It’s a big day in Los Angeles, as two oddball 2-D animated features open in local area theatres.HOME ON THE RANGE is Disney’s final film in a series of traditional hand drawn features dating back to SNOW WHITE in 1937. Even if they revive the animation studio someday in the future, this film will be noted as the last of the original line. I liked it, but the reviews have been luke warm. Roger Ebert was not impressed.TAMALA 2010 opens at the Nuart Theatre in West L.A. - it’s a bizarro Japanese anime, sort of a “Hello Kitty” from Hell. Vitagraph Films (American Cinematheque) is putting this cool looking picture in art theatres across the U.S.

Brewmmaster Jerry Beck will appear Friday morning on The Connection, a live, daily call-in show that airs on NPR stations nationwide. The program will be broadcast on April 2, from 11am-12noon Eastern Time (8 - 9 am Pacific). It can be heard live on numerous stations nationwide (check here) or on the web. The show will be available on The Connection’s website archive.
Beck will be discussing the future of hand drawn animation in film.

APRIL FOOLS!A reliable source from deep within the bowels of the Mouse informs the Brew that Disney is developing a new animated TV series, which wouldn’t ordinarily be a big deal, except that this show is based on an original concept by Mr. Michael Eisner himself. The all-CG project, called DIS & EIS, is being kept under tight wraps. An 11-minute pilot is currently in production. The show follows the gentle kids-in-school formula of DOUG and RECESS, but here’s the twist: the stars are a 10-year-old Walt Disney and 12-year-old Michael Eisner, who happen to be best friends at a school in Marceline, Missouri (for Disney buffs, that’s the actual town where Walt Disney grew up). According to my source, Eisner is insisting that the show exhibit reverence for Walt’s legacy and as a result, the characters will stay very true to their actual personalities: Walt will be sort of the oddball goofy creator type who’s constantly getting into mischief while Eisner is his smart responsible friend always bailing “the Dis” out of trouble. Reportedly, the mean principal of the school that Dis and Eis attend is a caricature of Roy Disney Jr. There will be plenty of other “cameos” by famous Disney personalities. For example, caricatures of the Nine Old Men’s Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston will be used for the school janitors, except that they’ll both be black in the cartoon. Frank will be voiced by Damon Wayans and Ollie will be voiced by David Alan Grier. Sound like a winning concept to me.

Tomorrow’s April 1 and that could only mean one thing: the annual Animation Nation meeting in Los Angeles. This year is the sixth edition and it’ll take place at 1:30 pm at the Pickwick Center (1001 Riverside Drive, Burbank, California). Food and beverages will be served and everybody will have a chance to speak and vent about the crappy state of the animation biz. No charge but contributions are welcome. For more details, check out this thread at AnimationNation.com.

Here’s a terrific on-line collection of Cliff Sterrett’s classic comic strip POLLY AND HER PALS. Sterrett’s work is what cartooning is all about - personality, humor and appeal. Not to mention Sterrett has an exquisite sense of storytelling, composition, design and color. It’s an all-in-one cartooning master class well worth studying. The French website that features these comics also has sections on other fine cartoonists like T.S. Sullivant and Lyonel Feininger.

(Thanks to Marc Deckter for the link)

On Friday, June 25, John Canemaker brings “The Art and Flair of Mary Blair” to the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley.The widely respected independent animator and animation historian John Canemaker will sign his latest book, THE ART AND FLAIR OF MARY BLAIR, and present a profusely illustrated lecture on designer Blair’s life and influential career. The multimedia presentation won acclaim last year at both New York’s Museum of Modern Art and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Following an intermission, there will be a rare 35mm screening of the Disney feature ALICE IN WONDERLAND, with color and styling by Blair.Mary Blair (1911-1978) was one of Walt Disney’s most brilliant conceptual designers, helping define the look of such classics as CINDERELLA (1950), ALICE IN WONDERLAND (1951), and PETER PAN (1953). Although much of her art veers away from naturalism toward abstraction and Surrealism, she was one of Walt Disney’s favorite artists.The Pacific Film Archive theatre is located at 2575 Bancroft Way near Bowditch Street, Berkeley, California.
For more info, call: 510/642-1412 or check www.bampfa.berkeley.edu Tickets, $4-$8.

Big news story of the day:
John Mancini has a beef with some cartoon fish. Mancini is the founder of the Italic Institute of America, which decries what it calls Hollywood’s stereotyping of Italians as dumb thugs or murderous gangsters. Now the organization has targeted the upcoming DreamWorks movie “Shark Tale,” because some of its villainous sea creatures are played by Italians and have Italian names.
Read the full story HERE.

The BREW mailbox has been flooded with colorful postcards for Artists gallery openings. Here’s two of note:Glenn Barr (Ren & Stimpy, et al) will present new paintings and prints under the title “Haunted World”, at the La Luz de Jesus Gallery in Los Feliz, CA. The Artists reception is Friday April 2nd at 8pm.A Sick & Twisted favorite, Miles Thompson (Brian’s Brain) has a new exhibit “Idol Time” at the Copro Nason Gallery in Culver City. The Artists reception is Saturday April 10th at 8pm.