Author Archives: Jerry Beck

Animation Bands to battle September 25th CANCELLED

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A follow up to our 8/18 post about Women In Animation’s Battle of the Animation Bands. The battle is now on – and scheduled September 25th at 6 Point Harness Studios in Hollywood. The Battle of the Animation Bands has been postponed. New date to be set soon. “We are just postponing this event. Watch for the next date,” said Rita Street.

Women In Animation has announced three contestants for its rock concert/fundraising party: Bonsai Tribe, Groove Bazaar and Go-Go Global. They will go against each other and the audience will choose the ultimate star. Tickets can be purchased online at GrooveTickets.com (Search for “Battle of the Animation Bands”). Each ticket includes two drink coupons. No one under 21 will be admitted. A trendy food truck will also be on site. Check with Women In Animation for more information.

Wacky Japanese Mickey Mouse Merchandising

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What the hell is this?

Actually, these are officially licensed Cubic Mouth Disney Key Covers (above), designed by Satoshi Fumihara, the artist behind the Japanese MTV animated series The World of Golden Eggs. It’s strange how strict Disney licensing can be when it comes to drawing the standard characters strictly on model — but in Japan you can reinterpret the Mouse any which way.

Below are examples of a Mickey brick styled toy, and of course, the infamous Mickey Mouse vibrator. If readers have any other examples of strange Mickey toys from Japan (or anywhere), I’d love to see them. It’s not fair they get to have all the fun.

(via Fanboy.com)

Popeye and Olive get Married (1939)

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The killer ebay find of the week: a rare 1939 publicity photo (click thumbnail below left to enlarge) of voice actors Jack Mercer (Popeye) and Margie Hines (Olive Oyl), announcing their marraige in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The caption on back (below right) says the couple ate a “wedding breakfast of Spinach!”

The caption also indicates this particular photo was taken “at the Fleischer Studio in Long Island City”, and the couple were “ready to begin work on a new release”. I assume the Fleischer’s used a Paramount sound stage in Long Island City to record tracks… but if that’s so, why didn’t Mae Questel continue doing Olive during the Miami years?

If you’re interested and got the dough, click here. The bidding starts at $99. and the auction closes at 5:48pm. Good luck!

Saturday Book Review

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If you ever wished one of the creators of a cartoon series on Nickelodeon or Cartoon Network would just explain everything about how they sold their shows – and what happens step-by-step during the production process – your wish has been granted. Joe Murray (Rocko’s Modern Life and Camp Lazlo) has written one of the best books on the subject – and a perfect companion to David Levy’s essential volumes. Murray’s new book, Creating Animated Cartoons with Character, explains it all, in rich detail, using his experiences in pitching and producing Rocko and Lazlo, illustrating every part with storyboards, model sheets, photographs, internal charts and graphs. He gives in-depth behind-the-scenes information about his two series, and makes it easy to see how this info can apply to your, or anyones, project. On top of that, Murray corrals his colleagues Steve Hillenberg (Spongebob), Everret Peck (Duckman), Tom Warburton (Codename: Kids Next Door), Craig McCracken (Powerpuff Girls), art director Sue Mondt, voice actor Tom Kenny, sound designer Jeff Hutchins and others for informative sidebar Q&A’s. Linda Simensky provides a great introduction to set the scene. This is a must-have if you are interested in creating TV animation, pitching a show or producing a series – or simply interested, historically, on how Joe himself did it. Highly recommended.

When experienced animators turn to creating comics or illustrating children’s books, I usually find the results successful and quite satisfying. That’s certainly the case with animator Mitch Schauer (Angry Beavers) and his first graphic novel, RIP M.D. (from Fantagraphics). It’s about a little boy who discovers that all the monsters (zombies, wolfmen, ghosts and blobs) we’ve always heard about are actually real – and in desperate need of his special help. The storytelling is very clever and the art (with inks by Mike Vosburg) is lush and appropriately horrific. This is the first project to publicly emerge from Lincoln Butterfield, a small indie animation studio in Burbank. RIP M.D. would make an amazing 2D animated feature – if Hollywood were still making those. For now, graphic novels such as this are a great outlet for ambitious creators with ample imaginations. Check it out.

And finally, animation character and background designer Eric Gonzales has created and self-published an excellent “Day of the Dead” themed children’s book, Rosita y Conchita. The text is presented in both English and Spanish, and it includes a section on how to make a Sugar Skull. The recipe, like the artwork in the book, is mouth watering!

November 19-21 in Burbank: CTNX Part Deux

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First off: In case you haven’t bought your tickets yet – the CTN Expo is two months away. Anyone who attended last year knows that this event is the closest thing we have to an animation artist and creators convention in the United States – and the inaugural expo last November was a blast. (That’s Peter De Seve above, addressing the appreciative crowd last year).

This year’s CTNX is set for November 19-21, and organizer Tina Price is planning bigger and better panels, seminars and exhibits. Like what? Like this:

Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois on Directing Dragons at Dreamworks…
The new “secret” from Cartoon Saloon…
All three amazing heads from Headless Studios…
Sergio Pablos from Barcelona on writing the screenplay for Dispicable Me…
Pablo Navarro master animator from Barcelona…
Those folks from “The Third Floor” master pre-viz artists…
…and, of course, The Cartoon Brew Lounge!

And that’s just for starters. I’ll be posting more about the guest list and panels in the next few weeks. Meanwhile, Tina has just announced a special, exclusive Saturday night attraction: An Evening with Moebius.

Famed animation artist and graphic novelist Jean Giraud “Moebius” will appear November 20th at the Convention Center at the Marriott Burbank Airport Hotel. This event will be a separate ticket from the CTN Expo. CTN’s official press release says:

Having not been in the United States for over 15 years “An Evening with Moebius” is a rare exclusive opportunity to see and hear from this internationally recognized genius artist. Now, less than 70 days away, this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity with limited seating is designed to promote a “special event” atmosphere that includes moderated interview, presentation, drawing demonstration along with surprise special guests. All attendees are invited to the after hours cocktail party directly following the event. Only one US appearance. Tickets $75.00. Reservations available now.

For more information about the CTN Expo, click here. See you there.

Phil Roman’s Holiday Hello (1992)

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In December 1992, employees of Film Roman received a special Christmas bonus. No, not cash, but a VHS of this video, Phil Roman’s Holiday Hello. Eighteen years later, it’s posted on You Tube revealing an interesting snapshot of a more optimistic time in the animation industry. Garfield, The Simpsons and the semi-educational caveman cartoon, Cro, were in production at the time. There are a few funny bits here, just as many lame in-jokes, and as for who’s-who – perhaps our readership can identify the folks on camera in our comments section, below.

(Thanks, John Mathot)

Frank Tashlin’s Van Boring on Facebook

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Cartoonist-animator-filmmaker Frank Tashlin drew a comic strip, Van Boring (He Never Says a Word), for the Los Angeles Times between 1934 and 1936. A Facebook page devoted to the strip has started posting the pantomime panel, one-per-day, exactly 76 years from their original publication dates.

Written under the pseudonym “Tish-Tash”, the character was inspired by Tashlin’s former animation boss, Amadee J. Van Beuren. It’s well worth joining Facebook to “Like” this page.

Snapshots from Cinecon

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As mentioned previously, I’m spending my Labor Day at the annual classic movie convention in Hollywood, Cinecon. Inbetween screenings I’m rummaging the dealers room, looking for animation material, and luckily every year I seem to find something to add to my research.

I’ve been collecting animation still photos since my days working on Of Mice And Magic. Back then, the only way to illustrate a book or article on animation was with physical still photos (mainly in black and white). These days, those materials are no longer needed for illustrations. Most books prefer color, and either scanned animation cels or frame grabs from DVDs are superior to most old publicity photos created back-in-the-day.

Regardless, I still maintain a pretty large collection of animation publicity photos, presskits, posters, slides and lobby cards from animated features, shorts, commercials, TV shows and specials. I enjoy having them even though I don’t need them as much as I used to for my work. Now I collect purely for the fun of it. This year I picked up 15 more unique cartoon stills, and I thought I’d share a few favorites.

The one above is an original ABC press photo for Rocky and His Friends. According to the info on the reverse, it dates from December 17th 1959, and the show aired at 5:30pm on Thursdays. I’d never seen this image before – I love the way Rocky looks and I suspect it’s from some early pitch boards.

Below, from left to right: a nice publicity set up for Cruise Cat (MGM, 1952); Burl Ives appears with the puppets from Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer (1964) in this NBC publicity photo – one which I’ve not seen before, nor appears in any of Rick Goldschmidt’s excellent books; and one of two publicity stills I have from the only 3D Woody Woodpecker short, Hypnotic Hick (1953). I hope you enjoy these as much as I do… Click the thumbnails below to see larger versions of each: