When I think of the alcohol of choice for animators, I typically don’t think wine, but a number of animation artists are becoming involved in the wine industry. We start with indie filmmaker Bill Plympton who recently designed the labels (above) for PS1909 produced by the Dhaliwal Vineyards in California.

That’s nothing compared to Pixar’s John Lasseter who is starting up his own Sonoma Valley winery called Lasseter Family Winery . A newspaper article from last December discusses some of the ideas for the 38-acre property. Of particular interest to animation fans, the winery will also be the home of Ollie Johnston’s locomotive and Ward Kimball’s train depot. In other words, it’s going to be a pretty damn awesome winery.

(Lasseter wine info via Pixar Touch blog)

The good news about beginning Monday with this video is that the rest of my posts this week are guaranteed to be better.

(Thanks, Karim)

Warner Bros. cartoon art collector Eric Calande recently acquired this item through an antique dealer - a Bosko doll. Click thumbnails above for larger images. Is this the first piece of licensed merchandise of a Looney Tunes character? Whether it is or isn’t - it’s damn cool!

Spotted outside of an Asian grocery store in Queens, a cardboard box from a yam producer that uses an unauthorized rendition of Mulan as its logo. Here’s the original Disney coloring book page that they used for the swipe.

This crazy image above is from a vintage Japanese jigsaw puzzle, currently being offered on ebay. It’s one of several nifty items recently listed by Japanese seller kenta_jpn.

There are several rare vintage books featuring classic “western” cartoon characters (and some 1960’s anime titles) featuring many wonderfully-off-model illustrations within each. There’s also a very cool Huckleberry Hound board game (aka “The Unique Dog Huckle Game”) made by Nintendo(!) in the 1960’s. These items are all “Buy It Now” listings — so I’m unsure how long they’ll remain available for sale or viewing - so go there now!

(Thanks, Andrew Harlow)

Look who made it to the front page of this week’s Village Voice! Animator Jake Friedman just spotted the latest issue on the news stand, snapped this pic and sent it in to us. The cover portrait illustrates an article on the despicable treatment of ducks bred for food. But what we want to know is: who painted this wonderfully unauthorized homage to our favorite water fowl?

I think I’ve finally found a reason to have a kid: this traditional 1930s boy’s Japanese kimono decorated with images of Mickey is a beaut and it’s currently available for purchase. I’m not sure what I’d do with the boy after I dressed him up, but he’d look quite natty which is good enough for me.

(Thanks, Chappell Ellison)

Nancy Cartwright, the voice of Bart Simpson, has taken Bart out of Springfield and plopped him into the real-world by using the iconic character to promote her personal religious causes. Below is a robo-call in which she uses Bart’s voice imploring people to attend a Scientology event. All I can say is it’s extremely uncomfortable hearing Bart in this context.