Bugs and Opera

There's a long and very fine tradition of animation matched to music and some of the best came out of that glorious period in the 1940s and 50s; its not really a coincidence that one artform which requires close attention to timing and rhythm would work so well with another. And back in the day when studios could afford the much more lush, detailed animation (unlike later eras where budget constraints mean much less flowing animation) and the studio would just happen to have an orchestra on staff too they made some of the finest, with one of Hollywood's greatest ever stars (and a personal role model for me growing up), Mr Bugs Bunny being in not one but two of the best ever made, The Rabbit of Seville and What's Opera, Doc?, probably both of which would be my earliest introduction to the world of classica music, not too mention a lifelong appreciation for the skill and imagination of animators.

Rabbit of Seville, featuring Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd (1950) @ Yahoo! Video

What's Opera, Doc? - Click here for funny video clips

Merrie Melodies

Via the invaluable Internet Archive folks comes this wonderful and very early entry in the career of a rabbit who would later become one of the most enduring celluloid stars and a personal role model for me when I was growing up, Mr Bugs Bunny:

'Twas the Night Before Christmas...

... and all through the night not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse... I've loved Tom'n'Jerry since I was a very small boy and have wonderfully warm memories of sitting there watching them with my dad. Truth be told even as an adult if a T&J came on when I was home dad and I would sit down to watch it, hee-hawing with laughter as we did so, my mum shaking her head and wondering when either of us would grow up. With crisp snow lying all around us this Christmas Eve it seems like a perfect evening to sit by a roaring fire and watch the classic Night Before Christmas film from the Oscar winning T&J:







Oh to be five years old again and watching this on Christmas Eve at home with dad while mum was making baking and cooking magic in the kitchen and all seemed right with the world and there was no problem in the world so big that your mum and dad couldn't sort it out and you felt wrapped up in that warmth and love. Looking back now I think that childhood was the most wonderful present I've ever received and at the time, of course, I didn't even know it. Little wonder as the world seems darker and colder that I warm myself by those memories of times that never come again.

"Check yer baws!"

In a window festooned with men's health advice, specifically about checking the old undercarriage regularly to detect early onset of testicular cancer, on Cockburn Street I see this cartoon image - yes, it is indeed a giant, hairy bollock encouraging men to check themselves by declaring "check yer baws!" (a literal take on the old phrase 'talking bollocks'). Cracked me up, much to the bemusement of some passing Spanish tourists who not knowing Scots didn't understand what I was laughing my arse off about; once I stopped giggling I had to take a quick snap. Apologies for the reflection, no way to really avoid them; for film fact fans the street side reflected in the window is the side where Sophia Myles' character lives in the film version of Hallam Foe:

Snow White - the sequel

Via Cartoon Brew comes a link to this Snow White - the Sequel animation by Picha, with narration by none other than the wonderful Stephen Fry (the whole thing is on YouTube in eight parts). Apparently made in 2007 according to CB but not widely released (first time I've come across it, I must say), its NSFW and a little naughtier perhaps than the original Snow White, although to be honest I always wondered in that one just what this young girl was doing alone in a home with seven all male dwarves...

Red Rabbit

Rather nice wordless animation (via Boing Boing):

Red Rabbit from Egmont Mayer on Vimeo.

Strips

I heard at work from the BBC this week - comedian and sometime cartoonist Phill Jupitus had a very good programme on cartoonists and cartooning a few moths back, which was very well received so Radio 4 have come up with four more. They are in fifteen minute segments, with the first one in which Jupitus meets the legendary Gary Trudeau, creator of Doonesbury (which has been a satirical thorn in the side of many a politician, bless 'im) was last week - it can still be heard via Listen Again and there is also a permanent link for this one. I'm told that hopefully the other three in the series will also get perma links and not just the usual 7-days only Listen Again. This coming Tuesday sees a chat with some up and coming New York cartoonists, the next week Charles Peattie and Russell Taylor, creators of Alex (which has become very topical at the moment with the financial meltdown) and then finally Bill Griffiths, creator of (among others) Zippy the Pinhead. Full details are over on the FPI blog.

Tttttttthththt That's all folks!



This incredibly cool set of Looney Tunes characters such as Wil E Coyote and Bugs Bunny (one of my personal role models as a child, which might explain a lot) as skeletons is for the Day of the Dead and was snapped in a Hollywood cemetery where the great Mel Blanc (a saint in my Church of Seventh Day Cartoonists) is also buried - the item on the lower right is apparently a rubbing from his headstone. It comes from Superape's Flickr stream, via Boing Boing. Happy Halloween and a macabre Sahmain to you all.

Popeye Vs Anime

Two separate cartoon cultures clash as Popeye comes face to face with Anime and has a similar reaction many folks not clued up in the genre have - what the heck is this? Warning, contains scenes of silliness, violence and spinach.

May the force be with you

How cool is this Family Guy Star Wars poster?

Nagymama

I love this very cool animation of a grandmother's tale:

Say 'Cheese'!

Dammit, the very cool Gentlemen's Duel animation I mentioned the other day has been pulled - I heard from a friend that the studio hadn't okayed the web release, so that was probably why it had been removed. Which is a shame because it seemed to be getting some great word of mouth which would suggest to me they should consider sticking it back up in one form or another since it was doing their studio's rep no end of good.



However, since that one is gone, here is another cool animation I came across this week via Steve Ogden's rather fine AnimWatch site: "Cheese" by Slovakian animator Peter Harkaly, a graduate of the Vancouver Film School. I love the old 40s style story of the mouse and the spring trap and the cheese - even the music adds to that classic feel. Six months of work according to AnimWatch (one of the especially nice things about the site is that Steve doesn't just post the animation, he posts a bit on the artist and work as well, it's a great site) and I like the fact that Peter chose to ignore his mentor's advice and render fur for his mouse - not easy even when you have a full animation studio working on it, so pretty brave of him to do. It's only a couple of minutes, but very funny and nicely done.

A Gentlemen's Duel

I came across this animation via Boing Boing today and thought it was terrific as a comedy French and English duo compete for the favours of a rather busty noblewoman (the men can't keep their eyes from her chest) which ends in a duel - at which point they climb into wonderful steampunk battle suits which look as if they should have come from a crate marked 'acme'. The creators have clearly watched a lot of classic cartoons...

A gentlemen's duel
Uploaded by nettouch

Postcards from Palestine

I mentioned Katie who runs the Moomin13 LiveJournal a while back here and who posts on life as a peace activist in Gaza and also her art and cartoons which draw on her experiences in and around Ramallah. She's been doing more cartoons and also beginning an actual comic strip based on her experiences, some of which have been published in magazines and papers in the region. I had a very brief chat with her over on the FPI blog this week (with links to a lot more of her work, including the titular Postcards, which show art and when the cursor runs over them flip over to show the context on the 'back' of the postcard), which I hope some folks find interesting.

Le freak, c'est chic

I love this Paris fashion article in August's Harper's Bazaar (there's a publication you will rarely see me discussing here) in which Simpsons animator Julius Preite has created a Paris fashion show article with our favourite yellow family. Genuis and somehow it puts me in mind of the episode where Homer buys the New Yorker for Richard Avedon's photographs of Lenny.



Normally the overblown marketing exercise which accompanies major movie releases annoy the smeg out of me, but so far the Simpsons one has been entertaining and clever, from turning Seven Elevens in the US into Kwik-e-Marts to a faux chalk carved Homer next to the Cerne Abbas giant and now this. Gives an idea just how deeply embedded into global culture the Simpsons has become that it crosses so many boundaries of class and style. Fashionista has the pics (link via Comics212)

Animated Calvin and Hobbes

I came across this today, a short, unofficial animated Calvin and Hobbes cartoon. We're unlikely to see a full length Calvin and Hobbes cartoon in the near future and of course Bill Watterson finished the comics a while back, but this short little gem by Italian film student Donato Di Carlo (in Italian with English subtitles) captures the spirit of Calvin and Hobbes very well and really made me smile.

Gag that cartoonist



Yvonne sent me a link to this Daily Dilbert by Scott Adams, which I am guessing may refer to the recent case of the cartoonist Matt who works on the webcomic Three Panel Soul with Ian who was fired from a government job because he and a colleague were talking about hobbies and he said he enjoys paper target shooting. As R Stevens from Dieselsweeties notes, he wasn't talking about guns and people, shooting people or anything of that nature, in fact he was saying he thought it would be good to have guns which would be harder to use to keep people safe. He was fired because his colleagues are now apparently scared of him.



That may sound like nonsense to some who will be thinking hey, he must have done something else, but given that since Columbine a number of US schools have expelled kids who have done nothing wrong except wear a black duster coats (thus probably alienating the kids and giving them a real grieveance to hold, ironically) and an English major at college was harassed by campus police because he had written a horror story so the dumb-ass rentacops on campus assumed he must be a homicidal maniac, and suddenly it looks a lot more plausible. The great American official logic at work - don't do anything to control access to weapons, just fire people you don't like; of course, if Matt was a violent gun nut then surely this would have provoked him to march down to his ex employer and shoot all the former co-workers who got him fired??? Behold the one thing scarier than nutters with guns - the average fucking idiot...

But as Yvonne points out, this Dilbert cartoon also has a certain resonance to something closer to home, about a certain bookselling blogger fired by his version of Dilbert's Pointy Haired Boss, Evil Boss and his equally Evil Sandals, for mocking him and, of course, by firing him allowing him to step up the mocking to outright Defcon One Intercontinental Ballistic Lampooning launches. Stupidity rules, alas, but at least we can take the piss out those stupid smeggers!

Postcards From Palestine

I came across Moomin's Live Journal "Postcards From Palestine" earlier this week and posted it on the FPI blog since the cartoons were relevant to it, but I had to post a link to it here too; her posts on life in the Occupied Territories are well worth reading. And I thought this cartoon, called The Ever Elusive Diplomatic Horizon did what a good cartoon does best, summed up a complex situation in a few ink lines better than a page of newspaper reportage.

American politics explained by Dilbert



Not bad as a summary! Although I think my clearest insights into the American political system has come through reading Gary Trudeau's Doonesbury, just as my best British political education came via Yes, Minister and Private Eye.