This is pretty good… a 40 minute speech by Simpsons director David Silverman from the recent Picnic 07 media event in Amsterdam this past September 26th. David reveals his secret past on Turbo Teen and Mr. T, and the origins of The Simpsons, (Note: the video of this speech is currently off line and is being re-edited. It should be available again soon).

(Thanks, William Phung)

Currently at Texas State University-San Marcos, just south of Austin, there’s a wonderful exhibit on The Making of King of the Hill. Writer and executive producer Jim Dauterive has donated 11 years worth of material to the Southwestern Writers Collection at Texas State. This vast amount of material includes original scripts, story pitches, production notes, promotional material, model sheets, research notes, and even tapes from the unseen, live-action spin-off Monsignor Martinez. The exhibit is on display through December 14, but all the material has been made available for research.

Last Saturday night, Dauterive was on-hand to discuss the show’s history - as well as to answer questions from admiring fans. For more information on this exhibit use this link. And click here for a page that includes a pdf of the complete archive inventory.

(Thanks, Jess Price)

C.H. Greenblatt’s promising new series Chowder debuts tonight on Cartoon Network at 7:30pm. Greenblatt, whose previous experience includes Spongebob and Billy and Mandy, talks about the show in this Toonzone interview.

Bye Bye Batman, Tom & Jerry, and The Legion of Super Heroes. Hello more Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh and crap like that.

Variety is reporting that The CW will shut down Kids’ WB! at the end of this season and turn Saturday mornings over to 4Kids Entertainment (which has taken over Fox’s Saturday morning kids block for the past six years). According to Variety:

Under the five-year pact, 4Kids will program five hours of children’s programming between 7 a.m. and noon on Saturdays on the CW starting September 2008. 4Kids will handle all national commercial advertising, and will share in ad revenue with the CW.

The CW is the last broadcast network to air original kids programming produced in-house. With one less outlet for homegrown animated shows, this announcement is another blow to the local SoCal production community.

On the plus side, it’s one less outlet for the perennial spin-offs of Scooby Doo. Zoinks!

There are plenty of gems to mine in this AWN article about the new live-action/animated Cartoon Network series Out of Jimmy’s Head. Nothing however tops this enlightened description of the show’s animation by CN exec Michael Ouweleen: according to him, the animation in the series is “more animation-y, more out there.”

Now, I’ve been in and around the animation business for a number of years but I honestly have no idea how anyone could make animation more animation-y. If it’s already animation, then it can’t be any more of that technique than it already is. Enough of this silliness, my head hurts just thinking about it. I think a little music will soothe my mind. Let’s just hope it’s music-y enough.

This just in! Another candidate for my Comic Con program,Worst Cartoons Ever!…

Talk about motion capture! It takes the Clutch Cargo/Syncho Vox concept to a whole new level. Director Peter Avanzino (Futurama) found this test clip (circa 1962) posted by Something Weird Video on YouTube. Pete thinks this technique might be good for a Beowulf remake.

The clip is credited to Leon H. Maurer, who has quite an impressive resume, and is apparently related to Norman Maurer (comic book artist, film director, Moe Howard’s son-in-law), who used a similar process (called “Cinemagic”) in his 1960 feature film, The Angry Red Planet. In 1955 Leon started Illustrated Films, Inc. (with Norman) and they co-invented Artiscope, a “full animation-by-automation” system (per Leon’s resume, “Realistic character animation without artists - world’s first practical “real-time motion capture” system”). If anyone can shed any further light on this technique, please let us know.

It’s that time of the month again to bring some attention to Cartoon Network’s repudiation of cartoons in favor of transforming itself into a second-rate knockoff of Disney Channel and Nick. Yesterday’s Hollywood Reporter offered details on the network’s latest live-action project: a pilot deal with actor David Duchovny. According to the article, the show “centers on a junior high school student from a long line of newsmen who turns his school AV Club into a hard-hitting citywide broadcast.” For the project, Duchovny is teamed up with producers of live-action kids shows that had aired on Disney Channel and Nick like Even Stevens and The Secret Life of Alex Mack.

Additionally, throughout the month of October, Cartoon Network will be airing nightly reruns of the live-action series Goosebumps. An original live-action made-for-TV movie of their animated series Ben 10 will debut in November. And last week, CN debuted the live-action/animated series Out of Jimmy’s Head, a spinoff to their live-action film Re-Animated.

Earlier coverage of live-action on Cartoon Network:
Our first post in April 2006
The New Cartoon Network
More About Cartoon Network
Most Ironic Exec Quote of the Week
More About The New Live-Action CN
Cartoon Network’s Re-Animated
Another Live-Action Show On Cartoon Network

This new video posted onto YouTube showcases some of the cartoonier moments (in slo-mo) from early Simpsons episodes. According to the video creator, they were animated by David Silverman. Looking at the show today, it’s difficult to believe that the Simpsons ever featured such entertaining animation-driven moments. (Update: Part 1 was removed from YouTube due to a “copyright violation” claim by Fox, but we’ve posted the second part below which highlights more Silverman animation.)

And here is director/animator David Silverman demonstrating another of his passions: the tuba (at Burning Man no less).