Good Grief! Some drawn characters just shouldn’t be rendered in 3-D.

A German telecommunications company, Combots, is selling animated icons based on popular animation and comics characters. These Peanuts ones are pretty hideous.

However, there are some characters that could (and do) work. I suppose it’s all based on design. Check out some of the others, particularly these Spongebob icons, which look pretty good. It’ll be interesting to see how they handle the Looney Tunes characters, which they’ve apparently licensed.

UPDATE: Little wonder the Spongebob icons look so good. They were done by the talented crew at Studio Soi. Soi also created the Zodies series and the “Tom and Lily” site tutorials (click on ‘trailer’ on the homepage to watch the six episodes).

Here’s the latest trailer for Pixar’s Ratatouille with a lot of new footage that I haven’t seen anywhere else before.

(Thanks, John)

I’ll probably regret posting this in a few hours but the animation at Technicolon.com is some of the most trippy (innovative?, annoying?) CG I’ve seen in a while. Take heed of the warning at the front of the site: “PLEASE DO NOT WATCH THESE CARTOONS IF YOU SUFFER FROM PHOTOSENSITIVE EPILEPSY (PSE).”

[Note: The manifesto has been removed at the request of the filmmaker. He says it wasn't really intended to ever be put up on the site, so just enjoy the cartoons for what they are.]

(Thanks, Nathan Barley)

In case you missed it this morning, here’s the segment on Brad Bird from ABC News. Lots of nice clips from Ratatouille. Also, after the segment on Bird, there is an interview with production designer Rick Heinrichs (Frankenweenie, Vincent, Pee-wee’s Big Adventure).

Click here to see the large size version of this promotional image, above, from Foodfight.

Can you spot the product placement? Foodfight is now scheduled for theatrical release this fall from Lions Gate Films (the same people who brought us Happily N’ever After). It’s a great idea for a film: after midnight all the packages in a local food store come alive, with the goodguy characters (including Mr. Clean, Cap’n Crunch, Charlie the Tuna, the Engergizer Bunny, et al) taking on a villainous band of Brand X characters for control of supermarket aisles. Of course this plot harkens back to several Merrie Melodies of yore (September In The Rain (1937), Goofy Groceries (1941), etc.). So far so good.

However, the real trouble begins with a visit to the Foodfight website. The character designs look awful. B-list celebrities are doing the voices. The film’s partners (read: producers) include Proctor and Gamble, Del Monte and Tootsie Roll, among others. We already get enough commercials at the movies as it is. I don’t know about you, but I predict a short shelf life for this flick.

Earlier coverage of Foodfight on Cartoon Brew here.

This one’s even better.

Click here to see the new Seinfeld Bee Movie trailer with Steven Spielberg - and some actual animation.

Last Saturday, the topic of Bill Griffith’s ZIPPY comic strip was computer animation. Click on the strip below for the full-size version.

(Thanks, Apelad)

During a Disney investor’s conference yesterday, John Lasseter and Ed Catmull announced some major Disney-Pixar news. Notably, that TOY STORY 3 is scheduled for release in 2009. Pixar vet Lee Unkrich (co-director of TOY STORY 2, MONSTERS, INC. and FINDING NEMO) is going solo as director for the first time. He’s working from a script by Michael Arndt (LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE). Also, it was announced that Disney story artist Chris Williams is the new director of AMERICAN DOG, which is set for 2008 release. You may recall the buzz from last December when Chris Sanders was unexpectedly removed from the project (Sanders has now left Disney). More notes from yesterday’s conference can be found in this VARIETY article.