“[FANTASIA] is a mishmash of pedantic narration and erratic tone (the finale’s soul-sucking demon gives the death of Bambi’s mom a run for the money in the childhood trauma department), and, frankly, some of the animated sequences now seem dangerously akin to screensavers.” That’s the assessment according to PREMIERE magazine’s list of the 20 most overrated movies of all time.

The sixth in a series of holiday gift-giving suggestions from your pals at Cartoon Brew.The big video event this week for Disney buffs is the release of the new Disney Treasures wave – particularly the incredible must-have More Silly Symphonies (take my word for it – you want this!). However, Inkwell Images just released a perfect companion piece which will also make a great gift (to yourself or that animation geek closest to your heart), The Legendary Laugh-O-Grams Fairy Tales. I just got my copy and it may be Ray Pointer’s best release yet. The DVD contains exceptional copies of four of Disney’s earliest known cartoon shorts (from 1922 – way before Mickey, Oswald and Alice). Bonus materials include Disney’s first educational film, Tommy Tuckers Tooth (also from ‘22) and an excerpt of a rare audio interview with Laugh-O-Gram employee Rudy Ising. Perfect accompaniment to the above mentioned Silly Symphonies dvd and Neal Gabler’s excellent new Disney biography.

Cartoon Brew Holiday Gift Guide
Stuart Ng Books
Animated Soviet Propaganda dvd
Terr’ble Thompson book
Scott Bradley cd
Silly Symphonies book

From the “What Were They Thinking Department”: NBC has produced a live-action remake of the 1970s Rankin/Bass holiday special THE YEAR WITHOUT A SANTA CLAUS. The special premieres tonight. I think the still above of the Heat Miser and Snow Miser tells you everything you need to know about the production values on this new special.

(Thanks, Mark)

This Nicorette commercial is the first spot I’ve seen directed by Genndy Tartakovsky (DEXTER’S LAB, SAMURAI JACK) since he became connected with The Orphanage. I’m somewhat ambivalent about the spot at the moment, but the graphics are undeniably slick and there’s some snappy timing throughout. Besides Tartakovsky’s direction credit, other talent on the spot includes Webster Colcord (animation supervisor), Brian Kulig (cg supervisor), and Jonathan Rothbart (vfx supervisor).

According to the NEW YORK TIMES, Phoenix Suns forward Shawn Marion loves cartoons and has a collection of thousands of animation dvds. I got a kick out of this sentence in the article: “His stock consists mostly of classics like ‘He-Man,’ ‘Transformers,’ ‘DuckTales,’ ‘ThunderCats,’ ‘Hong Kong Phooey’ and ‘Scooby-Doo.’” Old school? Yeah. Classics? Hardly. Anyway, it’s a fairly amusing article.

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Independent animator (and former syndicated newspaper cartoonist) Chris Harding has a thought-provoking rant on his blog about the perils of allowing your cartoon characters to be licensed for merchandise. He writes:

Here’s how it works: You spend all your energy and passion, and it almost kills you, but somehow you manage to breathe a tiny bit of life into a character… your baby. And then some genius comes along and, bing-bang, sells the rights to print that character’s face on a napkin. That people wipe their food on. On your character’s face. That you worked so hard to breathe life into. Chocolate cake all over their face. It shows contempt for the very idea of a character, because they only exist where we put them. And if they are even slightly real to you, if you care even a little about them, it shows a lot of disrespect to wipe your filth on their faces. It only makes sense if your goal is just to cash out, leaving behind the husks of other peoples’ once lively creations to rot and stink in the nostrils of posterity.

I pointed to some surreal French animated commercials last week, but they don’t come close to this mid-century theatrical spot by German animation legend Hans Fischerkoesen. The commercial, which is kind of like Hitchcock-meets-Harryhausen, advertises Underberg, an herbal formula used to treat indigestion. And all we get in the US for heartburn is squiggly Blechman drawings.

Attention all Angelenos: Tom Sito, Disney animator, former president of the Animation Guild, and now author of Drawing the Line: The Untold Story of the Animation Unions from Bosko to Bart Simpson will speak Thursday, December 14, 2006, 7:30 pm, at the Hollywood Heritage Museum. No one has collected more stories about the Golden Age of Hollywood animation than Tom, and his book is a must have. The Hollywood Heritage Museum is in the Lasky-DeMille Barn at 2100 North Highland Avenue (across the street from the Hollywood Bowl). Parking is free. Admission is $8 (Hollywood Heritage Members: $5) for this special event.