Recently I became curious to find out what is the most viewed original piece of animation on YouTube. The answer turned out to be a bit of a surprise: Charlie the Unicorn. The original posting of the short has nearly 23 million views, while another copy of the short is approaching 9 million views. There are dozens of other copies of the film floating around YouTube, so it’s safe to say that Charlie the Unicorn now has well over 32 million views on the video sharing site.

Anyway the reason I mention all this is that the creator, Jason Steele, recently unveiled the long-awaited followup Charlie the Unicorn 2 (posted below). In less than a month, the video has garnered nearly 1.5 million views on YouTube. Jason also has a website Filmcow.com that offers hi-res QuickTimes of the shorts and an online store selling Charlie merchandise.

The two Charlie the Unicorn shorts are firmly rooted in the contemporary strain of nonsensical non sequitur humor. Sometimes this type of humor works (Pen Ward’s Adventure Time) and most of the time it doesn’t (Family Guy, almost everything on “Adult Swim”). In the case of Charlie the Unicorn, I have to concede that the humor works nicely, and the clumsy animation only heightens the effect. I wasn’t expecting this short to be the most viewed original animation on YouTube, but looking at the success of Charlie can perhaps offer some clues about the type of cartoons that resonate with today’s online animation audiences.

The new edition of Flip would be worth reading if only for the excellent article on the portrayal of smoking in animation by Dr. Barry Hummel. But it’s got so much more! Here it is!

A disturbing new creation by Pixeloo who gave us Mario a few days ago…

Mike Nguyen is one of the best traditional character animators I know. Fiercely independent, Mike’s working on his own feature film essentially by himself, and has been blogging about it, and his random thoughts about animating — with video clips, sketches and sculpture online — every week on rainplace.net. Check it out. To paraphrase the motto of the old Gotham Book Mart: “Wise animators fish here”.

Volume 2 (2007) of the Society for Animation Studies‘ peer-reviewed on-line journal is now available for download (as a PDF or html file) on the Animation Studies website.

The Animation Studies journal consists of academic papers written mainly by scholars and historians, making for a somewhat dry reading experience. However, the topics are interesting - and intelligent discourse on animation is always a good thing. The online publication is available free of charge, and the articles are licensed under a Creative Commons license.

Contents of Vol. 2 include: Animated Appeal: A Survey of Production Methods in Children’s Software by Tom Klein; (The) Death (of) the Animator, or: The Felicity of Felix by Alan Cholodenko; The Two Golden Ages of Animated Music Video by Gunnar Strom.

And last but not least, Amy Ratelle’s article Half-breed Dog, Half-breed Film: Balto as Animelodrama (which opens Volume 3) sums up the kind of article this journal specializes in. If this is your thing, click here.

There is a reason I plug Steve Moore’s online FLIP magazine every month: It’s damn good! The latest edition, now up, features the amazing DEAN YEAGLE discussing Zander’s Animation Parlour - with clips of several classic Jack Zander commercials (Freakies cereal, Good n’ Plenty candy, Crest Cavity Creeps, etc.); features on artist SUE BLANCHARD, illustrator RICHARD MORGAN and an interview with toy collector/creator/Pixar character designer JEFF PIDGEON. Go here and flip out!

The image above can only mean one thing: Brewmaster Jerry Beck will once again be broadcasting live on Shokus Internet Radio.

Tomorrow, Wednesday February 27th from 4pm to 6pm Pacific time (that’s 7pm to 9pm for you in the Eastern Time Zone) Stu Shostak and I will be discussing classic cartoon DVD compilations like Popeye Vol. 2, Woody Woodpecker Vol. 2 and other classic animation DVDs. If you have a specific question you want answered, call in during the broadcast and ask me, toll free (888) 746-5875. Click here to listen in. If you miss the show, it’ll be rerun for the next seven days at the same time.

Harry Knowles (of Ain’t It Cool News) has posted a top ten list (with YouTube links) of his some of his all-time favorite animated films. These include Disney’s Music Land, MGM’s Peace On Earth and Little Buck Cheeser, UPA’s The Tell-Tale Heart, George Pal’s Tulips Shall Grow, Ub Iwerks’ Balloon Land and Skeleton Frolic, Will Vinton’s Closed Mondays and Max Fleischer’s Great Vegatable Mystery and Ants In the Plants.

A fine list with a lot of great films.

With all the debate over scripts versus storyboards, animation writer Steve Marmel (Fairly Oddparents, Danny Phantom, et al) has jumped into the fray, and put his money where his mouth is.

Marmel, on his Animation Writers blog, has started a contest challenging writers to craft a script from a classic Bob Clampett cartoon. The film chosen, Falling Hare, was selected by scripter Marmel with the help of Stephen Worth of the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive, one of the most outspoken on the subject of storyboard-driven cartoons.

Once he receives qualified entries, Marmel plans on reaching out to other board artists, directors and story people to help judge and give opinions, but would like the final arbiter of this to be Stephen Worth himself. Marmel asks Worth:

Pick the best of the bunch. Show script writers what’s right. And in return, you can take the worst of the bunch, and gut it.

Here’s what happens when a winner is picked. I will see that the winner is paid a “teleplay fee” for a short-subject script - as determined by the IATSE/TAG 839 rules. I think it’s a little less than $2000. This may be out of my own pocket… (and) I will personally make an in-kind donation to the ASIFA-Archive.

The contest will begin when Worth accepts the terms Marmel proposes. For more information, go to Marmel’s blog.

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