Animation Anecdotes #160
Bluth’s Beauty and the Beast. According to well-respected animation historian (and Bluth historian who once worked for the animator-director) John Cawley: “Early in 1984, Don (Bluth) began in earnest turning…
Top 5 “Most Wanted” Cartoons – and 5 Favorite Finds
This week another top-ten list: five favorite finds and five most-wanteds; the continuing search for the missing stuff! I’ve of three minds when it comes to the reasons to continue…
Celebrating Howard Beckerman
Howard Beckerman is an animator, a historian and a professor. For over 40 years, he has been contributing expertise and joy to the art of animation at The School of…
The Actual TV Voices? “April Fool!”
It was the cruelest of “April Fool” tricks for cartoon-loving baby boomers: when you got a phonograph record featuring favorite characters, only to hear impostors doing the voices or singing…
“Johnny The Giant Killer” (1950)
Steve Stanchfield’s recent post about obscure animated features had me thinking about one of my favorite guilty pleasures – Johnny The Giant Killer. However, there is little to like about…
Tezuka’s Adult Features: “Cleopatra” (1970)
A year later, Mushi Productions’ second Animerama theatrical feature, Cleopatra, was released in Japan. Unlike A Thousand and One Nights, Cleopatra was a critical and commercial bomb. What went wrong?…
Six Spots in Search of a Theme
Here are a bunch of commercials that I thought were cool and/or noteworthy. These are overstocks that we couldn’t fit into any of our regular posts. Because of this we…
Animation Anecdotes #159
Lessons from Milt Kahl. Animator and director Brad Bird was mentored by Disney Legend Milt Kahl “For me, it was like an actor getting to work with Olivier or Spencer…
Ten Animated Features That Fell Through The Cracks
There are many Animated features that get lost to the ravages of time. This is especially true of the films that were created by smaller studios, or films from another…
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]
