After completing the original Star Wars trilogy, George Lucas achieved a long-held dream by breaking into feature animation as an executive producer on this Universal film, but his influence showed a Dark Side.
The Secret Origin of Huey, Dewey and Louie: they sprang from the daily Donald Duck comic strip drawn by Al Taliaferro.
Since it’s a week of busy stuff here, a simple TB Thursday this time. I thought it would be fun to share some of the little films transferred for the upcoming “Yuletide Flickers” set.
Next on the holiday line-up is an early color Silly Symphony, with Santa Claus and his merry little gnomes!
I’ve been frequently asked to compile a “top ten” of my favorite Paramount cartoons. The problem is: how do you compare a 60s Shamus Culhane to a Bill Tytla Popeye?
I got an episode of “Kashi no Ki Mock” of which the title was translated by the fans as “I Am Pinocchio, the Son of God”. In it, Pinocchio well-meaningly impersonates Jesus Christ to a sickly, probably dying little girl!
While playing the role of eldest daughter in Charlie Ruggles early TV sit-com, Margaret Kerry’s agent contacted her about doing the live action reference modeling for the character of Tinker Bell in Disney’s new feature, Peter Pan.
“He comes over to my house, pounds on my door on Saturday morning like at seven o’clock in the morning, yelling ‘Johnny, get out of bed! I sold Mighty Mouse! We gotta have a studio next week!”
Thunderbean updates: I want to thanks everyone for all the emails, both this week and over the last few months. I’m so happy people like the Snafu and Willie sets…
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]
