In Japan, Coca Cola has started airing a set of non sequitur comedy skits starring a giant Coke Machine wandering around Tokyo.
Frederator should sue.

Jake Friedman sent this one in. Above is a still from Chuck Jones Now Hear This (1963). Below is a Morse Code decoder. Jake says:

I spent a few minutes trying to decode one with the other, hoping it spelled “Eddie Selzer eats sh-t” or something like that. Maybe Brew readers will see something in it…?

Any ideas? A prize to the reader with the cleverest “translation”. (Winner will be at the sole discretion of the Brewmasters. No deadlines, we’ll pick a winner sometime next week).

If you think the animation business is tough, try selling blankets.

Michael Marrer of Brackney Hills Knitting obtained a licensing agreement with Classic Media for Rocky & Bullwinkle & Friends and Dudley Do-Right knitted products. He knew this would be a niche market, but he’s been surprised to see just how difficult it would be to sell them. He wrote me me for some advice:

We are very frustrated in finding ways to get the word out. To date we have not had any inquiries about them. So … how to reach the Rocky & Bullwinkle fans out there? We are working on some
sweaters to be released this fall, plus we have a Wossamotta U design coming for blankets too. More character designs will come out once we see some sort of action in the marketplace.

Not to be a shill, but these look pretty cool to me. I’ll probably pick up a Peabody and Sherman wrap for those cold winter nights. But I have no idea how one sells blankets.

However, I recommend to anyone with products like this to try advertising right here on Cartoon Brew. Everyone interested in obtaining blankets like these is probably reading this blog.

The new Steven Spielberg/Michael Bay live action CG Transformers movie looks to be one of the biggest films of the summer. But if you want to know how far we’ve come in 20 years, compare the latest trailer to the Marvel Productions cartoon feature from 1986:

Don’t know if you’ve heard but CalArts is finally catching up with the times and renaming itself the California Institute of Motion Capture. Glen Keane and James Baxter are involved in the new school too. Check it out.

PS: This was the opening intro at last week’s CalArts Producers’ Show and it got more laughs than just about anything else shown that evening.

Osamu Tezuka’s biggest stars endorse the Toyota Prius on its 10th anniversary.

(via Japan Probe)

(Thanks to Ira Gallen for posting this)

Fleischer Studios made arguably the funniest cartoons of the 1920s and ’30s — and they made them, from 1923 through 1938, in studio space leased at 1600 Broadway, the heart of Times Square, in Manhattan.

The original building was demolished several years ago. Its replacement is ready for tenants. It’s now a modern high rise condo. Wanna live where Betty Boop was created? Where Popeye met Sindbad? Wanna sleep where Wiffle Piffle was born? It’s all yours at the new 1600 Broadway.

(Thanks, Anne D. Bernstein)