August 12, 2006
THE SHELL SHOW WITH MAE QUESTEL
This is a lot of fun...
An MP3 of The Shell Show (January 16th, 1937) starring Joe Cook, with special guest Mae Questel (as the voice of Betty Boop). Betty (Questel) shows up about half way through and she joins Cook in a musical fairy tale skit. Betty sings the Gordon and Revel "Shirley Temple" hit, Oh My Goodness and it could easily be the track of a lost Fleischer cartoon. Hmmm... Perhaps someone will be inspired to make it.
(Thanks, Mark Mayerson)
August 11, 2006
A REPORT FROM BRAZIL
Sounds like John Canemaker, Bill Plympton and hundreds of South American animation fans had a great time at the Anima Mundi festival last month in Brazil. Celbi Pegoraro of the Portuguese language Animation Animagic website posted a report in English (with pictures) here. Looks like everyone had a blast.
NICK MAG'S LIVE JOURNAL
One of the coolest things about Nickelodeon during the past 12 years has been its print magazine, particularly "The Comic Book" section which regularly features story and art by underground and alternative cartoonists such as Sam Henderson, Justin Green, Kaz, David Mazzuchelli, Wayno, Johnny Ryan and Kim Deitch. Now Nick editors Dave Roman and Chris Duffy haved started a Nick Mag Comics Live Journal, a new blog, which will give us the lowdown on the artists who contribute to The Comic Book. This little sub-section of the magazine is one of the best kept secrets in the cartooning world and it deserves some long overdue recognition. Take a look.
August 10, 2006
The CG Glut Continues...
There's an interesting article in VARIETY about the lukewarm box office performance of recent CG animated feature and the countless other talking-and-farting animal movies that are still awaiting release. The article is generally accurate, except for a few instances, such as when the writer says, "Before this year, the only CGI failure ever was last summer's "Valiant...". The other huge CG bomb was, of course, FINAL FANTASY: THE SPIRITS WITHIN. For those who want to keep score of CG box office grosses, bookmark this great chart at Box Office Mojo.
LOONEY TUNES GOLDEN COLLECTION #4
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As usual, the 60 uncut digitally remastered cartoons are only half the story. The other part is the bonus materials that enhance our appreciation of the Looney Tunes legacy. Here's what they are:
BUGS BUNNY - Disc 1
Commentaries
• Rabbit Hood by Director Eric Goldberg
• Operation: Rabbit by Writer Paul Dini
• Mississippi Hare by Director Eric Goldberg
• Hurdy-Gurdy Hare by Writer Paul Dini
• 8 Ball Bunny by Historian Jerry Beck
• Rabbit Romeo by Actor June Foray and Historian Jerry Beck
Alternate Audio Programs
• Operation: Rabbit Music and Effects Track
• Knight-Mare Hare Music Only Track
• Southern Fried Rabbit Music and Effects Track
• Sahara Hare Music Only Track
• Barbary-Coast Bunny Music Only Track
• To Hare is Human Music Only Track
• Rabbit Romeo Music Only Track
Behind the Tunes
• Twilight in Tunes: The Music of Raymond Scott
• Powerhouse in Pictures
Bugs Bunny Superstar Pt. 1 (1976 documentary)
Fifty Years of Bugs Bunny in 3 ½ Minutes (1989 short)
The Bugs Bunny Show
• Ballpoint Puns Bridging Sequences
• Foreign Legion Leghorn Audio Recording Sessions
Trailer Gallery
• Bugs Bunny’s Cartoon Carnival
• Bugs Bunny’s All-Star Revue
FRANK TASHLIN - Disc 2
Commentaries
• The Case of the Stuttering Pig by Animator Mark Kausler
• Now That Summer is Gone by Historian Michael Barrier with Director Frank Tashlin
• Porky in the North Woods by Animator Mark Kausler
• You’re an Education by Historian Daniel Goldmark
• Plane Daffy by Filmmaker Greg Ford
• Cracked Ice by Historian Michael Barrier with Director Frank Tashlin
• Puss N Booty by Historian Jerry Beck
• I Got Plenty of Mutton by Filmmaker Greg Ford
• Porky’s Poultry Plant by Historian Michael Barrier with Director Frank Tashlin
• The Stupid Cupid by Director Eddie Fitzgerald
Bugs Bunny Superstar Pt. 2 (1976 documentary)
Porky and Daffy in "The William Tell Overture"
Frank Tashlin’s Storybooks
• Little Chic’s Wonderful Mother
• Tony and Clarence
From the Vault
• The Goldbrick (1943 Snafu short)
• The Home Front (1943 Snafu short)
• Censored (1944 Snafu short)
SPEEDY - Disc 3
Commentaries
• Cat-Tails for Two by Actor Stan Freberg and Historian Jerry Beck
• Mexican Boarders by Filmmaker Greg Ford with Director Friz Freleng
• Nuts and Volts by Animator Art Leonardi and Historian Jerry Beck
• The Wild Chase by Writer Paul Dini
Alternate Audio Programs
• Cat-Tails for Two Music and Effects Track
• Tabasco Road Music Only Track
• Mexicali Schmoes Music Only Track
• West of the Pesos Music Only Track
"Friz on Film" (A new one hour documentary)
From the Vault
• 90 Day Wondering (1956 Army reinlistment film by Chuck Jones)
• Drafty, Isn’t It? (1957 Army recruitment film by Chuck Jones)
CATS - DISC 4
Commentaries
• Conrad the Sailor by Filmmaker Greg Ford with Director Chuck Jones
• The Aristo-Cat by Director Eddie Fitzgerald
• The Aristo-Cat by Filmmaker Greg Ford with Director Chuck Jones
• Dough Ray Me-ow by Historian Jerry Beck
• Pizzicato Pussycat by Daniel Goldmark
• The Unexpected Pest by Actor June Foray and Historian Jerry Beck
Alternate Audio Programs
• Cat Feud Music Only Track
• The Unexpected Pest Music Only Track
• Go Fly a Kit Music Only Track
• A Peck of Trouble Music and Effects Track
Behind the Tunes
• One Hit Wonders
• Sing-a-Song of Looney Tunes
• The Art of the Gag
• Wild Lines: The Art of Voice Acting
• Looney Tunes: A Cast of Thousands
From the Vault
• Porky’s Breakdowns
• Sahara Hare Storyboard Reel
• Porky’s Poor Fish Storyboard Reel
8-Bit Opera
Whoever thought Salome's "Dance of the Seven Veils" done in 8-bit graphics would be laugh-out-loud funny? Christian Zagler's SALOME IN LOW LAND (Austria, 2005) is an amusing and well-executed mashup of opera and old school video game graphics. For a primer on the opera SALOME, you may want to check out this entry at Wikipedia.
AFRO SAMURAI
Forget those mo-fo snakes on the plane. Samuel L. Jackson is voicing the lead character in an original Spike TV anime series AFRO SAMURAI. This 5-part series is being produced in English by Japan's Gonzo Digimation. Jackson as also apparently developing a live action version. The anime series will debut this fall, and a trailer for it can be seen here.
August 09, 2006
Loco Roco Commercial
Back in January, we mentioned how cool the Sony PSP game LOCO ROCO looks. The new LOCO ROCO tv commercial is similarly worth pointing out and does a terrific job of capturing the playful innocent quality of the game's graphics. It was directed by Carolina Melis of UK's Nexus Productions.
(via Feed)
Uli Meyer's MONSTERMANIA!
Congrats to Uli Meyer, owner of the London animation studio Uli Meyer Animation, who announced on his blog a few days ago that he's starting production on his first independent animated feature MONSTERMANIA. Sounds like it has the potential of being a very fun film. Uli plans to complete it by 2008.
Here's a few excerpts from the press release describing the project in greater detail. The full release is on Uli's blog:
Uli Meyer Animation has started production on MonsterMania!, a fully computer-animated feature film comedy featuring the classic movie monsters. Scripted by award-winning British horror writers Michael Marshall Smith and Stephen Jones, based on an idea by Uli Meyer, Stephen Jones and Michael Marshall Smith, MonsterMania! has been in active development for the past three years at the company’s London-based animation studios.MonsterMania! tells the story of young scientist Max van Helsing, who is plunged into an exciting and dangerous adventure by his late grandfather’s will. He embarks on a life-changing quest that takes him to the heart of the Eastern European country of Wallachia. There Max encounters the classic monsters, including Frankenstein’s creation, a werewolf, a lagoon creature and many other bizarre and creepy characters, as he sets out to save the girl of his dreams from the greatest evil the world has ever known . . . Vlad, Count Dracula!
Budgeted at $30 million, MonsterMania! is currently being storyboarded at Uli Meyer Animation as a co-production with India’s Ittina Animation Studios and Cinecarat, Switzerland.
August 08, 2006
Update on Animation Blast #9
The boxes of the new issue of ANIMATION BLAST #9 are currently en route to Los Angeles, apparently on a very slow truck from Canada. According to my printer, I should expect them to arrive in LA by Thursday, August 17 at the latest. Today, I'll be mailing about 40 issues of the BLAST. These are the issues that were left over from the first batch shipped over for the San Diego Comic-Con. With nearly 1000 folks who have pre-ordered or who had subscribed earlier, most people will have to wait a bit longer, but at least a few folks will be getting issues this week. Also, on my way back from San Diego, I dropped off issues to a few LA stores that I owed copies to—Meltdown, Golden Apple and House of Secrets. For those who haven't pre-ordered yet, they each have a limited number of copies, if they haven't already sold out. They'll be getting more too once I receive the full shipment of issues next week.
Robert Zemeckis and Disney?
TMZ ran a breaking story yesterday that says Disney is courting Robert Zemeckis and his "uncanny valley" brand of animated filmmaking. I don't know if this is true, and considering the story is from TMZ there's reason to be skeptical, but it's definitely troubling if the report turns out to be accurate. As somebody pointed out to me this morning, the only possible reason Disney should want to bring Zemeckis on board is to stop him from producing more animated films like POLAR EXPRESS. If anybody knows more about this rumor, we'd be curious to hear at the Brew. Here's how the TMZ story begins:
In a move with broad implications for the future of the animation business, TMZ has learned that The Walt Disney Company has poached Oscar-winning director Robert Zemeckis from DreamWorks Pictures, and is a cat's breath away from signing his ImageMovers production company to a multi-year deal at The Walt Disney Company's Disney Pixar Animation.
(Thanks, Al Lutz)
Freddie Moore Slandered Again?
Jeff Lenburg's new book WHO'S WHO IN ANIMATED CARTOONS apparently continues to perpetuate one of the big lies of animation history: that master animator Fred Moore died while driving drunk. It's bad enough that Lenburg apparently has published this information in his book, but he's also been receiving publicity for this "discovery." Contact Music recently published an article as if this was news, and other media outlets have been picking up the story as well.
Lenburg is quoted in the article as saying, "Beset by drinking and personal issues, [Moore] died a few months later, unemployed and with no health insurance, after striking his head in his car while driving drunk. I thought it was pretty tragic, but he's part of the Disney story." Of course, newspaper accounts of the time tell us that Moore wasn't even driving the car; his wife was driving. Perhaps Lenburg can share the new evidence he's uncovered that says Moore was driving drunk at the time. The biggest irony here is that, according to Jeff Lenburg's website, he recently wrote a book that teaches good research skills for writers.
Animator David Nethery, who pointed out this article to me, wrote a nice summation of why misinformation like this is unacceptable:
My understanding is that, yes, Fred had a definite problem with drinking too much alcohol, and was certainly "disciplined" by the Disney Studio on one or more occasions by being let go, but it seems that the stories about "Freddy the poor, washed-up drunk" have been greatly exaggerated over the years by a.) those who had a vested interest in downplaying Fred Moore's giant contribution to the development of Disney character animation and b.) parroting of studio gossip from those within the animation industry and animation fandom who only had, at best, second or third hand knowledge of the events surrounding Fred Moore's last years and his death. For this story to be spun again, in 2006, as something new, a "revelation" or an "expose" by Jeff Lenburg or anyone else seems to me to be an unnecessary tarnishing of a great talent's legacy.
UPDATE #1: Jenny Lerew has more information about Moore's death on her always excellent blog Blackwing Diaries.
UPDATE #2: Jim Korkis, one of the preeminent Disney historians of our time, sent in the following information about Moore's death. I'd love to see Lenburg's response to this. Korkis writes:
I am a big Fred Moore fan and it bothers me that the old canard of him dying as a result of being drunk is still being bandied about...especially in print. Here is the Truth About Freddy Moore's Death:
Joe Campana ferreted out the actual truth through public records and according to those records Fred Moore actually died on Sunday, November 23, 1952 at 4:15 pm, at St. Joseph Hospital in Burbank (the same hospital where Walt would pass away in 1966), as a result of a head injury from a vehicle-on-vehicle collision the previous evening at Big Tujunga Canyon near the Angeles National Forest. Moore, 41 at the time of his death, was not at the wheel at the time of the accident; his wife Virginia who was 35 was driving and sustained minor injuries that were treated at St. Joseph's. The couple had two daughters, Linda and Melissa.
The Moores were returning from a visit to Disney animation director Jack Kinney's house to watch a college football game. (Jack Kinney had directed the "All The Cats Join In" sequence in "Make Mine Music" on which Moore had animated.) In fact, Joe confirmed that the USC-UCLA game had been played that day. The time of the accident and the location of the accident also seem to support this story. It is apparent that the Moores got disoriented while driving home and when they attempted to turn around to head in the opposite direction, the collision occurred.
The driver of the other car, Roy Sowles, died many years ago, and attempts to locate the other passenger, Jesse Sowles (probably Sowles' son), who sustained minor injuries have not been successful. The original accident report does not appear to have survived, either, but Joe located a contemporary newspaper account of the accident as well as Moore's death certificate listing the cause as "cerebral hemorrhage" and that an autopsy was performed and you linked to those documents in your comments.
UPDATE #3: Jenny Lerew has a slight correction to the information above. She writes:
Moore's wife Virginia (driving the car in the accident) was his second wife (also named, as was his first, Virginia--strange but true). This Virginia #2 was NOT the mother of Fred's two daughters, whose names were Melinda and Suzanne, not "Linda and Melissa".
It's All Around You
The FINAL DESTINATION 3 dvd which was released a couple weeks ago is notable for animation fans because it has an original animated short included as a special feature. The Flash animated cartoon—IT'S ALL AROUND YOU—was directed by Canadians Nick Cross and Helder Mendonca and thanks to some kind animation fan, it's now been posted on YouTube. Animation, design, color and storytelling are all top-notch. And how often does that happen nowadays? Check out the film below.
2D OPUS VS. 3D OPUS
In case you haven't noticed, CG animated penquins are apparently hot (at least among the Hollywood movers and shakers). Just take a look at MADAGASCAR, HAPPY FEET and SURF'S UP. Now Berkely Breathed has chimed in on the CG debate in the current storyline of his comic strip, OPUS.
(Thanks, Mark Bunker)
August 07, 2006
DISNEY TREASURES: THE COMIC BOOK
No, this isn't a picture of the latest Disney Treasures DVD. It's a new trade paperback from Gemstone Publishing, and another labor-of-love compiled by Gemstone's Archival Editor David Gerstein (whose previous Mickey and the Gang: Classic Stories In Verse is a must-have). I did not grow up reading Disney comics myself (I was immersed in everything else, from Spider-Man to Baby Huey), but even back in those days I admired the stories and artistic skill of those books from afar.
This new collection is truly special. In the tradition of the Maltin DVD collections, it compiles the best and most interesting examples of Disney comic art during the last 75 years and puts the stories in historical context. Gerstein begins the book with a detailed, yet concise, two page overview of the entire history of Disney comic strips and comic books. He then presents rare, restored Mickey newspaper strips from 1930 (by Floyd Gottfredson), prime examples of Sunday pages (including a rare Uncle Remus strip), and un-P.C. Carl Barks material that has never been reprinted. Great comics from Disney legends Paul Murry and Al Hubbard through the modern works of Don Rosa, William Van Horn as well as great European cartoonists like Cesar Ferioli and Vicar fill the 160 pages. I think anyone who loves Disney animation will enjoy this journey through their rich comics history. But if the names Walt Kelly, Gil Turner or Al Taliaferro mean anything to you, or if Bucky Bug, Gyro Gearloose or Super Goof rock your world, Walt Disney Treasures: Disney Comics 75 Years of Innovation is definitely for you.
Enough With the Talking Animals Already
In last Friday's SLATE, Jill Hunter Pellettieri examined the ceaseless glut of talking animal movies being released by Hollywood animation producers. It's not quite as incisive or hard-hitting as I would have liked such a piece to be, but it's still worth a read. The article begins:
I'll come clean: I'm a sucker for talking-animal movies. In fact, even a nonhuman talking object will do. But while I used to think anthropomorphization of any sort would give me my fix—whether a chubby sheep who hides sheepishly each time he's shorn, or a penny who feels undervalued—Hollywood's two latest attempts at the talking-creature genre, The Ant Bully and Barnyard, have made me doubt my faith forever. If the first half of the 20th century was the golden age of animation, I fear we're now entering the Dark Ages.
THE FIRST ARTICLE ABOUT LOONEY TUNES
Joe Dante sent us what must be the first article ever published about Warner Bros. cartoons. It's from the December 7th 1930 edition of the L.A. Times and you can read it here. If anyone knows of any print publicity dated earlier than this, please let us know.
Disney History Blog
Didier Ghez, editor of the fine WALT'S PEOPLE interview series, has started a blog called the Disney History Blog. He describes the site as "interesting discoveries about Disney history, vintage Disneyana, Disney artwork, the Walt's People book series, and new books about Disney." If the posts that Didier has made on the blog's first day is any indication of what's to come, he's definitely got me hooked as a regular reader.
PASSION OF THE HAIRPLUGS
Warning: You may want to finish your morning coffee and doughnut before watching this one. Animation writer Dani Michaeli (SOUTH PARK) made this funny film a couple years back and it has regained a certain amount of relevance following Mel Gibson's recent escapades. It is mostly filmed in real-time with minimal animation, but its sensibility is pure cartoon.
August 06, 2006
Milton Gray Discusses Animation Timing
If you read just one blog post this week, then please make it this one. In the post, Milton Gray, a timing director on THE SIMPSONS, discusses the awful cartoon timing on current TV productions, followed by an in-depth examination of the artistic timing in the classic Warner Bros. shorts, especially in the works of Bob Clampett.
Milt's post is really just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the discussion of timing. Comedic animation timing and pacing are essentially extinct arts in today's animation world, with every show relying on the exact same mechanical timing formulas. The current production process is so compartmentalized and out of whack that animation directors no longer even have to know how to animate or to understand how to time actions and pace scenes. And the results are woefully evident by watching any of the shows currently produced by Nick, Cartoon Network and Disney. It's doubtful that animation timing will ever return to the heights of Golden Age animation, but Milt's article provides at least a start towards understanding the importance of timing in animation.
Looney Tunes Stop-Motion
In the clip below taken from a recent episode of ROBOT CHICKEN, Bugs, Daffy, Elmer and Porky are recast in the Eminem film 8 MILE. I wouldn't exactly call it funny, but I'd still take this version of the WB characters any day over the official Warner Bros. shorts that Larry Doyle and company hacked out a few years back.
(via Something Old, Nothing New)