And now, no joke, a Public Service Announcement:

Apparently Warner Bros. is supporting the effort to Save the Tasmanian Devil by donating the character (and a bit of animation) to the cause.

(Thanks, Dave Carter)

Someone posted a bunch of vintage Danish animated commercials for Nilfisk Vacuum Cleaners on You Tube. Check them all out. My favorite is this one.

(Thanks Milton Knight)

The actual game play in the forthcoming game, The Beatles Rock Band, isn’t that impressive to me, but the game’s just-released trailer is beautiful and visually exciting. It was made at Passion Pictures with the Gorillaz crew aboard, including director Pete Candeland and animator Robert Valley. Backgrounds are by Alberto Mielgo. If anybody has full credits, please share.

UPDATE: Download a hi-res version of the commercial HERE!

Remember that rare Leon Schlesinger merchandising manual we posted about a year ago? Here’s how one Looney Tunes licensee used it. Dan Goodsell recently posted these rare ice cream packages (click thumbnails below to view enlarged image of each) on flickr. Dig the blue hairy Daffy Duck, the early still-evolving Elmer and note the fact they chose to use the obscure Fluffnums (from Tashlin’s Porky’s Romance) and “Patrick” Parrot (from Avery’s I Wanna Be a Sailor) as representative Looney Tunes.

Frankly, I learn almost as much about old cartoons from their merchandising as I do from watching the cartoons themselves. Thanks to Dan Goodsell for continuing his archeology in this area of research. Check Dan’s blog regularly for new finds - and updates on Mr. Toast.

(Thanks, Billie Towser)

In the spirit of past commercial/industrial/educational animation we’ve highlighted - Disney’s VD Attack Plan or The Story of Menstruation come to mind - we present Gillette’s new series of animated web tutorials on How To Shave.

If you like this one, you’re sure to enjoy shaving your chest hair, back, head and armpits.

(Thanks, Alex Rannie)

I’ve linked to a number of animated book trailers in recent months, and the trend appears to be growing. In the overcrowded fiction marketplace, these trailers are a smart way of standing out from the pack and allows publishers to turn audiences on to books they may have otherwise not heard about. The latest book trailer I’ve found is for the book White is for Witching by Helen Oyeyemi. The trailer can be seen on the book’s website WhiteisforWitching.com. The spot’s illustrations were created by Jon Klassen and animation/compositing work was done by Julia Pott.

Finnish studio Anima Boutique produced this series of refreshingly stylized CG spots for Kopparberg cider drinks. The director and designer of the spots, Eliza Jäppinen, tells me that they “were lucky enough to work with an art director, agency and clients who wanted something new, and also meant it.” She first created a series of illustrations for a print campaign and subsequently these spots were produced in CG. Credits besides Jäppinen include:
2D Animation: Heli Ellis
3D modeling & Animation: Olli Rajala (Anima Commerical)
3D animation: Olli Rajala (Anima Commerical)
Producer: Anttu Harlin
Sound: Timo Anttila (Humina, Agency: Zeeland
Zeeland team: Migu Snall, Mikko Vaija, Anna Korpi-Kyyny, Riitta Bergman

SpongeBob SquarePants + Sir Mix-a-Lot + Burger King = The viral ad that everybody’s going to be linking to for the next week.

Case in point: