Terry Gilliam’s Storytime

Storytime (1968) was the first film directed by Terry Gilliam. Prior to this Gilliam did animation work on the series Do Not Adjust Your Set which featured several other Python cast members:

Read more…

Pocoyo

On first look I wasn’t impressed with the character designs on Pocoyo, but after checking out their website I have to say that it was very well done and entertaining (and thus very visit worthy for any animation fanboy). It’s also very cool that they’re giving away their movie free online and then making money by selling books and DVDs:

Read more…

Hickory House

Shown above is a clip from the British kids show Hickory House from 1974. The show was aimed at the pre-school and usually hosted by a pair of presenters. The show caught my eye due to the use of puppets ala Sesame Street.

The Oldest Animation of the World

The idea of doing animation by spinning pottery is pretty clever:

Oldest Animation of the World Found In Burnt City

“Tehran (CHN) — An animated piece on an earthen goblet that belongs to 5000 years ago was found in Burnt City in Sistan-Baluchestan province, south-eastern Iran. On this ancient piece that can be called the first animation of the world, the artist has portrayed a goat that jumps towards a tree and eats its leaves.

The earthenware found in Burnt City, one of the most developed civilisations dating back to 5000 years ago, show the images of goats and fish more than any other subject. It seems these animals were used more than any other by the people of this city.”

Read more…

Family Guy Live

If you’re a Family Guy fanboy you may want to travel to Chicago to see this:

‘Family Guy’ hits the road
McFarlane and Co. to perform in Chicago

“Just in time for the show’s off-net syndication launch, the cast behind “Family Guy” is taking it back out on the road. “Family Guy Live” will travel to Chicago for the first time Sept. 15, performing two shows at the Chicago Theater. Location was chosen because Windy City-based Tribune will launch the “Family Guy” syndie strip on its O&Os (including KTLA, Los Angeles; WPIX, New York; and WGN, Chicago) next month.

In the stage show, creator and star Seth MacFarlane leads the cast, including Alex Borstein, Mila Kunis, Seth Green and Mike Henry, in musical numbers from the show. Event includes a table read of an episode, a Q&A with the cast, and a preview of the “Star Wars”-themed season premiere.”

Lucky Star: What Animal are You?

The more I see of Lucky Star the more I enjoy it! Shown above is a clip from epiosde 18 in which Konata tries to figure out what animal each character is most like.

Voltron the Motion Picture

If this film happens it won’t be animated but live action ala the Transformers. Of course I’m now so burned out on 3D animation I tend to think that live action the best way to go, although it makes me wonder why the Simpsons has inspired people to think aout 2D again. My other bet is that everyone in Hollywood with the rights to a giant robot wants to make a film right now:

‘Voltron’ gets bigscreen go

“New Regency is looking to assemble its own giant robot movie.
The 20th Century Fox-based production entity is close to a deal with the Mark Gordon Co. to adapt “Voltron: Defender of the Universe” into a live-action film.

Gordon has been developing the pic, based on the popular 1980s Japanese animated TV series, comicbooks and toy line, with Justin Marks penning the script.”

Cheery Cute Characters by Michael Fleming

Shown above are some very cheerful character designs that Michael Fleming illustrated for a game company,

Jonny Quest jets to the Bigscreen

I’d love to see an animated version, of course they’d ruin it by doing it in 3D so I guess a live action version of Jonny Quest might be decent:

WB sends ‘Jonny Quest’ to bigscreen
Mazeau to adapt Hanna-Barbera series

“Warner Bros. wants to send Jonny Quest on his first bigscreen adventure. Adrian Askarieh and Daniel Alter, who have the vidgame-based “Hitman” bowing in October from Fox, will produce the live-action adaptation of the popular 1960s animated TV series from Hanna-Barbera, with Dan Mazeau penning the script.

Askarieh, a longtime fan of the series, is hoping to turn the property into a family-friendly adventure franchise — something the studio is clearly looking for now that “Harry Potter” is winding down. Mazeau recently sold his fantasy adventure spec “Land of Lost Things” to Paramount Pictures’ Nickelodeon Films, with Arnold and Anne Kopelson producing.”

Batman going Anime?

This sounds very cool if they could get the right team from Japan on the project:

‘Batman’ Taking Animated Route For Movie

“Warner Bros. apparently is putting together an anime project that would help bridge the gap between “Batman Begins” and the upcoming sequel, “The Dark Knight,” according to Batman-On-Film. The anime series will carry a PG-13 equivalent rating, and include stories written by Josh Olsen of “A History of Violence” fame as well as “Batman Begins” writer David Goyer. Also onboard to write episodes is comic book scribe Brian Azzarello.

It is not clear whether these will be animated episodes available on the Web, or if Warner Bros. will take the Matrix route and release them directly to DVD instead. Online promotion of television and movies, especially through the areas of online video, have become much more popular in recent years, and Warner could choose to take the viral promotion route. At the same time, however, comic book fans have been known to buy just about anything that is released on their favorite characters, so it might be a better money-making opportunity for the studio to go directly to DVD.”

…of course a Batman manga was created a few years ago by Kia Asamiya.

Robota Trailer

Shown above is a trailer for Robota by Star Wars mecha designer Doug Chaing. I have no idea if there’s any sort of story, but man do the visuals look great!

Samurai Jack Background Showcase

Shown above are two backgrounds from Bill Wray’s blog, he has an amazing collection of backgrounds that that he and Scott Wills painted while working on Samurai Jack.

Found via Cartoon Brew.

Anime from 1933

This is a great example of Anime before the age of giant robots. This is a clip from Ugokie-Ko-Ri-No-Tatehiki (The Fox Versus the Racoon) directed by Ikuo Oishi (1901-1941):

Also see (in Japanese):

http://www.n-eigashinsha.jp/kori.html

Lucky Star goes to Comiket

The inside jokes in Lucky Star always bring a smile to my face! In this epiosde (number 12) the otaku ladies go to Comiket, which is the world’s largest comic book convention:

“The first CM was held in December 1975, with only about 30 participating circles and an estimated 700 attendees. Attendance has since swelled to over a quarter of a million people. The convention lasts for three days. It is a grassroots, DIY effort for selling dōjinshi, self-published Japanese works. As items sold in CM are considered very rare (because dōjinshi are seldom reprinted), some items sold at CM can be found in shops or on the Internet at prices up to 10 times the item’s original price.”

Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hears A Who: Trailer

I had my doubts at first, but this trailer doesn’t look half bad. I guess my thinking at this point is that it’s better to do Dr. Seuss with computer animation rather than live action. In fact I dare say that the character designs don’t look half bad in terms of getting the spirit of Seuss. But the voice acting sounds quite bad, Jim Carey and Steve Carell sound flat and unspired which is a bad sign for a trailer.

Read more…

Liquid TV: Autoguard 2000

The above segment was directed by my long time friend Brian Cirulnick back in 1991. Autoguard 2000 was featured in the 6th episode of Liquid Television. The nostalgia I get watching this isn’t so much for the days of my youth when people were cel painting, but rather for an era when MTV showed animation and gasp * music videos * all the time.

Some interesting trivia on Autoguard, some of the animation was done with computer animation using the Amiga and the NewTek Video Toaster and many of the title designs and backgrounds were created with in the first edition of Photoshop. There were four other episodes that were shot of Autoguard, but only Bride of Autoguard made it to Liquid Television.

Italian Animation: Arturo e Kiwi

Above is an episode of Arturo e Kiwi which translates into English as ‘the prescriptions of Arthur and Kiwi’. The series is directed by Andrea Zingoni and went on the air in 2006. Arturo (Arthur) is a chef who’s a dog and Kiwi is his assitant from New Zealand (who has a passion for wine). Each episode feature a specific dish, and so far they’ve covered everything from gnocchi to tiramisu.

The Best Sneaker Commercial I’ve Ever Seen…

The above commercial was created for Nike by Takeo Hatai:

“Takeo Hatai has been in animation and computer graphics for more than 16 years. He directs his first TV commercial in 1997 for MTV which won several awards and nominations such as Siggraph or the Japanese Computer Grand Prix and decide to go abroad in 1999 in the search of “something else”. Having directed 3 commercial films for Bouygue Telecom by that time, he goes to Paris where he decides to reside. Now he directs commercial films for names such as Honda, Nike and Shiseido from “Le Pivot” his 3D post-production studio based in Paris and produces digital art in his spare time.”

If you can read Japanese his blog is here.

Dynamo

I found the above short animated film on DailyMotion, it took my a bit of Googling but I found some information on it:

“Dynamo is the graduation film by Fabrice Le Nezet, Mathieu Goutte and Benjamin Mousquet three Supinfocom students. It’a a 3D animated short made up to look like stop-motion. “Dynamo tells the story of two characters who live on a planet and work together to keep it rotating. The mechanics of the planet are dependent on its two inhabitants”, but one day it just stops.”

Cat’s Eye at a Glance

Above: The manga from Cat’s Eye.

So after a week of hard work I got to catch up with my DVR and watch Cat’s Eye which is playing on ImaginAsianTV (thank you Time Warner Cable). The last time I saw this classic anime show was back in the 80s. Back in the day the only way to see this stuff in the United States was to watch it on VHS tapes. The problem for most early anime fanboys like myself was that you were watching a copy of a copy of a copy, so my first shock in looking at Cat’s Eye was the lack of static and high audio quality. It was also a real pleasure to hear the audio without any tape hum, and back in the day there were no subtitles so it was a real treat not to guess what was being said by each character.

In fact the nice thing that ImaginAsianTV is doing is that unlike Adult Swim they’re showing the episodes in Japanese so you get a better flavor for the show, it’s like having a high quality version of a YouTube experience. Although I admit that it’s odd to shift gears when they go to a commercial which is always in English.

On the whole I have to say that Cat’s Eye has held up pretty well for an anime tv show that was made over twenty years ago. Looking back at it I can see why I became an anime fan in the first place, the quality of the animation looks better than pretty much any animation made in the United States at that time for television or even theaters. The other thing the show reminded me was that in an era before the Simpsons, Cat’s Eye was aimed at an older audience which American animation was avoiding in the 80s.

Read more…

Two Word Reviews: Underdog

Read more…

Sayonara Zetsubō Sensei: Perfect Cake Division

Shown above is a clip from episode 2 of Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei (さよなら 絶望 先生) which translates into English is Goodbye, Despair Teacher. The teather in question (doing the cake math above) is Nozomu Itoshiki a high school teacher who takes all aspects of life, language and culture in the most negative light possible. Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei just went on the air at he start of July, and there will be 12 episodes of the show. Not only do I like the dark comedy, but I also like how they use photographic images in combination with the traditional animation look. Here are some images from episode one:

And here are some covers from the manga which the anime series is based upon:

Doujin Work: Manga Research

The above clip is rather funny, although the manga in question is more cheesecake than hentai. Dōjin Work (ドージンワーク) is a new anime series in Japan that just went on the air this July 4th, the show is based on a four panel comic strip (by the same name) about a young girl named Najimi Osana who is about to make her debut as a dōjin artist (dōjin are fan made comics). Of course being a fanboy I’m already somewhat partial to the show as it seems to be filled with references to the world of fandom.

Images found via BasuGasuBakuhatsu Anime Blog.

Creepy Japanese Pizza Commercial

The above animation is so upbeat with all of those cute little cartoon pizza toppings, and then takes a quick turn to the dark side! By the way of you live in Japan they deliver. By the way if you’d like to get some cute pizza wallpapers you should check out their Flash website.