Streamline Pictures – Part 5
For Streamline Pictures, it was all slowly going downhill from 1997 on. The contract with Orion kept us from acquiring any new anime product or renewing our expiring licenses. Without…
Walt Disney’s “Tuberculosis” (1944)
One of my favorite experiences in writing a book on the Disney Good Neighbor films of the 1940s (published in 2009 as South of the Border with Disney) was compiling…
Animation Anecdotes #212
The Felix the Cat Sign. The Felix the Cat animated character was borrowed as an icon by L.A. automobile dealer Winslow Felix who opened Felix Chevrolet in 1921. Winslow Felix…
Top Five Worst Of The Worst Cartoons
All cartoons can’t be classics… but the good has to come with the bad – that’s one of the great rules of life. With animation, it’s pretty easy to dismiss…
Disney’s Preview Palace: The Alex Theater
Today, animation fans watch their favorite animated cartoons (even the classic cartoons of the Golden Age) on high-tech equipment on a huge high definition screen in the comforts of their…
Disney’s “Lady and the Tramp” on Records
Before Disney had an in-house record company, other major labels made their records, including this adaptation with film cast members and voice acting greats. Walt Disney’s LADY AND THE TRAMP…
Paramount Sales News #50 – Famous Studios 1944
January-August 1944 The danger signs begin in earnest, with this entry spanning eight months of 1944. The increasing juvenility of the Famous cartoons cost them the widespread market the competition’s…
Streamline Pictures – Part 4
Continuing the outline format and chronology of Streamline Pictures history, where I was employed from January 1991 through March 2002. This week I cover the company’s output from 1994 through…
“I’m No Fool with a Bicycle” (1955)
EDITOR’S NOTE: For the next several weeks, our colleague J.B. Kaufman will exclusively grace this site with some of his research into the nooks and crannies of Disney’s most obscure…
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 USC in Los Angeles, CalArts in Santa Clarita, and UCLA in Westwood – teaching animation history. More about Jerry Beck [Click Here]
