To answer the many inquires they received at the time, Warner Bros. produced a three page pamphlet, in comic strip style, to explain the production of animation cartoons. Clearly the work of a lower level assistant artist, the artwork isn’t so good, but the information in this 1956 handout is essentially accurate.

Click the thumbnails below to see the pages full size. According to this piece, Fifteen months and fifteen thousand drawings are required to create a Warner Bros. cartoon. Note the caricature of Eddie Selzer (the producer) in panel #1 and Beaky Buzzard in panel #7. Adding fuel to the ongoing script versus storyboard controversy, Bugs is shown typing a story in panel #2, while Daffy is sketching the storyboard in panel #3.

It’s the one year anniversary of Cartoon Dump, our monthly live comedy and cartoons showcase in Hollywood. As a special anniversary show treat, we will have two guest comedians performing within our show on Tuesday night: Maria Bamford (above left) and Blaine Capatch (above right). So this Tuesday, July 22 at 8 PM, please come along and join Maria, Blaine, Moodsy, Compost Brite, Officer Pete, Dumpster Diver Dan, Cue Card Goddess and me, Jerry Beck, for an evening of hilarious comedy, demented songs, and really, really crappy cartoons.

It’s at the Steve Allen Theater, 4773 Hollywood Blvd. (two blocks west of Vermont). Map here, see you there!

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will present Normand Roger on The Animation Soundtrack, on Sunday, August 10, at 7:30 p.m. at the Linwood Dunn Theater on Vine Street in Hollywood.

For this special presentation, Roger will discuss his creative approach to the animation soundtrack in an onstage conversation with composer Michael Giacchino (THE INCREDIBLES, RATATOUILLE). They will be joined by animator Frédéric Back (CRAC, THE MAN WHO PLANTED TREES), with whom Roger collaborated on six films. In addition, four Animated Short Film winners which feature Roger’s scores and sound design will be screened in their entirety: EVERY CHILD (1979, directed by Eugene Fedorenko), CRAC (1981, directed by Frédéric Back), THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA (1999, directed by Alexander Petrov) and FATHER AND DAUGHTER (2000, directed by Michael Dudok de Wit).

This program is presented in conjunction with the opening night of the exhibition Frédéric Back: A Life’s Drawings on display in the lobby of the Linwood Dunn Theater. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. All seating is unreserved. Tickets may be purchased online at oscars.org, in person at the Academy box office or by mail. For more information, call (310) 247-3600

(Image above from Synchromie (1971) by Norman McLaren)

The ASIFA-Hollywood panel with Ralph Bakshi will be a particular highlight at the Comic Con next week. The blurb for this event posted online was not accurate. Here’s the correct description:

ARTISTS ONLY: A Chat With Ralph Bakshi

Ralph Bakshi is responsible for some of the most wildly original animated features ever made- including Heavy Traffic, Coonskin and Wizards. Working in a largely collaborative medium hide-bound by the legacy of Walt Disney, Bakshi was able to rip the lid off of the moribund medium and create films with remarkable honesty and a startlingly unique point of view.

The legendary cartoonist Ralph Bakshi will be on hand to be interviewed by ASIFA-Hollywood Archive Director Stephen Worth on his life and career. He will be offering advice to aspiring cartoonists and reflecting on what it means to be an artist in today’s world. Whether you’re lucky enough to make a living doodling or whether you still dream of being paid to create, you won’t want to miss this important presentation.

Don’t miss it – Saturday, July 26th 4:30 – 5:30 in Room 10.

Oh, I get it – the operative word here is “cartoons”, and the joke is that the current political situation is a different “cartoon” from the one Jeffy and PJ usually watch. Ha. Ha. That’s a real knee-slapper. I’ve got nothing against The Family Circus and I’m not trying to turn into the Comics Curmudgeon – but today’s Family Circus is badly written and poorly composed. Perhaps they should leave the political humor to Garry Trudeau.

Hayao Miyazaki’s latest feature, Ponyo On The Cliff, opened yesterday in Japan. It’s one of his gentler films, more along the lines of My Neighbor Totoro – and I’m looking forward to it. Not wild about the theme song on the trailer, but the visuals look terrific.

(via Frames Per Second)

Spline Doctors, the animation education blog run by Pixar animators, offers up a new audio interview with Doug Sweetland, longtime Pixar animator and director of the studio’s latest short Presto. Part 1 is posted here; the second part is coming soon.

There is still a lot of research to be done in documenting the silent era of animation. Leonard Maltin reports, on his Movie Crazy blog, of the screening of a true rarity/oddity at the recent San Francisco Silent Film Festival:

…a 1925 animated cartoon in two-color Technicolor. The Old Family Toothbrush features a character named Kid Noah in “A New Redhead Satire” filmed in Naturecolor, using the Wilson Wetherald Process. It was so startling to see a cartoon of this vintage in color that I picked up my camera and tried to capture a few frames (above)… The short itself is fairly amusing, executed in fairly typical New York cartoon-studio fashion of the period, with impressive personality animation of its leading character. Still, its origins are something of a mystery: the picture wasn’t registered for copyright, and I can find no evidence of it in my usual reference sources.

Do any of our readers have some clues about this mysterious new discovery?