Wes Anderson: Absentee Director

Fur flies on 'Mr. Fox' -- latimes.com

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Jack and Ben Shut Down, Layoff At Laika

OREGONLIVE.COM: Laika lays off 65, shelves CG film
by Mike Rogoway, The Oregonian
Wednesday December 17, 2008, 2:29 PM

Laika, Phil Knight's Portland animation studio, laid off 65 people today as it pulled the plug on a long-gestating film.

"Jack and Ben's Animated Adventure" was a computer-generated feature once slated to be Laika's second film. The first movie, a stop-motion picture called "Coraline," is due in theaters Feb. 6.

To read the rest of this article, click here.

New Fox Show From Simpsons Alumni

"'The Simpsons' vets Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein have been named exec producers on Fox's animated laffer 'Sit Down, Shut Up.'

(The show) is based on a live-action sitcom from Australia. The animated U.S. version revolves around the lives of seven staff members at a dysfunctional high school in a small northeastern fishing town. Action centers on faculty members, as their egos and personal agendas trump the students' needs."

To read more of Michael Schneider's Variety article, click here.

Venture Brothers Season 3 Trailer

Courtesy of Quick Stop Entertainment and Astrobase Go! Enjoy.

And Then There Were None: Ollie Johnston, 1912 - 2008

Ollie Johnston, the last of Walt Disney's legendary animators dubbed "The Nine Old Men", died today at the age of ninety-six. His work has inspired legions of animators, cartoonists and fans alike.

Condolences to his friends and family.

UPDATE: If you'd like to read Charles Solomon's New York Times obituary for Mr. Johnston, click here.

Lost Sleeping Beauty Art Comes Home

"A Japanese university plans to return about 250 pieces of original animation art to the Walt Disney Company that were mislaid in storage after traveling to Japan nearly five decades ago.

Disney said that the art — cels, backgrounds, preliminary paintings and storyboard sketches — was part of a collection that was handpicked by Walt Disney himself. It was sent to Japan in 1960 for a touring exhibition timed to the opening of the film 'Sleeping Beauty.' The exhibition opened at Mitsukoshi Department Store in Tokyo in May of that year and traveled to 16 other stores throughout Japan."

To read the rest of Charles Solomon's article, click here.

Disney Establishes Core Production Overseas?

REUTERS.COM: Disney to make animated films in Japan, paper says
Wed Mar 5, 2008 6:41pm EST

TOKYO (Reuters) - The Walt Disney Co. plans to make animated films in Japan to cater to Asian tastes, as it moves core production outside the United States for the first time, a business daily reported on Thursday.

Disney would team up with Toei Animation and other Japanese studios to tap talent and computer graphics technology, the Nikkei newspaper said.

A short animated film about a robot had already been made with Toei and was due to be aired in May, with two other projects in the works, the paper said.

While Disney sought partners it did not plan acquisitions at this point, it added.

(Reporting by Edwina Gibbs; Editing by Rodney Joyce)

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Disney's had a lot of satellite production houses in other countries before, so I'm assuming 'core production' is the key phrase here. Even so, is it true that Disney's never made a feature completely outside of Burbank? I think so, but with all of those other studios in the '90s, it makes me less certain.

Morcheeba/Joel Trussell Enjoy The Ride Video

From the fellow who brought you the War Photographer video, a significant (but successful) change of pace. Nice music, too!

If you're a Mac person, you can buy the video for $1.99 over at iTunes.

Animation Remake OTD: George of the Jungle

USA TODAY: 'George of the Jungle' will swing once again
By Bill Keveney, USA TODAY

George of the Jungle is getting a makeover.

The naive, Tarzan-like bumbler, known to many adults by the 1967 cartoon and its catchy theme song, returns in a new version on the Cartoon Network on Friday (9 ET/PT).

The new cartoon makes George a teenager instead of an adult, as he was in the original created by Jay Ward. His old friends — Ape the Ape; his pet dog, Shep; and gal pal Ursula — return, joined by some new characters.

Although this George is aimed at a younger audience, kids 6 to 11, he shares most of his predecessor's traits, says Tiffany Ward, daughter of the late animator.

"He still lucks into things. He still smashes into trees," she says.
FIND MORE STORIES IN: Cartoon Network | Matt Groening | Brendan Fraser | George of the Jungle

Ward's offbeat characters, which also included Rocky and Bullwinkle, Peabody and Sherman and Dudley Do-Right of the Mounties, may appeal both to parents who grew up with the original and to children who have seen the 1997 movie starring Brendan Fraser. (That film precedes the George episode Friday at 7 ET/PT.)

"Moms and dads know it. Kids grew up watching the film. They can all hum the theme song. And the humor is timeless," says Amanda Cortese of Classic Media, which made the show with Ward Productions under the label Bullwinkle Studios.

"What we're seeing in entertainment is a lot of co-viewing," Cartoon Network's Rico Hill says. "Kids are sitting down and enjoying TV with their parents."

In recasting George for a younger audience, there will be fewer of the Ward insider puns and jokes that attracted adults to his earlier cartoons. "Ward produced a whole string of shows based around humor more than the drawing style. They were aimed more at adults," animation historian Jerry Beck says.

Ward, who died in 1989, still has many fans, including The Simpsons creator Matt Groening, who named his central character Homer Jay Simpson in tribute.

New George characters include Ursula's father, Dr. Towel Scott, and a witch doctor and his daughter, Magnolia. They all live in a fictional jungle, Mbebwe. New performers play the theme. ("George, George, George of the Jungle — watch out for that tree … !")

The addition of Magnolia gives Ursula a friend and also may be a way to attract girls to a cartoon that tilts toward boys, Hill says.

George, an acquisition that has been broadcast in Canada, is a good fit for the Cartoon Network audience, Hill says. Although it has more girl appeal, he would have liked a little more diversity in the characters.

For some unexplained reason, Magnolia has a Southern accent. "That's the way of Jay Ward," Tiffany Ward says.

The new George has 26 episodes, each containing two cartoons. Only 17 episodes of the original were broadcast. Those, along with an unaired earlier pilot, will be available on DVD Feb. 12.

George isn't the only Ward update in production. Peabody and his pet boy, Sherman, are the subject of a DreamWorks film scheduled for 2010, Tiffany Ward says.

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That's the bad news. The good news is that the original show has a much better chance of being released on DVD soon, with (I'm assuming) an accompanying notice that it's no longer appropriate for children.

Ruff And Reddy Episodes Viewable Online!

Check 'em out over at the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive! They're protean H-B, to be sure, but it's neat to see. This series isn't available on DVD yet, so take a look and expand your Hanna-Barbera nerditry!

DreamWorks, Nickelodeon Team Up For Television

LA TIMES: INDUSTRY - An animated partnership
By Martin Miller, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer December 10, 2007

ATOP the Nickelodeon studios in Burbank is a larger-than-life cavalcade of the cable network's signature animated characters. SpongeBob SquarePants is up there. So is Dora the Explorer, as well as a handful of others. Joining them soon, hope the network's executives, will be Skipper, Kowalski, Rico and Private -- the raucously comic penguins from the DreamWorks Animation film "Madagascar."

Thanks to their Viacom Inc. owners, the two entertainment powerhouses are teaming up to produce a new computer-generated animated comedy series for television that spins off the half-billion-dollar worldwide grossing success of the DreamWorks film. In the kind of synergy other corporations may wish upon a star for, the new series, whose working title is "Penguins," is slated to premiere in early 2009 -- just a few months after the sequel, "Madagascar: The Crate Escape," hits thousands of theaters nationally.

For Nickelodeon, the new series is part of a major ramp-up in production at the already humming animation studio. Next year, the 28-year-old company is poised to crank out some 225 half-hour cartoons, an increase in its animation of nearly 50% -- a total that bulks up the output of the nation's largest producer of TV animation. The expansion also represents a broader network strategy to maintain its enviable winning streak as the No. 1-rated cable company for nearly 14 years -- a feat performed in the face of increasing competition from other entertainment outlets, notably crosstown rival Disney.

Of the more than 40 original animated series the studio has launched since 1991, few have come with bigger expectations than are now being carried by the quartet of wisecracking penguins. Nickelodeon is no doubt looking for the kind of phenomenal success it has enjoyed with "SpongeBob," "Dora" and "Rugrats," which together have raked in billions of dollars in product sales.

Even though SpongeBob and Dora debuted before the millennium, both are still going strong, but like the Rugrats before them, they are not invulnerable to the shifting viewing habits of their core 2- to 11-year-old audience. In short, the studio could certainly use another franchise hit, one that a schedule can be built around -- and the wobbly little penguins just may make that kind of splash.

"These movies from Pixar and DreamWorks are very, very popular with kids and families, and Nickelodeon is very smart to capitalize on it," said Brad Adgate, an analyst at the ad firm Horizon Media in New York. "I think they're saying, 'Hey, let's just give the kids what they want.' "

But what about all those other penguins swimming around the cultural soup in recent years? Remember "March of the Penguins," "Surf's Up" and "Happy Feet"? And don't forget the trendy kids' website Club Penguin.

"We had them first," joked Jeffrey Katzenberg, head of DreamWorks Animation. "These penguins are the ones that lead the pack."

Cyma Zarghami, president of Nickelodeon, expressed confidence too: "I know, at first blush, it's like, 'Oh my God, more penguins!' But to quote Jeffrey, if everyone in the room thinks something is funny, you're on to something."

Though there will be minor adjustments here and there, the penguins will largely look, talk and act the same way they did in DreamWorks' hit movie. The challenge, of course, will be converting side characters into compelling main ones. In the movie, the penguins, who fancy themselves as a CIA-style strike force, were simply trying to bust out of Central Park Zoo and return to Antarctica -- only to be sidetracked to Madagascar.

But in the TV show, the four will effectively rule the zoo -- Julien, King of the Lemurs, and his extensive entourage will be there to muss their feathers -- and mostly stay within New York City when embarking on their top-secret missions.

"They're almost like four brothers; they're like the Marx Brothers," said Katzenberg. "They can take the littlest thing and blow it completely out of proportion, and it's just hilarious."

The seeds for the collaboration were sown in December 2005 when Viacom snatched up DreamWorks for $1.5 billion. Shortly thereafter, the two giants of children's entertainment were searching for the appropriate project on which to collaborate, Katzenberg said.

After running through a number of creative options, the spunky penguins who managed to steal some of the limelight in the star-studded movie won out.

In fact, the penguins project is the first joint animation effort between the two companies, but more are coming. They are already at work on another television spinoff from DreamWorks' upcoming "Kung Fu Panda," which is scheduled for release in June 2008. The animated movie stars Jack Black as a chunky panda who dreams of becoming a kung fu master.

Though the two companies are under the same corporate umbrella, that didn't mean one wouldn't be left out in the rain when it came to creative decisions. Initially, it seemed as if DreamWorks, which after all invented the characters, was going to call the shots, but the relationship hasn't turned out as expected.

"It's been a 180-degree reversal for us," Katzenberg said. "We originally thought that we were going to take a very hands-on approach, but we were just blown away by their creative team. We're really acting as advisors and consultants."

Likewise, Nickelodeon executives had no less praise for DreamWorks.

"It's almost a perfect marriage since we've led the surge on the TV side and they've led it on the feature-film side," said Mark Taylor, Nickelodeon's senior vice president. "I think they've been appreciative that we've taken what they've done and embraced it as opposed to trying to find a way to do it different, faster, cheaper or whatever."

A good working relationship helps Nickelodeon sharpen another potentially formidable weapon in its seemingly eternal struggle against Disney. The company with mouse ears, which has its own block of highly successful kids' animated programming, has been making particular gains against Nickelodeon in the so-called "tween" demographic (kids from the ages of 9 to 14).

In fact, until a recent NFL matchup, it was Disney's smash "High School Musical 2" that held the record for most viewers for a single program on basic cable. In August, the Friday night premiere drew 17.2 million viewers but was eclipsed by last week's New England Patriots-Baltimore Ravens game on ESPN -- also owned by Disney -- that logged 17.5 million viewers.

Nickelodeon executives believe the new penguin series will pack on competitive muscle for the network not only with its likable story lines, but also with its rich and vividly detailed CG (computer-generated) presentation.

The network plans to generate more CG content than ever next year, when the technique will account for about a quarter of its total animation production, including the shows "Tak and the Power of Juju" and "Back at the Barnyard."

In all, the company expects to deliver 29 hours of CG shows -- a figure that is the equivalent of about 19 feature films.

Just because computers help deliver a visually stunning result doesn't mean the process is easy.

"Computers don't really animate anything," said Josh Book, Nickelodeon's creative director of CG animation. "The choices the computer makes are never the ones you'd want either artistically or creatively. It still comes down to going in frame by frame and putting things where you want them.

"At the end of the day, the computer is a tool," Book added. "It's just like a pencil, but it's a very smart pencil."

Although inheriting the DreamWorks characters eases the load for Nickelodeon's CG animation team, it still takes a week to build a single character, and a single episode takes 44 weeks to complete.

"At any one time here, you can have 40 different episodes in production at varying stages," Taylor said. "It's a real logistical juggling act."

martin.miller@latimes.com

Fundraising Through A Cool Book

My friend Tee Bosustow has been making a documentary about the UPA (United Productions of America, which his father co-founded) animation studio for about two years. He's raising the cash to keep going by selling a limited edition book filled with pictures of the studio and staff! Here's a blurb from the website:

Inside UPA is a photographic celebration of one of animation history's most innovative and experimental animation studios, UPA Pictures. Inside UPA is designed with the collector in mind, published in a numbered edition of 1,000. It's a 64 page paperback, with French flaps, containing dozens of rare and unpublished black and white photographs, over 50 of which have never been seen outside of the personal scrapbooks of UPA artists.

Inside UPA is an unprecedented glimpse into what it was like to work at UPA. It captures long forgotten moments, including images such as John Hubley sketching dancer Olga Lunick for Rooty Toot Toot, Aurie Battaglia and Leo Salkin going over the storyboard for the unproduced feature The White Deer, Pete Burness and Magoo voice Jim Backus recording one of the Magoo shorts, Gene Deitch and Cliff Roberts jamming in a New York park, and a late-night production staff meeting at the Smoke House next to the UPA home office in Toluca Lake.

While supplies last, Inside UPA is available in this numbered edition of 1,000 copies. Measuring 7.5" x 8.7", it's a soft cover with French flaps and black and white interior. It also includes a six-page filmography compiled by UPA biographer, Adam Abraham, which lists not only UPA's theatricals and TV shows, but also industrials and commercials. 50 of the 1,000 copies will include a special page, with signatures from UPA veterans.

The book is designed and written by historian Amid Amidi, whose recent Cartoon Modern: Style and Design in Fifties Animation won the prestigious Theatre Library Association Award for best film or television book of 2006. Mr. Amidi has personally selected the photos from the collections of UPA artists including Robert Cannon, Stephen Bosustow, Howard Beckerman, Fred Crippen, Sam Clayberger and Joe Messerli.

The book's really great, so if you want to peruse some cartoon history and help document it at the same time, please drop by Tee's website and order a copy for $45.00 + $10.00 shipping!

A First Look At The CG Astroboy

Here's a still straight from Imagi's website. It looks like it's from the robot circus part of the manga - while that may sound like a sequence from A.I., Astroboy also fought fellow robots as the entertainment of a futuristic populace. I'll be curious to see how they handle that 2D-cheated 'hairdo' in 3D!

Wes Anderson Turns To Animation

MTV MOVIES BLOG: Wes Anderson Enlists Bill Murray For ‘The Fantastic Mr. Fox’
Published by Josh Horowitz on Wednesday, September 26, 2007 at 7:04 pm.

It will be five films in a row for the collaboration that is Wes Anderson and Bill Murray. I talked to Anderson about his upcoming animated flick based on the Roald Dahl story and he confirmed his voice cast. “George Clooney is going to be Mr. Fox. Bill Murray has a part. Jason [Schwartzman] is doing a voice. That’s our team,” he told me.

But don’t line up at the multiplex just yet…this one is still a long ways off. “It will take a couple years to do the animating,” said “The Darjeeling Limited” helmer, adding that they are about to record the voices. As for the animation, “It’s stop-motion. It’s like ‘Nightmare Before Christmas’ or those Christmas specials. These [characters] have fur, so it’s not like claymation.”

It sounds like Anderson will make this one quite unique (big surprise). “The settings will be very natural. We want to use real trees and real sand, but it’s all miniature,” he said.

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I haven't liked a Wes Anderson film since "Bottle Rocket", so I'm not thrilled about this news. It's hard for me to see how Anderson's chilly storytelling will mesh with the content and the new-to-him medium. I remember liking the book, but I'm not even sure how well it'll adapt to film - I'll have to read it again.

Colin Brady on Directing Astro Boy

Colin and I worked together on Toy Story, so it's great to see him take the helm of one of the most iconic animation projects ever! Here's an interview where he discusses his approach as they move into production. Go Colin!

To navigate: IMAGI main page > Our films/Astro Boy > introduction > Colin Brady Q & A.

Mentorships In Animation

Dan Jeup's written an article for flipanimation.net reminiscing about his mentorship with Disney titan Eric Larson. Check it out here!

Art by Dan Jeup.

About Fucking Time Dept.

VARIETY: WB sends 'Jonny Quest' to bigscreen
Mazeau to adapt Hanna-Barbera series
By MARC GRASER - Posted: Tue., Aug. 7, 2007, 7:30pm PT

Adrian Askarieh and Daniel Alter, who have the vidgame-based "Hitman" bowing in October from Fox, will produce the live-action adaptation of the popular 1960s animated TV series from Hanna-Barbera, with Dan Mazeau penning the script.

Series revolved around a young boy who travels the world with his scientist father, adopted brother from India, Bandit the bulldog, and a government agent assigned to protect them as they go on their adventures investigating scientific mysteries.

The show, which is owned by Warner Bros. Animation, aired during primetime on ABC in 1964, lasting only one season. It was updated in the late '80s and '90s as "The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest" on the Cartoon Network. Property's also been spun off as a comic book from DC.

Askarieh, a longtime fan of the series, is hoping to turn the property into a family-friendly adventure franchise -- something the studio is clearly looking for now that "Harry Potter" is winding down.

Mazeau recently sold his fantasy adventure spec "Land of Lost Things" to Paramount Pictures' Nickelodeon Films, with Arnold and Anne Kopelson producing.

Warner Bros. execs Dan Lin and Matt Reilly will oversee "Jonny Quest" at the studio, which is lensing another film version of an iconic '60s TV series, "Speed Racer."

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Oh, who am I kidding? Even though I've been waiting for this forever, there's no way such an anachronistic show could be updated without losing the horribly inappropriate flavor that I ashamedly love.

I think they should just expand the "Turu the Terrible" episode to feature length. It has everything - an ex-nazi in a wheelchair excavating a secret jungle diamond mine with his pet pterodactyl! Plus jet packs and bazookas! I mean, C'MON!!

The KarateGuard

This may be the last Tom & Jerry cartoon with Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera's input. It's a little derivative, and there's some story problems, but as short film franchise resurrections go, it's pretty good!

Interesting Ralph Bakshi Article

Check out this career-long synopsis/defense/appreciation by Bakshi fan Jeff Kuykendall. You may not agree with some (or any) of his points on why Ralph's work is compelling and thought-provoking, but I think only a fan with his level of passion could have written it.

This column illustrates in vivid detail why I was excited to work with him on his Mighty Mouse show in the late '80s. I saw Fritz The Cat in college (the perfect time), and was bowled over by the complete abandonment of almost every animation feature convention I'd ever seen. To my eyes, it was raw, gritty, and altogether new.

Ralph's work to some degree is out of fashion now, and the prevailing attitude is to badmouth his films. I've fallen prey to that myself in recent years, but this article reminded me about the qualities some of his films have to provoke and inspire - and why they're still in my video library.

Thanks to Kill The Snark for the article, and The Groovy Age Of Horror for the link!

Remake OTD: A Christmas Carol

VARIETY: Jim Carrey set for 'Christmas Carol'
Zemeckis directing Dickens adaptation
By MICHAEL FLEMING
Posted: Fri., Jul. 6, 2007, 11:21am PT

Jim Carrey will play Ebenezer Scrooge and the three ghosts that haunt him in "A Christmas Carol," an adaptation of the Charles Dickens tale that Robert Zemeckis wrote and will direct for Walt Disney Pictures.

Zemeckis, Jack Rapke and Steve Starkey will produce through ImageMovers Digital. The trio recently made an overall Disney deal for their ImageMovers banner.

Zemeckis will shoot the film using "performance capture/Disney digital 3-D" animation, a continuing evolution of techniques he introduced in "Polar Express" and continues with "Beowulf," the upcoming film that stars Angelina Jolie.

"A Christmas Carol" will also feature a touch of live action and computer graphics, the latter of which ImageMovers employed in the Gil Kenan-directed "Monster House."

The technology provides a playground for the chameleon-like Carrey, who will act the character of Scrooge through several all the periods of his life, as well as the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future. Zemeckis wrote the script specifically with Carrey in mind and the actor said yes straight away.

It's the second iconic holiday role for Carrey, who played the title character in the Ron Howard-directed "Dr. Suess' How the Grinch Stole Christmas."

Bob Hoskins has blabbed to the Internet that he would also be in "A Christmas Carol," inadvertently revealing a project that ImageMovers had been trying to keep secret. While Hoskins--who starred for Zemeckis in "Who Framed Roger Rabbit"--might end up in the film, the studio denied that any deal had yet been made with him.

"A Christmas Carol" becomes one of several high profile projects for Carrey, who hasn't determined which he'll make next, or how many he'll be able to complete by next summer, when studios are bracing for possible labor stoppage.

A Carrey priority is "Ripley's Believe it Or Not!," and Paramount, armed with a Steve Oedekerk rewrite, is trying to find a schedule that will allow Tim Burton to direct, even as he completes post-production on "Sweeney Todd," the DreamWorks musical that stars Johnny Depp and Sacha Baron Cohen.

Carrey is also set to play a gay prison escapee in "I Love You Phillip Morris," the Andrew Lazar-produced dark independent comedy written and directed by the "Bad Santa" team of Glenn Ficarra and John Requa. Carrey's also going to play a reluctant nursemaid to his ailing wife and her family in the Fox comedy "Me Time," scripted by Ian Roberts and Jay Martel. And Carrey just signed on to star in "Sober Buddies," the Andrew Kurtzman-scripted comedy for Universal and Stuber/Parent.

No More DVD Sequels Of Disney Classics

LA TIMES: Disney classic 'toons won't get DVD sequels
In a revamping by new brass, an animation chief also is reassigned.
By Claudia Eller, Times Staff Writer - June 23, 2007

Walt Disney Co. is singing a new 'toon, no longer making DVD sequels to its classic animated films.

The change in direction reflects the philosophical imprint of John Lasseter and Ed Catmull, who took control of Disney's struggling animation operation last year after the company bought Pixar Animation Studios for $7.4 billion.

Lasseter and Catmull, who helped make Pixar into the industry's premier computer animation studio, generally dislike direct-to-video sequels because the quality of the stories and production usually pales in comparison with the originals.

The strategy is part of a larger revamping of Disney's direct-to-video operation. DisneyToon Studios will once again be overseen by the feature animation division Lasseter and Catmull now head. DisneyToon also recently moved off the Burbank lot into its own facility in Glendale.

Disney for years has been cranking out relatively inexpensive videocassette and DVD sequels to many of its best-known animated films, including new chapters of "The Lion King," "Beauty and the Beast," "Cinderella," "Bambi" and "Aladdin." Disney had a reputation for being one of the biggest spenders on direct-to-video releases.

The straight-to-video business proved to be a cash cow for studios such as Disney and Universal Pictures, which made a mint with its lucrative "The Land Before Time" franchise. Movies made expressly for DVDs are produced at much less expense than large-scale theatrical releases that require costly outlays for talent and production.

But the business has become less lucrative as development, production and marketing costs have risen and the DVD market has become flooded with titles, including boxed sets of popular TV shows such as "The Sopranos," "Lost," "24" and "Desperate Housewives." Last year Warner Bros. jumped into the fray, but it promised to keep a lid of $5 million or less on budgets.

Pixar's brass, notably former Chief Executive Steve Jobs, had long soured on DVD sequels. Jobs was especially critical of Disney and former CEO Michael Eisner for making what he viewed as thin, exploitative sequels, once calling "Lion King 1 1/2 " and the "Return to Neverland" Peter Pan sequel "pretty embarrassing."

Pixar made its mark with original theatrical blockbusters such as "Finding Nemo," "Monsters, Inc." and "The Incredibles." Its newest feature, "Ratatouille," debuts Friday.

The company has released only one sequel, 1999's "Toy Story 2," which was an even bigger box-office smash than its predecessor. The film was originally conceived as a direct-to-video title, but Lasseter and others at Pixar concluded it would be better off as a theatrical release. Pixar is planning a "Toy Story 3."

Disney's restructured direct-to-DVD group, which employs 135 artists, production staff and managers, will report to Lasseter and Catmull, who are chief creative officer and president, respectively, of Walt Disney Animation Studios.

Previously, the unit reported to Walt Disney Studios President Alan Bergman. The president of DisneyToons, Sharon Morrill, a 15-year veteran of the studio, is being moved out and will be replaced by a yet-to-be-chosen executive. Disney said Morrill would be reassigned to duties that would include working on special projects.

"John and I are truly excited to be working with the talented team at DisneyToon Studios in developing and producing original stories for the home entertainment audience," Catmull said in a statement.

The first DVD to be released, in the works before the revamping, is part of a planned movie series featuring Tinker Bell and new fairy characters.

--

claudia.eller@latimes.com

Aardman's Upcoming Films

VARIETY: Aardman reveals new slate
Smith to oversee lineup
By ARCHIE THOMAS

LONDON -- Two months after announcing a three-year first-look deal with Sony Pictures, Aardman Features has unveiled a diverse slate of projects.

Lineup will be supervised by creative director Sarah Smith, who has been upped from head of development to the new role.

After stints as executive producer at the BBC and a string of comedy hits as a freelancer, Smith joined Aardman last year. Her impact on the claymation specialist has been immediate -- she has signed up a fleet of highly rated scribes for the Bristol-based animation powerhouse.

Smith has signed writers Matthew Graham and Ashley Pharoah ("Life on Mars") to work with director Steve Box on comedy heist "The Cat Burglars." The film about milk thieving stray cats will be in Aardman's trademark stop-frame claymation and combine the comedy action of Nick Park and Box's "Wallace and Gromit" feature with the cool styling of "Ocean's Eleven," Aardman claims. Box promises auds something altogether fresh -- "family friendly Tarantino."

Aardman co-founder Peter Lord returns to the director's chair for the first time since "Chicken Run" in 2000 with a comedy adventure based on the "Pirates" series of books penned by Gideon Defoe. Lord, Defoe and writers Andy Riley and Kevin Cecil, whose credits include the sitcom "Hyperdrive" and animation series "Slacker Cats," are working on the screenplay.

Also signed up to Aardman by Smith is Peter Baynham, one of the writers on "Borat," who is developing "Operation Rudolph," an actioner set on Christmas night. The Christmas movie shows the North Pole operation as an exhilarating ultra high-tech military procedure on a massive scale, revealing how Santa and his huge army of combat elves get round the whole world in one night.

Additionally, Nick Park is developing a new project. Details are not yet released but it is not another "Wallace and Gromit," according to an Aardman spokesperson.

"I'm passionate about matching the brilliance of Aardman's filmmakers with the very best talent in British comedy screenwriting," commented Smith. "This is an interesting time in the animation industry -- while there is clearly still a big appetite among cinemagoers for great animated films, there is a feeling of sameness about much of the product coming out of the industry at present, in terms of their stories. I think there's a great opportunity to excite audiences by raising the stakes in terms of the quality, intelligence and variety of the stories our animated films tell and the genres they inhabit."

New Clone Wars Spot

This two-minute spot premiered at last weekend's Star Wars Celebration convention. This shot looks just like an old Ralph McQuarrie painting, and there's a neat bit with Mace Windu leaping from one sky bike to another - but the rest of it leaves me cold.

The 2-D Clone Wars looked great, but it for me was primarily a string of action sequences. I don't think CG really adds anything to the concept - in this case, I think it dilutes the graphic style and the animation performances. In terms of content, there's not much here that I haven't seen endlessly repeated in the three prequels.

Maakies Comes To Television

NY TIMES: Guy Drinks. Bird Drinks. Guy Thrives. Bird Drinks.
By CHARLES McGRATH - Published: May 13, 2007

PASADENA, Calif. - IN certain New York artistic circles the cartoonist Tony Millionaire is famous for once, at the end of a very long night, having sex with a slice of pizza. This was in the mid-’90s, a period when Mr. Millionaire, who is large and striking-looking to begin with, used to favor lime-green leisure suits or a tuxedo with a bottle of vodka in the pocket. He would frequently end an evening by climbing on a table, removing his false teeth and declaring, “I am Tony Millionaire!”

The name is a pseudonym of course, though a former girlfriend used to claim it came from an Old French term meaning “owner of 1,000 serfs.” Mr. Millionaire — or Scott Richardson, as he used to be known — actually lifted it from an “I Dream of Jeannie” episode and printed it on a label for a party he attended in 1981. The tag stuck, and he now says, “If I ever hear anybody using my other name, it’s either my mother or my lawyer.”

These days Tony Millionaire is practically a brand name, attached to a syndicated weekly comic strip, “Maakies”; a series of comic books called “Sock Monkey”; the graphic novels “Uncle Gabby” and “Billy Hazelnuts”; and an animated cartoon, “The Drinky Crow Show,” which will make its first appearance on the Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim on Sunday night at 11:45. (Since Friday the episode has also been available on adultswim.com; whether there will be more depends on how this one goes over.)

Spun off from by the “Maakies” comic strip, “The Drinky Crow Show” is about an alcoholic, suicidal crow and his sidekick, a dim-witted libidinous monkey named Uncle Gabby, shipmates on a 19th-century whaling ship captained by a crusty Ahab type who happens to have a sexpot daughter. Like the strip, the cartoon is graphically elegant, done in a style reminiscent of early comics masters like Winsor McKay and Johnny Gruelle (who drew “Raggedy Ann”); the content, on the other hand, comes bubbling up from a part of the imagination that polite cartoonists lock away.

This first episode begins with a whoosh of crow vomit and ends with a squirt of bug excrement. In between there are floggings, decapitations and dismemberments, cannonballs that go right through characters, leaving perfect round holes, and one instance each of copulation between whales and between a fly and a cockroach. The hero, Drinky Crow, rescues the ship and Uncle Gabby, or half of him, anyway, with quick thinking and artistic enterprise — when he’s not blotto, that is, a condition indicated by a giant X where his eye should be and little bubbles circling his head.

This troubled, bibulous little bird is in many ways Mr. Millionaire’s alter ego and also his savior. He came up with the character in the winter of 1993, during an extremely low period in his life. He was living in New York then, and barely scraping by, as he had been since getting out of art school, by making architectural drawings of houses. But that winter his business had dwindled, and as he recalled recently: “My girlfriend said, ‘You’re not going to be able to pay the rent, are you?’ She said it would be better if I moved out, and so I was broke, sleeping on couches, begging food from friends. One night I went to this bar in Brooklyn, Six Twelve in Williamsburg, and on a napkin I started drawing a cartoon about a crow who got drunk and blew his brains out. The bartender said, ‘Every time you draw one of those, I’ll give you a beer,’ so I just kept drawing. He photocopied them, and pretty soon they became a kind of trademark for the bar. The bartender even made a Styrofoam model of Drinky Crow.”

Drinky’s fame eventually spread to The New York Press, the alternative paper, which commissioned Mr. Millionaire to do a weekly strip for $25 an installment. That in turn led to syndication and to freelance work for The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal and other mainstream publications. “That was the first time in my life I ever paid taxes, and I was a little worried that I was going to get in trouble,” he said. “But I got a good accountant, and he said, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll tell them you were homeless.’ ”

Though Mr. Millionaire has since branched out into books and television, the strip — two strips, really, one very slender one underneath the other — remains a cornerstone. “No matter what, I’ve got to get my weekly ‘Maakies’ out,” he explained. (The name is a nonsense word, chosen because Mr. Millionaire liked the way it looked; it rhymes with “car keys” pronounced with a Massachusetts accent: MAH-kees.) “That’s my soul. Without it I’d still be a bum, I’d still be drawing houses. I needed a deadline. That’s the code of the cartoonist: make the deadline.”

Among the fans of “Maakies” is Art Spiegelman, the author of “Maus.” “I really like the fact that there’s this disparity between the delicacy of the drawing and the coarseness and stupidity of the humor,” he said recently. “That goes back to a great moment in cartoon history.”

The strip also provides a window onto Mr. Millionaire’s background and influences. The shipboard setting, for example, owes something to his boyhood in Gloucester, Mass., where his maternal grandparents were both artists who frequently painted nautical themes. His grandfather also introduced him to the world of the classic Sunday comics, which often manifest themselves explicitly in Mr. Millionaire’s work, in strips, for example, that adopt the style of Mr. Gruelle, Rube Goldberg, V. T. Hamlin’s “Alley Oop.” The idea of a second strip running beneath the main one, and usually with no relation to what’s going on above, is something he borrowed from George Herriman, the creator of “Krazy Kat.”

Mr. Millionaire’s parents were both artistic too. His father was a designer, and his mother a junior high school art teacher. She forbade coloring books in the house, and when he was younger also talked him out of aspiring merely to be a commercial artist. “She said, ‘What, you want to paint pork chops on the side of cardboard boxes?’ ” he recalled, and then added, “In my mind there was never any doubt that I was going to do something artistic, and for all the hassles my parents gave me, they were always very encouraging: ‘You stupid idiot — it’s because of you it’s raining! You’re a great artist.’ ”

Mr. Millionaire, now 51, has been married for six years to the actress Becky Thyre, and they live with their two young daughters in a stucco bungalow in Pasadena, Calif. Thanks to health insurance Mr. Millionaire now has dental implants to replace the falsies. (The originals were knocked out in a car crash when he was a teenager.) And though he professes still to be a wild man of sorts, most of his boozing these days is notional, except for a few beers late at night while he works in his studio, drawing in ink with store-bought fountain pens he tweaks with a pair of needle-nose pliers.

The studio is a converted one-car garage that looks more like a consignment shop than an artist’s workroom. Some of his grandparents’ paintings hang on the wall, along with yellowing newspaper pages from the Golden Age of comics. There is a stuffed raccoon cat in the rafters, and antlers and a mangy head high on the north wall. A computer printer is hidden in an old radio cabinet, and tucked away in a corner is a scanner Mr. Millionaire uses to send his Drinky Crow drawings to the animators, who work in Transylvania.

The notion of turning “Maakies” into a cartoon occurred first to Eric Kaplan, who wrote for “Futurama” and “Malcolm in the Middle” and has lately been working on a series of full-length “Futurama” features. He said recently that because of his work in animation and production he had become interested in developing more projects that brought together striking design and unusual stories, and he heard about Mr. Millionaire from the cartoonist Peter Bagge.

Like a lot of TV people he was also aware of some Drinky Crow shorts on “Saturday Night Live” in the late ’90s. Six were made, and though only two were shown, they became legendary for their weird bleak humor. “What appealed to me about ‘Maakies’ was that it’s a distinct comedic world,” Mr. Kaplan said. “It makes you feel that you’ve gone to the well of Tony Millionaire’s imagination and let down a bucket. With the cartoon we’re going down into the same lava.”

Mr. Millionaire credits Mr. Kaplan, who wrote the script for the first “Drinky Crow” on Adult Swim for figuring out how to turn a series of four-panel cartoons into an extended narrative, and for teaching him that cartoon dialogue doesn’t always work when spoken. Mr. Kaplan says the process wasn’t as complicated as Mr. Millionaire makes it sound. “I went for a long walk with Tony, and I asked him why he was so depressed when he started drawing Drinky,” he recalled. “And I thought: ‘I can fill in a little of the psychology. He’s a frustrated romantic who’s had his heart broken. And Uncle Gabby is just a guy who wants to eat, have sex, get drunk. Drinky’s the more sensitive one.’ ”

He added: “As much as possible, we tried to take a certain way of looking things from Tony’s brain and put it on the screen. It’s a very pregnant premise — kind of in the past, kind of in the present. It’s about this world — it speaks to the horror of life.”

Getting the voices right, Mr. Millionaire said, proved to be more of a challenge than he imagined. A single actress nailed all the female parts, but they went through a couple of actors for Drinky before finally discovering one who sounded sufficiently sodden.

Even harder was getting the right look. The animation is computer generated, and originally it was too three-dimensional. “It looked like ‘Jimmy Neutron,’ ” Mr. Millionaire explained, adding that early versions of Drinky had him jumping up and down, strutting, clapping his hands. “I said: ‘No, no, no — he doesn’t do that! He has much less affect.’ ”

Eventually he and the animators devised a system whereby he took the computer-generated models and added by hand all the etchinglike details so characteristic of his work: the planks, the portholes, the texture of Gabby’s fur. “That’s why it looks like 3-D Sunday comics,” Mr. Millionaire said. “ I don’t know anything about animation, but I invented a whole new technique, Maakimation!”

Adult Swim, which has given us, among other innovations, “Saul of the Mole Men” and “Aqua Teen Hunger Force,” with its talking milk shake, French fries and meat wad, does not observe the same rules as the rest of television. For one thing there are no seasons; shows come and go seemingly at random. As Nick Weidenfeld, Adult Swim’s manager of program development and a champion of “Drinky Crow,” explained recently, there are no focus groups, no pre-testing of a show. “We don’t go by the usual TV model,” he said. “For a new show, it’s more a question of: Does this feel right in terms of what we’re doing and where we’re going?”

What this means in practice is that for the time being there are no further episodes of “Drinky Crow.” The pilot will be shown Sunday night, and then by some process that seems in part mystical and in part based on viewer response, the network bigwigs will decide whether or not to order more. If the show is approved, Mr. Millionaire and Mr. Kaplan already have hundreds of new plots stored in their heads. “The ship can travel,” Mr. Millionaire explained. “It can go to Japan, it can go to the North Pole. It can sprout wings and fly to the edge of the universe if it has powerful enough rockets and the right fuel: alco-fuel.”

But what about poor Uncle Gabby, who at the end of Episode 1 is cut in half at the waist, with his spinal column dangling down like an extension cord and insects feasting on his blood? “The publisher complained that at the end of the first ‘Sock Monkey’ book, Drinky Crow burned the house down with everyone in it,” Mr. Millionaire said. “I told them, ‘It’s a cartoon!’ Next time they’ll all be fine.”

Chris Ware + Animation + This American Life = Very Cool

Check out this cartoon segment designed (and presumably animated) by Chris Ware for the (cable) televised version of This American Life. I think he and Ira Glass complement each other really well!

Sony Snaps Up Aardman

BBC: Gromit animators sign Sony deal
Last Updated: Monday, 2 April 2007, 12:21 GMT 13:21 UK

Wallace and Gromit creator Aardman Animations has agreed a three-year deal with Sony Pictures.

The Bristol-based company had been looking for a new Hollywood partner after its association with US studio Dreamworks came to an end in January.

"We couldn't be more excited about working with the entire Aardman team," said Sony co-chairman Amy Pascal.

Aardman co-founder David Sproxton said: "We are delighted to find a partner in Sony that shares our vision."

Oscar success

"We are all very excited by the potential and have a number of projects we are keen to bring to fruition with this new relationship," Sproxton added.

Last year's Open Season, featuring Billy Connolly as the leader of a group of squirrels, was the first release from Sony Pictures' animation arm.

Back in January it was reported the five-film deal between Aardman and Dreamworks had ended after two movies underperformed.

Losses were reported for their last two films, Flushed Away and Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.

However, Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit went on to win the Oscar for best animated feature - one of four Academy Awards which creator Nick Park has won since 1991.

Chris Sanders Hired At DreamWorks

VARIETY: Sanders joins DreamWorks
Disney animator to direct 'Crood'
By BEN FRITZ
Date in print: Wed., Mar. 28, 2007, Los Angeles

DreamWorks Animation has hired "Lilo & Stitch" director Chris Sanders, a longtime Disney vet, to helm its cavemen comedy "Crood Awakenings." The talent coup is reminiscent of the competition for animators in the mid-'90s.

DreamWorks had been developing "Crood" with Aardman, but took it inhouse after its partnership with the British claymation house recently ended.

After a nearly 20-year stint, Sanders left Disney early this year due to creative differences with studio leadership, including John Lasseter, over his movie "American Dog." Mouse is continuing the pic with a new director (Daily Variety, Feb. 9).

Helmer, whose 2002 toon "Lilo & Stitch" was the most critically and commercially successful film for Disney Animation since the '90s, talked to several studios before making a deal with DreamWorks.

"I've been so anxious to start working on things, and so I talked to a lot of people," he told Daily Variety. "I like the way DreamWorks looks at animation. Animation still has a lot of different places to go, and I don't want to miss out on a chance to try some new things with it."

Sanders is the second Disney vet to sign onto a DreamWorks project in the past few months. "The Lion King" helmer Rob Minkoff is directing a bigscreen version of '60s TV toon "Mr. Peabody and Sherman" for the studio.

DreamWorks Animation topper Jeffrey Katzenberg knows both helmers from his time at Disney.

"Crood Awakenings," which is about a culture clash between cavemen, has a script by Brit comedy icon John Cleese and Kirk De Micco ("Racing Stripes"). Sanders is rethinking the project, however, and will likely end up doing a significant rewrite.

"We have always loved the premise, and when we finished our relationship with Aardman, we were very interested in keeping it inhouse," said Bill Damaschke, DWA's head of creative production. "We would have been excited to work with Chris on any project. But 'Crood Awakenings' is a high priority for us, and he responded to it."

"The idea of having all the modern conveniences and social structures that we're familiar with gone and being left with just a pure form of people was really fun to imagine working with," said Sanders, who started work at DreamWorks Animation on Monday.

Studio doesn't have a release date for "Crood" yet. Its slate is full through the first half of 2010, when a fourth "Shrek" is slated to bow. Should development go well, "Crood" would likely come out in late 2010 or 2011.

Don't Hold Your Breath Dept.

ASSOCIATED PRESS: Despite controversy, Disney could unlock ’Song of the South’
By TRAVIS REED - Associated Press Writer

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Walt Disney Co.’s 1946 film “Song of the South” was historic. It was Disney’s first big live-action picture and produced one of the company’s most famous songs — the Oscar-winning “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah.” It also provided the inspiration for the Splash Mountain rides at Disney’s theme parks.

But the movie remains hidden in the Disney archives — never released on video in the United States and criticized as racist for its depiction of Southern plantation blacks. The film’s 60th anniversary passed last year without a whisper of official rerelease, which is unusual for Disney, but President and CEO Bob Iger recently said the company was reconsidering.

The film’s reissue would surely spark debate, but it could also sell big. Nearly 115,000 people have signed an online petition urging Disney to make the movie available, and out-of-print international copies routinely sell online for $50 to $90, some even more than $100.

Iger was answering a shareholder’s inquiry about the movie for the second straight year at Disney’s annual meeting in New Orleans. This month the Disney chief made a rerelease sound more possible.

“The question of ‘Song of the South’ comes up periodically, in fact it was raised at last year’s annual meeting,” Iger said. “And since that time, we’ve decided to take a look at it again because we’ve had numerous requests about bringing it out. Our concern was that a film that was made so many decades ago being brought out today perhaps could be either misinterpreted or that it would be somewhat challenging in terms of providing the appropriate context.”

“Song of the South” was re-shown in theaters in 1956, 1972, 1980 and 1986. Both animated and live-action, it tells the story of a young white boy, Johnny, who goes to live on his grandparents’ Georgia plantation when his parents split up. Johnny is charmed by Uncle Remus — a popular black servant — and his fables of Brer Rabbit, Brer Bear and Brer Fox, which are actual black folk tales. (An honorary Oscar to James Baskett for his portrayal of Uncle Remus.)

Remus’ stories include “The Tar Baby,” a phrase Republican presidential hopefuls John McCain and Mitt Romney have been criticized for using to describe difficult situations. In “Song of the South,” it was a trick Brer Fox and Brer Bear used to catch the rabbit — dressing a lump of hot tar as a person to ensnare their prey. To some, it’s now a derogatory term for blacks, regardless of context.

The movie doesn’t reveal whether it takes place before or after the Civil War, and never refers to blacks on the plantation as slaves. It makes clear they work for the family, living down dirt roads in wood shacks while the white characters stay in a mansion. Remus and other black characters’ dialogue is full of “ain’t nevers,” “ain’t nobodys,” “you tells,” and “dem dayses.”

“In today’s environment, ‘Song of the South’ probably doesn’t have a lot of meaning, especially to the younger audiences,” said James Pappas, associate professor of African-American Studies at the University of New York at Buffalo. “Older audiences probably would have more of a connection with the stereotypes, which were considered harmless at the time.”

Pappas said it’s not clear that the movie is intentionally racist, but it inappropriately projects Remus as a happy, laughing storyteller even though he’s a plantation worker.

However, Pappas said he thinks the movie should be rereleased because of its historical significance. He said it should be prefaced, and closed, with present-day statements.

“I think it’s important that these images are shown today so that especially young people can understand this historical context for some of the blatant stereotyping that’s done today,” Pappas said.

From a financial standpoint, Iger acknowledged last year that Disney stood to gain from rereleasing “Song.” The company’s movies are popular with collectors, and Disney has kept sales strong by tightly controlling when they’re available.

Christian Willis, a 26-year-old IT administrator in San Juan Capistrano, Calif., started a “Song of the South” fan site in 1999 to showcase memorabilia. He soon expanded it into a clearinghouse for information on the movie that now averages more than 800 hits a day and manages the online petition.

Willis said he doesn’t think the movie is racist, just from a different time.

“Stereotypes did exist on the screen,” he said. “But if you look at other films of that time period, I think ‘Song of the South’ was really quite tame in that regard. I think Disney did make an effort to show African-Americans in a more positive light.”

Though Willis is hopeful, there’s still no telling when — or if — the movie could come out (beyond its copyright lapsing decades from now).

In a statement to The Associated Press, Buena Vista Home Entertainment, Disney’s distribution arm, said: “‘Song of the South’ is one of a handful of titles that has not seen a home distribution window. To this point, we have not discounted nor committed to any distribution window concerning this title.”
———
On the Net:
http://www.songofthesouth.net

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I just can't imagine Disney releasing this title on home video. There are plenty of films that are more volatile and potentially damaging - "Birth Of A Nation" and "Triumph of the Will" are both available on DVD - but releasing this film under the Disney banner would be a pretty controversial move, at best.

I'm not personally offended by "Song of the South", and I do think it has historic importance, but I understand if a lot of people don't think it should be shelved next to "Bear In The Big Blue House" at the video store.

Ultimately, I'm not sure "Song" is really worth the struggle. Take away the lures of its scarcity and political incorrectness, and... I don't think it's all that compelling a film. The biggest loss (to me) is that the general public can't see the animated segments, which to me are by far the most entertaining parts of the movie. It's got some of the best comic animation ever to come out of the studio, combining the energy of the Warner Brothers/MGM studios with Disney's technical finesse.

CartoonBrew Adopts The iTunes Model

Check out CartoonBrewFilms - there's just three shorts to buy right now, but hopefully there'll be lots more cool stuff where that came from. There's a Q&A feature too, so Jerry, Amid, or the filmmakers themselves can answer your questions. I'm especially curious about the Frank Tashlin stop-motion short - I didn't even know it existed!

What a great way to see short films without feeling like you're robbing the filmmakers!

Trailer For New (Sort-Of) Ghibli Film

From ghibliworld.com:

Kitaro Kosaka’s director debut from 2003, Nasu: Andalusia no Natsu (or Nasu: Summer in Andalusia as it's called in English) will receive a sequel this year called Nasu 2. For those haven’t heard of Nasu: Andalusia no Natsu, it was the first Japanese animation film ever to be selected for the Cannes Film Festival. All though it's a Madhouse anime, it's still sort of a Studio Ghibli film as director Kitaro Kosaka is one of the main animators of Studio Ghibli. He worked on Studio Ghibli films like Howl's Moving Castle (animation director), Mononoke Hime (animation supervisor), Spirited Away (animator supervisor), Laputa: Castle in the Sky (key animator), Grave of the Fireflies (key animator) and many more.

Continuing its story in Japan, this year its sequel Nasu 2 will be released. Kitaro Kosaka will team up again with Madhouse. More importantly Yoshida Kenichi joined the team as animation director, who is a famous Studio Ghibli artist as well. In the past he worked as key animator on Ghibli films like Princess Mononoke, Whisper of the Heart, Porco Rosso, Only Yesterday and many more. Anyway, there now is a trailer of Nasu 2 available, so check it out!

How Big Of A Ray Harryhausen Nerd Are You?

If you're a really, really big one, you'll probably get a kick out of this Harryhausen animation reference library. It contains almost every character that he ever animated - complete with clips of each one! Enjoy, creature geeks!

Aardman, Dreamworks Part Ways

VARIETY: Aardman, DWA end partnership
Move comes after failures of 'Rabbit,' 'Flushed' By BEN FRITZ Posted: Tue., Jan. 30, 2007, 7:04pm PT

After a critically lauded but commercially troubled six-year partnership with DreamWorks Animation, Aardman is back on its own.

The British claymation giant, best known for its signature Wallace and Gromit characters and 2000 hit "Chicken Run," officially terminated its five-picture deal with DreamWorks on Tuesday.

Move was widely expected after the financial failures of "Wallace & Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit" and "Flushed Away" (Daily Variety, Nov. 13). The former was a claymation pic made by Aardman and distribbed by DWA, the latter a CGI collaboration between the two companies.

Aardman is back in development on several films inhouse. Having long established its claymation prowess, company's in the midst of building up CGI capabilities, meaning it could potentially produce pics in both formats.

How it will finance those movies, and how they will reach the market, is now an open question. A rep would say only that Aardman execs are looking at several different options.

Possibilities include slate financing from private equity money, a one-off deal with a studio for its next pic or a new multifilm deal.

Only project Aardman has in production is CBS claymation series "Creature Comforts." Eye net ordered seven episodes last year and hasn't yet skedded the show, though it was announced as a midseason replacement for 2006-07. It could still air in the spring or get pushed back to the summer or fall.

Skein could be another test of whether U.S. auds have cooled on Aardman's claymation style and quirky British humor, which stands in sharp contrast to the fast-paced, jokey CG toons of DreamWorks and most other American animation studios.

If it fails, U.S. studios may find it tough to justify picking up the next Aardman project, even though its work is widely lauded by critics and industryites.

"Chicken Run" grossed a solid $106.8 million in 2000, but 2005's "Wallace & Gromit" made only $56.1 million Stateside, while last fall's "Flushed Away," which cost well over $100 million to make, grossed only $63.4 million. ("Gromit" did better overseas, but "Flushed" was a worldwide disappointment.)

DreamWorks Animation had to take writedowns due to the weak performance of the two recent pics.

Likelihood that the companies would sever relations became clear in recent months. There was the "Flushed" flop -- and DreamWorks announced its slate through 2009 without any pics from its British partner. All its upcoming movies are in the hip, sarcastic vein of toon studio's franchises "Madagascar" and "Shrek," sequels of which are in the works.

"The business model of DreamWorks no longer suits Aardman and vice versa," Aardman spokesman Arthur Sheriff said. "But the split couldn't have been more amicable."

Companies had one pic in development, "Crood Awakening," which was announced at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival and penned by John Cleese. Rights to the project revert to DreamWorks, though it's unlikely to see the light of day.

Aardman was founded by Peter Lord and David Sproxton in 1976. They were later joined by Nick Park, who won Oscars for three of his animated shorts and the "Wallace & Gromit" feature.

No Real News On The Simpsons Movie

LA TIMES: SNEAKS 2007 - Yellow but not mellow
Pretty much all we know about 'The Simpsons Movie' is: It'll be funny.
By Michael Ordoña, Special to The Times

NOT even threats of visits by Sideshow Bob or Fat Tony and the boys could wheedle many details of the upcoming "The Simpsons Movie" out of the series' powers that be. Fans can only speculate on what kind of treatment it will get — there's the bloated, inflated episode route (think "Star Trek: The Motion Picture") or the movie as extension of the series option ("The X-Files").

Specifics remain as closely guarded as the identity of the state in which Springfield is located. (Geography enthusiasts: the city has a gorge, an ocean port, a volcano and a desert.) "I can't really tell you much," said director David Silverman, "other than the Simpsons will be in it. Springfield will be in it; it's not being shot in Vancouver. Very few animals were hurt in the shooting of this film … a couple."

Speaking from their sanctum sanctorum (an unremarkable writers' room with a poster of dozens of the show's characters on the wall) on the 20th Century Fox lot, executive producers James L. Brooks, Matt Groening and Al Jean vacillated between stoking expectations and throwing them in with the kindling.

"We're doing things we never could have done on the series," said Brooks, who won his 19th Emmy last year. "Obviously, there's that much more manpower brought into it, and hopefully we're telling a story that requires this length."

"Pixar movies are so good," said Jean, "we want to live up to that too."

"No, we're not going to look as good," Brooks hastily added with a laugh. "Don't go away thinking that!"

Although all three stressed the importance of a strong emotional component, they made clear that their intentions were still sufficiently low-falutin.

"We want to make people laugh," said "Simpsons" creator Groening. "Not that it's a role model in content, but the 'South Park' movie was proof that you could do a movie that didn't have the greatest animation but was really funny from beginning to end."

The notion of a big-screen version of America's longest-running sitcom has been around since at least its third season. But because of the talent drain caused by Hollywood's animation boom and the insistence of the show's brain trust on complete control, it wasn't until a couple of years ago that the idea gained any real traction. The show has generated billions of dollars in revenue and has become culturally iconic, to the horror of some — former President George H.W. Bush once said, "We're going to keep trying to strengthen the American family, to make them more like 'The Waltons' and less like 'The Simpsons.' "

The film's release, scheduled for summer, will roughly coincide with the TV show's 400th episode and the 20th anniversary of America's favorite insanely dysfunctional family's debut on "The Tracey Ullman Show." (The show's run "is beyond my wildest dreams. And I have really wild dreams," Groening says.)

The honor and burden of directing the highly anticipated film version falls to Silverman, whose credits include some of the "Ullman" shorts and the series' first episodes as well Pixar's "Monsters, Inc."

Since Silverman was one of the only experienced animators at the show's inception, Groening said he "invented a lot of the rules on how to draw the characters. Like Bart has, I don't even know, 13 spikes or 11 spikes? And Marge's hairdo is nine eyeballs tall."

From the movie's production hub at Film Roman in Burbank, the wild-eyed, enthusiastic Silverman lacked only a lab coat and soda-bottle glasses to complete the mad-scientist persona.

"I thought it should be basically Panavision as opposed to American widescreen," he said. "If you're going to go from roughly a square format to a feature, let's really go for it, let's go for it as wide as possible."

The director also highlighted that, although the look would still be identifiably Simpsons, small additions like tone shadows would provide new dimension for these "big yellow characters."

It may just be compression madness from the upcoming deadline — culminating a year of physical production as opposed to six months for a single TV episode — but they seem almost giddy at the challenge of meeting fan expectations.

"People have had a lot of dreams of what this might be, over 18 years," said Jean in an unconvincing deadpan, "and I think it will match or exceed all of them."

"I'm not sure we can live up to our secrecy," said Brooks.

"I think it'll be a cultural experience somewhere between 'Sgt. Pepper's,' the record, and 'Sgt. Pepper's,' the movie," said Jean.

*************************************************************************************

Now that's a funny sound bite! It's cool that David got to sign his own name to his drawing, too.

Iwao Takamoto, 1926 - 2007

LA TIMES: Scooby-Doo creator Iwao Takamoto dies
From Associated Press 8:05 AM PST, January 9, 2007

In a career that spanned more than six decades, Iwao Takamoto assisted in the designs of some of the biggest animated features and television shows, including "Cinderella," "Peter Pan," "Lady and the Tramp" and "The Flintstones."

But it was Takamoto's creation of Scooby-Doo, the cowardly dog with an adventurous heart, that captivated audiences and endured for generations.

Takamoto died Monday of heart failure at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Warner Bros. spokesman Gary Miereanu said. He was 81.

Born in Los Angeles to parents who had emigrated from Japan, Takamoto graduated high school when World War II began. He and his family were sent to the Manzanar internment camp in the California desert, where he learned the art of illustration from fellow internees.

Despite a lack of formal training, he landed an interview with Walt Disney Studios when he returned to Los Angeles and was hired as an apprentice.

Takamoto worked under the tutelage of Disney's "nine old men," the studio's team of legendary animators responsible for its biggest full-length films before moving to Hanna-Barbera Studios in 1961. There he worked on cartoons for television, including "Josie and the Pussy Cats," "The Great Grape Ape Show," "Harlem Globe Trotters" and "The Secret Squirrel Show."

Takamoto said he created Scooby-Doo after talking with a Great Dane breeder, and named him after Frank Sinatra's final phrase in "Strangers in the Night."

The breeder "showed me some pictures and talked about the important points of a Great Dane, like a straight back, straight legs, small chin and such," Takamoto said in a recent talk at Cartoon Network Studios.

"I decided to go the opposite and gave him a hump back, bowed legs, big chin and such. Even his color is wrong."

Takamoto also created other famous cartoon dogs such as Astro from "The Jetsons" and Muttley, the mixed-breed that appeared in several Hanna-Barbera animations. He also directed the 1973 feature "Charlotte's Web."

Takamoto was survived by his wife, Barbara, son Michael and stepdaughter Leslie.

Funeral arrangements were pending.

Starveillance

It's a new stop-motion show that's premiering on E! this month, made by the folks who brought you Celebrity Deathmatch. There's some segements you can see now at revver.com. Here's my favorite of the first batch: Ashton and Demi's first date.

Doin' The Rudolph Shuffle

Happy Feet, written by Warren Coleman, John Collee, George Miller & Judy Morris; directed by George Miller.

Computer technology continues to advance in filmmaking, creating vivid tableaus with a staggering amount of detail. It's unfortunate, then, that the stories beneath the polish are increasingly wispy. In the case of Happy Feet, the latest bid for the family filmgoing box office, it's basically Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer inflated to staggering proportions. Does a simple story of a plucky misfit penguin really need to begin with a cosmic zoom from outer space?

Swooping through hordes of singing waterfowl, the camera focuses on two crooning lovers - Memphis (Hugh Jackman) and Norma Jean (Nicole Kidman) who fall in love, conveniently, during mating season. It's not clear why Elvis and Marilyn are evoked here, beyond the fact that their personalities (as well as their romance) are plug-and-play. Before long, Mama's off to find food, leaving Dad with egg duty. Since most of this is covered more effectively in March Of the Penguins, it's shorthanded here. Even Memphis' accident - he drops his egg, but recovers it before it freezes - evokes little in the way of drama. Happily, it still hatches when the weather breaks, but something is amiss. Little Mumble (as he's later called) taps and shuffles his webbed feet incessantly, to the horror of the others.

We learn that all the singing is critical to cartoon penguins - it's how they express themselves, especially to prospective mates. Not only does this have nothing to do with real penguin behavior, it robs Mumble's quirk of any real contrast. Why is dancing anathema to singing penguins, aside from the fact that it'll dovetail into a love duet with Mumble's childhood friend Gloria later on? Rather than stick with the misfit angle, it turns out that penguins are superstitious - they think Mumble's tapping is affecting the local fish population - it's low, and folks are hungry and worried.

At any rate, the motley bunch of arbitrary ethnicities soon send Mumble out on his own tiny ice floe, just like Rudolph. He then finds new friends in a distant community of Latino penguins, led by feisty, diminutive Ramón (the voice of every secondary character in animation, Robin Williams). Some shtick ensues, and the film then takes a turn into Ferngully: The Last Rainforest territory.

They've all run across evidence that there's more to the region than the local flora and fauna, so they troop off to learn more from the local playboy/guru, Lovelace (also voiced by Williams). He's evasive, but we eventually learn that, yes, Man has entered the forest. A nearby oil refinery is the real culprit, not tap dancing. How can Mumble - netted up for his trouble, and now ensconced in a Sea-World-esque aquarium - convince men not to overfish in the region? Naturally, by the very thing that made him an outcast. We don't really see, though, how his dancing convinced the zoo owners - Mumble simply returns home with a tracking device on his back. Once the trackers spot the entire community desperately tapping in unison, the U.N. lowers the boom, and equilibrium is restored. End on a shot of our happy planet.

Computer penguins can be appealing, but they've got nothing on the real thing. The production is lavish - the cloud work is lovely, the oil refinery is a wealth of rusty patina, and the sense of scale is impressive - but the story has little emotional weight or cohesion, even for a cartoon. The middle section, where Mumble finds his footing with Ramón, is the most entertaining - Ramón and his friends act the most like real penguins, waddling about with their flippers in mid-air, and Mumble towers above his new pals with an endearing gawkiness. The animation positions itself between anthropomorphism and realism, with mixed results. The voice work, aside from Mr. Williams, is mostly marquee value - the leads bring little to the dramatic or musical proceedings.

Happy Feet is a step up from the awkward Babe: A Pig In The City, but it's dispiriting to see George Miller seem so at-odds with filmmaking after the vitality and confidence of his Road Warrior pictures. His prediliction for harsher tones and blunt rhythms seems out of place in children's films (even Lorenzo's Oil suffered from it). There's been a few live-action directors (Miller, Zemeckis, and Besson come to mind) in recent years who seem to have been seduced by the wealth of control animation can offer. Unfortunately, just because you can make a thousand penguins sing and dance, doesn't mean you necessarily should.

Animation: It's All About The Release Date

VARIETY: Timing's everything for toons
Release dates can make an impact on box office By BEN FRITZ

Surveying the most crowded year in history for animated features, there's no escaping the fact that the right release date helps. A lot.

Successful toons tend to have very strong legs, dropping just 20%-30% each week. Those legs can get cut off, however, when another animated feature for families opens.

DreamWorks' "Over the Hedge," for instance, had a decent $38 million bow and declined less than 30% in its second and third weekends. In its fourth frame, however, "Cars" opened, and "Hedge" took a 50% hit, putting a big dent in its B.O. momentum.

Similarly, DWA's "Flushed Away" went from a 12% drop in its second frame to a 60% drop in its third, when "Happy Feet" bowed.

The year's three big hits all had relatively open playing fields following their bows. Competitors stayed far away from "Cars," giving the Pixar toon six full weeks until the next toon opened. That helped it hit $244 million in domestic box office.

"Ice Age: the Meltdown" also had six weeks to itself (with the exception of Disney's outside pickup "The Wild," a B.O. dud), giving it the legs to gross $195 million.

"Happy Feet" is also showing strong legs and benefiting from the absence of other family toons, since Disney moved "Meet the Robinsons" from December to March. Closest competitor are kid-targeted pics "Charlotte's Web," which saw a muted bow, and "A Night at the Museum."

Of course, an open berth until the next toon preems doesn't inherently create success. Sony's "Open Season" had five weeks with the animated market largely to itself and managed only $84 million.

But for animated features that can muster a solid opening, it sure helps to have some breathing room.

Another Joe Barbera Obituary

NY TIMES: Joseph Barbera, Half of Cartoon Duo, Dies at 95
By DAVE ITZKOFF Published: December 19, 2006

Joseph Barbera, an innovator of animation who teamed with William Hanna to give generations of young television viewers a pantheon of beloved characters, including Tom and Jerry, Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound and the Flintstones, died yesterday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 95.

A spokesman for Warner Brothers said he died of natural causes, The Associated Press reported.

Mr. Barbera and the studio he founded with Mr. Hanna, Hanna-Barbera Productions, became synonymous with television animation, yielding more than 100 cartoon series over four decades, including “Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?,” “Jonny Quest” and “The Smurfs.”

On signature televisions shows like “The Flintstones” and “The Jetsons,” the two men developed a cartoon style that combined colorful, simply drawn characters (often based on other recognizable pop-culture personalities) with the narrative structures and joke-telling techniques of traditional live-action sitcoms. They were television’s first animated comedy programs.

Before that, Mr. Barbera and Mr. Hanna had worked together on more than 120 hand-drawn cartoon shorts for MGM, dozens of which starred the archetypal cat-and-mouse team Tom and Jerry. The Hanna-Barbera collaboration lasted more than 60 years. The critic Leonard Maltin, in his book “Of Mice and Magic: A History of American Animated Cartoons,” wrote that Mr. Barbera’s strength was more in his drawing and gag writing while Mr. Hanna had a good sense of comic timing and giving characters warmth.

“I was never a good artist,” said Mr. Hanna, who died in 2001. But Mr. Barbera, he said, “has the ability to capture mood and expression in a quick sketch better than anyone I’ve ever known.”

Born Joseph Roland Barbera on March 24, 1911, in the Little Italy section of Manhattan and raised in Flatbush, Brooklyn, Mr. Barbera tried his hand at banking, playwriting and amateur boxing before the successful sale of a sketch to Collier’s magazine encouraged him to pursue a career as a cartoon artist. He wrote a letter to Walt Disney, then a rising star of California’s animation industry, in search of employment; Mr. Disney apparently promised to look Mr. Barbera up on a subsequent visit to New York, but the proposed meeting never took place.

Instead, Mr. Barbera began his animation career on the East Coast. After a four-day stint with the animator Max Fleischer, he began writing gags and drawing cartoon cels for the Van Beuren Studios in 1932. When the studio shut down in 1936, he found work at the Terrytoon Studios in New Rochelle, N.Y., but one year later was lured away to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s animation unit in Culver City, Calif.

It was at MGM that Mr. Barbera was first paired with Mr. Hanna, a veteran cartoon writer and musical composer and lyricist. After toiling on a short-lived series of animated shorts based on the Katzenjammer Kids comic strips, the two men formed a plan to produce their own material.

As Mr. Barbera recalled in an interview in Michael Mallory’s book “Hanna-Barbera Cartoons,” “In desperation one time, we were sitting in a room waiting for the place to fold, and I said to Bill: ‘Why don’t we try a cartoon of our own?’ ”

Their first such project for MGM, a 1940 theatrical short called “Puss Gets the Boot,” introduced audiences to a relentless cat named Jasper, perpetually frustrated in his pursuit of a crafty mouse called Jinx. It was nominated for an Academy Award. Over the next 17 years, the occasionally sadistic antics that Mr. Barbera and Mr. Hanna devised for their anthropomorphic rivals — rechristened Tom and Jerry — would earn MGM another 13 Oscar nominations and seven statuettes.

Though MGM put Mr. Barbera and Mr. Hanna in charge of its animation division in 1955, the studio closed the unit two years later. So the two turned to their side company, H-B Enterprises, which they had established to produce animated television commercials, and began working full time on television programs.

Their first series, “The Ruff & Ready Show,” had its debut on NBC in December 1957. That was followed in 1958 by “The Huckleberry Hound Show,” about a powder-blue pooch who spoke and sung (badly) with a Southern drawl. That series later won an Emmy and yielded a spinoff show for one of its supporting characters, an Ed Norton-like forest denizen named Yogi Bear.

Mr. Barbera and Mr. Hanna revisited the template of “The Honeymooners” in 1960 to create their most popular series, “The Flintstones,” a half-hour animated sitcom about two families living in the Stone Age suburb of Bedrock. It appeared in prime time on ABC and was a top-20 show in its first year.

Despite its fanciful setting, “The Flintstones” hewed to sitcom conventions, using sight gags and one-liners that centered on the domestic squabbles of the prehistoric couple Fred and Wilma Flintstone. Propelled by a catchy, brassy theme song, “Meet the Flintstones” (introduced in the show’s third season), and Fred’s thunderous yell, “Yabba-dabba-doo!” “The Flintstones” ran for 166 episodes over six seasons.

In the succeeding years, Hanna-Barbera produced numerous prime-time, syndicated and Saturday-morning cartoon shows, from 1962’s futuristic family comedy “The Jetsons” to the 1973 adventure series “Super Friends” to such 1980s-era toy tie-ins as “Shirt Tales” and “Challenge of the GoBots.” The studio also produced eclectic projects like the 1978 television special starring the heavy-metal rock band KISS and a 1973 film adaptation of E. B. White’s novel “Charlotte’s Web.”

In 1990, Hanna-Barbera was acquired by Turner Broadcasting (now part of Time Warner), where it continued to produce animated programming for syndication and for the Cartoon Network cable channel, including “Dexter’s Laboratory” and “The Powerpuff Girls.” In 1998, Hanna-Barbera’s studios were moved to a Warner Brothers office building, and by 2001, the company had been absorbed by Warner Brothers’ animation division.

Mr. Barbera remained active in animation. He worked as an executive producer on such recent television series as “What’s New, Scooby-Doo?” He was also a writer, director and storyboard artist on the 2005 cartoon “The KarateGuard,” his first theatrical Tom and Jerry short in more than 45 years.

His survivors include his wife, Sheila, and three children from a previous marriage: Jayne, Lynne and Neal.

Mr. Barbera’s influence can be found today in prime-time animated series like “The Simpsons” and “Family Guy” and in cartoons that satirize the Hanna-Barbera style, including “The Venture Brothers” and “Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law.” His own work continues to be seen on the cable channel Boomerang, which broadcasts vintage Hanna-Barbera programming 24 hours a day.

Though he was often asked to explain the enduring popularity of his cartoons, Mr. Barbera was reluctant to subject his life’s work to close analysis. “To me it makes little sense to talk about the cartoons we did,” he wrote in a 1994 autobiography, “My Life in ‘Toons: From Flatbush to Bedrock in Under a Century.” “The way to appreciate them is to see them.”

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Wow! They mentioned "KISS Meets The Phantom Of The Park". Somebody sure did their homework.