One of the tasks of a cartoon historian is to research and identify as accurately as possible which artists and artisans worked on what projects. That, however, can be surprisingly difficult, since screen credit in the Golden Age was often whimsical. Even today, when end credits might account for one-tenth [...]

Some years back I was talking with a veteran animation director about animation’s Golden Age. “Golden age?” he replied, with an expression of disdain, “I don’t remember getting very much gold.” It’s no secret that the hardworking, talented artists who created the classic cartoons of the 1930s, ’40s and ’50s were [...]

Among my favorite things to discover and write about are “Easter eggs:” the little hidden references and in-jokes that crop up in practically everything that has ever been animated. Back in 2003, while researching an article about the Pizza Planet Truck, which has appeared in a cameo in nearly every [...]

What’s the classic line…“Everything old is new again?” Nowhere is that more evident than in the world of television. This week I’m thinking of what has happened to the television series Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, which originally aired on NBC from 1981 to 1983. The show created a teen [...]

Hey, do you know that a feature-length version of Tim Burton’s 1984 animated short Frankenweenie is coming out? Of course you do. It’s hard not to, given the ad campaign. This week’s tale, however, is not about Frankenweenie or Burton specifically, or even how to market a toon feature; instead [...]