New Yorkers, here’s a heads-up on a free program this week at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center. Forever Young: Dance Stars of American Animation will be discussed this Thursday night, March 19, at 6 p.m. at the Bruno Walter Auditorium, 111 Amsterdam Avenue (south of 65th Street).

Mindy Aloff, author of Hippo in a Tutu: Dancing in Disney Animation, will discuss the subject of dancing in historic American animation with dance legend Marge Champion and animation historian (and Oscar-winning director-animator) John Canemaker. Among their topics will be Ms. Champion’s early work as a live-action reference dancer and choreographer for Walt Disney’s animated features Snow White and Fantasia, Gene Kelly and Jerry Mouse’s duet in Anchors Aweigh, and Betty Boop’s Poor Cinderella for Max Fleischer. Film excerpts will be shown. Admission is free and on a first come, first served basis. For additional information and program updates, telephone 212.642.0142 or visit the New York Public Library website.

Post Script: I’ve neglected to mention Aloff’s book, Hippo in a Tutu, before now – and that’s been my mistake. It’s an entertaining, excellent read and I recommend it highly. Lavishly illustrated and well-researched, Aloff focuses in on an important, but critically neglected, part of the classic Disney features and shorts. Deserves a prime spot on your bookshelf.

The Pixar “Art of” books are always a treat, and next to that the Little Golden Books and various tie-in publications always feature incredible art, frequently by Pixar artists and designers themselves.

Pixar’s Ronnie Del Carmen discusses and previews his UP book, My Name Is Dug on his blog. It looks gorgeous – and has me doubly excited about the feature film that inspired it. The book comes out on April 14th.

Our pal Ruben Procopio has just posted images of his sculpt for a forthcoming Walt Disney/Oswald Rabbit statue, for the Disney Classics Collection. Beautiful job, Ruben!

Meanwhile, Brew reader Tammy Tatro sent us this link to these photos of an obscure piece of vintage Oswald merchandise.

“My Dad brought over a box of my late Grandfathers old belongings and when my Mom was going through it she pulled out “a rabbit that looks like Mickey” to show my niece. Upon hearing that I looked over and grabbed it out of her hand and sure enough it seems to be a vintage Oswald The Lucky Rabbit Christmas Ornament. I have looked and looked on-line but have not seen anything like it but I think it dates circa 1929-early 1930’s. I also have no idea how much it is worth or when or where it was originally purchased.”

It’s a new one on me. Perhaps our readers can tell us more about this item.

Continuing our ongoing monitoring of classic cartoon characters on modern food products, animator Alex Kirwan sent in this image of the new Donald Duck Orange Juice carton. Says Kirwan, “They seem to be using the style-guide of a much earlier, circa 40’s Donald, complete with pie-cut eyes, white hat, and black tie. Perhaps they are conciously following the recent trend, lead by Warner Bros. and Popeye, using earlier versions of their characters on their consumer products.”

Pssst! Save the date. Mark your calendar. May 21st, Woodbury University in Burbank @ 7:30PM. ASIFA-Hollywood is organizing a reunion/panel discussion/party to commemorate the 20th anniversary of The Little Mermaid.

Character animator Tom Sito will moderate a panel consisting of Mark Henn (Ariel), Andreas Deja (King Triton), Ruben Aquino (Ursula), Tina Price (CAPS system and early CGI) and Gary Trousedale (storyboards) – with many more guests and panelists to be announced. We’ll keep you posted with updates, but mark the date now!

The new-ish animation blog Lineboil offers up a fine interview with Glen Keane, in which he talks about his preference for pencil over Cintiq, who his greatest source of animation inspiration is (a surprise, at least to me), and suggests that he may one day become a full-time teacher. When asked if the amount of animation we’re seeing today constitutes a new Golden Age, Keane diplomatically shoots down the idea with a fantastic answer that I couldn’t agree with more:

“It seems to me that a ‘golden age’ starts with a movement to discover and learn. It worked that way when Walt turned Hyperion studios into a veritable animation university complete with animal pens to keep deer for study. The result was Snow White, Bambi and Fantasia. In the seventies, when Disney re-started its training program, there was an influx of new talent, new discoveries and wonderful new films like Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast and Lion King. Branching out from Disney, there are the films of John Lasseter, Brad Bird and Tim Burton.

“We need to be stretching out and learning, discovering, trying new things. We cannot rest on where we are. There is always a stronger, more convincing, more personal and expressive way to tell our stories and to animate our characters. If we do that then we can move into another ‘golden age.’”

(photo via O-meon)

This sequence of drawings by Bill Tytla from Snow White is a reminder of what attracted me to animation in the first place. Tytla’s mastery of draftsmanship, control over every element of the image, and ability to invoke vivid personalities from mere lines represents animation artistry at its peak.

Last month Burbank city officials removed a 50-year-old miniature time capsule that was encased in concrete in the Magnolia Bridge in 1959. It contained a roll of 35mm film with 47 black and white images of Burbank landmarks. This week, the local newspaper The Burbank Times has posted all the images on their website. In addition to shots of City Hall, NBC Studios and Burbank Airport, there are two photos of Walt Disney Studios on Buena Vista Street. To see enlargements of the Disney Studio shots, click here for the Gate, click here for the Animation Building.

Floyd, can you spot your car??

The good news about beginning Monday with this video is that the rest of my posts this week are guaranteed to be better.

(Thanks, Karim)

The 2D animation renaissance of the 1990s began in the 1980s. Did any one movie or TV show begin it – or was it the combination of the popularity of Mighty Mouse the New Adventures (1987), Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), The Little Mermaid (1989), and the introduction of The Simpsons (1987)? Some might credit the Don Bluth/Steven Spielberg An American Tail (1986) as the catalyst.

Certainly the 1979 exodus of Don Bluth, Gary Goldman, John Pomeroy and eleven others from Disney, in protest of the then-deteriorating animation department, could be considered the beginning-of-the-beginning. During the 1970s, Bluth and company – while still employed at Disney – tinkered away at nights and on weekends in a little garage in Culver City on a personal film. The goal was to learn how to make a classically animated film from scratch, and do it all by themselves without studio support.

Banjo The Woodpile Cat was that film – and it emboldened the group to break free of Disney and start making new films on their own. How successful they were, creatively, is a matter of opinion – and as for Banjo itself, no one considers it a classic but it’s always been a sweet little picture. Now Bluth has re-released Banjo on a two-disc DVD that is actually worth owning by any serious student of animation or Disney history.

In addition to a newly remastered version of the film, there is a great audio commentary track by Bluth, Goldman and Pomeroy recounting the making of the short. On the second disc is a 13-part documentary, The Story Behind Banjo, with the trio detailing their time at Disney, how they made on Banjo at night while animating The Rescuers, Pete’s Dragon and The Small One during business hours, what they learned and how it led to their departure from Disney. It’s a fascinating story. There is also a vintage TV newscast from 1980 with behind the scenes footage at Bluth’s newly independent studio, a separate on-camera “conversation” with Don and a collection of trailers for every feature and video game the Bluth studio ever worked on.

It’s a great package of material – and you can buy the DVD from Don himself off Amazon.com. Below is a excerpt from the middle of the short:

As a post-script to our last post: If foot-long raging Mickey’s don’t turn you on, then how about these Star Wars/Disney statues (click thumbnails above to see full image). For $195 a piece you can choose from Mickey as Luke, Minnie as Leia (in the gold bikini from Return of the Jedi), Goofy Chewbacca or Donald as Han in Carbonite.

These limited edition statues (600 each) will be released the second week in June. 500 of each will be available at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, with the remaining 100 of each being sent to Disneyland. We empathize with Jeff Sparkman on cnet.com’s Crave, who is begging Disney and Lucasfilm to stop licensing this cross-promotional stuff. His latest piece is entitled, Dear George Lucas: You’re allowed to say no sometimes.

(Thanks, Ed Austin)