Brew reader Billie Towser found this old magazine ad on Flickr. (Click on thumbnail at left for an enlarged version).

Long before Cal Arts, there was “The First School in America exclusively devoted to Animated Cartoon Instruction.” No, not in New York or Hollywood… but in Washington DC - the Washington Studios of Animation. I wonder which Disney artist is the instructor. And remember their motto, “If you can draw a circle, we can teach you animated cartooning!”

Stop motion animator/historian, Ken Priebe, thinks he has found the creepiest puppet animation ever:

Greg Lawson, owner of Amsterdam-based animation studio Lawson & Whatshisname, is directing a series of 40 interstitials for the Dutch TV station BNN. The 8-second spots, which depict humorous moments in the lives of three twenty-somethings, are being broadast daily on BNN as well as on the site DennisenDylan.nl. I’m digging the loose feel of the hand-drawn spots, which are designed by Johan Klungel and animated by Lukas Krepel, Dario van Vree and Liaf Lijbers.

An era has ended. Kellogg’s has announced it will no longer market its sugared cereals to children.

Kellogg’s also said it would stop using licensed characters (like Shrek and Spongebob) and branded toys to promote its products, according to today’s New York Times.

Will Toucan Sam (Froot Loops) and Dig ‘em Frog (Smacks) soon go the way of Sugar Pops Pete? Stay Tuned!

I saw this spot during Leno last night. Not sure how long it’s been running (or what studio is responsible), but it put a smile on my face.

It was just a couple weeks ago that I was lamenting on the Cartoon Modern blog the unavailability of the UPA commercials. Today I have some good news to report. I just got word that animation legend Tissa David has contributed her collection of rare UPA-NY TV commercials and original artwork to the Museum of Modern Art’s Film Study Center. David, age 86 and still animating, donated a dozen pristine 16mm and two 35 mm b&w films of TV commercials for products such as Piels Beer, Cheer, Cannon, and Windex.

Also in the donation are original animation production folders for UPA TV commercials (Nescafe, Chrysler, The Danny Thomas Show, Ford Edsel, Grape Nuts and Coca Cola, among others) containing designs, character models, layouts, exposure sheets and hundreds of sequential animation drawings (in rough and cleaned-up versions). The drawings are by both by Grim Natwick, and Tissa David, who was Natwick’s chief assistant for many years. A huge thanks to John Canemaker for orchestrating this donation and helping Ms. David prepare the material for transfer to the museum.

Leonard Maltin, aware of my interest in old-time animation publicity materials, sent along this image (above) from Benjamin Hampton’s 1931 book A History of the Motion Picture.

This picture got me thinking about how, back then, each individual cartoon short was treated as special as a live action feature. Stills, publicity art, posters, sometimes lobby cards and newspaper ads were created for individual cartoon shorts. And all that old promotional material seems fun to me, like the image above.

We’ve come a long way since then.

Today, Cartoon Network and Disney Channel may mount an occasional bus poster or billboard for one of their new series (mainly in New York or L.A. to attract advertisers), but publicity for individual episodes is pretty rare. There are some exceptions to the rule: The Simpsons has always done it; Frederator creates original postcards for each of its shorts. But those are special cases. I guess my point is, promotion of animated TV series, not to mention individual episodes, is practically non existant these days.

It’s just one of the differences between the business then and the business now. And it’s one of the reasons why I prefer the business then.

Let’s remake a classic hand-drawn animated commercial…

in CGI…

Are ad agencies so deprived of original thinking that the best they can do is recycle a forty-year-old soundtrack, and remake it shot-by-shot in CG?

What does this new version offer that the original didn’t? Less charm? Check. Uglier character designs? Check. Blander animation? Check. Fussy over-detailed backgrounds that overwhelm the characters? Check.

Computer animation is a wonderful tool. It’s a shame that more artists aren’t using it to explore new ideas which aren’t possible by other means, and instead use to incompetently replicate existing techniques.
(Thanks, Andrew Ebert)

UPDATE: In the interest of equal time, Ezra from LucidCircus, the production company responsible for the CG spot, made a comment below about the studio’s work. Here’s some of what he says:

I appreciate the critiques but it’s about a year too late. The style and overall look and feel were dictated to us. The agency folk in the room understand. What you see isn’t the original design but the final approved version. In a nutshell I was asked to copy Over the Hedge. We didn’t have creative license. This isn’t art, it’s a commercial. The client got what the client wanted. I feel your pain. I hate all CGI remakes as well. But it’s a good portfolio piece and the general public approves.