cartoonist. After all, I think this may be the only instance of a cartoonist’s political ideas being the subject of a documentary on network television. The special also features quotes from John Steinbeck, and onscreen appearances by legendary cartoonists Milton Caniff and Walt Kelly, underground cartoonists Spain and Trina Robbins, and others like William F. Buckley, Paul Krassner and Douglas Fairbanks Jr.

The presentation of the material is topnotch, and even in live-action, Pintoff’s animation sensibilities come through loud and clear. He employs energetic quick-cuts, intimate close-up interview shots and cheeky juxtapositions of images and sounds resulting in a playful presentation that make even Capp’s rantings seem semi-tolerable.

(via Mike Lynch)

The new edition of Flip would be worth reading if only for the excellent article on the portrayal of smoking in animation by Dr. Barry Hummel. But it’s got so much more! Here it is!

Motionographer offers up two colorful Genndy Tartakovsky-directed TV spots for Niquitin, the UK-branded version of Nicorette. Genndy had also created a Nicorette spot in 2006, produced through The Orphanage.