Here are eight station IDs for the late great Locomotion channel (1996-2005), a wonderfully programmed Latin American cartoon cable station which was bought out in 2005 by Animax. In it’s heyday, the channel mixed classic Hollywood cartoons, anime and independent animation. Good stuff.

I don’t know who did these spots, but they are bursting with creativity and a lot of fun. They had one, which I haven’t seen in ten years, featuring Krazy Kat and Ignatz Herriman style, as stop motion puppets. Does anyone have that, or know who did it?

(Thanks, Thad K)

Along with tomorrow night’s debut of Warner Bros. Animation’s latest take on Batman, Batman: the Brave and the Bold, (Cartoon Network, 7:30pm 8pm Eastern) will be a new Warner Animation logo. Hoping to recapture its classic studio roots, the new logo features a retro Bugs Bunny (circa 1941-42) sort-of a cross between the one in Avery’s All This And Rabbit Stew and a Clampett model (seen in The Wacky Wabbit). Take a look, below:

This 1961 film clip of Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera explaining the TV animation process is well worth a view. There’s a lot of crazy stuff that happens in the mere span of three-and-a-half minutes. First there’s the shot of layout man Alex Lovy, who takes a long drag on his cigarette before he even starts to draw, which is a unique sight for any animation documentary. That’s followed by a shot of a stereotypically obese animator who barely fits in the frame. I more or less expect animators to look like this today, but it’s something of a surprise to see such a bulky animator in 1961.

Mark Mayerson, who originally linked to this clip, also notes the video’s “casual sexism” in which “‘girls’ do ink and paint, but a ‘man’ paints the backgrounds.” Along those lines, it’s worth noting that the best “how-to” advice in the video has nothing to do with animation. Just watch as Joe Barbera puts the moves on the foxy woman interviewer at around 1:30 into the clip. Now there’s a glimpse into a long-lost era when animation execs were also smooth operators.

It’s plenty refreshing to see a CG character that is designed with a sense of caricature in both his appearance and physical movement. Rocket Jo is a series of 52 one-minute shorts created by French animator Julien Charles for French TV network France 3. The shorts, produced by Millimages and 2d3d Animations, are slated for premiere in January. Julien explains that the series focuses on a single character, Rocket Jo, who makes his own jetpacks and attempts to fly in each episode. He writes that he’s trying, “to put the focus on storytelling and animation with just with one character, no speaking and a blue gradient for the set.” He has set up a production blog about the show, and one of the episodes can be viewed on this page (click on the “Play” button).

Fred Seibert has posted 30 (of 39) of the title cards for his new series of Random Cartoons. The show, starting December 6th on Nicktoons Network, contains new shorts by Bill Plympton, Doug TenNapel, Pen Ward, John Dilworth, Pat Ventura among others - including my very own Hornswiggle cartoon. Check out the title card gallery here.

Can someone explain this to me - or tell us where it’s from?

(Once again, thanks to Don Brockway for finding this)

Was there ever any hope that a new TV movie based on Mr. Magoo, entitled Kung Fu Magoo, had a chance of being any good? If you thought there might be a chance, the video below will remove that thought from your mind.

(Thanks, Matthew Gaastra)