Jason Anders continues to interview cult directors, hot starlets and distinctive animators. He’s just posted a conversation with Ralph Bakshi on his Fulle Circle Blog — and whatever Ralph has to say is always worth a read.

Tonight in Glendale, Joe Bev will be doing a live taping of his radio show at the Glendale Library Auditorium with special guests June Foray, Bill Marx (son of Harpo); Mark Evanier; Earl Kress; Gregg Berger,and more. Tonight at 7:00 pm at 222 E. Harvard St. in Glendale, California. Admission is FREE. No reservations are required. Autographed books by the participants will be on sale - Proceeds from the sale of books to benefit the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archives.

It’s true, they showed this kind of gorgeous animation on PBS once upon a time. It was made by experimental animator Carmen D’Avino for The Electric Company. More of his films can be seen on the North County Public Radio website.

Cartoon Network takes a lot of heat around here, but when they do something right we’ll report it and celebrate it. Starting today, classic Warner Bros. cartoons return to the channel in a six-hour marathon (1pm-7pm EST), and the network has scheduled a regular daily hour of Looney Tunes at 11am Eastern (8am Pacific) each weekday. You can check the schedule here. Let’s support this move. Watch some Looney Tunes today, and tell your friends. Let’s show them that cartoons belong on a Cartoon Network.

Trying to find a free online version of Doug Sweetland’s Pixar short Presto, reader Michael Rianda instead found this: a Chinese knock-off.

Rianda writes:

Some group of people completely reanimated and remodeled, a shot-for-shot remake of Presto (except for the crucial addition of a color changing iguana). And it’s a complete testament to the power of character animation. It’s the exact same story, timing and sound as Presto, except it’s about 100 times worse because the animation is so bad. The gags don’t come across, you don’t feel as much for the characters….it just doesn’t work.

Check it out for yourself:

Film editor Stan Warnow has made a documentary about his father, the musician/composer/inventor Raymond Scott. Deconstructing Dad: the Music, Machines and Mystery of Raymond Scott is now playing film festivals around the world. The six minute preview above explains it all, with commentary from musicians Mark Mothersbaugh, John Williams, historians Irwin Chusid, Will Friedwald, producer Hal Willner and many more. I can’t wait to see the whole thing.

(Thanks, Craig Clark)

Dock Ellis & The LSD No-No by James Blagden isn’t going to win any awards for its animation, but it packs a real punch as a short film. Actually, it’d be hard to screw up the story, which is a colorful recording by former baseball pitcher Dock Ellis describing how he pitched a no-hitter in 1970 while under the influence of LSD. Much of the short’s success comes from Ellis’s storytelling—his line “Ooh, I just made a touchdown” is hilarious even without drawings—while Blagden’s semi-realistic illustration style and oddball eye movements on the characters provide enough visual accompaniment to make it work. Even the amateurish filmmaking elements, like unnecessarily dividing the film up into parts, didn’t ruin the overall effect for me. Ellis, for his part, became an anti-drug crusader before he passed away last year.

Whenever I appear on Shokus Internet Radio, I get to plow through Stu Shostack’s incredible library of TV Guide back issues - and I always seem to find something of interest for Cartoon Brew. This time I grabbed the July 1st 1961 issue, with the Flintstones cover (click thumbnail at left to see at full size), which contains a good article on the then-current trend towards prime time animation. It’s a pretty nice piece. The writer includes an intriguing list of forthcoming shows that were apparently never made: Sir Loin and the Dragon, Waco Wolf, Muddled Masterpieces and The Late Late War.

(Click thumbnails below to read pages at full size)