Reminder: Saturday afternoon (9/25) Mark Kausler and I are hosting an Asifa Hollywood screening of classic Van Beuren TOM & JERRY cartoons at the AFI in Hollywood. These are NOT the Cat & Mouse comedies made famous by Hanna Barbera at MGM. These are funky 1932-33 black & white, jazz hot cartoons - not available on 99¢ dvds - including: Wot A Night (the first in the series), Trouble, Joint Wipers, The Tuba Tooter, Jolly Fish, Barnyard Bunk Tight Rope Tricks, Happy Hoboes, Puzzled Pals, and The Phantom Rocket (The last in the series). Join us at 3pm for a good time.

Disney continues to do a good job of keeping Mickey Mouse present in modern merchandising - everything from personal computers to soft drinks is endorsed by the mouse these days. But I am particularly impressed with a new series of Kleenex tissue boxes (now on sale) celebrating Mickey’s 75th anniversary - one of which features the earliest 1928 Mickey on one of its side panels. When was the last time you saw the black & white Mickey - limited editions and Disneyland merchandise excepted - promoted on such a mass market item?
Gesunteit!

Animator Mike Nguyen (The Iron Giant, Beauty & The Beast), who has been toiling away of late on his own personal animated film (My Little World), recently collected his paintings devoted to his pet cat, created over a 15 year period, into a just-released self-published book, Issa.Mike will be signing copies at the Brand Central Library in Glendale, CA on Thursday, October 28th, from 6:00pm - 8:30pm. Original artwork from the book will be on display, as well as trailers and clips from Mike’s work-in-progress feature film. You can see pages from the book and purchase it online directly from Mike at Julysky.com

This must be the golden age of cheap public domain cartoon dvds. ILM animation director Tom Bertino sent in this toon tip:

Your posting of the 99-cent TOM & JERRY DVD made me think I should tip you off to something, if you don’t know about it already. There is a 12-disc box on the market with the woefully generic title “100 CARTOON CLASSICS“. All PD stuff, and while the usual suspects are there (yet another repackaging of POPEYE FOR PRESIDENT) and there’s a lot of odd as well (some of the most off-brand TV stuff imaginable), there are some really wonderful oddities lurking within. One whole disc (coincidence?) is devoted to Van Beuren T&Js, and scattered around are a number of VB Aesop’s Fables… DIXIE DAYS, RED RIDING HOOD, things like that. There are also a few Ted Eshbaugh indies, including GOOFY GOAT ANTICS. There’s even a Toby The Pup in there, for God’s sake! I paid something like $26.00 for it at my local Borders, and felt like I sure got my money’s worth.

A few years ago I was invited to be a judge for the animation sidebar to the SITGES FANTASY FILM FESTIVAL in Spain. Animator Carolina Lopez ran an excellent mini animation festival there, which she dubbed Animac. Now the mini-fest has turned into it’s own event run by Isabel Herguera. I’ve just recieved a very well designed entry form for ANIMAC ‘05 which will be held on February 24th through the 27th, 2005, in Lleida (Catalonia - Spain). Filmmakers wanting to have their films shown there have until Nov. 30th to enter their work. Visit their nifty Flash-enhanced website for more details.

Thursday, July 15, 2004 (Part II)
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I arrive at the studio, where I’m issued an electronic badge with my picture on it. This will open locked doors and help the crew identify the New Guy, but how the hell am I supposed to learn a hundred new names, many of them with umlauts and ligatures and accents? The Ö’s and Æ’s and ß’s are daunting to my fevered, jet-lagged brain, but fortunately I brought many high-tech recording devices with me from America. I set my trusty digital camera to “video” and greet every new face with a cheerful, “Hi! Can you tell me your name and how to spell it?” This breaks the ice, gives me some great audio and visual reference, and pegs me as a weirdo immediately.

After an intense day of writing, Mark Zaslove and I go out for a bite. Man, the chow is yummy here, and the coffee is the best I’ve ever tasted. I drink approximately one million cups of it a day. On the way back from the restaurant we pass a club called Sirkus, where a mob has gathered hoping to catch a glimpse of the Tom Selleck Competition. I make a note to check the place out later. Right now I’m beat.

I stumble home and get in bed, writing about pirates until I fall asleep with my computer on my chest. As I drift off the voices of invisible women whisper trivialities in my ears, jarring me awake. What in the world is going on inside my head? Or are the voices coming from outside my head? Am I going nuts? Probably.

Oh, well. Beautiful day for it.

Good night to all,
Ken Pontac, Iceland

My buddy Arnold Leibovit (The Puppetoon Movie) has a nice website called Sci-Fi Station which is dedicated to the great fantasy filmmakers of the past: Walt Disney, George Pal, Ray Harryhausen and others. Arnie just uploaded images from a batch of vintage Disney cels for sale - great ones - consigned to him from several private collections. If classic Disney art is your thing, take a look. At these prices, I’ll be content just to window shop (or the internet equivalent of that term) — but what a nice group of images.

Rivaling Fleischer studios with their abstract rubber-hose animation style and hot jazz musical scores, the RKO Van Beuren Tom & Jerry cartoons (1931-1933) have become classics for their sheer surrealism. Currently in distribution at 99 Cents Only Stores is one of the greatest bargains I’ve ever seen: a dvd of nine Van Beuren TOM & JERRY cartoons! That’s 11 cents per cartoon! And if that’s not enough for you, it comes with a free 10 minute phone card inside the package!! (Thanks to Larry Loc for providing one for the Brew archives)And the dvd works - and the print quality isn’t too bad. They look like 16mm transfers - and most have the original Tom & Jerry title cards. The packaging is a cheap cardboard “envelope” that has been shrink wrapped. This dvd says it’s volume 1 - has anyone out there found volume two? If so, what titles are on it?The company putting these out is called Television Classics in Solona Beach, CA - and they’ve stocked the 99 Cent Only stores with dozens of similiarly packaged PD dvd collections - including Ozzie & Harriet, Dick Van Dyke, Burns & Allen, Make Room For Daddy and Lone Ranger television episodes, not to mention a dozen movie titles, and as I said, the quality is pretty good. Heck, they’re only 99 cents!Next Saturday afternoon, Mark Kausler and I are hosting an Asifa Hollywood screening of classic Van Beuren TOM & JERRY cartoons at the AFI in Hollywood. We will show many rare titles not on these cheap dvds, including Wot A Night (the first in the series), Trouble, Joint Wipers, Tuba Tooter, Jolly Fish, Barnyard Bunk Tight Rope Tricks, Happy Hoboes, Puzzled Pals, and The Phantom Rocket (The last in the series). Join us on September 25th at 3pm and see what all the fuss is about.