Author Archives: Jerry Beck

The Old Family Toothbrush

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There is still a lot of research to be done in documenting the silent era of animation. Leonard Maltin reports, on his Movie Crazy blog, of the screening of a true rarity/oddity at the recent San Francisco Silent Film Festival:

…a 1925 animated cartoon in two-color Technicolor. The Old Family Toothbrush features a character named Kid Noah in “A New Redhead Satire” filmed in Naturecolor, using the Wilson Wetherald Process. It was so startling to see a cartoon of this vintage in color that I picked up my camera and tried to capture a few frames (above)… The short itself is fairly amusing, executed in fairly typical New York cartoon-studio fashion of the period, with impressive personality animation of its leading character. Still, its origins are something of a mystery: the picture wasn’t registered for copyright, and I can find no evidence of it in my usual reference sources.

Do any of our readers have some clues about this mysterious new discovery?

Frank and Ollie at SIGGRAPH

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Animation Mentor is hosting a tribute to the life, work and inspiration of Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston at SIGGRAPH 2008. Animation director Tom Sito will lead the panel discussion, with panelists including Disney producer Don Hahn, Dreamworks animator Dave Burgess, Animation Guild president Kevin Koch, and Frank Thomas’ son, Ted, an independent film director, writer and producer. The panel will take place on Wednesday, August 13, 2008 at 10:30 a.m. –in Petree Hall D of the Los Angeles Convention Center. For more information, click here.

Time For Some Campaignin’

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JibJab’s latest political music video premiered last night on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and it’s another winner. Co-Director Evan Spiridellis tells us:

I think you’ll notice that we significantly upped the production value while trying to remain true to the original thing that made This Land work – funny collage heads. It was also really important to us was not to repeat ourselves so rather than the tit-for-tat that was in This Land we wanted to make this a true character piece and give each player a verse to try and define themselves. (It was a real challenge trying to sum up each candidate with only 5 lines!)

Evan and Gregg have also written a great production blog on the making of this particular film.

Jerry at Comic Con

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The San Diego Comic Con commences next week and I’ll be there. If you want to meet me and say hello, I’ll be signing copies of my book The Hanna Barbera Treasury on Thursday July 24th, 2pm to 3pm and again on Friday 7/25 from 11am till noon, at the Insight Editions/Palace Publishing booth 2913-J (located in the Lucas Pavilion). Later that day, at 9:30pm, I’ll be screening my latest compilation of THE WORST CARTOONS EVER in room 6CDEF.

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Otherwise, when I’m not looking at old comic books in the dealers room, I’ll try to check out the following panels:

Thursday (Complete Thursday Schedule)

• 10:00-11:00 Click & Clack’s As the Wrench Turns, Behind the scenes with the creators Tom Sito, Bill Kroyer, Stephen Silver, Floyd Norman, and Tom Minton. Room 2

•10:30-11:30 Tiny Toons and Freakazoid panel featuring Bruce Timm, Paul Rugg, Paul Dini, Jean MacCurdy, Rich Arons. Room 6A

•10:30-11:30 Spotlight on Noel Neill in Room 7AB

•11:00-12:00 The Disney Animation Story Process with Nathan Greno (head of story, Bolt), Don Hall (head of story, The Princess and the Frog), Mark Kennedy (head of story, Rapunzel), Joe Mateo (story artist, Bolt), Michael LaBash (story artist, Bolt), Paul Briggs (story artist, The Princess and the Frog), and Josie Trinidad (story artist, The Princess and the Frog). Room 32AB

•3:30-4:30 Bat-Manga! The Secret History of Batman in Japan. Chip Kidd lifts the veil on officially licensed, original Batman manga stories from 1966 Japan, not previously collected or translated in over 40 years. Narrated slide show, with Q&A to follow. Room 30AB

•5:00-6:00 Spotlight on Floyd Norman, moderated by cartoonist Scott Shaw! Room 7AB

•6:00-7:00 Bill Plympton will screen the first 20 minutes of his animated feature Idiots and Angels, plus a Q&A session to follow. Room 7AB

•7:00-9:00 Comedy Central TV Funhouse with Robert Smigel. Room 6CDEF

Friday (Complete Friday Schedule)

•2:00-3:00 That ’70s (Animation) Panel. Mark Evanier talks to animation legends Joe Ruby and Ken Spears. Room 8

• 5:00-6:00 Nickelodeon’s Making Fiends with creator Amy Winfrey and supervising producer Dave Wasson . Room 7AB

• 5:30-6:30 Spotlight on Kim Deitch. Room 10

• 7:15-8:15 Mystery Science Theater 3000 20th Anniversary Reunion with creator Joel Hodgson, producer Jim Mallon and performers Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy, Trace Beaulieu, Frank Conniff, Mary Jo Pehl, Paul Chaplin, J. Elvis Weinstein, Bridget Nelson, and Bill Corbett in a Q&A panel hosted by self-professed “MST3K nerd” and comedian Patton Oswalt. Room 6B

• 9:30-10:30 Worst Cartoons Ever! Room 6CDEF

Saturday (Complete Saturday Schedule)

•10:00-10:45 Futurama Secrets Revealed! with creator Matt Groening, executive producer David X. Cohen and series regulars Billy West, Katey Sagal, John DiMaggio, and Maurice LaMarche, producer Claudia Katz and director Peter Avanzino. Ballroom 20

•10:15-11:15 Spotlight on Ralph Bakshi. Moderated by Jon M. Gibson and Chris McDonnell. Room 6B

• 12:30-2:00 Cartoon Voices I. Co-hosts Mark Evanier and Earl Kress welcome Jason Marsden, Wally Wingert, Phil LaMarr, TV legend Chuck McCann, and Tom Kenny (SpongeBob SquarePants). Room 6CDEF

• 12:45-1:45 Q&A with the writers of The Office. Moderated by cast member Rainn Wilson, panelists include Greg Daniels, B.J. Novak and Mindy Kaling. Room 6A

• 2:30-3:30 Scott Shaw!: Oddball Comics. Room 5AB

• 2:30-3:30 Disney Pixar preview: Bolt and UP. Directors Chris Williams and Byron Howard (Bolt) and Peter Docter (UP) presents the first-ever look at Disney and Pixar’s new animated features.

• 4:30-5:30 pm: Artists Only: a Discussion with Ralph Bakshi – Ralph addresses the issue of what it means to be an artist in animation today. Moderated by Stephen Worth. Room 10

Sunday (Complete Sunday Schedule)

•1:15-2:30 Cartoon Voices II. Co-hosts Mark Evanier and Earl Kress welcome Chris Edgerly (Harvey Birdman, Celebrity Deathmatch), Dee Baker (American Dad, SpongeBob SquarePants), Cheryl Chase (Rugrats), Katie Leigh (Dungeons & Dragons, ), and Billy West (Futurama, Ren & Stimpy). Room 6B

Also: I strongly recommend all panels moderated by Mark Evanier – Click Here for complete list.

Oh, and if you can’t make it to the San Diego, I can also be seen on G4′s live TV coverage of Comic Con ’08 on July 24 and 25 at 7pm each night.

The People’s Republic of Animation

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This commercial simply blew me away. It was produced by The People’s Republic of Animation, an outstanding animation studio in Australia, founded on their philosophy of “BE BOLD, BE CREATIVE, BE ENTERTAINING”.

Formed in 2003, PRA founders Eddie White and James Calvert, have done numerous stylish commercials (such as the one above) and several outstanding shorts — including the acclaimed Carnivore Reflux (2006), which we featured on Cartoon Brew Films. For more cartoon goodness, check out their amazing sample reel on Vimeo.

(Thanks, Jake Parker)

A rare frame from Popeye Vol. 3

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I admit it. I love seeing classic animation I’ve never seen before. I particularly go nuts for original title sequences of cartoons that had been cut 50 years ago for TV broadcast. Long time readers of this site already know this.

So what is so unusual about this Popeye card above? It’s simply the rarely seen opening graphic to the first post-Fleischer Popeye cartoons. This title treatment (above) only appears at the head of two cartoons – You’re A Sap, Mr. Jap and Alona On The Sarong Seas (both 1942) – immediately after the ousting of Max and Dave Fleischer. The next release (A Hull Of A Mess) is the first to proclaim the series “A Famous Studios Production” (the new entity created to produce cartoons for Paramount release), and feature a new animated title treatment.

More about Popeye opening titles appear here, and Popeye Vol. 3 goes on sale September 30th (amazon link).

Cultoons Vol. 3

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Just out from Steve Stanchfield’s Thunderbean Animation is Cultoons 3, a new DVD set which continues his madness of releasing cartoons that only us die hards would care about. This set features all the uber-rare 1939 Gran’ Pop Monkey series as well as Boyd La Vero’s lost Marty the Monk cartoons. It also has the eccentric foreign-toon Mr. E from Tow City and the Walter Lantz wartime rarity, The Enemy Bacteria. Trust me, this is oddball material, expertly curated and lots of fun.

Stanchfield is doing all of us a big favor – rounding up the odds and ends of cartoon history, using the best prints he can find of the most obscure cartoons ever made. Another new release of note, Grotesqueries: Ghosts, Goblins & Other Magical Moving Picture Illusions is from Blue Mouse Studio (Thunderbean will be distributing it). Chris Buchman and Rex Schneider (with some help from Stanchfield) produced this fantastic DVD featuring all sorts of goodies, both animated and otherwise (and a bunch of really great bonus features. They’ve done a really beautiful job with all the graphics and design… its been in progress for over 2 years! It’s a pretty unusual and cool DVD. It also features a restoration of A Night On Bald Mountain, the 1933 Pinscreen classic by Alexander Alexeieff and Claire Parker – the best it’s ever looked (restored and licensed from Cecile Starr). Highly recommended!

Worst Comic Strip. Ever!

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When I seek out films for my Worst Cartoons Ever! screenings or Cartoon Dump I look for animation so bad it’s unintentionally funny. So when I came across a batch of old issues of My Weekly Reader I had in stashed my archives and found this comic strip – Uncle Funny Bunny and Chumpy – I felt I’d found a comics equivalent to Paddy The Pelican and Bucky and Pepito: the lamest comic strip ever created! Mesmerizingly so. I just had to share. Click on thumbnails below to read some samples.

Admittedly it’s aimed at children, and produced in the more innocent era of the early 50s. But the consistently corny gags, the awful stiff artwork… surely this takes the prize. Unless one considers the Weekly Reader’s back up strip: Loki, Your Fuzzy Forest Friend.

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Betty Boop and Felix

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Does anyone remember this short lived comic strip (1984-1988) by The Walker Brothers (Brian, Morgan, Greg, and Neal, the sons of Beetle Bailey’s Mort)? This was the height of Garfield’s popularity, and the thought of pairing these two classic, and essentially orphaned, properties must have been intriguing to King Featuures.

I just found this Sunday page from January 13th 1985 while I was rumaging through my files this weekend. Not a particularly funny entry, but it’s all I have as reference. Was this ever reprinted in book form? Or is it anywhere on the internet?

Jerry on Movie Talk podcasts

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New Orleans movie critic David Dubos is now writing for, and podcasting about, movies each week on NewOrleans.com. He’s recorded me twice now during the last few weeks, allowing me to ramble on with my opinions of Kung Fu Panda and Wall•E, and debate the pros and cons of both films. Be warned, the editing makes me sound a bit hyper on these podcasts. But I applaud David for showcasing these animated features – both highlights of the current summer movie season.

Kristen Morgin

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Kristen Morgan, an artist and professor at Cal State Long Beach, has a current installation in Hollywood which combines pop culture itself (mainly cartoon character comics, board games, coloring books and merchandising artifacts) with sculpture, using found objects to create statues of animation icons Mighty Mouse and Popeye. The show, Objects for Everyone I Have Ever Known, runs through August 16th at Marc Selwyn Fine Art Gallery on Wilshire Blvd. The L.A. Times reviewed the show in today’s Calendar section.