Countdown to 2020: Dance of the Cuckoos
We resume our timely survey of how animators “killed time” during the Golden era of the late 30’s and 40’s – in other words: More coo-coo clock cartoons.
Rainbow Brite and Friends Go for a Disney Holiday Spin!
A perfect storm of talent at Disney’s Buena Vista label turned Hallmark’s contribution to adorable ’80s character franchises into some of the most outstanding records of the era.
Gene Deitch on NUDNIK (Part 1)
Nudnik as a film series had the same bad luck as Nudnik the cartoon character. Nudnik was always in the wrong place at the wrong time, and so were his films.
Dumbo’s Mother: Adrienne Tytla
Adrienne le Clerc met her husband Bill Tytla in 1936 when she was a 22-year-old actress and fashion model from Seattle, earning extra money by posing for Disney Studio art classes.
New “Old” Animation
Several new TV spots are done in retro style. I have to wonder how inspired these are from Cuphead — and I wonder what the future holds in terms of further stylistic influence.
Countdown to 2020: Time Waits For No Toon
An overview of cartoons dealing with the fictional figures and more anthropomorphic timepieces that have helped us calculate countdowns to the New Year through many a generation – clocks, and Father Time.
Big Changes For Merrie Melodies 1933-34
The new season for 1933-34 saw some big changes for the Warner cartoon division. Here’s the music the cartoons contained in that period.
Walt Disney Classified: The Layout Manual, Part 1
Walt’s message in his 1941 employee Layout Manual marked the transition for the studio from solely entertainment production to a defense plant turning out training films.
Why the Beatles First Hated “Yellow Submarine”
There would be less than eleven months to make the film on a budget of roughly one million dollars. To meet that deadline, production had to start without a final script or storyboard in place.
Jerry Beck is a writer, animation producer, college professor and author of more than 15 books on animation history. He is a former studio exec with Nickelodeon Movies and Disney, and has written for The Hollywood Reporter and Variety. He has curated cartoons for DVD and Blu-ray compilations and has lent his expertise to dozens of bonus documentaries and audio commentaries on such. Beck is currently on the faculty of CalArts in Valencia, UCLA in Westwood and Woodbury University in Burbank – teaching animation history. More about Jerry Beck [Click Here]
