The illustration above appears in the latest issue of Southwest Airlines inflight Spirit Magazine. This month the magazine has a fun article written by a parent who spent a marathon day watching all the kids cartoon channels. It’s an interesting snapshot of what’s right - and mostly wrong - with kids TV these days. Read the whole article here.

The article also features several great illustrations (below and above) by Pasadena based cartoonist Mark Matcho.

It was announced today that Viacom and Paramount have teamed with MGM and Lionsgate to create a new cable channel to compete with HBO and Showtime (which is owned by CBS). The channel will be mainly showing new movies, and it is not yet clear whether this will be a basic cable or a premium pay channel, but the initial press release says “the new venture will have access to motion picture titles spanning the vast libraries of the five studios”. And they plan to push its video-on-demand capabilities.

I’ve posted open letters like this before (see here and here). It doesn’t do much good, but it makes me a whole lot feel better.

Dear Viacom/Paramount/M.G.M./Lionsgate,

The announcement of your new cable TV venture has me very excited. I especially like that you are going to use the “vast libraries” of the partner companies to create this new venue for programming. My only concern is that you might overlook the thousands of classic animation titles in your massive holdings.

Viacom/Paramount has rights to the Terrytoons library, hundreds of cartoons which include such rarely seen cartoon characters like Mighty Mouse, Heckle & Jeckle, Deputy Dawg and many others. Paramount also owns classic cartoon shorts of the 1960s. Lionsgate has licensed from you (and does nothing with) the pre-1950 Paramount cartoons which include Little Lulu, George Pal’s Academy Award winning Puppetoons, and the library of Betty Boop cartoons, amongst much else. Together, you can make these classics available for the first time in decades.

Additionally, MGM brings the DePatie-Freleng cartoons to the table. This library includes Oscar winning Pink Panther shorts, and numerous other cartoons featuring The Ant And the Aardvark, The Inspector and the Tijuana Toads.

And guess what? Your home video divisions have only released a fraction of the material you own. Making them available now on cable would provide you with unique, exclusive, entertaining fillers that people of all ages will enjoy. I know you aren’t starting a children’s channel, nor competing with Cartoon Network, but these classic animated shorts are a lot of fun, and deserve to be seen.

So unearth your old cartoons. Make them available as interstitials between programming or for video-on-demand purchase. Believe it or not, people really want to see them.

Best of luck,
Jerry Beck
CartoonBrew.com

Below are the opening titles to the upcoming series Kaiba, created and directed by Masaaki Yuasa, the genius visionary behind Mind Game. A few more details on the series, which is described as a sci-fi romance, can be found on Wikipedia.

And here is a tantalizing clip from Kemonozume, Yuasa’s first TV series made in 2006. Considering how much I admired Mind Game, I’m ashamed to admit that I haven’t seen this series yet, though Ben Ettinger’s write-ups about the 13 episodes make it sound phenomenal. Even in this short clip, the graphic invention and cinematic quality of storytelling are astounding, and so far beyond anything I’ve ever seen in American TV animation. The only thing that surprises me is that Yuasa’s work isn’t more readily available in the United States. (Thanks, Brandon)

Eliza Jäppinen, a co-founder and creative director of the up-and-coming Finnish animation studio Anima Boutique, recently told me about a cool vintage cut-out animation series from Finland that I’d never heard of called Käytöskukka. I’ve posted a couple of the cartoons in this post, and the rest of the episodes can be viewed on YouTube. Here’s some brief background on the series from Eliza:

These are old Finnish-made cartoons called Käytöskukka, and I draw a lot of inspiration from them. They are very fun to watch, even if you don’t get anything of the language. The idea of the Käytöskukka was to teach children manners. Heikki Partanen made it during 1966-67 and produced altogether 13 episodes. Every episode has a theme: pride, consideration, laziness etc. In every episode a character behaves badly and gets what’s coming to them. In the end the narrator recites “the lesson learned.”

(photo via)

The great American diplomat and Presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson may have well been talking about Li’l Abner creator Al Capp when he said, “Nothing so dates a man as to decry the younger generation.” In the final decade of his life, Capp launched vitriolic attacks against everybody and anything that didn’t adhere to his extremist views, even going so far as to label student protests against the Vietnam War as “mugging, vandalism and thievery.” Another example is this video clip of Capp going to meet John Lennon and Yoko Ono just so he could verbally berate them:

Capp’s antics became the subject of a colorful documentary—This is Al Capp—that premiered on NBC’s “Experiments in Television” on March 1, 1970. What makes it especially relevant to Cartoon Brew is that the special was co-directed by animation designer and director Ernie Pintoff, who created classic cartoons like Flebus and the Oscar-winning Critic. (Pintoff and his writing partner Guy Fraumeni also directed two other documentaries for the series—”This Is Marshall McLuhan” and “This Is Sholem Aleichem.”)

Somebody has posted onto YouTube the first twenty minutes of the Al Capp documentary (viewable in two parts below). Capp comes across as a one-man Fox News Channel—reactionary, naive, and intellectually vapid. Still, it’s somehow entertaining to hear such hostile bile coming from the mouth of a famous cartoonist. After all, I think this may be the only instance of a cartoonist’s political ideas being the subject of a documentary on network television. The special also features quotes from John Steinbeck, and onscreen appearances by legendary cartoonists Milton Caniff and Walt Kelly, underground cartoonists Spain and Trina Robbins, and others like William F. Buckley, Paul Krassner and Douglas Fairbanks Jr.

The presentation of the material is topnotch, and even in live-action, Pintoff’s animation sensibilities come through loud and clear. He employs energetic quick-cuts, intimate close-up interview shots and cheeky juxtapositions of images and sounds resulting in a playful presentation that make even Capp’s rantings seem semi-tolerable.

(via Mike Lynch)

Not the most embarassing moment in my life, but it comes pretty close. By popular demand, and as a Brew 4th Anniversary special, here’s my appearance on Joan River’s syndicated TV show, Can We Shop, in February 1994. The longest eight minutes of my life:

There was absolutely no prep for this show. I met Ms. Rivers on the set. I have no idea what she would ask - and they had no idea what I might say. The show needed a “Looney Tunes expert” and they located me in L.A. on a Friday, flew me to tape the show in New York on Monday. I recall the day this was taped there was a horrible blizzard hitting the city. I took the opportunity of being in Manhattan to schedule a meeting at The Museum of Modern Art later that day to pitch a Famous Studios retrospective. Thanks to Joan Rivers flying me into New York for this, the February 1995 Cartoons From Times Square screenings and Famous Studios reunion at MoMA took place - one of the greatest moments of my professional life.

Loud Mouth Lime, Jolly Olly Orange and Goofy Grape are poised for a comeback.

Our friends at Renegade Animation (Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi, The Mr. Men Show) have obtained the rights to the Funny Face characters, originally featured on Pillsbury drink packets in the ‘60s, from Boston-based Carson Creations. Renegade plans to produce an animated television series based on the property. The studio is currently producing a pilot episode while seeking distribution and licensing agreements. According to the press release:

The Funny Face television series will be aimed at kids from 6 to 11 and will recall the animation style and the spirit of classic, theatrical cartoons such as Tom & Jerry and Looney Tunes. “It’s a delightful opportunity to be funny in a way that is missing from the cartoon landscape right now,” said Renegade’s Ashley Postlewaite, who will executive produce the series. “These characters are perfect for that style of comedy.” Darrell Van Citters will direct the series. “I can’t wait to get back to the kind of flat-out physical comedy that insired me to get into animation in the first place!” says Van Citters. Michael Giaimo is heading up visual development on the series. Renegade Animation plans to produce the series using its proprietary “paperless” animation pipeline with all phases of the animation process being completed at its studio in Glendale. Renegade is the only animation studio that produces animated television series entirely with U.S. talent.

This sounds like a great idea to me. No word yet if Chinese Cherry or Injun Orange will make cameo appearances.

John Kricfalusi has posted a fascinating visual analysis of the early episodes of Rocky & Bullwinkle. If there’s one bit of advice that contemporary animation producers could take away from his post, it’s this bit of wisdom:

“If you gotta do limited animation, use great drawings I always say. They don’t cost that much. Just hire real designers and don’t step on them.”

In other words, even if you’re working on a limited budget, there’s no reason a piece of animation should ever look this incompetently designed or atrociously drawn.