Paramount Sales News #37: Popeye Meets Rip Van Winkle
Despite the earlier reassurance he was too valuable to send to war, Popeye did indeed enter the service, donning a white Navy uniform and retaining it for the rest of…
French Animated Features – Part 14: 2012
This is the 14th installment of my survey of French animated features – this week a look at the features released in 2012 and films by such diverse artists as…
In Search Of The First Keebler Elf
So this week we take a look at the origins of the famous Keebler Elves. I had this industrial film (embed below) from 1970 in my collection for years –…
Animation Anecdotes #198
Garfield’s Judgement Day. Even at the height of Garfield the cat’s popularity in the late 1980s, creator Jim Davis couldn’t interest animation studios in his feature length animated script, “Garfield’s…
Rare War Shorts from the Disney Studio
With Thunderbean ‘world headquarters’ moving out of the basement here and into an actual office, I’m finding time to work a little more on the titles for this year. As…
Soyuzmultfilm: The Fun Years
Those of us who are Baby Boomers are possibly acquainted with Russian animation without knowing it. Those elaborate, sober, drowsy cartoons with stereotyped casts of sly wolves and foxes, vulnerable…
Live-Action “Peanuts” on Records
“The spin is in” for a lesser-known 1973 TV cast album based on an even lesser known NBC TV presentation of You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown. YOU’RE A GOOD…
Paramount Sales News #36: Fleischer’s “Raggedy Ann”
March-April 1941 Not much to boast this week. The misfires were unfortunately becoming prevalent in the Popeye series. Flies Ain’t Human (released on April 4th) set a standard for appropriating…
French Animated Features – Part 13: 2011
The lucky thirteenth installment of my survey of French animated features is here – with a look at the features released in 2011 and films by such diverse artists as…
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]
