Amazing Stop Motion AMV

This is a very well done fan made anime music video! Hare Hare Yukai (ハレ晴レユカイ lit. Sunny Sunny Fun) is the ending theme to the Japanese anime series The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya:

Aqua Teen Hunger Force Movie Trailer

Yeah, flaming chickens are cool:

Behind the Scenes: The Golden Age of Disney

I came across two great blog entries that give a good insight into the golden age of Disney:

Seven “Little People”
Michael Sporn’s blog has a scan of several pages of an internal meeting at Disney in which they’re working on the concepts behind the character designs of the seven dwarfs from Snow White. We’re all so use to looking at this film as a finish product that it’s hard to imagine a point when the concepts for the characters were only half formed. It’s also amazing to me that in an era of typewriters and mimeograph machines that Disney took the time to transcribe this working meeting.

The Ropes at Disney
Jerry Beck at CartoonBrew.com has scanned an entire employee booklet from Disney during the 40s (and there are quite a few World War II references to be found). What I love is that the last page gives you a map of all of the various departments at Disney, so you get to know your way around the studio.

Nimoy to Host Star Trek Special

Leonard Nimoy will host “Star Trek: Beyond the Final Frontier” on the History Channel. The show will be a documentary that will take a look at the 40-year history of Star Trek. The special airs Feb. 19 at 9 p.m. ET/PT and will feature interviews with actors from the various incarnations of Trek, including Nimoy, Patrick Stewart, Kate Mulgrew and Avery Brooks. The documentary will also include footage from the Christie’s auction of Trek costumes, props, set pieces and models last October.

Found via Sci Fi Wire.

Which Science Fiction Author Are You?

It turns out that I’m Octavia E. Butler! A voice truly unique in all of literature…

Check out this fanboy themed lit quiz:

Which Science Fiction Author Are You?

Found via boingboing.net.

Mouse Killer

For most of animation history the mouse is always shown as cute creature, but in this 1960’s commercial for ‘Raid Mouse Killer’ the goal is send Mickey six feet under:

Read more…

Indian Superman

It doesn’t get any more silly or low budget than this Superman song from the 1988 Indian film Dariya Dil starring Govinda. Watch out for the girl dressed like Spider Woman:

Here’s a funny description of the above scene:

“During the movie there is a with a song called Too Mera Superman (You are my Superman), which features the leading pair, hero Govinda thrusting pelvis in Supe-suit, and ‘heroine’ Kimi Katkar dressed as (sacrilege!) Spidey. The song takes them from the typical running around trees to a supermarket and finally to a dance floor, with a lot of very badly chromakeyed flying thrown in.”

AnimeCon ’91: Desslok Cosplay

This is some old school cosplay from AnimeCon 91 (the first major American anime con with major guests from Japan)! This is Robert Fenelon cosplaying as Leader Desslok from Star Blazers:

I first met Rob about ten years (or more?) before the above video was shot. Anime fandom was very small back in the day, we were blown away if you could get 100 people to show up at a C/FO (Cartoon/Fantasy Organization) meeting. Rob was very much a central figure back in those days, and after I handed the Star Blazers Fan Club over to him he created the first full color anime fanzine “Anime-Zine” back in the early 80s.

Alien Invasion 2

This is well done 3D Flash game in which you get to shoot at alien spacecraft:

Read more…

Pre-Muppets sell Wilkins Coffee

This is a great early series of television ads by Jim Henson:

I love the dark sense of humor in the ads! Here’s some background info from Wikipedia:

“The success of Sam and Friends led to a series of guest appearances on network talk and variety shows. Henson himself appeared as a guest on many shows, including The Ed Sullivan Show. The greatly increased exposure led to hundreds of commercial appearances (mostly for Wilkins Coffee) by Henson characters through the 1960s. Being puppets, they have been able to get away with a greater level of slapstick violence than might be acceptable with human actors.”

Robotech: New Trailer

A while ago we reported that a 80s anime classic Robotech was out with a new movie for a limited theatrical run. On February 6th the new movie (Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles) will be out on DVD, here’s the latest trailer:

I have to say that I’m not too crazy about the 3D animation for the spaceships, what made Macross amazing is they did all of that great animation by hand. Although I admit that it’s pretty cool having Mark Hamill do voiceovers!

Who’s a Toon?

It looks like the latest version of Dr. Who is being turned into an animated television series:

Who’s a Toon?

Doctor Who and Martha are about to step into a new dimension – a cartoon one. David Tennant and Freema Agyeman will star in The Infinite Quest, a 13-part animated adventure that will run weekly in the second series of Totally Doctor Who.

“The Doctor And Martha follow a trail of clues across wild and wonderful alien worlds, to find the location of the legendary lost spaceship, the Infinite,” revealed Russell T Davies.

The Infinite Quest is written by Alan Barnes and directed by Gary Russell. The spectacular animation will be crafted by Firestep, the creative team behind previous Doctor Who animated adventures for the BBC. Thanks to developments in animation and computer technology, expect some amazing advances on previous animations.”

Star Wars Skype Phone

Have my Jedi call your Jedi:

Nikko Star Wars Lightsaber Skype Phone

“Nikko has a solution for the Star Wars fans that need to stay connected while gripping a weapon of Jedi justice. The company’s Lightsaber USB phone compliments the R2D2 projector we covered back at CES. The handset features a full keypad hidden under the rotating rubberized hand grip. The business end of the lightsaber glows blue when powered on and turns red when a call is made, apparently in tune with the likely sinister nature of your communiqué.”

Klingon Comic Books

At long last the Klingons are getting their very own comic book series!

Star Trek: Klingons: Blood Will Tell In April 2007

“While Starfleet personnel of the 24th century view Klingons as their allies, in the Star Trek universe of Captain Kirk’s time, the Klingons were always viewed as being on the wrong side of their struggles with the United Federation of Planets. As a species, they were allegedly responsible for some reprehensible acts (resulting in some classic TV episodes and movies), but were they really in the wrong? Or did they just not have a fair chance to present their side of the story?

Starting in April, they’ll get their chance. “Star Trek: Klingons: Blood Will Tell” is a new, five-part miniseries that will finally give the Klingons their due. In this special miniseries, we will see five historic Federation-Klingon incidents revisited through the eyes of the Klingon people. After this miniseries, you may never be able to look at episodes like “A Private Little War” or “The Trouble with Tribbles” in the same way again. These stories, viewed from the Klingon perspective, will explain much more of why the Klingon Empire functions the way it does.”

You know it might not be such a bad idea to give them a television series too…

The Hidden Oceans of Mars?

Mars once had enough water for a global ocean several hundred metres deep, here’s an interesting on article on where the water might have gone:

Hints of huge water reservoirs on Mars

“Mars is losing little water to space, according to new research, so much of its ancient abundance may still be hidden beneath the surface. Dried up riverbeds and other evidence imply that Mars once had enough water to fill a global ocean more than 600 metres deep, together with a thick atmosphere of carbon dioxide that kept the planet warm enough for the water to be liquid. But the planet is now very dry and has a thin atmosphere.

Either some other process removed the water and CO2 or they are still present and hidden somewhere on Mars, probably underground, Barabash says. “We are talking about huge amounts of water,” he told New Scientist. “To store it somewhere requires a really big, huge reservoir.”

Barabash is not sure what form this reservoir – or reservoirs – would take, but he points to findings from NASA’s now lost Mars Global Surveyor. This data provided evidence that water had gushed down slopes on Mars in recent years, possibly originating from beneath the surface.”

The Jedimobile

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Check out this amazing Jedi themed Star Wars Car.

Will the Muppets finally return to primetime?

A brand new pilot for a Muppet mini-series is being passed around Disney, a spoof on mockumentary series like ‘The Office’ that has the Muppet gang getting back together to put on a new show after venturing off on their own to find new jobs:

Will the Muppets finally return to primetime?

The CBS 1965 Saturday Morning Lineup

A short promo for the 1965 Saturday morning cartoon lineup on CBS:

Exploding Robots Hunt Killer Asteroids

This is a great idea, but it would be even cooler to have a backup fleet of atomic armed robots that could finish off trouble-making asteroids:

Exploding robots may scout hazardous asteroids

“A fleet of exploding probes could prepare the way for warding off hazardous asteroids. Several of the small spherical robots would land on a single asteroid, some exploding while others listen for vibrations that could reveal the object’s inner structure.

NASA has a list of more than 800 asteroids considered to be potentially hazardous because their orbits carry them close to Earth’s. If one of them is found to be on a collision course, knowing its physical properties will be crucial in devising a mission to divert it.”

Spiderman Three: Website Live

The new Spiderman movie website is up and running and loaded with tons of goodies (like Spidy wallpaper):

Spiderman3.sonypictures.com

ClikClak

This is a nicely designed 3D animated short from France, I like the character design of the robots and the use of typography in the animation. There’s also a nice Rube Goldberg theme going on:

The official website for the film is clik.clak.free.fr.

The Great Gourmet Cooking Show

The Great Gourmet Cooking Show is a humourous 3D animation from France which is set in in a 70’s cooking show. You can tell they did a great job with the voice acting even if you don’t speak French:

Here’s the website for the film (in French of course!).

Spirk Suggests: The Hitcher

From Michael Bay’s Platinum Dunes studios (Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Amityville Horror) comes the next horror genre remake in The Hitcher. Based on the 1986 movie of the same name from a script by Eric Red the Hitcher hits on all cylinders for action suspense and downright creepiness factor.

Sean Bean (Lord of the Rings, National Treasure) is the mysterious hitcher John Ryder in a role previously played by Rutger Hauer. On a dark rainy night a young couple almost runs over a hitchhiker and then leaves him at the side of the road. As the camera closes in on the face of the hitcher it is at that point that you can tell their fate is sealed.

Read more…

The Aliens Need More Time…

An old argument against aliens is that if the galaxy is filled with advanced civilizations they would have already found us. This theiry was first put out by Nobel laureate Enrico Fermi, and is known as Fermi’s paradox. Well now it looks like someone may have an answer to Fermi’s paradox:

Aliens need a lot more time to find us

“Rasmus Bjork of the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen, Denmark, has calculated that eight probes – travelling at a tenth of the speed of light and each capable of launching up to eight sub-probes – would take about 100,000 years to explore a region of space containing 40,000 stars. When Bjork scaled up the search to include 260,000 such systems in our galaxy’s habitable zone, the probes took almost 10 billion years – three-quarters the age of the universe – to explore just 0.4 per cent of the stars.

So, Bjork’s answer to the Fermi paradox: aliens haven’t contacted us because they haven’t had the time to find us yet. He adds that the search could be optimised by visiting only those stars that harbour habitable planets, which could be identified by planet-finding missions such as NASA’s Terrestrial Planet Finder. Bjork is also “cautiously optimistic” about listening out for aliens with radio telescopes.”