The Animation Guild is holding a Golden Awards Banquet on April 9, 2005 at Pickwick Gardens in Burbank, California. This event honors animation veterans with fifty years in the industry of screen cartooning and related fields. This year’s honorees began their careers between 1943 and 1955. The list of honorees includes:

John C. Ahern, Frank Andrina, Gerard Baldwin, Robert Balser, Carole J. Barnes, Kathy Barrows, Vincent Bassols, Howard Beckerman, Oliver “Lefty” Callahan, Paul Carlson, Rudy Cataldi, Cornelius Cole, Janis Cornell, Fred Crippen, Tissa David, Gene Deitch, Robert Dranko, John Emerson, Edward Faigin, Becky Fallberg, Ray Favata, Eve Fletcher, Rita Giddings, Lee Guttman, Victor Haboush, Ed Hansen, Martha Harrison, Bud Hester, Willie Ito, Sam Jaimes, Chris Jenkyns, Don Jurwich, Louie Kachivas, Darlene Kanagy-Brown, Sammi Lanham, Don Lusk, Bill Matthews, Burny Mattinson, Peggi R. Matz, Charles McElmurry, Jimmy T. Murakami, Ann Oliphant, Lew Ott, Doris A. Plough, Lloyd G. Rees, Rick Reinert, Robert Allen Revell, Beverly M. Robbins, Joanna Romersa, Carmen Sanderson, Mel Shaw, Marcia Sinclair, Charlene Singleton, Ken Southworth, John Sparey, Herb Stott, Iwao Takamoto, Cliff Vorhees, Manon Washburn, Merle Welton, Robert “Tiger” West, Gwen A. Wetzler, John Wilson, Alan Wilzbach, Fred Wolf. Special Award: June ForayUnderline denotes those honorees whose attendance has been confirmed as of 2/8/05. They expect most of the rest to confirm in the weeks ahead.

If you want to attend the banquet, tickets are $37.50 each with a choice of New York Steak, Chicken Marsala or a Vegetable Plate. For further ticket information, please contact Dave Brain. Any questions, suggestions or if you’d like to advertise in their program book, please contact event organizer Bob Foster at bfosterla@aol.com or check the Animation Guild website.

I knew there was more to it than meets the (pop)eye.
What’s In Popeye’s Pipe? (via Alternet.org)

So much for keeping it a secret! Sheesh!President William Henry Harrison, Carmen Miranda, Ronald Colman, Mia Farrow, King Vidor, Mamie Van Doren, Mena Suvari, Joe Pesci, Roger Mudd, Alberto Vargas, Carole King, Fred Harman, Frank Frazetta and I thank you for today’s birthday wishes!Jerry Beck

Happy Birthday to fellow Brewmaster Jerry Beck!

I didn’t even realize it was Jerry’s birthday today until I saw it posted on various message boards, like HERE and HERE. Here’s to many more Looney and Merrie years…or something along those lines.

I’m somewhat relieved to find out that the “Hell Yes” music video I mentioned HERE recently is not an official Beck video, but rather an indie effort by Mumbleboy for the Ghettochip Malfunction ’8-bit’ remix of a Beck song. There are however two new Beck music videos worth pointing out – one is the highly inventive puppets-meet-neon “E-Pro” video by the British collective Shynola and the second is a less spectacular (but still slightly novel) ASCII-riff for “Black Tambourine” (watch in Windows Media or Real). (Thanks, Cory)

Here’s a SITE with examples of an artist doing a poor Jim Flora impersonation. Unfortunately, the artist is Jim Flora himself, and these are some of his later works created before he passed away in 1998. There’s another site HERE with later ship paintings by Flora, and these to me are a more honest expression of his design skills, not to mention more interesting to look at. Unlike the first set of paintings which are a hollow lesser recreation of his earlier glories, these nautical works show his growth as an artist and document another facet of his unique artistic skills. Of course, for the ultimate in Flora, one can do no better than the recent book THE MISCHIEVOUS ART OF JIM FLORA which reprints all his genius jazz art from the ’40s and ’50s. (link via BoingBoing.net)

The Animation Guild Local 839 IATSE has a handy database of every animation artist who has passed away from 1996 through 2004 with brief bios of each artist. Double your pleasure by searching for dead artists either by last name or by date of death.

I knew it: Fred and Barney are gay too.

Readers of Cartoon Brew may have noticed that in the past week we have introduced Google text ads on this website. We want to stress that this will in no way affect the editorial content on this website and none of our writing will ever be influenced by the advertisers. Also, we have no control over which advertisers Google’s automated system chooses to place on our site, and we do not endorse any of these advertisers. Both of us have been reluctant to pursue advertising opportunities for the Brew because we enjoy being poor, but the reality is that we want the site to pay for itself and perhaps give us a few nickels and dimes on top of that. Google ads are a good solution because they allow us to remain objective while creating a steady revenue stream. To that end, if you enjoy and read Cartoon Brew regularly, please take the time to click on the Google ads in the right hand column. You don’t have to click today or tomorrow, but if every reader clicks on one of those ads every so often, we can continue to keep this site free without having to ask our readers for money. It’s a win-win situation for everybody…we hope.

This appealing personality-packed Mickey Mouse comic strip is by comic/animation artist Daan Jippes and appeared in a 1973 issue of the Dutch DONALD DUCK MAGAZINE. Click HERE for the full comic. A brief bio of Daan Jippes is posted at Lambiek.net and a discussion about Jippe’s work and more of his drawings can be found at the Cartoon Retro forum. (Thanks, Kloink)

Whoa! Stop the presses! This may be the biggest news of the year. Forget The Incredibles… Here comes CLUTCH CARGO!!!Giving new meaning to the term “limited animation”, Clutch Cargo innovated TV animation in a way Hanna-Barbera never dreamed – they used live action lips super-imposed over the cartoon drawings (drawings that hardly moved). Actually Clutch did pioneer the TV adventure cartoon genre, years before H-B’s Jonny Quest. And now all the episodes, the entire collection of 52 Clutch Cargo episodes (each one a 5 minute serial chapter), over seventeen hours, is coming to DVD on March 22nd in two volumes – and each volume is priced under $12.00! A steal!For more information go to TV Shows On DVD.com.

Brew correspondent B. Baker pointed out to me this morning this gorgeous 1927 OSWALD THE RABBIT poster being auctioned off by Heritage Galleries.I love cartoon movie posters – and I don’t think I’ve ever seen this particular color Disney-era stock one-sheet before. It looks to be introducing the character to theatre patrons, despite the fact that the white rabbit in the center is not the “lucky rabbit” we know – the real Oswald is running all over the sides. It’s also interesting to note Walter Lantz would go with a cuter “white rabbit” design in the later 1930s. Check it out at larger size here.

Starting this summer, the Pink Panther is going to be back in our lives in a variety of ways. In addition to a new book I’m writing (for DK Publishing), there will be new merchandise, a kids book (pictured at right) by Hope & Sybil Freleng (Friz’s daughters), the U.S. release of a complete DVD cartoon collection – and of course, a new Inspector Clouseau movie starring Steve Martin.One thing I like about all this new hoopla, is the fact that they are also merchandising Ant & Aardvark action figures – and dolls of Panther adversary The Little Man. Can a Hoot Kloot maquette be far behind?
To get yourself in the mood, Download this.

Animator Don Hertzfeldt wrote in with this update on his projects:

There’s an exhibit of Bitter Films animation production “art” going up in a Pasadena gallery called Nucleus starting this weekend (February 12 through February 20), with about 150 pieces from all of our films up on the walls. It’s the first time any of this stuff has been displayed in public before, so I don’t really know what to expect but I’m told there will be free drinks and live music so maybe it will be a moot point after a couple of hours and we can retreat to someplace more interesting. I’ll be milling around hiding from people for the gallery’s opening night – awkward, clammy handshakes will be enjoyed by all.Also, year 2 of The Animation Show premieres at the Nuart Theatre on the 18th. There are a bunch of good films in the program, which are listed over here. Then it’s off on tour with the show to Seattle and Vancouver and etc..

Another nice shot of Oswald merchandise in Japan – this time with Oswald shopping bags.