The Wind-up… The Pitch…
Remember when every normal, red-blooded American kid wanted to play baseball, and only the real weirdo’s wanted to draw pictures? Major league players like Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris were…
Animation Anecdotes #166
It Pays To Advertise. At the beginning of Wet Blanket Policy (1948) is an advertisment for the DELL comic book New Funnies that featured stories of the Walter Lantz characters….
F.D.R., the Depression – and a few New Deal Cartoons
When enough times goes by, history can seem more like mythology, with the artifacts left behind being the only things left to ‘prove’ things really happened. Time takes with it…
“Kitaro” (1968)
“Yokai” is a class of supernatural monsters in Japanese folklore, ranging from mischievous creatures to those who bring good fortune to those that prey humans and hurt them. However, there…
Donald Duck’s Quacked Records
In honor of his 80th birthday, today we fill the Animation Spin bill with fowl material from three decades of Donald Duck discs. DISNEY’S GOIN’ QUACKERS Disneyland Records #2513 (12”33…
Fleischer Promo Art #2: “Sell Betty Boop Cartoons!”
Here we are at the #2 installment of the Paramount Sales News cartoons. Hal Seeger gives us one offering a week beginning at the end of March 1934. Excuse the…
The Tezuka Pro TV Specials #3: “Fumoon” (1980)
We resume our survey of the Tezuka Pro TV Specials of 1978-1989 with the one based on the epic manga, Nextworld. Fumoon. August 21, 1980. 91 minutes, in a two-hour…
Detroit Iron / Hollywood Hoopla
Longer. Lower. Wider. That was the mantra of the American automotive industry in the latter half of the 1950’s. Of course, for most of us human-being people, only the wider…
Animation Anecdotes #165
Coonskin. “Everyone’s so terrified of the name (Coonskin). I feel a slight pain in me. Coonskin (1975) was the first “Bakshi Production”. Before that, I had worked with Steve Krantz….
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]
