The spectacular sold out UPA program at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) last week marked the beginning of even more animation events being planned for The Bing Theatre. In fact, the next few weeks are practically a festival of animation at the museum.

Starting tonight is a two-week series Adventures in Wonderland: Alice and Other Lost Girls in Fantastic Worlds, which will include a look at some of the great Alice In Wonderland adaptations, including Jan Svankmajer’s Alice (tonight at 7:30pm), William Menzies’ 1933 Paramount version (4/7 @ 5pm), Disney’s 1951 animated feature (4/14 @ 5pm), and Lou Bunin’s stop-mo feature plus Quay Brothers shorts (4/14 @ 7:30pm).

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On Thursday April 26th, as part of the Museum’s series celebrating the 100th Anniversary of Paramount Pictures, there will be a tribute to the studio’s animated legacy. At 7:30pm South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut will screen – followed at 9pm by a tribute (curated by me, Jerry Beck) to Paramount Cartoons where I will introduce a full program of 35mm archive prints – including Fleischer Betty Boop, George Pal Puppetoons, Famous’ Baby Huey, Gene Deitch Munro and John Hubley’s Herb Alpert and The Tijuana Brass Double Feature. The double bill with South Park is $10. There will also be a separate admission available ($5) for just the Paramount shorts at 9pm. More details to come!

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On Friday April 27th the Center For Visual Music will host a double feature of experimental classics. First, at 7:30 Design In Motion: Oskar Fischinger and Abstract Animation a program of 35mm preserved prints of Fischinger’s visual music films: Allegretto, Motion Painting no. 1, Composition in Blue, Kreise, An American March, Radio Dynamics, Spirals, Spiritual Constructions, Studies 5,6,7 and 8, and more. At 9pm, a program of modernist animation by California artists (including 16mm films by Jordan Belson, Jules Engel, Harry Smith and others). These programs will introduced by Cindy Keefer of Center for Visual Music.

To celebrate the publication of Adam Abraham’s essential new UPA history, When Magoo Flew and the just-released TCM/Sony DVD set, UPA: The Jolly Frolics Collection, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) will be presenting a mega-celebration of the UPA animation studio this Friday, March 30th beginning at 7:30pm.

I will be introducing two programs of animated films – the first at 7:30pm which will feature ten newly restored 35mm prints of UPA classics including Rooty Toot Toot, Magoo’s Express, and Fudget’s Budget. Adam Abraham will sign copies of his newly released book at 8:45pm and at 9:15pm a second program of 35mm Hollywood cartoons that were influenced by UPA will screen. This second screening will include Disney’s Toot Whistle Plunk and Boom, Terrytoons’ Flebus (both of these in CinemaScope), Tex Avery’s SHHH-H-H-H and Gene Deitch’s Topsy TV (also in ‘Scope). Several UPA veterans will attend the show – and we hope you will too. Click here for information and tickets.

CONTEST: Courtesy of LACMA, I have two gift-pack prizes for two lucky Cartoon Brew readers in the Los Angeles area. The first two people to answer the UPA trivia question below will win a pair of tickets to Friday’s event and a copy of Adam Abraham’s book When Magoo Flew (both prizes will be waiting for you at the museum’s box office). Do not enter the contest if you cannot attend the event in Los Angeles. The Contest is now CLOSED:

Who was the voice of Mr. Magoo?

We have our winners!

Yep, I still do this. Once a month I run a bunch of truly awful cartoons surrounded by an absolutely hilarious live comedy show with Frank Conniff, J. Elvis Weinstein (both of MST3K) and Erica Doering. We call it Cartoon Dump and perform it at the Steve Allen Theater in Hollywood. Our special stand-up comedy guests this month are Matt Kirshen and Hannah Gansen. Showtime is 8pm and tickets can be purchased here. Check out the new FaceBook page for more information and updates. Please come – it’s funny!

The Ottawa International Animation Festival has opened its call for submissions for its 2012 competition. Entry forms are due May 18th. Chris Robinson released today Koji Yamamura’s (Mt. Head) poster for OIAF 12. Considering the hubbub the OIAF poster caused in 2009 this one is quite wonderful.

There’s something to be said for running a cartoon studio in a place where animation production isn’t commonplace. To celebrate the Animated Short Oscar for The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore, the city of Shreveport, Louisiana threw an extravagant parade for Moonbot Studios and the film’s directors Bill Joyce and Brandon Oldenburg. Here’s a few perks you get if you win an Oscar in Louisiana that you probably won’t get in other places:

A free ride in a banana-colored convertible

A marching band

A customized battle tank plus confetti

A decorated street-cleaning machine

Acknowledgment from celebrities like Randal Reeder

Custom-designed moon pies

Balloons with flying books

The adulation of children

And, of course, women

If you require more evidence for why it’s better to run an animation studio in a city few people have ever heard of, see the city of Shreveport’s Flickr page or this article in the Shreveport Times.

(via Big Screen Animation)

One more quick shout-out for the LAAF (The Los Angeles Animation Festival) now going on at the Showcase Theatre in Hollywood (near the corner of La Brea and Melrose).

Tonight at 10pm: a screening of MTV’s new version of Liquid Television, plus a Liquid Television/Titmouse sponsored after-party featuring live music from all-girl rock group Nylon Pink; Saturday afternoon at 4pm Sean Lennon will present at screening of Rene Laloux’s Fantastic Planet (1972) and at 5:30pm I’ll co-introduce the ASIFA presentation of of Fleischer’s Gulliver’s Travels (1939), a 35mm Technicolor print; Sunday night at 8pm Bill Plympton will present a 20th anniversary screening of his animated feature The Tune. (P.S. before his screening on Sunday, Bill Plympton will be at Gallery Nucleus in Alhambra giving a talk about his documentary, new films, Q and A, and signing books. Click here for details).

And these are only a few of the wall-to-wall animation screenings scheduled this weekend. For a complete list of events click here. The theatre is located at 614 N. LaBrea Ave. – right around the corner from Golden Apple Comics on Melrose. See you there!

Starting tonight is the 2012 Los Angeles Animation Festival at the Showcase Theatre in Hollywood (near the corner of La Brea and Melrose). This evening at 7:30pm is a FREE Opening Night Party with MC Tom Kenny who will introduce special guests, clips and trailers of the films to be screened.

The complete schedule of events is posted here but highlights include Sean Lennon introducing a screening of AKIRA on Thursday night; Brad Bird introducing THE IRON GIANT along with several artists and voice actors from the film on Friday night; the West Coast premiere of A MONSTER IN PARIS on Saturday night; and vintage Cal Arts student films by Lasseter, Hillenberg, Selick, Tartakovsky and McCracken on Sunday. I myself will be co-presenting an ASIFA screening of a 35mm Technicolor print of Fleischer’s Gulliver’s Travels (1939), on Saturday at 5:30pm.

The theatre is located at 614 N. LaBrea Ave. and parking will be difficult – but the tickets are relatively cheap and the shows are terrific. For more info click here. See you there!

The music video has evolved vastly over the past decade, and in the Internet age, it seems as if every song is accompanied by a visual counterpart, animated or otherwise. The mass of videos being produced today has paved the way for “Spectacle: The Music Video”, which is, as far as I know, the first major museum show about the art of the music video. The curators are Meg Grey Wells and Jonathan Wells, who created RESFest and currently runs Flux.

The show opens tomorrow evening at the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati and Dan Deacon will be performing live. “Spectacle” runs through September 3. If you attend, please give your impression of the show in our comments.

A description of “Spectacle”:

Although it has had an enormous influence on pop culture, music, cinema, fashion and advertising—music video as an art form has yet to receive consideration in a museum context. Spectacle changes all that. This is the first time a contemporary art museum has examined the music video format through a diverse exhibition—employing immersive environments, photography, video screenings, objects and interactive installations.

Spectacle features important examples from music video history, from the early pioneers and MTV masters who expertly used the medium to define their public identities, like Devo, Beastie Boys, Michael Jackson and Madonna, to artists like OK Go and Lady Gaga who follow in their footsteps today.

Spectacle also reveals the important contributions music video has made across genres. For example, many new filmmaking techniques prevalent today were first tested in music videos. And some of today’s most innovative cinematic figures—David Fincher, Michel Gondry, Spike Jonze, Mark Romanek and others—developed their signature style through experimentation with music videos.

The exhibition presents the changing landscape of the art of music video, highlighting the genre’s place at the forefront of creative technology, and its role in pushing the boundaries of creative production. With innovation and exploration as hallmarks—from the A-Ha ‘Take on Me’ video, to Chris Milk, Radiohead and others introducing new forms of interactivity and viewer participation—it is apparent that music video as an art form is constantly being redefined.