Top 5 Anime Openings
There’s one thing that’s always there in most TV shows, the theme song. They’re there to get us hyped for the show, setting the mood for what’s about to come….
Animation Anecdotes #215
Duck Dodger Jr. and An Unwelcome Third Dimension. On the Tiny Toons television series, the 1991 episode featuring Plucky Duck as Duck Dodgers Jr. was storyboarded by the talented Mike…
FIRST LOOK: Willie Whopper Restorations
The summer here is always much anticipated; it’s a time where I’m able to catch up on so many things and commit uninterrupted time to the often interuppted or longer…
Robert McKimson’s “Acrobatty Bunny” (1946)
This week’s breakdown profiles one of my absolute favorite Bugs Bunny cartoons! (Editor’s Note: and mine too! – JB) Bob McKimson’s first cartoon with Bugs preserved the loose, boisterous animation…
The First “Ultimate” Cartoon Theme CD Collection
Here’s the story behind Rhino’s Toon Tunes CD series, the first series to combine such a large number of cartoon soundtrack themes on single albums. TOON TUNES 50 Favorite Cartoon…
Tom & Jerry – The Gene Deitch Collection
EDITOR’S NOTE: Tomorrow is the release date for TOM & JERRY: THE GENE DEITCH COLLECTION. Considering the sorry state of the DVD business – at least among the major studios…
Streamline Pictures – Part 7
Here are more reviews of Streamline Pictures’ video releases. These are being posted to reference purposes (mine in particular) and recall some of the earliest serious commentary about anime published…
Walt Disney’s “The Grain that Built a Hemisphere” (1943)
An earlier column in this series was devoted to the Disney film Tuberculosis (1945), produced for nontheatrical distribution in Latin America as part of the government’s Good Neighbor program during…
Animation Anecdotes #214
Joe Barbera on Tom and Jerry. In PUNCH magazine November 29, 1972 Joe Barbera commented on Tom and Jerry: “When you see Tom and Jerry move, they move as if…
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]
