Two weeks to go - Looney Tunes Golden Collection Vol. 6 will go on sale - and I’ll be plugging it several times in the next ten days. Sixty newly restored cartoons (like Page Miss Glory above and Bear Feat below) and dozens of extras. I admit I’m biased as I had something to do with shaping contents of this series, but this is really one of the best of the group.

Two highlights, as far as I’m concerned: #1 the original titles restored to the Henery Hawk/Sylvester/Foghorn Leghorn classic Crowing Pains (picture below left - click thumbnails to enlarge) which features additional dialogue, animation and music unseen and unheard in 60 years! #2 Martha Sigall’s audio commentary on the Leon Schlesinger Christmas Blooper reels. Martha talks about being at the studio in the 1930s, while identifying every staff member appearing on screen - including herself!

And that’s NOT all, folks… stay tooned for more details.

Is it me, or are animation art auctions becoming less and less frequent?

One thing is for sure, vintage production cels are getting scarcer and scarcer, and their values (in other words: prices) are getting higher and higher. I can’t afford to collect these pieces myself but I love getting the catalogs to see what still survives.

I sure hope some of the material (cels, backgrounds, pencil animation, model sheets, etc.) listed in the latest S/R Laboratories Auction catalog (Fall 2008) ends up in the right hands. Several jaw dropping items posted there include this original title card (above) from the black & white Silly Symphonies (left) and the main titles from the super-obscure 3-D Jamboree (which was publicly screened in 2006 at the 3-D Festival in Hollywood). For more information on this auction, to get a copy of their catalog, or to view it online, click here.

Episode 1 of a new live action take on Popeye, by filmmaker Abed Gheith and animator Sevan Najarian, posted on Channel 101.

Episode 2 is even more perverse.

(Thanks, Mike Hollingsworth)

Catchy tune, violent imagery, fun for the whole family! Forget Superjail… click here to see the delightful Japanese opening for Tom and Jerry.

(Thanks, Charles Brubaker)

Matthew Hunter and Jon Cooke have a terrific blog which I’ve linked to before, Miscel-Looney-ous, which regularly examines the odds and ends of Warner Bros. cartoons. Today they found a video on YouTube worthy of much wider exposure - someone took the 1952 Bugs Bunny cartoon Rabbit’s Kin (the one with Pete Puma, voiced by Stan Freberg), slowed down the dialogue of super-sped-up little Bunny so we can actually hear what Mel Blanc is saying. It’s well worth a listen and a real joy to hear some new Looney Tunes dialogue from Blanc.

Eric at Warnerart.com just acquired this interesting find: a letter from Looney Tunes producer Leon Schlesinger to an Air Force Colonel, hoping the use of Bugs Bunny as an insignia will inspire the troops and wishing him luck on “dropping an egg on Tokyo and Berlin”. Click on thumbnail below to see enlargement.

Animator Mike Kazaleh found this incredible Pink-Panther-meets-Bugs -Bunny sketch by Friz Freleng (click on thumbnail below to see full image). Says Mike:

As usual, I went looking for something in my house, and I found something else. It’s a Friz sketch from 1974. Please bear in mind that I scanned this picture from an ancient thermal fax, and the image had all but disappeared. It took a bit of work in Photoshop to make the image semi clear again. If memory serves me correctly, the “Lance” that the picture was drawn for was (writer/character designer) Lance Falk, and I believe it was he who faxed it to me in the first place. Quite an artifact, eh?

(Thanks Mike!)

Have you seen these Japanese super-deformed Felix mini PVC figures? These look way off model to me. The manufacturer, Organic Hobby, has created some fantastic Tezuka figures that respect the orginals… but these are painful.

(Thanks, Jupey Krusho)