17 Comments »   posted in Cartoon Culture, Hanna Barbera, Joe Barbera, Real Estate

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Just released on Warner Archive’s on-demand line of DVDs is Gene Kelly’s ambitious ballet film Invitation to the Dance. The film’s third segment, “Sinbad the Sailor,” is a half-hour combination of live-action and animation, the latter directed by MGM’s team of Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera. The film has never been on DVD before, and if not necessarily a classic, the combination of Kelly, Hanna and Barbera makes for some fun moments.

The delightfully grouchy Ed Benedict, who I interviewed in 2002 for Animation Blast #8, spoke about his involvement in the film and why he disliked it:

“That was a miserable project. I was at home…[Fred] Quimby called and briefly described this project that he wanted me to come over and work on. I got the impression that I would be designing this so I was excited. I was quite enthusiastic about it and felt challenged. I went over and started fumbling around, making scribbles, trying to find a style. But they weren’t the designs that I originally did. I just turned my back away from the whole thing as much as I could. I got Don Driscoll, a friend of mine who worked at Paul Fennell’s, to paint the backgrounds. He had the ability but he wasn’t the painter. Anybody could have painted the backgrounds because they didn’t have anything on them.

“Invitation to the Dance was a farce and I was shocked because if you look at a lot of the old MGM musicals, they used Lautrec, Cezanne and a lot of different styles of backgrounds, just great stuff. Gene Kelly is running the show more or less on those type of decisions and he’s over there making the approvals on this stuff. There’s samples coming from the art department on the main lot, others besides myself were handing in ideas, and nothing took place.”

See some of Ed’s development art from the film HERE.

22 Comments »   posted in DVD, Ed Benedict, Gene Kelly, Hanna Barbera, Invitation to the Dance, MGM

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“Wacky Races Forever” unaired pilot

March 17, 2011 10:30 am

Here’s an unaired pilot from a few years back for an update to Hanna Barbera’s 1968 series, Wacky Races. It features the sons and daughters of the original cast and heck, its pretty good. How do I know its good? Cartoon Network didn’t pick it up.

(Thanks, Matthew Gaastra)

98 Comments »   posted in TV, Hanna Barbera, Wacky Racers

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Hanna Barbera’s Lost “Rock Odyssey”

February 4, 2011 6:20 am

Michael Sporn led me to a new blog by Frank Forte solely devoted to Hanna-Barbera’s oddest and rarest production: Rock Odyssey (1987). Produced in the wake of Ralph Bakshi’s more adult animated features, when animation studios were attempting something a little darker, a little more edgier (think Watership Down, Rock & Rule even The Black Cauldron). The film was directed by Fritz the Cat animator Robert Taylor (though credited to Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera) and conceived to be a “rock fantasia” of sorts. It was apparently cobbled together from disparate elements, bridged with a cosmic jukebox voiced by Scatman Crothers. The final result is a mess, but it has some incredible animation, layouts and design work. Perhaps some of our readers can enlighten us further about this production.

Below is the first ten minutes of Rock Odyssey, from a version of the film prepared for broadcast as a special on ABC (It ultimately never aired in the U.S.):

47 Comments »   posted in Feature Film, Hanna Barbera, Rock Odyssey

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“The Dukes” on DVD

November 20, 2010 12:05 am

How’s this for a merchandising ploy? This came in today’s email:

“Warner Archives is offering the first 400 pre-orders for Hanna Barbera’s The Dukes: The Complete Animated Series, autographed by actor James Best (who played Sheriff Coltrane). Limit 1 per customer. The DVD set will be released on December 7th.”

I wonder how many people were on the fence about buying this DVD set, but changed their mind and immediately ordered it once they heard the fifth-billed actor on the series was going to sign the box?

(Thanks, Bob Miller)

47 Comments »   posted in TV, DVD, Hanna Barbera

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