5 Comments »   posted in Animators, Cartoon Culture

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Sailor Man, billed as a “darkly comic tribute to the exploits of a beloved spinach-eating seaman,” will premiere Aug. 9-22 as part of the New York International Fringe Festival.

The 45-minute production, at the Lafayette Street Theater at 45 Bleecker Street, “explores what happens when familiar scenarios from cartoons are divorced from their harmless context and performed naturalistically, by complex human beings.”

Created by Ryan Iverson and Scott Peterman, the show features the writers in the respective roles of Sailor Man and The Brute. Lauren Blumenfeld plays Olive.

The plot of Sailor Man, according to production notes:

“Two rivals — a pumped-up Navy man and a heavyset, bearded thug — repeatedly beat each other nearly to death over the affection of a fickle, skinny woman named Olive. However, when performed realistically, fists fly, blood flows, and this straightforward storyline transforms into a provocative look at how our society values violence. The end product is brutal and harsh, full of bottled-up anger and regret, and much closer in tone to Sam Shepard than the traditional Saturday morning fare.”

“In cartoons, when a man gets punched in the face, his neck transforms into a spring; in Sailor Man, his nose breaks and he coughs up blood and teeth and bile,” stated Iverson. “Our goal is to see how audiences react when we approach this subject matter from a dramatic angle and show them something that’s simultaneously real and ridiculous.”

For more information visit sailormanshow.com.

(Thanks, Tim Dunleavy)

28 Comments »   posted in Cartoon Culture

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Cartoon Culture

August 1, 2008 11:20 am

Brew readers are always sending us photos of the cartoon culture all around us. Occasionally I post the really odd ones. Elliot Cowan took the above pic at a local junk store: Alex the Lion (from Madagascar), Chicken Little, Mr. Incredible and Shrek all in the same bootleg toy package.
Elliot says this “Fantastic Hero” toy has “been there over a year and has yellowed considerably in that time.”

A reader identified as “Purple Penguin” snapped this photo of a storefront at the corner of Reno and Beverly in Los Angeles. As Penguin noted when he sent the pic, “Made me laugh; made me cry”.

If you spot any odd cartoon culture in your area, please share it with us.

9 Comments »   posted in Cartoon Culture

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Betty Boop: Latino Icon

July 31, 2008 5:51 am

Apparently lots of Latino people think they look like Betty Boop. This article in Swindle Magazine discusses the popularity of the character in East LA, from wall murals to look-alike contests:

During the competition each age group is given a different challenge, other than the babies, who just look cute. The 2-year-olds must blow a kiss. Three-year-olds say “boop-oop-be-doop.” Girls aged 4 and 5 must sing a song. Every child gets a trophy for participating. The contestants have ranged from 20-days old to the cut off age of 5. She’s had over 1,000 children in the contest over the years, 90 percent of whom are Latino. And for 15 years Denise has been able to place the winners in the annual Montebello parade, for the crowds to marvel at tiny Betty Boops on procession through town in sparkles and strollers.

13 Comments »   posted in Cartoon Culture

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The Ultimate Spumco Location!

July 30, 2008 1:00 pm

A friend of mine, who happens to be a huge Spumco fan, was looking for a new home in California and came accross this listing on a street just off the Pacific Coast Highway in Long Beach: John K Drive.

Here’s what I want to know: I wonder what time the Rubber Nipple salesman come around? And is the George Liquor store open 24 hours? For those who are curious, here’s the location on Google Maps.

13 Comments »   posted in Cartoon Culture

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“I don’t have SpongeBob. I have SquishyGuy.”

July 24, 2008 2:13 pm

There was a funny story in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal (link to article on another site) about how companies that provide costumed characters for birthday parties are finding creative ways of bypassing trademark laws and creating new characters that look almost like their famous counterparts. So SpongeBob is now “SquishyGuy” and Elmo is “Big Red Tickle Monster.” According to the article, the results aren’t always entirely successful:

Miriam Sorkin, an office manager in Englewood Cliffs, N.J., threw a fourth-birthday party for her daughter in May and arranged for a costumed impersonator of Dora the Explorer. Though the walk-about “Dora” had the expected pageboy haircut and backpack, her expression was blank and her legs appeared out of proportion to the rest of her body. “When Dora came out,” Mrs. Sorkin says, “none of the kids would go to Dora, including my daughter, and a few of the kids started crying.”

17 Comments »   posted in Cartoon Culture

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