Author Archives: Jerry Beck

Disney’s “The Unseen Enemy”

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Our friend J.J. Sedelmaier sent us these scans (click thumbnails at left and below to enlarge) from a 1945 book, Movie Lot To Beachhead, by Editors of Look Magazine (which has a spread on Private Snafu in Booby Traps on pages 56 and 57). J.J. sent the pages promoting the work Disney was doing for the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs, in particular the film, The Unseen Enemy (1945 – aka What Is Disease?). This film was part of a series of simple, but very effective, educational films produced during the war as part of the studios Good Neighbor Program – which you can read about more in-depth in J.B. Kaufman’s highly recommended, South of the Border With Disney. The pages are intertesting, but it gives me an excuse to post the rarely seen film itself (above), which boasts simplistic graphics, contemporary with UPA techniques, conveying an important lesson on disease prevention with limited animation.

See the rest of the scans after the jump:
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“Tezcatlipoca” by Robin George

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Tezcatlipoca is a three minute animated short from 2009 by Robin George, inspired by the music from Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake and the Aztec myth of Tezcatlipoca, a “deity who descends from heaven in the form of a jaguar”. This was George’s senior thesis at Southern Adventist University’s School of Visual Art and Design. The animation department there is run by Disney veteran animator, Hendel Butoy (The Black Cauldron, Fantasia 2000). The school is currently producing an animated feature about The Life of Christ.

(Thanks, Jim Turner)

Oscar Nominations

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The Oscar nominations were announced this morning.

Nominated for BEST ANIMATED FEATURE were:

HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON – Dean DeBlois, Chris Sanders
THE ILLUSIONIST – Sylvain Chomet
TOY STORY 3 – Lee Unkrich

Also: TOY STORY 3 was also nominated for BEST PICTURE, BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY, SOUND EDITING – and the song “We Belong Together” was nominated for BEST MUSIC (Original Song).

HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON was also nominated for Best Music (Original Score).

TANGLED nabbed one nomination: for Best Music (Original Song), “I See The Light”.

And it’s worth noting Tim Burton’s Alice In Wonderland copped three nominations (Art Direction, Costume Design and Sound Editing) and Tron: Legacy got a nod for Sound editing.

Nominated for BEST ANIMATED SHORT are:

Day & Night Director: Teddy Newton. United States.
Let’s Pollute Director: Geefwee Boedoe. United States.
Madagascar, A Journey Diary Director: Bastien Dubois. France.
The Gruffalo Directors: Jakob Schuh, Max Lang. Great Britain.
The Lost Thing Directors: Andrew Ruhemann, Shaun Tan. Australia.

A complete list of nominees in all categories is posted here.

The filmmakers nominated for Best Animated Short will appear in person for Q&A at Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Samuel Goldwyn Theatre, on Tuesday February 22nd at 7:30pm — For more information check the Academy’s Oscar Event website.

The directors nominated for Best Animated Feature will appear in person for Q&A with Tom Sito on at Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Samuel Goldwyn Theatre, on Thursday Februry 24th at 7:30pm — For more information check the Academy’s website.

The Academy Awards will be presented on Sunday February 27th at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood.

Animation Guild Interviews

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Steve Hulett of The Animation Guild has started posting a wonderful series of audio interviews with the current “old guard” of Hollywood hand drawn animation. The first ten sessions are online now with more to come. My good friends Mark Kausler, Dan Haskett and Tom Sito (pictured above) relate some great stories of their almost 40 years (each) in the business. Other interviewees include Mark Kirkland (The Simpsons), Brian McEntee (Beauty and the Beast), Tim Walker (Warner Bros.), Robert Alvarez (Fosters Home), Ed Gombert (Little Mermaid), Bruce Smith (Proud Family) and Rubin Aquino (Lion King) – these are good long interviews, all worth downloading. Click here and enjoy!

“UP” cake

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We haven’t featured a post about cartoon cake in several months, so this is long overdue. Submitted for you approval, this clever “Up Cake” which was featured on GirlyBubble a while back. Apparently Pixar’s Up has inspired dessert chefs as much as it’s inspired the animation community.

And if this doesn’t make you hungry, check out these delicious Up Cupcakes!

(Thanks, Bill Perry)

MONDAY in LA: “Cartoon Dump”

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The first Cartoon Dump of 2011 is Monday (1/24) at 8pm at the Steve Allen Theatre in Hollywood. My long running show is kicking off the new year with its usual blend of sketches, songs, puppets, stand up comedy and some of the absolute worst cartoons ever made – no shit, these are real life animation atrocities from the traumatic Saturday mornings of our shameful past.

With Frank Conniff (MST3K and, until last Friday, of Countdown with Keith Olbermann), Erica Doering as Compost Brite, J. Elvis Weinstein as Dumpster Diver Dan, Kristin Ariggo as Cue Card Goddess and April Hava Shenkman (Grand daughter of Fleischer/Warner veteran animator Ben Shenkman) as Madame Hava – and special stand-up comedy guest, Matt Braunger (Mad TV). Info: here. Tickets: here.

“Totally Tooned In”

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Here’s some news I’ve literally waited ten years to report. Sony’s syndicated classic-cartoon show Totally Tooned In is now being shown on U.S. television. It’s airing on Antenna TV, a new channel that broadcasts free via over-the-air digital transmission – which means, if you are like me and pay for Dish TV, Direct TV, Comcast, Time-Warner or any cable or satellite service, you can’t see it.

If you can receive the channel (in LA it’s telecast on the KTLA digital channel 5.2; in NY its broadcast on WPIX-TV’s digital channel 11.3), Totally Tooned In runs on Saturday morning for three hours (six formatted half-hour episodes back-to-back) starting at 4am Pacific/7am Eastern. Each episode contains three Columbia cartoons from 1934-1959 – this includes many UPA cartoons, Charles Mintz Color Rhapsodies, Li’l Abner, Fox and Crow and even a few Scrappy cartoons.

I was a producer on this series and helped compile each half hour – that was back around the years 1999-2000. Columbia restored its cartoon library for this show, which was immediately sold overseas and to South America (in some countries it aired on either Cartoon Network or Fox Kids). Until now it was impossible to view it in the States.

The Columbia cartoons were, for decades, the hardest cartoons to see as they have been off screens (movie or TV) for almost 50 years. There are good ones, bad ones – and many absolutely strange ones (Professor Small and Mr. Tall, Mother Hubba-Hubba Hubbard, Lo The Poor Buffal – to name but a few) – but all are worth a look. Frank Tashlin, Dave Fleischer, John Hubley, Art Davis, Mel Blanc, even Bob Clampett contributed to these films. I highly recommend you watch (and record) this show while you can.

For more information about the show and what cartoons are included in each episode, check my Totally Tooned In Episode Guide.

T-Shirt Day

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Too many cool t-shirts have come my way recently, here’s a few worth noting:

Photographer Vincent Gonzales has a very small line of stylish tees based on found objects. He has a shirt based on an old Krazy Kat 16mm cartoon film box (above) that I absolutely love. It isn’t posted on his website, but you can order it in any style (men’s, women’s, babies) and on any color if you request it. I got a long sleeve black shirt with this design and I love, love, love it.

That’s John Kricfalusi’s dad (above) posing in one of John’s great T-shirts, exclusively available on his Cartoon Thrills Store. George Liqour, Jimmy the Idiot Boy, The Heart-Aches, Blen and Kubercheebie, and my favorite Donald Bastard, are among the designs available.

TeeFury is one of those daily t-shirt sites that offer one-design-a-day. Today’s tee is this Tin Tin Tinman design – which already seems more faithful to Herge, and has more humor and heart than the stills from the upcoming mo-cap film have demonstrated. If you are interested in this one, you have to buy it today – $9 – at TeeFury.com.

(Thanks, Phillip Salomon)

“A Shot In The Dark” (1964) trailer

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TCM also ran this trailer last night which I don’t think I’ve ever seen before. (If I have I’m getting old and have completely blocked it.) It’s a clever coming-attractions piece for the Blake Edwards Pink Panther sequel, A Shot In the Dark (1964). It’s notable for containing a fair amount of animation featuring a narrator, “Dum-Dum” a talking bullet, voiced by Mel Blanc. It was no doubt animated by DePatie Freleng.

“Hezarfen” by Tolga Ari, Romain Blanchet, Chung-Yu Huang & Rémy Hurlin

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Four recent graduates (Tolga Ari, Romain Blanchet, Chung-Yu Huang, Rémy Hurlinfrom) of Supinfocom Arles share their final project with us, Hezarfen.

Hezarfen is a Turkish historical character. The story takes place in 1632 in Turkey where he attempts the first human flight. The legend goes as far as to say that he flew through the Bosphorus, to almost 3 miles away from the tower from which he started.

The movie is much more about how he jumps from this tower. We have created the script together to get another vision of the story. We wanted to make some fresh and bright pictures and let the audience discover the beauty of this legend in our own way.