French animation school Gobelins, which turns out no shortage of quality CG films, has another student film that’s been attracting a lot of buzz recently: Oktapodi. I saw an article about it last week in a French design magazine which inspired me to find out more about it. It’s directed by Julien Bocabeille, FX Chanioux, Olivier Delabarre, Thierry Marchand, Quentin Marmier, Emud Mokhberi.

The short won the “Best Animation” honor a couple months ago at the Imagina Awards 2008. The film isn’t online but it does have a sparse website at Oktapodi.com. Lots of development artwork from the short can be seen on the blog of one of the filmmakers, Quentin Marmier.

Starting in two weeks, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Beverly Hills will begin the fifth edition of their annual Great To Be Nominated series. Each Monday at 7pm an Oscar nominated feature (no winners, just nominees) will screen with selected nominated shorts. The features to be shown are listed here. The animated shorts are not posted on the Academy’s website, but the following are scheduled to be shown:

4/21 - THE MIGHTY RIVER
4/28 - THE BIG STORY
5/5 - RUNAWAY BRAIN
5/12 - LA SALLA
5/19 - REDUX RIDING HOOD
6/2 - THE MERMAID
6/9 - JOLLY ROGER
6/16 - WHEN THE DAY BREAKS
6/23 - REJECTED
6/30 - STRANGER INVADERS
7/14 - DAS RAD
7/21 - DESTINO & NIBBLES
7/28 - LORENZO & GUARD DOG
8/4 - BADGERED & 9
8/11 - NO TIME FOR NUTS
8/18 - LIFTED
8/25 - I MET THE WALRUS

Notable among the titles selected are Don Hertzfeldt’s Rejected, Disney’s Destino, Runaway Brain and Redux Riding Hood. The latter film is particularly hard to see and shouldn’t be missed—it’s one of the best studio shorts of the last twenty years.

Redux Riding Hood (1997) was produced by Disney Television Animation for an aborted series of Twisted Fairy Tales. This one, written by Dan O’Shannon (The Fan and The Flower) and directed by Steve Moore (Flip Magazine) tells the tale of an obsessed wolf (voiced by Michael Richards, before he was un-P.C.) who builds a time machine to undo his previous mistakes in catching Red Riding Hood. It was never really released, and who knows if anyone at the studio will ever figure out a way to put it out on video. Michael Richards’ involvement may seal its fate forever. It’s screening on May 19th with L.A. Confidential, a terrific double bill. This, along with Song of the South and The Sweatbox, may be the one of the best films perpetually locked in the Disney vault. If you are in L.A., make plans to see it.

It’s no masterpiece, but it is rare and significant.

Below is the first four minutes from the Joe E. Brown comedy When’s Your Birthday? (released February 19th, 1937) and it marks the first directorial effort of Bob Clampett. Those familiar with Bob’s art and Chuck Jones drawing style from this period can pick out the scenes they did. There is little of Bob’s trademark zaniness (though there are a few semi-naked girls running around Zodiac heaven), but my guess is that this sequence was probably script-driven - as any dream sequence in a live action movie would’ve been back then.

When’s Your Birthday?, which isn’t very good by anyones standard, was extremely hard to see in the last 25 years. The print that turned up last week on Turner Classic Movies wasn’t very good either - and the “Technicolor sequences” (which I assume included this opening cartoon bit) only exist in black and white. As this will not be included on any DVD any time soon, I’ve posted it on YouTube as a public service for all the Clampett completists who missed it.

(Thanks to Thad K for taping it.)

Bill Plympton just wrapped a new music video for Dutch musician Parson Brown. The video, “Mexican Standoff (Falling Into You)”, intercuts Plympton’s monochromatic animated scenes with live-action of the singer. Animation credits for the vid here.

Animation director and designer Dave Wasson has launched a new website DaveWasson.net packed with examples of his design and animation work. Dave is currently directing the Nick series Making Fiends based on this webcartoon. In the past, he created Cartoon Network’s Time Squad and directed the animation on Disney’s first Flash series The Buzz on Maggie. He also does a lot of TV commercial and film title work, such as the Wisconsin Lottery spot shown above. And to top it all off, he’s the director of what is, in my opinion, one of the funniest and all-around solid animated shorts of the past decade: Max & His Special Problem.

Lawyers from Warner Bros. have come down on a firm called Booby Doo, a maker of sports bras in the UK. Booby Doo’s owners want to register the name as a trademark, but the lawyers representing Hanna Barbera properties say it sounds too much like the name of their famous doggy detective. Read the full story in London’s Daily Express.

So let me get this straight. Bras are a problem, but a Canine waste removal service with a similarly derivative name is okay?

The Wexner Center for The Arts at Ohio State University in Columbus is opening a show devoted to animator-turned-comic book great, Jeff Smith, in May. The exhibit will include about 70 original BONE pages and covers, work from his recent SHAZAM! series and current RASL project, and work by artists who have influenced him including Walt Kelly, Charles Schulz, Garry Trudeau, Carl Barks, George Herriman, E.C. Segar, and Will Eisner. Ohio State’s Cartoon Research Library will be hosting a sidebar show at the same time that features Jeff’s work when he was a cartoonist for the Ohio State student newspaper back in the 80s.

In addition, The Wexner Center will host a number of related panels and events, including a conversation between Jeff Smith and Scott McCloud on May 10th at 2pm; and A Looney Tunes Evening with Jeff Smith, where Jeff will introduce a selection of WB cartoons that most-influenced BONE (especially the Chuck Jones ‘hunting trilogy’), on June 5th at 7pm.

See the Wexner website for more information.

Perhaps the most obscure of the pioneering anime series imported to the U.S. in the 1960s was Osamu Tezuka’s The Amazing Three. Why has it has been missing-in-action for so long? Perhaps because, unlike Astro Boy, Gigantor, 8th Man and Prince Planet the show did not feature a costumed super-hero or high tech robot. Or perhaps, unlike Speed Racer and Kimba, the show wasn’t produced in color.

It did have a science fiction premise - three aliens come to Earth disguised as a rabbit, a duck and a horse and must decide if they should blow up the planet, or save it. The design of this show was faithful to Tezuka’s original manga, and the stories were always a fun mix of comedy, drama and action.

Now, as all things must, it has shown up on ebay. Someone has found twelve original negatives to the English dubbed version in the vaults of Los Angeles’s KCOP-13 and is selling them on ebay for $24,000. Close up images of these negs can be viewed here. Note that one is marked for use by New York’s TV station WPIX (where I saw it as a kid).

Twenty-four Grand is too rich for my blood. Let’s hope someone smart acquires this material and puts it out on DVD for all of us to enjoy. In the meantime, courtesy of Toontracker (via You Tube), here is the rarely seen opening to the American version: