I’ve neglected to acknowledge the release this week of Warner Bros. Academy Award Animation Collection. It came out last Tuesday and it’s a teriffic compilation containing all the Oscar winning animated cartoons, and most of the nominees, that Warner Bros. owns the rights to. This includes several great Looney Tunes, MGM Tom & Jerry, Tex Avery, Fleischer Popeye and Superman cartoons.

The prints are gorgeous, and there is expert commentary on several tracks provided by Mark Kausler, Eric Goldberg, Greg Ford, Paul Dini and Brewmasters Amid Amidi and Jerry Beck. Also worthy of mention is the special round table audio commentary on Popeye The Sailor Meets Sindbad The Sailor by Bob Jaques, Leslie Cabarga and Ray Pointer, moderated by myself. There is also a wonderful one hour documentary on Oscar winning cartoons (with additional clips from Disney, Zagreb and Hubley films) and comments from Michael Sporn, Mark Kausler, Howard Beckerman, Charles Solomon, Bill Plympton, Jimmy Picker, Tom Sito, Eric Goldberg, and archival quotes from Chuck Jones, Tex Avery, Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera.

Many of these cartoons already appeared in several scattered video collections, though several of them were previously issued in edited form. Here, all the cartoons are complete and uncut – and it’s great to have them all collected in one place. A great package, highly recommended.

Next Tuesday, 2/19, at 7:30 p.m., ASIFA Atlanta is putting on To Hell with Hitler, a program of WW2-era cartoons at the Plaza Theatre ($4 members admission; $7 non-members).

Clay Croker (of ArgleBargle blog fame) curated the show, created the cool poster, and is providing the 16mm prints that will be shown. The only caution is that the screening willl take place in a part of the theatre that holds around 100 folks, so expect it to be standing-room-only!

(Thanks, Robert Pope)

Based on what little I’ve seen from this film, it looks awesome.
Here’s the latest trailer from Dreamworks’ Kung Fu Panda.

Directed by Andrei T. Bakhurin, this fun collaborative animation jam (Multfilm) from Russia (whose full title translates as St. Petersburg is More Than Twice as Little as Moscow) was entirely animated on or with Post-It notes.

(Thanks, Sal Dekku)

From the golden age of TV commercials.
(via Bedazzled)

In is a 23-minute CG/live-action short created by Philipp Hirsch and Heiko Tippelt in 2004. I have a bit of a history with this film; here is what I wrote about it after watching a portion of it at Annecy in 2004.

“The program was also home to the oddest film in the competition, the enigmatic IN by Philipp Hirsch. A significant portion of the audience, myself included, walked out in the middle of this 24-minute film. The Dada-ish looking short generated quite a bit of discussion during the last couple days of the festival and after speaking to folks who managed to sit through it, I regret not having had the patience to make it through the entire film.”

Animation director Peter Chung saw my comment recently and emailed to let me know that the film is online in its entirety. Watch In here. Chung was part of the 2004 jury for the Holland Animation Film Festival that awarded In the top prize for non-narrative short film. In his note to me, Chung offers valuable advice to anybody who plans to watch this film: “Forget everything you’ve known about animation before this—and just watch with an open mind. This is filmmaking by someone inventing a new way to see, a film that breaks the boundaries between inner and outer experience.”

UPDATE: More details about new Adventure Time merchandise here.

I was a fan of Pen Ward’s warped cartoon genius before I saw his two incredible Random Cartoons: Adventure Time and The Bravest Warriors. I have no idea when this series of cartoons will air on Nickelodeon (I’d assume they’ll show up sometime this year, considering they got a four page spread in the Nicktoons book), but while we wait, Ward has started marketing Adventure Time with a series of tee shirts based on the short.

Ward had a bunch of good ideas for the tees (12 in all) and is making a different one available each week on Cafe Press. Collect them all! The whole set will be posted on Channel Frederator Raw as they are produced.

While the rest of the US concerns itself with the 2008 Presidential circus, we in the animation world recognize what the real issues are…