Popeye and Betty Boop Only: Max Fleischer Promo Art #24
Bit of a downer after last week’s variety… Back to Popeye and Betty only. But we’ll be seeing more Fleischer faces in weeks to come. The May 4, 1938 installment…
French Animation. Part 3: Tintin, Lucky Luke and Asterix
The Belvision Years. Starting with prehistory, first there were the weekly French and Belgian comics, beginning in the 1910s. These weekly comics came in two forms; a weekly full page…
Bob Arbogast and Friends
Michigan-based Highland Appliance company was once one of the largest electronics retailers in the nation, and now it isn’t. Founded in 1933, they went out of business sixty years later….
Animation Anecdotes #186
Pre-Tweety. Before the creation of Tweety Bird in 1942, Bob Clampett had done sketches of two newly hatched baby birds who were to be named “Twick’n’Tweet”. In existence is a…
What WAS the Cartoon with THAT scene?
I’m sure you cartoony people are used to answering the question that starts like this: “I heard you know a lot about cartoons. I saw this one cartoon as a…
DePatie-Freleng’s “The Blue Racer”
Here I will continue with DePatie-Freleng’s obscure theatrical shorts. By 1972, DFE had stopped producing The Ant and the Aardvark, Tijuana Toads, and Roland and Rattfink shorts. In addition, they…
The First “Peanuts” Movie Soundtrack Album
Good grief, Charlie Brown! A soundtrack album almost an hour long? FIVE different musical styles? You’re out of your mind, Charlie Brown! A BOY NAMED CHARLIE BROWN Selections from the…
The Shape of Things To Come: Max Fleischer Promo Art #23
Fleischer Studios was entering an important transitional phase and the Paramount Sales News cartoons actually advertised it. Most noteworthy is the April 6th panel (above) showing a model of “the…
French Animation. Part 2: Early Features
Continuing my survey of French animation, I’ll first note that through 1950 isolated French-language animated short films, mostly theatrical animated commercials, began to appear immediately before and during World War…
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]
