Below is an Eastman Kodak ad I spied recently in a 1950 edition of The Hollywood Reporter. I love the headline copy — “His Pen-and-Ink Live For Laughter…” — juxtaposed against the angriest illustration of an animator I’ve ever seen (click for a larger view). I realize the animator is angry because he’s working out the expression he’s drawing, but it still strikes me as funny. Regardless of its humor value, it’s still a kind of cool historical curio.

Jazz legend Oscar Peterson passed away last Sunday at age 82. Below are a couple of his animated collaborations with Norman McLaren and John Hubley. There are a couple articles here and here about Peterson’s collaboration with McLaren.

Begone Dull Care directed by Norman McLaren

Tender Game directed by John Hubley

A rollicking version of “Jingle Bells” courtesy of the Firehouse Five Plus Two, which includes two of Disney’s Nine Old Men. The lineup: Danny Alguire, cornet, Harper Goff, banjo, Ward Kimball, trombone, Clarke Mallery, clarinet, Monte Mountjoy, drums, Ed Penner, tuba and Frank Thomas, piano.

(via Swing, Jazz & Blues)

Among Fortune Magazine’s list of this year’s 101 Dumbest Moments in Business are:

13. Disneyland - for its plan to revise It’s A Small World for larger park guests.

21. Cartoon Network - for the whole Aqua Teen publicity fiasco.

I know I’m opening a can of worms here, but what do you think were some of the dumbest moments in animation in 2007?

Thank you Richard Corliss for selecting Looney Tunes Golden Collection #5 as one of the Top Ten DVDs of 2007 in this week’s issue of Time Magazine.

The Looney Tunes DVD actually ranks #4 for best of the year on his list. What would your favorite DVD of 2007 be?

A New York area casanova who seduces the ladies with Looney Tunes? Gawker.com has the NSFW details.

(Thanks, Anne D. Bernstein)

This JibJab video is a lot like the dream I had last night after seeing The Pixar Story at the Egyptian. What a great film — and just like the Pixar features themselves, I found it very inspiring.

Speaking of Pixar, The Food Network has been running a special episode of their series Dinner Impossible shot at Pixar’s Emeryville studio. In Pixar Movie Mission the chef has 6 hours to feed the entire staff of Pixar, with recipes based on Pixar characters from Finding Nemo, Cars and Ratatouille. Worth watching just to see Brad Bird introduce the Food Network cook — with Lou Romano was one of his “assistant chefs”. It airs again on January 19th at 3:30pm ET/PT.

(Thanks, Evan Spiridellis and Andrew Atteberry)

Most of the Preston Blair swipes we’ve linked to in the past are by amateur artists, but this post shows that professional comic artists and animators are also not immune to “borrowing” from Preston Blair’s classic how-to books.

Kevin Langley offers the following unbelievable find on his blog: an old Harvey comic in which artist Ben Brown created a funny animal story comprised nearly entirely of swipes of Preston Blair characters and poses.

And Brew reader Gerard de Souza recently sent me frame grabs of his discovery: a Preston Blair bulldog in an old Speed Racer episode called “The Great Plan, Part 1″. I think it’s safe to say Blair was referenced as there are only three character animation drawings in the bulldog scene, and two of them are the Blair expressions below. The non-Blair drawing is an inbetween connecting these two drawings.