Tonight at 8pm is that tribute to UPA I told you about last week. Its the latest subject of my Animation Tuesday screenings, held each month at the former Silent Movie Theatre on Fairfax (near Melrose Ave). Tonight we will be running gorgeous 35mm prints on the big screen direct from the studio vault (Thank you, Sony) of some the UPA’s true classics and oddities — including their acclaimed adaptation Edgar Allen Poe’s The Tell Tale Heart, Oscar winner When Magoo Flew (in wide screen CinemaScope), and rarely shown The Jaywalker, Willie The Kid and Fudget’s Budget (pictured above) – and more (ever seen a Dick Tracy in 35mm?). Plus: a special surprise guest voice actress in-person (hint: she narrates one of UPA’s greatest shorts). Info and tickets: click here.

Fear not! The dastardly Dan Backslide won’t win this round. The Dover Boys—Tom, Dick and Larry—have come to the rescue!

Actually, the quartet behind this brilliant classic cartoon tribute is a group of animation students who attend the School of Visual Arts in New York City. Andy Scherman is Tom, Adam Coren is Dick, Morgan Bobo is Larry and Robert Crisalli is Dan Backslide. All are seniors except Crisalli who is a junior.

Most readers should be familiar with the Chuck Jones cartoon being celebrated, but in case you’re not, go and watch The Dover Boys at Pimento University.

Let’s celebrate Halloween with the creepiest Disney short ever made: Jack Kinney’s Duck Pimples. It’s quite unlike any of Kinney’s Goofy shorts from the same period, not to mention unlike any short ever produced at Disney. The weirdness may be attributed to the writing team of Dick Shaw and weirdo-genius Virgil Partch, who were parodying radio crime/noir dramas, but veered off into some wildly surreal territory. It’s not exactly a great cartoon, but it’s entertaining, which I can’t say for most other Disney shorts. The animation is top-drawer work, and the human character designs are big fun. The effect of Donald’s hallucinatory dream is enhanced by the backgrounds that abruptly change each time a new character appears in the film.

The biggest mystery in this whodunnit is who’s responsible for the animation of Pauline, which is one of the finest pieces of cartoony female animation this side of Preston Blair. Milt Kahl is the most likely candidate if we look at the credits, but Marc Davis and Fred Moore have both been credited as working on the cartoon too (see Graham Webb’s Animated Film Encyclopedia). Disney didn’t use a strict unit system in the 1940s like other studios; usually whichever animators had downtime would work on a short, so it’s conceivable that Kahl, Moore and Davis all contributed to Pauline’s animation. Now that’s a scary amount of talent!

Here’s one for you Disney historians and cartoon musicologists. Brew reader Eric Graf has made a remarkable find which I hadn’t heard (literally!) before. I’ll let Eric, in his own words, share his research with you. Says Eric:

“Yesterday I found a 78 that I’d been searching for for years … the Victor Records soundtrack of the Dwarfs’ Yodel Song (aka “The Silly Song”) from Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs.

“Here’s the story as I understand it: Snow White was banned in Boston (and a few other cities IIRC) because of a verse in the Yodel Song that was supposedly off-color. Disney removed it from the Boston prints, and at some point also removed it from all the other versions of the movie.

“Since then Disney’s gone out of their way to pretend it never happened. It’s not included, or even mentioned, on any home video release I’m aware of, and it also isn’t on the Disney Snow White soundtrack CDs. But it WAS included on side 5 of the soundtrack album released by Victor Records in early 1938.

“My copy hails from the mid-40s, but it’s pressed from the original 1938 metal parts. The deleted verse is the one Sneezy sings starting at 1:04. It’s not off-color by today’s standards. Maybe a little unsanitary though… (Click to play embed sound file below)

“But here’s something else interesting, that I discovered while syncing up the 78 with a YouTube video of the song (Feh, wrong aspect ratio): The 78 is missing the dwarf’s vocals on the choruses.

“The chorus at :52, which starts with Snow White giggling, doesn’t match the backing track that’s in the movie (YouTube 1:09), but it does match the animation WAY better than the current version – if you ignore the singing dwarfs in the background. Snow White is obviously giggling on-screen (a perfect match to the 78), and the drum thing fits beautifully with Happy’s dance. On the current soundtrack – no giggling, no drum thing. But they’re singing.

“Then you get to the second sung chorus (at 1:51 on both the record and YouTube) – and the dwarf’s mouths aren’t moving! The onscreen dwarfs start singing at 1:59 with the yodeling – which is where they start on the 78 as well.

“The mid-50s Disneyland LP issue of the Snow White soundtrack matches the current version. Therefore, my inner Sherlock maintains that the 78 is the original mix, and that the vocals were left out of the movie by accident. They fixed the mistake at some point, but then they made another mistake – which still stands today – when they added vocals to the other chorus as well.”

Tonight Fox unveiled its latest attempt to create a successful animated series that can fill the gap between its Sunday night superstars, The Simpsons and Family Guy. Actor/comedian Jonah Hill co-created the series (with Andrew Mogel and Jarrad Paul) and voices the lead character, Allen Gregory.

Yay or Nay? What do you say?

The press is beginning to report on the huge European opening box office figures for Steven Spielberg’s mo-cap adapatation of The Adventures of Tintin. The feature opened in many countries (including France, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Spain and the U.K.) this past weekend. Have any our readers seen it? How does it work as a film? How fluent in Hergé do you need to be to enjoy it? Is the mo-cap at the high level of Avatar – or sink to the Mars Needs Moms depths?

First off: In case you haven’t bought your tickets yet – the CTN Expo is two and a half weeks away. What are you waiting for? This is our “Comic Con” and it is going to sell out. Anyone who’s attended the previous CTN shows know that this event is the closest thing we have to an animation artist and creators convention in the United States – and its a helluva lot of fun. (That’s Peter De Seve above, addressing the appreciative crowd in 2009).

This year’s CTNX is set for November 18-20, and organizer Tina Price is planning bigger and better panels, seminars and exhibits. Like what? Like this:

On stage interviews with Oscar Grillo, Bill Plympton, Eric Goldberg, Andreas Deja, Florian Satzinger, and Carlos Grangel; Panels and special events including a “one on one” with French graphic novel artist Régis Loisel moderated by Christophe Lautrette (Dreamwoks); sneak preview of Aardman’s latest feature Arthur Christmas; a creature creators panel with Terryl Whitlatch, William Stout, Greg Baldwin and David Thomas Guertin; and a seminar on DIY Self Publishing with David Colman, Sean “Cheeks” Galloway and Stephen Silver.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. There’s over 150 planned sessions, a sold-out exhibit floor, book signings, gallery shows, live demonstrations, sneak peak screenings, networking at night …and, of course, The Cartoon Brew Over-Flow Lounge (a place to hang in case you can’t get into your favorite panel – or just wanna grab a drink!). I’ll be there. I’ll be in the exhibit room. I’ll be moderating panels.

You’ve been warned… Register Now (Cartoon Brew discount code: CBREWX11). For even more info on the CTN Expo, click here. See you there.

Here’s a teaser for Laika’s next 3D stop-motion feature film, being directed by Sam Fell (Flushed Away, The Tale of Despereaux) and Chris Butler (storyboard supervisor, Coraline, Corpse Bride). Love the use of Donovan’s Season Of The Witch for this. ParaNorman will be released by Focus Features on August 17, 2012.