I’m going to take a little detour this week out of the Toon Trenches to remember a person who was enormously important to the Walt Disney Studios in the 1950s, and whose passing was just was announced: Annette Funicello. Anyone of my generation knows both versions of Annette: the teenaged [...]

If there was one take-away from last week’s WonderCon in Anaheim, it was this: the barriers between comic books, animation and live action have probably never been thinner from a creative standpoint. At least, that was the message I came home with (well, that and that people who look like [...]

Few men in the history of animation had as hard a time forging a career as actor Regis Frick. It was not that Frick wasn’t a good actor; in fact, his recitations of Shakespeare were said to move audiences to tears. The problem was that Regis Frick’s had a face [...]

Like all professional toonheads, I’m sometimes asked to identify my favorite cartoon character. More specifically, those who know I tend to specialize in the history of Hanna-Barbera often want me to pinpoint my favorite H-B character. I usually reply with a laundry list of characters, saying that there is not [...]

Okay, I’m not here this week to heap any untoward abuse onto Warner Bros.’ CG/vfx extravaganza, Jack the Giant Slayer, whose beanstalk has so far failed to reach the heavens, financially. Instead I’m going to use this venue to remind people that, whatever might have caused Jack to languish at [...]