Sherman, Menken Team Up for...
A special musical treat is in store for attendees of this year’s D23...
Archive
Flashback to That First ‘Madagascar’ Journey
Once upon a time (as all good fairy tales start) animated features offered audiences original images, stories and characters that moviegoers could not see anywhere else. Similarly, there was also a time when big summer tentpole movies by their nature offered audiences the promise of something new and fresh. Well, [...]
The Long, Strange Odyssey of ‘Foodfight!’
The news that the Godot of animation, Foodfight! was FINALLY going to be released (albeit only on DVD and only in Europe), puts an end to the bizarre saga of the most ill-fated epic in toon trench history. Created and produced by digital effects shop Threshold Entertainment, which was technologically [...]
Kathryn Beaumont: Training with Walt
Her name may be most familiar to Disney enthusiasts, and her face might be best recognized when interpreted by artists on cels, but her voice is unmistakable. It’s a lovely, mature, English Rose voice that actress Kathryn Beaumont seemed to possess from childhood, and which she and used to full [...]
Remembering Gene Kelly in Toon Town
Legendary dancer, actor, choreographer and director Gene Kelly is being feted this week by The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which is staging a centennial tribute to him. Kelly’s stint at MGM during the heyday of the movie musical, of course, resulted in such classics as Singin’ in [...]
‘Fantasia’ in the Key of Ray
Anyone who knows Ray Bradbury knows that he has a lifelong love of animation. The legendary author of Fahrenheit 451 and The Martian Chronicles has contributed to numerous animation-related books and was an early supporter of ASIFA-Hollywood. He’s even dabbled in the medium itself, writing the 1962 Oscar-nominated animated short [...]
Gene Deitch Sees Red!
Even some fans of UPA, who have rushed out to buy the new, long-awaited DVD collection of their classic theatrical cartoons, might not know that Walt Disney had a particular name for the upstart studio staff: “Those Communists up the river.” The river in question was the Los Angeles River, [...]
Disney’s Naughty Bits, Real and Imagined
Just when you start to think the old rumors about hidden dirty jokes in Disney animated features have died down, they get passed on to a new generation. This was proven to me recently at an event I attended in which animation’s Renaissance man, Tom Sito, was speaking to a [...]
When The Three Stooges Got Animated
While the late Edward Bernds (1905-2000) was not a toiler in the toon trenches himself, he was on the periphery of the television cartoon industry in the 1960s. Chiefly known as a writer and director for the Three Stooges, Bernds guided the last incarnation of the trio—Larry Fine, Moe Howard [...]
The Case for Robert McKimson
Unlike many toonheads, I’ve long been fascinated with the cartoons of Robert McKimson. McKimson was part of the Warner Bros. animation troika in the post-war years, along with Friz Freleng and Chuck Jones, and the director behind the classic characters Foghorn Leghorn and the Tasmanian Devil. Yet even today, though [...]
An Offer Out of the Blu
Anybody working in any kind of creative pursuit knows that being in the right place at the right time, and making the right decision, is often crucial to furthering a career. In the case of voice actress, casting director, and dialogue director Susan Blu, that right decision came at the [...]
BinWeevils Appoints Henwood...
U.K.-based digital social world BinWeevils, for kids 6-12, has appointed media...
Blue Sky’s...
Epic, the new animated adventure from director Chris Wedge and his gifted team...
