Mike Clark runs a website devoted to the history of Tampa’s Channel 13 (WTVT, a former CBS affiliate, now a Fox station). The site has dozens of interesting articles about the history and local personalities of “Big 13″.

However one of his pieces, slightly off his given topic, should be of interest to most Cartoon Brew readers. Clark devotes an illustrated article, running several pages, to John Graham (NBC’s director of design) and the story of the animated NBC peacock logo. He cuts the story just short of the 1993 remakes by the likes of Al Hirshfeld, Peter Max and John Kricfalusi (see below), but it’s fascinating to read the story behind the iconic image we all grew up with.

There are multiple copies of Disney’s 2007 Goofy short How to Hook Up Your Home Theater floating around on YouTube. Read Jerry Beck’s review of the short.

(Thanks, Matt Jones)

A former Family Guy fan, Kyle Evans, has come to the conclusion that Seth MacFarlane is a “talentless writer” who “doesn’t have a clue about animation.” He’s written a lengthy blog post analyzing MacFarlane’s work from a critical perspective. What I found particularly insightful was the section in which Evans observes the clumsy animation in Seth’s shows, particularly in an episode of Seth McFarlane’s Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy titled “Super Mario Rescues the Princess”:

The animation of Family Guy, American Dad and Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy consists almost entirely of character’s mouths moving, with the occasional rigid pose-to-pose animation. This movement is banal and devoid of any true expression, with the same exact timing on every movement. Watching “Super Mario Rescues the Princess” with the sound-down would convey little more than a general sense of displeasure in the characters…I can only imagine how mind-numbingly dull it would be to work as an animator for Seth McFarlane, who continues to stifle any sort of imaginative character design or fluid, expressive movement. But to visualise my point, here is the video edited so that all but the moving parts of the cartoon are blacked out.

Animator David Essman posted this piece he animated on the Cartoon Brew Facebook group. The humorously animated film pokes fun at “liberal Democrats’ fantasies of how an Obama Administration would instantly change things for the better.” It was written and designed by political cartoonist Ted Rall.

Ever since the animated short Pika Pika by Takeshi Nagata and Kazue Monno, there’s been a slew of light-animation both in the advertising and indie film worlds. This one by Ryan Cashman takes the technique a step further by offering some fun character animation of a little green creature playing the piano.

A description of the process by Cashman:

Animated light paintings of a little piano player performing. Filmed at night with the lovely I-5 and San Diego skyline in the background. I would like to thank everyone for the fantastic feedback I have received lately. To answer a few questions, I wrote the music and recorded it first. The frames were photographed with a Canon Rebel using 20-30 second exposure time. I used a small green LED keychain light to draw each frame. Once all the positions were photographed they were strung together and synchronized to the music in After Effects.

(Thanks, Tony Canepa)

Eat your heart out, Andy Warhol!

I saw this ad (click thumbnail below) in the Sunday newspaper coupon section (yes, I clip coupons). I don’t know exactly why, but this product just seems wrong. Yeah they’ve had Dora, Cars and Danny Phantom shaped Spaghettios and Chicken Soup for years, and that never bothered me. But these labels — advertising Cinderella, Ariel and Belle as “shapes” — feel demeaning and are possibly sexist. Or am I being too sensitive? Maybe I’ll just stick with my Chef Boyardee Smurf Beefaroni.

Why draw when you can filter? Release your inner Richard Linklater with the Video Cartoonizer.

“Upload a personal home movie, hit a few buttons, shout action and let our Video Cartoonizer do all the work. Who knew full motion animation could be this easy?”

You be the judge.

(Thanks, R.T. Inoue)

We’re excited to present episode 2 of Cartoon Brew TV. It is the short film The Pumpkin of Nyefar directed by Tod Polson and Mark Oftedal. The film features the artistic contributions of animation legends Maurice Noble and June Foray. Watch it on Cartoon Brew TV.