A Bear for Punishment

My home computer has been mangled by a spyware and my laptop won't connect to the internet, so I haven't posted anything new.
In the meantime, here's a Warner Brothers cartoon I like.
When I was little, I couldn't understand why Paw was so cranky. As an adult, I think he's the most sympathetic character.

Quasi at the Quackadero & Little Nemo: National Film Registry 2009

Sally Cruikshank's "Quasi at the Quackadero" and  Winsor McCay's "Little Nemo"   have both been included in the 2009 National Film Registry.  This is great news.  My only quibble is that they weren't inducted years ago.
As I've posted before, I  love with "Quasi at the Quackadero"- it's one of my favorite cartoons.  It's cute (without being cloying), bizarre (without being pretentious or annoying), inventive, colorful, funny and very original.  This isn't a cartoon where you can guess what happens next.
As for Nemo, I've been familiar with the old comic strips since I was a kid, but saw the animated version a few years ago.  Amazing stuff.
While very different, these cartoons have some things in common:
Each was largely the creation of a single artist, who thought up the plot, created the characters, and did most (if not all) of the animation.  Also, note how both take advantage of the medium (a fancy way to say the creators realized  Hey, this is animation, so I can make  the characters do whatever I want!)  There's morphing, surreal craziness, fantastic creatures and unique details.
And both are fun to watch.

It's a Bird!

As an animation fiend, I can't believe I've never seen or heard of this before. It was done in the 1930s by cartoonist/comedian Charles Bowers. I'm impressed!

Face Like a Frog

Sally Cruikshank directed and animated this zany gem in 1987. It has a some elements from the old Fleischer cartoons- surreal settings, morphing characters and catchy music, yet all done in her original, colorful style. (Did I mention I bought a cel and background from it? It appears forty something seconds into the film when the frog lady rises up and winks at the camera.)
We met for lunch yesterday. The cartoons most devoted fans, she said, are the generation Y crowd. I think this is because these people grew up with increasingly fast paced television commercials* and music videos. They expect quick editing, lots of action and color. I say Face Like a Frog was ahead of its time!
Here's a bonus pic of us for Linda (I think I understand why I got a C in photography class):

Small Fry

Here's a cute Fleisher cartoon from 1939. I wonder if the Spongebob Squarepants people were influenced by the settings?

The Big Snooze

I'd hoped to have some post-worthy flashwork to show, but computer glitches, time stealers, and lackluster results are slowing me down. So here's someone else's work:
I'm no 'toon expert, but I do know that a lot them directed by Bob Clampet go off the rails with manic craziness. I love the surrealistic silliness.
I especially like the coy look on Elmer's face when he's doing the Russian dance.

I Love the Crocodile

I found my favorite scene from Peter Pan on You Tube. I love the Crocodile. He's a dangerous beast, yet cute and puppylike. He wags his tail and begs. I like the part when he surfaces, sees Captain Hook on his face, and breaks into an evil grin.
Wolfgang Reitherman animated the Croc. He did wonderful action sequences. Each time you think it couldn't possibly get more silly (or precarious) it does!

The Old Man of the Mountain

Another treasure from the Fleischer Studios. Not as trippy as Snow White or Minnie the Moocher, but it has some wonderful moments. Rabbits turn into roller skates (which gallop when necessary), a man bounces away from his crutches (which, in turn, walk away on their own) etc.. I like the owl who sings the title song too.
I think it runs out of steam when towards the end. The singing and dancing are great, but it lacks the imagination of Snow White and Minnie- no weird creatures, no shape shifting, no wacky backgrounds. I wonder if the story men and/or animators had a harsh deadline and couldn't cut loose?
Still, it's better than anything I've done.
Still working on my stuff. Mostly before work and during my lunch hour. It would have been ready but some of my nested symbols aren't swapping, so I need to figure out what went wrong.

When I'm Sixty Four ( from Yellow Submarine)

Overtime at work has snatched the hours I normally devote to making Flash cartoons,*, but it's been awhile since I posted. When I can't post my own stuff, I post stuff that inspired me.
Here's an old clip from Yellow Submarine that I've liked since I was a kid. I remember watching it and thinking Wow, I want to make cartoons when I grow up!
My favorite part comes in the middle of the song, where whimsical numbers count to sixty four, to the beat of the music.

*I'm still making them, of course!

Fun on Mars

Here's another Sally Cruikshank cartoon, done in 1971. I like the bombardment of diverse images and the way the duck-martians (and tourists!) dance and flow in formation. She's always had a good knack for injecting whimsy and the unexpected into her work.

When I viewed this most recently, the wailing tune from the first half caught me: I knew that song from somewhere. What was it and where had I heard it?
After cranking my brain, it came from me- Duke Ellington's "The Mooche" I had a version of it on my online radio playlist- one of many songs that play when I'm drawing pics for this blog.

I was lucky enough to meet Sally recently. She's quite nice, and as cool as her cartoons.

Little Nemo vs. The Turkey

Click Little Nemo Cartoon for larger image

When overtime keeps me busy, I post other people's work.
Today's artist is Winsor McCay.
This is one of my all time favorite Little Nemo in Slumberland cartoons.
The only large version I could find online* cropped at the top and translated to French, but you can still follow the plot. A big turkey has come to fetch Nemo and bring him to Slumberland, but the plans go awry.
The pircture of the bird strutting through the city, house in beak, cracks me up. It's such a ridiculous concept, yet it's drawn realistically. The nightmare could have ended there, but there's more. A lesser artist/writer might have had Nemo land in a lake or the woods. Here he lands in a lake of cranberry sauce, surrounded by a forest of onions!
Sadly, I recently found out that all that's left of the original artwork is a ripped corner. What kind of idiot would tear something like this up?

*I have a copy of it at home in a book but I need to hook up my scanner (and I'm nervous about cracking the spine of said book)

Eleanor Rigby

The Eleanor Rigby segment* from "Yellow Submarine" is my favorite animation with a Beatles song. Here's why:

The Creators Went Beyond the Obvious

A lessor effort might follow they lyrics exactly- showing Miss Rigby picking up the rice as the wedding party departs. Instead we get a quirky series of gloomy, grimy city images.


Not Too Maudlin.

This isn't a happy song. Too much pathos would have made it a sapfest. Thus the whimsical touches. For example, while we see a tombstone, we also see the cute submarine chugging around behind it. Or the end when the camera pans to the top of a building and there's a guy on top. With butterfly wings.


Clever Use of Animation


The animation is limited. A leaf falls, smoke curls, the camera moves, the sub hovers. Yet it works. Most of the people are high contrast loops of film. This makes them seem distant and robot-like (strangers in a city?), but it's funny in places too, like the hapless ball players, lurching in the field.

Ending the song with a mad jumble of road signs was a good idea. They could have ended it with morbid imagery ("oh isn't this sad and hopeless") or some upbeat nonsense like a pretty sunset ("yes, it can be lonely out there but there's always hope"). Instead we get the road signs. "Where do [we] all belong?" it seems to suggest "Beats the heck outta me... ...but that doesn't mean we can't have fun."


*The clip is supposed to appear at with the post, but for some reason it's not always showing up, so I added the link.

Quasi at the Quackadero

Whoohoo! I scored two sweet backgrounds from from this 1975 cult cartoon. It's one of my all time favorites. If you've never seen it, stop what you're doing and watch it. It's one of those cartoons where the animator (Sally Cruikshank) really takes advantage of the medium: Inanimate objects come to life and talk, backgrounds morph before your eyes, plus assorted crazy and funny details and gags. One background is visible at the six minute mark (the hallway with the rainbow molding), the other is the end title card.
I haven't been so excited about something I bought for a long time.

The Second Coolest Cartoon Ever

Overtime at work has kept me away from the drawing board, so, like last week, I'll substitute my content with a cartoon made by folks more talented than I.



It's Minnie the Moocher, a Fleischer Studios Talkartoon . Like it's sister cartoon, Snow White, Betty Boop and her dog friend Bimbo find themselves in a surreal cave. A ghost sings a Cab Calloway song (you can probably guess which one).
I love how they've combined cuteness (Betty, Bimbo, the ghosts) with the tawdry and the morbid. Combine the lyrics of the song with the animation and you have a mix of death, drinking, heroin, skelletons, and electric chair executions.
As with Snow White, this cartoon can be watched many times, as the creators have thrown in a lot of gags and details that a lesser studio might have skipped.

Coolest Cartoon Ever!

I've been doing lots of overtime lately, so I can't crank out new material.
Instead, I'll share one of my favorite cartoons of all time. Snow White by the Fleischer Studios.
If you think it's too cutsy, keep watching, as half way into the cartoon it takes a wacky morbid turn.
Note the details in the animation (especially things morphing into different shapes) and the imagery on the background scroll during the "St James Infirmary Blues*" scene. That's Cab Calloway doing the singing.
More about this fabulous cartoon can be found here.

*a song about a down on his luck fellow visiting his dead, drug addict girlfriend. Cartoons weren't always for kids!