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.

Animation director Matt Ferguson (Harold Rosenbaum Chartered Accountant and Grossology for Nelvana) has, over the past week, been posting clips and full versions of the 2006 Annie Award nominees on his new blog, The Living Animation Festival. Matt’s also been posting all kinds of great stuff he finds on YouTube, including early films of John Lasseter and Michael Dudok de Wit. Well worth a daily visit.

UbuWeb bills itself as a “YouTube of the Avant-Garde” and I can’t think of a better description. Among other things, they have a great collection of avant-garde film, all available for free viewing. The animation offerings are kind of sparse, but there are some difficult-to-find films that are worth checking out including Robert Breer’s A MAN AND HIS DOG OUT FOR AIR, numerous shorts by Walerian Borowczyk, Ed Emshwiller’s early CG landmark SUNSTONE, Frank and Caroline Mouris’s Oscar-winning FRANK FILM, and a couple of stop-motion classics by Ladislaw Starewicz.

The fifth in a series of holiday gift-giving suggestions from your pals at Cartoon Brew.

This one is only for folks in southern California. It used to be that to get your hands on Stuart Ng’s amazing collection of out-of-print and contemporary illustration and cartoon books, one had to wait for the annual San Diego Comic-Con or arrange a personal visit to Stuart’s collection. But now, Stuart has opened a 1000-square-foot showroom in Torrance, and he’s holding his first-ever open house this holiday season. The showroom will be open from 11am to 5pm for the next two weekends: December 9-10 and 16-17. The Stuart Ng showroom is located at 22910 Crenshaw Blvd., Suite B, Torrance, California 90505. To check out his catalog or for more details, visit StuartNgBooks.com. But please, leave a couple Ronald Searle books for me.

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

What happens when a nutty evangelical homebuilder decides to become the next Walt Disney, and hires a bunch of ex-Disney animators to build his own 2D animation empire in Wisconsin? That sounds like the set-up to a bad joke, but unfortunately, it actually happened last year and the results were predictably disastrous. The story of Tom Hignite and Miracle Studios is recounted in painful detail in the current issue of MILWAUKEE MAGAZINE. It’s a long but mighty entertaining read.

Here’s a series of ten beautiful animated spots produced in France during the 1950s. It’s inspiring how these commercials take full advantage of the medium’s graphic potential. There’s no compromise in these pieces which is what keeps them so fresh and interesting over fifty years later.

We’ve needed a good animation festival here in the US for the long time and we may finally be getting it in the form of the Platform International Animation Festival, which will take place June 25-30, 2007 in Portland, Oregon. The recently launched festival website has more info including details on how to submit films (deadline is March 1, 2007).

The festival is sponsored entirely by Cartoon Network, which was initially some cause for concern, but thankfully, CN seem to be taking a largely hands-off approach and allowing this to become its own festival. I’ve spoken extensively with the festival’s director and founder Irene Kotlarz, and she’s attempting to really push the limits of what an animation festival can be. In addition to screenings of short films and special programs, Platform will weave in and out of related arts by having installations and art exhibits, as well as incorporating comics, illustration and toy design into the programming. It’s exciting to finally have a major festival so close to the animation epicenters of Southern California and the Bay Area. I definitely know where I’ll be next June.