This doesn’t sound too good:Silence greeted the NBC sales presentation of FATHER OF THE PRIDE, the Dreamworks CG animated comedy based on Siegfried and Roy’s tiger family. According to an AP story, “…bad buzz had started humming for one of NBC’s highest-profile fall series.” Industry analyst Jack Myers wrote, “The reaction of NBC’s advertising clients was so negative that it’s unlikely the program will last on NBC’s schedule.”

Ten years ago, The Lion King not only became the high water mark of the Disney Feature Animation revival, but it also capped the 2-D animation renaissance of the 1990s.
On Monday June 14th in Glendale you can join story artists, directors, producers and animators as they recall the making of this film, and remember a time when animators drew with pencils.Former Lion King story artist TOM SITO will moderate a panel which will include JEFFREY KATZENBERG, both
directors ROGER ALLERS & ROB MINKOFF, co-writer IRENE MEECHI, animator of Scar ANDREAS DEJA, animator of Pumbaa TONY BANCROFT, animator of Timon MIKE SURREY, CGI creator of the Wildebeast Stampede SCOTT JOHNSTON – and others.
All proceeds will benefit the ASIFA-Hollywood Archive Fund.Monday, June 14, 7:00 p.m.
Glendale Public Library Auditorium
222 E. Harvard Ave, Glendale, CAMore info at www.asifa-hollywood.org

FYI – Don’t miss Pete Emslie’s wonderful poem posted on Jim Hill Media today, “The Monkey’s Tale”.

The April 2004 edition of ASIFA-East’s newsletter, “aNYmator”, had a great piece by ASIFA-East president David Levy on the realities of pitching shows. As someone who has pitched shows, sold shows, been an exec taking pitches, etc. I can confirm that David has nailed it in this article. Unfortunately it’s all true.ASIFA-Hollywood has posted Levy’s article, “Life’s A Pitch” on its website. It’s worth reading.

Once again, my friends at HERITAGE COMICS AUCTIONS have released their latest drool-inducing catalog of “stuff I would buy if I were a billionaire”.Among the offerings in Auction #811 (June 11-12, 2004) are: THE WISE LITTLE HEN model sheet – which is perhaps the first Donald Duck model sheet; original art for a complete 1953 CASPER comic book story; tons of mint copies of classic comic books including Harvey’s PARAMOUNT ANIMATED COMICS #5 and DC’s FUNNY STUFF #1; and lotsa Walt Kelly POGO art.
The folks at Heritage are good guys (I did a consulting job for them in March) and their catalog (which is online) must be seen to be believed. From Curt Swan to R. Crumb, from Frank Frazzetta to Schulz – Amazing stuff!

Let’s add another international animation festival to this year’s calender: If you are in Italy in September the Chiavari Animation Festival will take place from September 21-25, 2004. Animation historian Giannalberto Bendazzi is hosting this event. It’s exactly opposite Chrs Robinson’s international cartoon party (aka the Ottawa Animation Festival). Perhaps the two events can have a video hook-up and compare awards?

Just what we need: another kids cartoon channel! PBS KIDS is considering spinning itself into a 24 hour basic cable channel.However, this time I’m actually semi-excited about the idea. Why? Because our pal Linda Simensky (formerly of Nick & Cartoon Network) is now a development exec for PBS Kids – and this move to turn PBS Kids into a profit-making round-the-clock service could provide her with the funds to stimulate some of the more interesting animation creatives, who could ultimately generate some cool new shows for the channel.

Reader “Lyris” sent this in: “You may or may not know about this, but there’s a DVD in China of Tom & Jerry featuring all the Hanna-Barbera shorts (except for the cinemascope ones) in chronological order.”It’s actually not a bootleg set, it’s distributed by a company named Bo Ying and is packaged fairly nicely. All of the shorts seem to be uncut, except for the fact that the MGM cards at the start of each short has been replaced with a card for the company that distributes the DVD. The image quality’s fairly decent (definitely watchable and far better than VHS) and although the package states the set is encoded for Region 6, the versions I received are actually Region 0 and since China uses the NTSC video standard, this means you’ll be able to play them in America without any special hardware.”We just missed one on ebay – but methinks this is a bootleg. I’ll look into it.

Brew regular David Gerstein asks: “Did you know PIXAR made Shrek II?”Neither did I, but somebody thinks so: in this review from Oshkosh West“And doing a Google search shows me that whole squadrons of people
think *Disney* made Shrek. Wow, the great unwashed…”

Brew reader Mike Crandol sends in this sound bite: “Have you heard this new song released by Patterson Hood? The entire song is about what Walt would think of what’s become of his company.”The question is has Roy heard it yet? Lyrics include: “When they thaw out Uncle Disney, gonna be some changes made. Pointing fingers, asking questions. Forty years of decisions made…”Listen to the song here.

Rick Dominicus of DVD ANGLE has posted a review of the Joseph Losey thriller TIME WITHOUT PITY noting that Losey’s debut short, PETE ROLEUM AND HIS COUSINS, made for the 1939 New York World’s Fair (Petroleum Industry Exhibit) is included as a bonus feature.This industrial short was animated by surrealist stop-motion master Charley Bowers (Pop & Mom In Wild Oysters) and is also available on the incredible, must-have, CHARLEY BOWERS DVD from Image Entertainment.Image is on a roll – while I’m at it, I might as well give another plug to their WINSOR McCAY: THE MASTER EDITION dvd collection which goes on sale next week. Wall to wall Canemaker commentary, rare still gallery, and every piece of Winsor McCay animation all in one place! Great stuff!

A German exhibit of art through the ages – as it might seem in Duckburg: Die DUCKOMENTA – is online.Recreating great moments in art history with animated ducks was an obsession with Ward Kimball and Chuck Jones. This gallery, with eight rooms of art and a catalog, is the most extensive collection yet.

A reminder that the Disney animated short LORENZO will be released on Friday with the Kate Hudson feature film, RAISING HELEN.Artist and animation art conservationist Ron Barbagallo has written a nice page about the film, with quotes from the filmmakers on the techniques used.
Also check out the rest of Ron’s Animation Art Conservation website, where Ron discusses his spectacular work in restoring original animation production art.

Everyone’s favorite Japanese animation dubber and classic cartoon colorizer, Fred Ladd, is honored at his alma mater, Ohio State University. Read about it here.

Apparently Dreamworks Animation’s SHREK 2 has an estimated U.S. box office gross of over $125 million for its first five days of release.
Wow!