Author Archives: Jerry Beck

Bluto gets a statue

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This just in from Popeye fan and historian Leonard Kohl:

“A few weeks ago, I was asked to help “unveil” a statue of “Bluto the Terrible” in E.C. Segar’s hometown of Chester, Illinois during the annual POPEYE picnic, parade and POPEYE FANCLUB convention, which is always the weekend after Labor Day. I was asked to do this as I’ve played “Bluto” for 11 years annually for a POPEYE radio play presented live on a Chester, Illinois radio station. Knowing the old rivalry between Disney and Fleischer, I find it kind of ironic that the “Bluto” statue seems to be guarding the front entrance of the “Buena Vista” Bank!”

Click on thumbnail photos below, taken by Chuck Anders from The Official Popeye Fanclub, to see (left) Steve Stanchfield, Lenny Kohl and his wife, Dana Kohl in front of the statue from another angle and (below right) a close-up of the side of the statue – the tribute to Jackson Beck.

Disney 1970s Summer Film Festivals

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Once upon a time, in the early 1970s, The Walt Disney Company had a hard time distributing their films in the New York area.

Disney’s suburban comedies of the era (like Superdad) and rural adventures (The Bears and I) were caught in a time warp, with no relation to the youth movement and fashions of the times, nor the racial tensions and urban realities that gripped a major metropolitan area like The Big Apple. New York City of the 1970s was the one reflected in films like Midnight Cowboy, Taxi Driver and Death Wish. Disney live action flicks like Herbie Rides Again and No Deposit No Return were as far away from that reality as was Neverland.

In 1973, the Film Society of Lincoln Center held a magnificent Disney Studio retrospective (Michael Sporn wrote about this on his blog) which was a huge success. All shows sold out and it proved there was indeed an audience for Disney fare in the NYC market. The subsequent publicity surrounding the Lincoln Center tribute reverberated for months – and this gave Buena Vista distribution execs a brainstorm.

For the next five years, Buena Vista eschewed the regular release pattern for their new features in the New York market and bunched them up for an annual Disney summer festival that would play in family friendly neighborhood theaters. This was how I, in a time before VHS tapes, DVDs and the Internet, could catch up on Disney’s latest releases and rewatch the classic animated features without having to wait seven years between studio reissues.

The cool thing was that my local theater (the Main Street, in Flushing) was virtually empty for the evening performances (they were mobbed with Moms and Kids during matinees), and was a great way for me to study the animated features undisturbed. And of course I was crazy enough to save the printed schedules. I just recently came across them in my files and thought they were worthy of a post. (Click on thumbnail below to see at full size). Anyone else from New York recall these Disney film festivals of the 1970s?

Wanna be an Annie Judge?

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ASIFA-Hollywood is seeking a few good men and women interested in serving on nomination committees for the 36th Annual Annie Awards. Nomination judging will be taking place on Saturday, November 15, 2008, at Woodbury University, in Burbank, California. Judges may also be required to do some additional judging within the following days, or participate in pre-selection activities, via email, prior to the judging sessions.

Applications must be received no later than Friday, October 17, 2008. Individuals who are selected to serve on a nomination committee, shall receive a pair of complementary VIP tickets to the Annie Awards ceremony, on January 30th at UCLA’s Royce Hall. To apply click here.

Academy posts Animation highlights

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If you couldn’t make it to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Beverly Hills this year for their record number of animation exhibits and programs, the Academy has just posted a review and gallery online, as well as a video podcast with highlights narrated by Academy president Sid Ganis.

Academy animation programs this year included Drawing on the Future: Mentorship in Animation with James Baxter, Andreas Deja, Pete Docter and Eric Goldberg; the gallery exhibit Ink & Paint: The Art of Hand-Drawn Animation; The Sound behind the Image II: Now Hear This!; Canadian animation with composer Normand Roger and animator Frédéric Back, as well as the current exhibition Frédéric Back: A Life’s Drawings. The Academy is preparing further video highlights from each of these events.

Joe Murray Explains it All…

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Artist, illustrator and animator Joe Murray is also one of the most successful cartoon show creators working today. Joe has just produced an e-book entitled Crafting A Cartoon, loaded with tips on how to pitch, sell and produce a series in the current marketplace. Says Joe, the book contains:

“…behind the scenes stories, photos and art from the making of Rocko’s Modern Life and Camp Lazlo. Realistic approaches to creating cutting edge, memorable characters for several mediums as well as a guide for fresh storytelling. Inside tips on how to put together pitch materials, contract tips on selling a show, and how to produce the series once it has been picked up. Plus sanity-saving advice on creating win-win relationships with networks – and alternative methods to getting your series out there without the network.”

You can browse the first 14 pages here. To order the whole book, visit Joe Murray’s website.

Annie Awards Call For Entries

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ASIFA-Hollywood is currently accepting entries for consideration for the upcoming 36th Annual Annie Awards. Annie Awards will be presented in the categories of animated theatrical feature, television production, television commercial, short subject and video games, as well as to individuals who have worked on these productions.

Entries submitted for consideration must be from productions that were originally released theatrically, appeared on television, or were exhibited in a film festival between January 1, 2008 and December 31, 2008. To enter the Annie Awards, please visit www.annieawards.org. The deadline to receive entry forms is Friday, October 10, 2008. The 36th Annual Annie Awards will be held on January 30, 2009, at UCLA’s Royce Hall, in Los Angeles, California. For further information or questions, please email Gretchen Dixon at Gretchen-at-annieawards.org or call (562) 209-9900.

Cartoon Spooktacular

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On Tuesday October 21st I’ll be screening a selection of spooky, kooky, strange and creepy Halloween related animated cartoons at the Silent Movie Theatre on Fairfax Avenue in Hollywood. The vintage prints will be in 16mm and 35mm, and I’ll be running some surprises and bringing along some special guests. More details in a post closer to the playdate, but I wanted to give our readers an early heads up.

The History of the NBC Peacock

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Mike Clark runs a website devoted to the history of Tampa’s Channel 13 (WTVT, a former CBS affiliate, now a Fox station). The site has dozens of interesting articles about the history and local personalities of “Big 13″.

However one of his pieces, slightly off his given topic, should be of interest to most Cartoon Brew readers. Clark devotes an illustrated article, running several pages, to John Graham (NBC’s director of design) and the story of the animated NBC peacock logo. He cuts the story just short of the 1993 remakes by the likes of Al Hirshfeld, Peter Max and John Kricfalusi (see below), but it’s fascinating to read the story behind the iconic image we all grew up with.

Uh-Oh! Disney Princess Spaghettios?

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Eat your heart out, Andy Warhol!

I saw this ad (click thumbnail below) in the Sunday newspaper coupon section (yes, I clip coupons). I don’t know exactly why, but this product just seems wrong. Yeah they’ve had Dora, Cars and Danny Phantom shaped Spaghettios and Chicken Soup for years, and that never bothered me. But these labels — advertising Cinderella, Ariel and Belle as “shapes” — feel demeaning and are possibly sexist. Or am I being too sensitive? Maybe I’ll just stick with my Chef Boyardee Smurf Beefaroni.

Cartoon Dump on Tuesday Night

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I’m just back from Ottawa and hung over from a week of watching great animation. Tomorrow night is the antidote: Cartoon Dump, our monthly live comedy and cartoons showcase in Hollywood. We will have guest comedian John Fugelsang adding to the madness. Join Moodsy, Compost Brite, Officer Pete, Dumpster Diver Dan, Cue Card Goddess and me, Jerry Beck, Tuesday, September 23rd at 8 PM, for an evening of hilarious comedy, demented songs, and really, really crappy cartoons.

It’s again at the Steve Allen Theater, 4773 Hollywood Blvd. (two blocks west of Vermont). Map here, see you there!

Highlights from Ottawa

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I’ve been in Ottawa since Wednesday and it’s been wall-to-wall screenings, presentations and panels (not to mention parties, meetings and lots of walking). Today Eric Goldberg is giving a lecture, there’s one last competition screening, and tonight is the award ceremonies. One of the major highlights of this five day event was the John Canemaker interview with Richard Williams last night. Two hours was not enough. Williams and Canemaker could have gone on for four hours and I still would have wanted more. If you are in New York tomorrow night, do not miss the encore at MoMA (and I understand Williams will be touring the U.S. giving similar interviews to promote his 16-part DVD set The Animators Survival Kit Animated – more about this in a forthcoming post).

The competition has been pretty good, and I came away from each screening with at least one film (sometimes several) that blew me away with creativity and visual imagination. I’d like to note a few here that were particularly worthy of seeking out.

Skhizein, Jeremy Clapin’s 3D/2D tour-de-force about a man hit by a meteorite and finding himself existing 91 centimeters away from his body. The story was so unique and fun, I can see Hollywood remaking it, perhaps with someone like Michael Gondry, as a live action vehicle for a Ben Stiller or Steve Martin. Let’s hope not. This animated film is gloriously original and beautifully realized.

Berni’s Doll by Yann Jouette, about a lonely man who buys, builds and sexually abuses a female robot, is so well made and so funny you can forgive it’s politically incorrect attitudes towards women. Its an outstanding short, which arguably becomes pro-feminist in its climactic resolution.

I also really loved Camera Obscura, directed by Matthieu Buchalski, Jean-Michel Drechsler and Thierry Onillon, three students at Supinfocom, the computer graphic university in France. If Guy Maddin did animation, this is what he’d make. Luckily, I found an embed and can share it with you below:

Link: Bitfilm TV

I’m also wild about Nina Paley’s feature Sita Sings The Blues, which I’m seeing again, for a second time, today. More about this film, and other Ottawa highlights, in a forthcoming post.

Rabbits Kin 2.0

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Matthew Hunter and Jon Cooke have a terrific blog which I’ve linked to before, Miscel-Looney-ous, which regularly examines the odds and ends of Warner Bros. cartoons. Today they found a video on YouTube worthy of much wider exposure – someone took the 1952 Bugs Bunny cartoon Rabbit’s Kin (the one with Pete Puma, voiced by Stan Freberg), slowed down the dialogue of super-sped-up little Bunny so we can actually hear what Mel Blanc is saying. It’s well worth a listen and a real joy to hear some new Looney Tunes dialogue from Blanc.