After Robert “Bobe” Cannon (the genius director of Gerald McBoing Boing) left UPA around 1958, he began to do a lot of commercial freelance. Among the places he worked was Playhouse Pictures, where he directed and animated this :20 second spot for the US Navy featuring a somewhat Thurber-esque cat and dog talking about their owner’s decision to join the Navy.

Despite the bare-bones simplicity of the piece (or perhaps because of it), it’s highly effective and does a great job of communicating the message. The commercial didn’t have much ad agency involvement as far as I can tell. The circular script where the characters repeat one another’s words was written in-house by Chris Jenkyns, who was the primary writer/storyboard artist at Playhouse.

I just came across this trade ad from a 1945 issue of Box Office Magazine. Click on thumbnail image at left to see it in full size.

Now this is the way to sell a cartoon short - with Sex. Apparently MGM was hot to promote “Red” and had big plans for her. The ad reprints a trade article claiming Red Hot Riding Hood had 15,000 bookings - with more to come! The article wrongly credits the film’s direction to Fred Quimby (Avery’s name is no where in sight). Imogene Lynn, of Artie Shaw’s orchestra, is credited as Red’s vocalist in The Shooting Of Dan McGoo.

If you’re interested in seeing Dan McGoo, the short will be released on DVD as part of Tex Avery’s Droopy - The Complete Theatrical Collection on May 15th.

Here’s Mickey Mouse as you’ve never seen him before. The 1955 Disney-produced Nash car commercial posted below is as modern as the mouse ever looked. The redesign came courtesy of Tom Oreb, whose original Mickey model sheet is above. Victor Haboush, who did background design on the commercial, told me what happened after the commercial aired:

There was a little kid that used to write Walt telling him to stay away from modern art because it’s Communisitc. So when the commercial came on, he got a letter from this kid, a little malcontent sitting somewhere, and he wrote, “I’m disappointed Walt. I never though you’d succumb. What happened to you?” and Walt went crazy. He stormed down there and outlawed us against using any of the Disney characters in the commercials. I remember at the time everbody was incensed that we couldn’t use them, and it basically spelled the end of the unit. [Companies] were coming for the celebrity; to be able to use Disney characters in their commercials.

(via Disney History)

I’m still waiting for PES to produce a piece of animation that disappoints me. Hasn’t happened yet. PES has the uncanny ability to take simple why-didn’t-I-think-of-that concepts and execute them flawlessly. His newest spot for Sneaux Shoes is called “Human Skateboard” and it’s an inspired bit of fun. Watch it here.

Brazilian Marcelo Garcia who runs the studio Molho is responsible for this striking experimental piece for the Brazilian music festival Virtuosi. Garcia acted as one-man band on the project handling direction, design, animation and compositing.

J. J. Sedelmaier (The Ambiguously Gay Duo, Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law, The Colbert Report’s Tek Jansen, etc.) will be back next week at the New York Comic-Con. This year, Sedelmaier will discuss interpreting the work of print cartoonists and illustrators into animation in a talk titled, Translating Art in Animation. Sedelmaier will show the work of such artists as Garry Trudeau, Barry Blitt and Al Hirshfeld, among others, and will demonstrate how he translates their work into animation. He’ll also screen a selection of his studio’s work for Saturday Night Live, The Colbert Report, Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim and other clients.

Translating Art Into Animation takes place on Sunday, Feb. 25, 2007, from 3:00 pm - 4:00 pm, at the Jacob Javits Center.

Director/designer Marc Craste (JOJO IN THE STARS) has completed a new :60 CG spot for Lloyds TSB. Watch the commercial here (15mb). The idea and execution of the commercial isn’t as inspired as the stunning UK National Lottery spot that Craste directed last year, but the overall effect is still quite charming. It was produced at studio aka.

(via Feed)

Below is the MEET THE ROBINSONS spot that Disney is airing tomorrow during the Super Bowl. It’s part of the MEET THE ROBINSONS channel on YouTube. Let’s just hope these aren’t supposed to be the funny or entertaining parts of the film.