A big THANK YOU to our readers. We’re positively delighted that so many Brew regulars have been discussing and embedding the new episodes of Cartoon Brew TV onto their sites. We obviously don’t have the deep pockets of video outlets like Atom, iTunes, Channel Frederator, or YouTube, but thankfully we have a wonderful dedicated community of animation lovers, and with your help we’ll eventually let everybody know where they can find lots of great animated shorts that can’t be seen anywhere else. We also wanted to thank animation historian Harvey Deneroff for taking the time to pen this thoughtful review of our first three episodes. Keep spreading the word about Cartoon Brew TV!

Today we’re kicking off the first edition of Cartoon Brew TV’s “Brew Vaults.” Every three weeks we’ll present a long-lost piece of animation history along with brand-new audio commentary by animation historian Jerry Beck and other special guests. Our first pick from the “Brew Vaults” is the 1928 short Dinner Time (1928), a synchronized sound cartoon produced before Walt Disney’s Steamboat Willie and rarely seen since its release 80 years ago. The short, directed by Paul Terry and John Foster, was in the words of Walt Disney “one of the rottenest Fables I believe that I ever saw.” But its historical significance is undeniable as it was the film that inspired Walt Disney to create a better sound cartoon. The rest, as they say, is history. Jerry Beck and Mark Kausler offer knowledgeable commentary about this cartoon curio. Watch episode 3 right here!

We’re excited to present episode 2 of Cartoon Brew TV. It is the short film The Pumpkin of Nyefar directed by Tod Polson and Mark Oftedal. The film features the artistic contributions of animation legends Maurice Noble and June Foray. Watch it on Cartoon Brew TV.

We’re excited to bring you something new today - Cartoon Brew TV. The new site is available by clicking on the CBTV logo above our main site logo. We’ve been experimenting with broadcasting animated shorts since last year when we launched our film download site Cartoon Brew Films, and we’re really happy with the latest evolution that has come in the form of Cartoon Brew TV.

So what is Cartoon Brew TV?

Here are a few key elements of the project:

1.) New episodes premiere every week on Monday.

2.) Every short we present is an exclusive online premiere. We’re not looking to bring you the same films that are already available on every other video sharing website and podcast.

3.) We pay filmmakers. Online animation distribution can’t work unless filmmakers get paid for their efforts. This is something that we regularly preach on the site and we’re delighted that we can now put those words into practice and lead the way as an animation-specific film site and podcast that pays independent filmmakers.

4.) A broad view of animation art. Just as we love exploring all aspects of the art form on Cartoon Brew, we’ll be presenting an eclectic variety of programming on Cartoon Brew TV: hand-drawn cel, mixed-media, CG, experimental, stop-motion, pixilation…the element that connects all these varied approaches is the quality.

5.) Every third week, Brew TV will present a “historical” episode with original commentary by Brew co-founder and animation authority Jerry Beck. We’ll explore everything from the earliest theatrical animated shorts to TV specials and obscure bits of cartoon history.

6.) We’re just getting started. With your support, we have plans to grow this in every direction. More shorts, more guest commentaries, different types of content. Supporting this site is as simple as emailing a friend about it, embedding an episode, writing about a film on your blog, or simply watching the cartoons yourself. (Tech note: Ability to subscribe via iTunes will arrive shortly.)

7.) Here’s the link to our first episode:
Michael Langan’s award-winning short Doxology.

We hope you, the wonderful community of Cartoon Brew readers, enjoy watching these films and take the leap with us as viewers of Cartoon Brew TV.

Here are the winners from our Ottawa International Animation Festival contest. The two winners will each receive an all-access AnimaPasses (valued at $200) to this week’s festival. The festival takes place this week from September 17-21. Thanks to our generous friends at the festival for making this contest possible.

The winning captions are below the photo:

WINNERS
Sirkey
Carter: “I think the gentleman behind me is really happy to see you.”

Artisticulated
“Uh Mickey? I’m, ah, not so sure this is the, ah, appropriate venue for “whiteface”.

RUNNER-UP
Brooke Keesling
Jimmy says: This isn’t exactly what I meant when I said, “I’d love to slip that rotten old Ayatollah a Mickey!”

Welcome to our updated look. As the title of this post implies, this is not a complete overhaul. Rather it’s a refresh of the existing site. We liked the site we already had (designed by Also) so we asked designer and tech guru Rob Kohr to retain the core of that design while enhancing functionality and adding new features. Some of the additions are:

* View Posts by Author: This gives you the option to read posts by a specific Brewmaster. Once our guest Brewers start adding content, you will also have the option to view their specific posts.

* Guest Brewers: This is among our most exciting new additions. We’re making an effort to bring new voices to the animation conversation by inviting some of the art form’s leading figures to blog alongside us. We chose our guest bloggers based on the following critera: people (a.) who have made significant contributions to the art of animation; (b.) who we both respect and admire; (c.) who are interesting and have something to say; and (d.) who have never blogged before. We couldn’t be more pleased with our first trio of Guest Brewers: Linda Simensky, Eric Goldberg and PES, who respectively specialize in TV, Feature and Short Films/Commercials. All three of them are extremely busy so they won’t be posting as frequently as us, but we look forward to hearing from them whenever they have a chance.

* Enhanced Search: All search results now load chronologically in a handy Cartoon Brew-formatted page, instead of redirecting to cumbersome Google link pages.

* Event Listings: A handy guide to upcoming animation-related events is now available in our right-hand column.

* Related Posts: On each individual post page, there are links to additional posts on similar topics.

* Weighted Tags: The sizes of the tags are now dynamically proportional to the amount of posts in each category. So now you can see which topics we write about most frequently. We are also in the process of adding new categories to help make navigation easier.

* Cartoon Brew TV: Our most ambitious new feature, Brew TV, is still in the works. This will launch on September 15. We’re truly excited about expanding the Cartoon Brew name and we think you’ll be too once you see what we have in store.

If you run across bugs or if something isn’t working the way you want, let us know in the comments. We’ll be tweaking the site throughout the weekend to get it right.

Thank you to all of our faithful readers who visit and support Cartoon Brew. We love this art form, and we’re thrilled to be able to share our passion with people who feel just as strongly about cartoons as we do. Together we will continue to lead the animation conversation. Enjoy the new site!

We’re planning some major expansions to the site this fall, and we’re looking to hire a part-time ad sales rep for Cartoon Brew. If you have experience in ad sales, as it pertains to animation and film, please get in touch with Jerry (contact info here) and let him know what you do. Thanks!

Cartoon Brew went down last night. We’re happily back up and running this morning but still a bit buggy. We hope to be back to normal before day’s end. If the site looks fine, no need to comment, but if you’re experiencing any tech issues with the site, let us know in the comments and we’ll look into them. Thanks!