Articles on Animation &Fleischer 07 Dec 2007 09:07 am
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- Congratulations to my good friend, John Canemaker, on being awarded the WINSOR McCAY AWARD for career contributions to the art of animation.
How more perfect to give this award to the guy who wrote the first and foremost biography of Winsor McCay. The Annie committee definitely got one right this year.
Congrats, also, to all the other nominees viewable here.
– I love reading magazine articles from the past about animation. That means mostly Disney. There’s a lovely piece from the December 27, 1937 issue of Time Magazine about Disney and his “folly,” Snow White which has been posted by Joe Campana on his excellent site, Animation Who and Where.
The attractive image to the left was on that magazine’s cover. So much of the PR work on Snow White really gets me. I have this wonderful old 16mm copy of a trailer for the film. There was obviously no animated footage prepared for the trailer, so they used short live action clips of people dressed up like the seven dwarfs walking around a little house they’d built. Perhaps it was the one at the Carthay Circle Theater.
If you don’t know Joe Campana’s site and do go to check out the magazine I urge you take a good look at other posts there. My favorite is still one posted last June on the “Ghosts” of the Mintz Studio. It’s a great piece of detective work that absolutely amused me.
Modern Mechanix has posted a number of past articles about animation. Here are two short articles about new machinery for animation.
You can check out the original articles on the actual site.
- article 1
- article 2
__(Click any image to enlarge and/or read the article.)
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The first article is about a Fleischer invention in the 20′s that never made it. It’s a new machine to project animated drawings on a large drum.
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This second article is about an animation camera device at Terrytoons in 1940 that allowed you to rotoscope and combine live action with animation. This piece of equipment remained as an addition to the Oxberry Camera that could be added onto deluxe models.
– In other news, John Dilworth reports that the first season of Courage the Cowardly Dog is finally out on dvd.
The only problem is that it’s only available in Australia. Perhaps Cartoon Network will get their act together and share this with US buyers! The show was one of their best, and the channel has done everything they can to bury it.
Out with the old – in with the new.
Oh, and the new isn’t even Aqua Teen Hunger Force!
(By the way, there are already five editions of dvd’s for this pathetic program. That’s not counting the feature that no one saw, also available on dvd.)
There are many other, more recent programs whose titles are less memorable. I’m sure their new live-action programming will be more effective for them.
on 07 Dec 2007 at 10:14 am 1.Dave Levy said …
Those looking for current gold on cartoon network should check out C. Greenblatt’s “Chowder,” which debuted to much acclaim recently. Courage reruns are still a regular feature every week on cartoon network and the show went many seasons.. Not sure I agree that it was burried.
on 07 Dec 2007 at 10:58 am 2.Thad Komorowski said …
Mike-
Cartoon Network frequently airs “Courage the Cowardly Dog” on weekday evenings. I don’t know why they’ve only released that set in Australia though, as I’d most likely buy it. (Maybe I’ll import it.)
on 07 Dec 2007 at 1:41 pm 3.Michael said …
Dave, your perspective is limited. There’s more than meets the eye.
When the entire last season of a show is run off in one day and not repeated for a number of years and then at random with no set schedule; when a dvd release is purposely kept out of stores despite the fact that it’s already been mastered, then the obvious is nosefully plain.
I didn’t need anyone to point this out to me, but I am aware that upper management at CN has changed and old darlings are not the loved anymore.
You don’t even have to get into Jimmy’s Head to see this.
Perhaps if CN gets ReAnimated, maybe they’ll be more of a network to take serious than one that tries to imitate the success of Disney Channel’s live action do-over.
Once upon a time, Ted Turner knew what to do to build a successful cable network. Then others chipped away, and all that’s left is a shell and a name.
on 10 Jan 2009 at 8:30 am 4.Ben said …
“I didn’t need anyone to point this out to me, but I am aware that upper management at CN has changed and old darlings are not the loved anymore.”
I’ve skimmed through CN in the afternoons before, hoo boy what a load of rubbish. You know they remade George Of The Jungle? In about 5 seconds too, with what looks like gawdy flash animation. Makes me sick.
That makes me very sad. Especially for the likes of not only Courage DVDs, but the old Dexter’s Lab as well.