ASIFA-Hollywood has announced its Call for Entries for this year’s 37th Annual Annie Awards.

Annie Awards will be presented in 25 categories including best animated feature, home entertainment, television production, television commercial, short subject, video game, as well as individual achievements. Entries can be submitted for consideration from productions released in the United States between January 1, 2009 and December 31, 2009. The deadline to receive entries is Friday, October 16, 2009.

Some big changes to the voting rules have been instituted this year, most significantly that ASIFA-Hollywood members will vote only on the Production categories, and that a final election committee of animation professionals will determine the award recipients for all of the Individual Achievement categories.

This year’s ceremony will be held on Saturday, February 6, 2010 at Royce Hall on the campus of UCLA. The updated ‘Rules and Categories’ list, entry forms and more information can be found online at www.annieawards.org.

Is this anyway to rebuild a brand? Hmmmm…. Could be!

Warner Bros. Consumer Products has entered into a licensing agreement with urban clothing designer Johnny Cupcakes to produce a line of limited edition T-shirts featuring the Looney Tunes characters. The new t-shirts will be available ($40 each) beginning this month at Johnny Cupcakes stores in LA, Boston and Hull, Mass as well as online. More info to come via the Johnny Cupcakes blog.

Brew reader “George” has just informed me of the publication of a Presto! Little Golden Book. With art by Teddy Newton, George says “it’s obviously fantastic!” If it’s as good as all previous Pixar Little Golden Books, I’m sold. It’s available on amazon here.

Stop-motion legend Ray Harryhausen doesn’t animate much himself nowadays, but he has a new production banner “Ray Harryhausen Presents” designed to promote talented filmmakers. The first short made under this banner, an adaptation of Edgar Allen Poe’s The Pit and the Pendulum, was completed a couple years ago and will be released onto DVD this week. The film was directed by stop-motion veteran Marc Lougee, who has also directed episodes of MTV’s Celebrity Deathmatch and the BBC/Discovery series Dinosapien.

The DVD release also includes behind-the-scenes video depicting the production of the film, storyboards and concept art gallery, and interviews with director Lougee, writer Matt Taylor, composer Philip Stanger, and animator Mike Weiss.

The DVD will debut this week at the Festival of Fear in Toronto (booth #1216). For more info about the film including how to order the DVD, visit the film’s official website. There’s also a ‘making of’ article at CGSociety.org.

There’s no use even attempting to explain this 1979 Russian animated short—A Very Blue Beard (below in two parts). Just enjoy it…or be afraid of it.

Meet Doctor Finklestar: Space Urologist. Sophisticated humor this is not, but it does deliver the funny. It’s from C.H. Greenblatt, creator of the upcoming CN series CHOWDER which looks rather promising.

Here’s a recent AWN interview where a Disney exec producer explains his credentials that qualify him to work in the animation industry:

As exec producer of Disney’s newest animated shows for tweens, what exactly do you do? How is an exec producer different from a producer?

JT: As the exec producer I am the “show runner.” The ultimate responsibility for all creative decisions rests with me. Having said that, my background is comedy writing, so my style is to delegate a lot. Heather Martinez, my director, who is a great artist, is in charge of most “art decisions.” I only weigh in on what I feel are the most crucial ones and I concentrate more on writing, acting and editing.

How long have you been interested in animation? You originally came to Los Angeles with the goal of becoming a lawyer. At what time did that switch for you and how did you transition into animation?

JT: Actually, I came to L.A. as a stand-up comedian. I had quit the law to do comedy. My transition to animation was pretty abrupt. I had been writing for American Movie Classics and Fox Sports when Steve Marmel suggested I freelance a script for the Fairly Oddparents. (He was the story editor.) I wrote a script in February and in June, I was a staff writer.

If you’ve ever wondered why mainstream studio cartoons are so intolerably awful, just ask the former lawyer and stand-up comic who’s responsible for all the artistic decisions on a Disney TV series. There’s hundreds of people like him in this business; it’s just that most of them don’t go on the record talking about their lack of knowledge about the art form. Then again, a lot of them do go on the record. To better understand how they’re collectively screwing the animation industry, be sure to read John Kricfalusi’s fearlessly honest blog post “Crackpot Executive Beliefs.”

Tomorrow afternoon, Saturday February 3rd, the Animation Guild, ASIFA-Hollywood and Women In Animation will present an AFTERNOON OF REMEMBRANCE, the annual memorial to honor those in the animation community who passed away in 2006. This year tributes will be paid to Joe Barbera, Ed Benedict, Brad Case, Chris Hayward, Norm McCabe, Sid Raymond, Joe Simon, Alex Toth, Myron Waldman, Robert “Tiger” West and Berny Wolf, among many others. This event happens at the Hollywood Heritage Museum (Lasky-DeMille Barn) at 2100 N. Highland Ave., across from the Hollywood Bowl. Doors open for food and refreshments at 1 pm, Memorials begin at 2 pm. The Afternoon is free of charge and is open to all; no RSVP necessary.