November 27, 2004
HOLIDAY WEEKEND PINK & BLUES
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I will tell you more about these projects when we get closer to publication... right now, let's just say they look good and they're still on schedule...
November 25, 2004
THOUGHTS ON THE SPONGEBOB MOVIE
Saw THE SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS MOVIE last night. It's a kid's flick, but a really funny, really good kids flick. I liked it a lot.
I'm still warming in the afterglow of the greatness that is THE INCREDIBLES - Pixar's film is a classic, aimed at all audiences and works on all levels. SPONGEBOB is the best in the recent crop of TV-spinoff movies - a group which includes the RUGRATS movies (they are better than they have any right to be), THE POWERPUFF GIRLS MOVIE (with its strong designs), and TEACHER'S PET (excellent humor, design and direction) - It's perhaps the best Nickelodeon Movie thus far (full disclosure, I used to work for Nick Movies developing animated features), it encompasses the subversive nature of the channel, the network's kids empowerment message and great animation design that is classic, yet takes full advantage of the medium's surreal language.
It's not perfect - but it's good moments are really good - the highlight for me being the song Spongebob and Patrick sing about being "men" while marching through a monster filled trench - featuring the coolest alien creature designs I've seen since Kimball's MARS & BEYOND.
While the animation itself is adequate, the star of the show are the strong layouts, poses, hilarious facial expressions, great comic timing and even funny sound effects (I noticed a cool sound cue from an old Speed Racer episode at one point, but I think I was the only person in the theatre who "got it").
As an animation historian, I thought it was great that this Paramount release has so much combination live action and animation (like Koko The Clown, which Paramount once distributed long ago) and in the Goofy Goober ice cream sequence there is an homage to two early Paramount cartoon stars - Krazy Kat and Popeye - on the wall behind the characters (look close - there's a panel from the first comic strip appearence of Popeye, and a classic Ignatz & Krazy brick tossing drawing).
It's not the greatest animated film of the year - but a refreshing, worthy, funny holiday movie that is certainly encouraging during this time of 2-D suppression.
NO CONTEST
We will resume our daily contest for a few days next week - with prizes of the HARVIE KRUMPET dvd courtesy of High Fidelity Media. Join us here 9am on Monday for your chance to win this Oscar winning claymation short.
November 24, 2004
NEWS FLASH!
Jerry Beck is not (I repeat, NOT) related to Oscar-winning actor Adrien Brody. I'm glad that's straightened out.
The Great Cartoon Murals
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Back on October 29th, 2002 (scroll down), Jerry blogged at CARTOON RESEARCH on the old Museum of Cartoon Art's bathroom murals, which included work by Bob Clampett, Chuck Jones, Wendy Pini, and many others. I'm not sure if these were saved when the Museum left Port Chester, New York for Boca Raton. (Anybody know?) But at least we have photos. (Matthew Hasson, if you're reading this--maybe it's time to repost yours on the Web?)
Like Dick Huemer, Charles Schulz decorated a wall at his home with children's illustrations. Fortunately, Sparky's work was not only saved, but is on public view at the Schulz Museum in Santa Rosa, California.
When I was a kid, I didn't consider any trip to New York complete without a visit to a saloon called Costello's. No, I wasn't a budding barfly--Costello's had amazing murals by James Thurber, and a less-amazing but still interesting wall with art by the likes of Milt Caniff and Mort Walker. Here's an article from early 2004 with the alarming news that the Thurber murals are missing and the cartoonist's wall is threatened. (By now, it may be history.)
Lastly, LA's Chinatown welcomes visitors with a big outdoor mural of a dragon by Disney inspirational artist Ty Wong. (Click here and scroll down to see it--I learned it was by Ty when his BAMBI colleague, Maurice Noble, pointed it out to me.) Ty Wong has done a remarkable number of interesting things in his long career--here's the online companion to a recent museum exhibit of his work.
Anyone know of other cartoon murals, past or present? Hmmmm--there's Mary Blair's Disney theme park work...
The Animation Documentary Of the Year
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Former Disney animators Tony West and Dan Lund have made a documentary about the downfall of traditional animation at Disney and the layoffs/closings of mainly the Burbank and Orlando studios. It contains some animation (I pitched in a bit) and has a couple of the big guns like Andreas Deja interviewed (as seen in the TRAILER). The film has been locked after post and it's now seeking festival venues and distribution.
West and Lund obviously have an appreciation for the Disney animation tradition that the management at the studio currently does not have, and I'm really looking forward to seeing what they have to say in this film. The original animation created for the doc also looks like a lot of fun, and it seems like they've put a lot of love and care into this film (check out their "WestLund" homage logo at the beginning of the trailer).
GREEN SCREEN UPDATE
Here's an update to our earlier STORY about Drew Carey's live-action/cartoon series. I've heard from a few folks close to DREW CAREY'S GREEN SCREEN SHOW and they both have similarly depressing news about the show's future. Says one source: "Yes, we are contractually finishing up our last episode this week and then we'll be disbanded like a Peruvian brothel after a police raid." Says a second source: "I would say it is cancelled; they dropped it a few weeks ago, after the fifth episode. However we are still working on it to finish up the contractually obligated 12 episodes. So there are more left (I've seen some of them and as a whole they are funnier than the first five), but when they'll ever air is a mystery. Even though some say it is on hiatus I feel it is like BATMAN BEYOND'S hiatus - a show every one swore wasn't cancelled but when was the last time you saw a new episode air."
CONTEST #5
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What was the last theatrical Warner Bros. cartoon short to feature voice work by Billy Bletcher?The Contest is now OVER. Craig Davison and David Dobrydney (sp?) were the winners. The answer was: A Bear For Punishment (1951) as Papa Bear.(Hint: The one I'm thinking of is on LTGC V.2)
November 23, 2004
DC REPRINTS FOX & CROW!
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The Fox and Crow, Flippity & Flop, Sugar & Spike, and Nutsy Squirrel are a few of the characters who get a page devoted to them in a new book, The Golden Age of DC Comics: 365 Days by Les Daniels, Chip Kidd and Geoff Spear (Abrams, hardcover, $29.95).
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Of course there are numerous of pictures of Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman from dozens of golden age comics - but how often do we see images of Dodo and the Frog (a favorite of mine - drawn by animator Otto Feuer) in a coffee table book?
The World Loves Animation
This past weekend, three out of the top four movies at the North American box office - THE SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS MOVIE, THE INCREDIBLES, THE POLAR EXPRESS - were animated films. I'm too lazy to do research, but I'd be willing to bet that this is the first time it's ever happened. Meanwhile, in Japan this past weekend, Hayao Miyazaki's latest animated film HOWL'S MOVING CASTLE set a new Japanese box office record for an opening weekend, taking in 1.5 billion yen ($14.6 million).
Green Screen No More?
Boy that was fast. DREW CAREY'S GREEN SCREEN SHOW, the Ron Diamond-produced TV series that mixed live-action improv with animation, is already off the WB's schedule. I've heard both that it's been cancelled and that it's temporarily on hiatus, though it's not clear which story is accurate. I saw the first episode and actually enjoyed it, but forgot to watch all the subsequent episodes.
Design and the INcredibles
Jessica Helfand weighs in on THE INCREDIBLES at DesignObserver.com. The piece examines Bird's movie from a designer's viewpoint. It's a nice short read that's worth a click.
CONTEST #4
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Today's prizes are: WACKY RACES: THE COMPLETE SERIES and LOONEY TUNES GOLDEN COLLECTION Vol.2. Today's question is:
Which Warner Bros. cartoon director made the first cartoon to star Henery Hawk?The Contest is now OVER. The winners are Barb Herholzer and Tyler Sticka. The answer is: Chuck Jones - in the 1942 cartoon THE SQUAWKIN' HAWK.
November 22, 2004
Defending the McCay
Larry Loc, a Winsor McCay Award committee member and one of ASIFA-Hollywood's hardest working board members, has written a defense of their decision to award Virginia Davis a lifetime achievement award. Needless to say, I don't agree one bit, but in the interest of presenting both sides of the story, here is a link to his COMMENTS. My gripe remains that Ms. Davis simply doesn't fit ASIFA-Hollywood's own criteria for the award, which is meant to honor lifetime contributions to the art of animation and for work that exhibits outstanding contributions to excellence in animation. Giving the award to a child actress who may have held some minor degree of responsibility in helping Walt Disney get his first theatrical series is not in my opinion a wise use of the honor, especially when there are artists who have spent 40-50 years in this business creating beautiful art day in and day out and who remain unrecognized.
DICK HUEMER MURALS SAVED!
Complain about the Annie awards all you want - Asifa-Hollywood is a great organization that does much good to promote and preserve the cause of animation.
Case in point, last week I posted an urgent plea from Richard Huemer (son of animator Dick Huemer) about a hand painted mural in the former Huemer home that was about to be demolished. On Saturday Asifa Hollywood members, led by organization president Antran Manoogian, helped preserve those walls from the Huemer home. Antran was able to negotiate with the demolition company to save two bedroom walls which featured original artwork by Huemer of classic Disney characters. The artwork is now being kept at a temporary storage location.
See more photos here. Thanks to Antran and all the volunteers that helped make this happen.
Quote of the Day
"There is a contingent of the digital-effects community to whom that is the holy grail - to create photographically real humans. To me that is the dumbest goal that you could possibly have. What's wonderful about the medium of animation isn't recreating reality. It's distilling it." - Brad Bird, from a terrific article about Pixar printed in THE GUARDIAN.
LIL' PIMP
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You know, the internet cartoon turned $13 million dollar feature length R-rated Flash animated feature for Revolution Studios and Columbia Pictures. I've often wondered if it will ever see the light of day? Come January 11th, 2005 my curiosity will be satiated. Lion's Gate Home Entertainment will release LIL' PIMP on dvd, at last, for all to enjoy.
Bernie Mac, William Shatner and Lil' Kim provide voices for this production which has been sitting on the shelf for months. I had a few good friends who were gainfully employed by this production for over a year - It has a disasterous production history, stories of preview screenings where audiences and executives walked out en masse, and the film was put into production several times without a script in place. Sounds like a trainwreck. Personally, I look forward to seeing it. Should be fun.
Misplaced Honor
ASIFA-Hollywood has announced the three recipients for this year's Winsor McCay Lifetime Achievement Award and they are Don Bluth, Virginia Davis and Arnold Stang. Now, Bluth, despite what I personally think of his filmmaking skills, has every right to this award. But the other two choices are extremely questionable, and in light of other potential recipients, downright irresponsible selections by ASIFA-Hollywood. The goal of the Winsor McCay Award, as stated in ASIFA-Hollywood's own rules, is to recognize "lifetime contributions to the art of animation in producing, directing, animating, design, writing, voice acting, sound and sound effects, technical work, music, professional teaching, or for other endeavors which exhibit outstanding contributions to excellence in animation."
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Arnold Stang, though hardly as poor a choice as Davis, is also a questionable award recipient. Yes, he was the voice of Top Cat and Herman (in Paramount's Herman & Katnip theatricals), but his contributions as a whole to the development of animation are hardly on the scale of other voice actors like Daws Butler, Mel Blanc or June Foray. Stang deserves some sort of recognition for having worked in so many different fields (animation, radio, TV, film), but his involvement with animation is relatively minor, at least when compared to other possible contenders like Art Stevens. Since ASIFA-Hollywood obviously has no intention of recognizing deserving talents like Stevens, let's examine his career here on Cartoon Brew.
Stevens started at Disney in 1940 and retired in the early-'80s. That's over forty years of uninterrupted service to the animation industry. In the Forties, he became one of John Lounsbery's top animation assistants, before becoming a full-fledged animator on PETER PAN where he animated sequences with "The Lost Boys." Immediately following this, Ward Kimball hand-picked him to join his unit. Stevens, along with Julius Svendsen, became Ward's most trusted animators for the next twenty years. Stevens animated on MELODY and the Oscar-winning TOOT WHISTLE PLUNK & BOOM. He was responsible for animating the "strings" section as well as other sequences in the latter film. When Ward began producing the space specials, Stevens and Svendsen handled nearly all of the 'cartoony' animated sequences in those films. The underwater sequence in BEDKNOBS AND BROOMSTICKS and most of the character animation in the Oscar-winning IT'S TOUGH TO BE A BIRD, were also the handiwork of Stevens. His other animation credits include 101 DALMATIANS, WINNIE THE POOH AND THE BLUSTERY DAY and ROBIN HOOD. Stevens moved into the directorial post on THE RESCUERS (following Lounsbery's mid-production death) and also served as director/producer on FOX AND THE HOUND before retiring from the studio. There's dozens of other projects in between these, but perhaps Stevens's most important contribution to animation was the style of animation that he and Svendsen developed in Kimball's unit. Both of them were geniuses at figuring out how to selectively move body parts and creating hilarious animation cycles that took full advantage of the heavily stylized characters in Kimball's films. To this day it remains some of the most perfectly realized and elegant examples of stylized (or 'limited') animation ever produced.
If Stevens doesn't catch your fancy, I could name numerous other artists who have contributed heavily to the development of animation and who are still alive, awaiting recognition: Ed Friedman, Bob McIntosh, Paul Sommer, Bob Godfrey, Brad Case and Fred Crippen just to name a few. But hey man, it's ASIFA-Hollywood's Lifetime Achievement Award, and if bestowing it upon somebody whose only animated accomplishment is prancing around on camera when she was four-years-old is what ASIFA-Hollywood thinks is appropriate, then so be it. I guess next year, we can look forward to the organization honoring the Mexican actress who appeared with animated Droopy in the closing scene of Tex Avery's SENOR DROOPY. After all, it'd hardly be appropriate if they honored somebody who actually worked in animation.
CONTEST #3
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Today's prizes are: THE TOM & JERRY SPOTLIGHT COLLECTION and the 99¢ Store Van Bueren TOM & JERRY collection. Today's question (again courtesy of "Uncle Wayne") is:
What do Speedy Alka-Seltzer and Ralph Phillips have in common?The Contest is now OVER. Winners today were Jon Reeves and Bill Field. The Answer is: voice actor Dick Beals.
CRITIC'S CHOICE
Michael Barrier has updated his website and shares his thoughts on THE INCREDIBLES.
Meanwhile Leonard Maltin also weighs in on Brad Bird and Frank Thomas and reviews the latest Pixar masterpiece here.
NEW TOM & JERRY MOVIE
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"Tom and Jerry mistakenly stow away on the first manned mission to Mars and discover we are NOT alone...Martians do exist! The furry duo must join forces with a young Martian girl to battle asteroid fields, the Martian invasion of Earth, and a gigantic alien robot bent on destroying anything and anyone in its path."Tom Minton produced it. Bill Kopp wrote and directed it. I hope Warner Bros. sends me a free copy.
November 21, 2004
Stalled Car?
The trailer for Pixar's CARS is honestly one of the most perplexing pieces of animation I've seen in a long time. After the magnificent fleshy achievement of THE INCREDIBLES, a film that proved personality-filled character animation and CGI are not incompatible, why would the studio regress to producing a film about lumbering metallic forms. Let me be clear: I'm not opposed to the idea of animating cars. It's actually an idea with terrific potential. But the boring animation of the cars in this particular trailer hardly takes advantage of the concept. Granted, the subtle movement of the race car shifting from side to side was a nice solution to compensate for the car's lack of arms and legs, but the cars' immobility had turned frustrating by trailer's end. Do they expect anybody to sit through two hours of this? Where is the cartoon invention that Pixar is known for and has built their reputation upon? Did Pixar pull a Katzenberg and opt to create an animated film that doesn't take advantage of the medium? Why do I have so many questions about a friggin' trailer? My disappointment with this became more focused when I saw the comic strip below by Ward Kimball (click on it for full version).
The poses are pushed to the extreme, the expressions are full of life, the metal has beautiful twists and flexibility, and yet at no point does it lose believability as a car. That invention is the beauty of the cartoon medium and its primary strength over live-action; it's also precisely what is lacking from the CARS trailer, particularly in the animation of the race cars. Perhaps the film is actually bursting at the seams with innovative solutions to car animation, and Pixar simply chose to reveal none of it in favor of creating the most boring trailer ever. At this point, that's what I'm compelled to believe, because I have faith in the studio and in John Lasseter's directorial skills (is the man even capable of producing something bad?). Here's to hoping for the best.
Incredible Sociology
One of the numerous interesting things about Brad Bird's THE INCREDIBLES is that it's a serious enough movie that it's sparked thoughtful discussion of the things it has to say about child-rearing in America, competition, and how to treat kids who are naturally gifted. Here's "When Every Child is Good Enough," a story from today's NEW YORK TIMES (registration probably required) that digs into these ideas.
Funny--I don't remember SHREK 2 or SHARK TALE spurring thoughtful discussion of, well, anything at all...
CONTEST #2
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Today's prize is: THE TOM & JERRY SPOTLIGHT COLLECTION. Today, both winners will get this dvd. Today's question was provided by my Uncle Wayne:
Mel Blanc did voices for all the Hollywood cartoon studios, except one - or did he? How many Disney films did Mel Blanc work on?The Contest is now OVER. The winners were Greg Laughland and Eric Wilson. The answer: One - In Pinocchio he recorded for Gideon the cat, but his part was cut down to a hiccup before its release.
Brew reader "Herekittykitty" sent in an answer, which is technically correct, but not what I was thinking: Who Framed Roger Rabbit. I'm going to send this reader a special "no-prize" for her answer - a LOONEY TUNES Ultimate Sticker Book.