By: Jerry Beck,
on 4/9/2013
Amazon’s Gold Box Deal of the Day—good for today only—is an amazing value for anyone who is even slightly interested in classic Hollywood cartoons. They’re offering all six Looney Tunes Golden Collection DVD sets for $65.
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 4/2/2013
A powerful looking Ron Ely, star of the TV’s “Tarzan”(1966-1968) and “Doc Savage: Man of Bronze” (1975) spellbound his audience at WonderCon Friday, relating his fight with a wild tiger. According to Ely, “The Script read: Tarzan sees tiger, Tarzan fights tiger, Tarzan and tiger walkaway in opposite directions with mutual respect.” Instead of firing the writer and walking off the set as would likely happen these days, the actor concerned himself with how to achieve the scene. Contacting the San Diego Zoo, Ely and his producer’s were able persuade Zoo officials to detour a recently captured tiger from India to the set of “Tarzan” in Burbank. Gaining the big cat’s trust by his attending every feeding, Ely and the Tarzan production crew took precautions to insure no one would be hurt. By forbidding a gun on the set, Ely was also insuring the tiger’s safety.
“When we were set to film I hit him on the nose and he gave me a look like ‘Is that the best you got?’ I hit him again and he ignored me. There was only one other thing I knew to do to rouse him–if I turned my back.” Sure enough, the tiger went flying over Ely’s head to pounce and they wrestled. “To a tiger, its just play,” Ely said with equanimity. Much to Ely’s own astonishment, the scene came off as written.
You can enjoy Warner Bros. Archive Collection of “Tarzan” and “Doc Savage” available at http://www.wbshop.com/category/wbshop_brands/warner+archive.do.
Also being released by WarnerBros. Archive Collection: “Bomba, the Jungle Boy” (1949) and “The Adventures of Superboy, Season 3″ In coming months there will be additional releases of other Boomer generation Televison shows. One such is “Maya,” starring Jay North. The star of “Dennis the Menace”, now a teen, searches the jungles of India for his missing father aboard an Elephant named Maya. The show was a milestone for TV at its time in that it was filmed on location in India.
By: Jerry Beck,
on 1/20/2013
Calling all students! Warner Bros. Animation is trying to get the word out on an animation scholarship program that the studio is offering to graduating high school students/incoming college Freshman. Below is the basic info along with a link to the application. It’s a great opportunity… don’t be a moroon – go for it!
2013 Warner Bros. Animation/Hanna-Barbera Honorship
Who: Any graduating high school senior enrolling in a college, university, or trade school to study animation.
What: Through the Warner Bros. Reach program, one outstanding student is awarded the Hanna-Barbera/Animation Honorship each year that includes a scholarship and four full-time paid internships at the company during four consecutive summers while enrolled in college. Successful Reach program graduates will be eligible for full-time positions at Warner Bros.
How: Application (w/ instructions) can be downloaded via this link.
When: Application deadline is by 5:00 p.m. on Monday, March 4, 2013
By: Jerry Beck,
on 3/6/2013
After drawing a crowd of 15,000 attendees to Cowboys Stadium for a live simulcast of Mozart’s The Magic Flute, the Dallas Opera aims for repeated success this April with Turnadot. This year’s curtain-raiser, however, will be the world’s largest screening of What’s Opera, Doc?, displayed on the Stadium’s record-breaking 160-foot wide, 72-foot tall HD screens.
Surprisingly, Cowboys Stadium was planned from the outset to bring high art into the lives of sports fans—Gene Jones, the wife of Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, is almost solely responsible for the Stadium’s museum-quality collection of contemporary art. This arena-turned-cultural center will provide the setting for the latest chapter in the love-hate relationship between animation and classical music.
With Fantasia, Walt Disney quite literally tried to align animation with the high arts, with ostriches unironically performing ballet pas de deuxs set to the “Dance of the Hours” from the opera La Gioconda. Eventually, animation and classical music became a tongue-in-cheek pairing; during the early 1950s it was commonplace to see Wile E. Coyote assemble a spring-loaded rocket launcher to the sounds of a lilting oboe. By the time Chuck Jones produced What’s Opera, Doc? in 1957, it was a way of saying “Screw ‘em,” to the established arts. “I never made a cartoon that didn’t contain some flick-of-the-wrist at the establishment of the day,” said Jones in Chuck Jones: Conversations
This April, in a very public arena, Jones and his work will be embraced by the very establishment he parodied. Only now, as opera faces its biggest identity crisis, does it wholeheartedly embrace the exaggerated cultural conventions we’ve established over the years: busty valkyries, lovesick brutes and overdone pageantry. Keith Cerny, the CEO of Dallas Opera acknowledges that What’s Opera Doc? is “still creative, interesting, fresh, plays off the same stereotypes about opera that we’re addressing today.” Proponents of opera have realized that the best chance of fruitful survival is to laugh with us—if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.
By: Jerry Beck,
on 3/29/2013
From a report on ComicBookResources.com:
Cartoonist Bruce Timm has stepped down as supervising producer at Warner Bros. Animation to develop his own projects. He’s been replaced by James Tucker, a veteran of Batman: The Animated Series, Justice League and, more recently, Batman: The Brave and the Bold.
It’s the end of an era.
(Thanks, Paul Burrows)
By: Jerry Beck,
on 3/29/2013
From a report on ComicBookResources.com:
Cartoonist Bruce Timm has stepped down as supervising producer at Warner Bros. Animation to develop his own projects. He’s been replaced by James Tucker, a veteran of Batman: The Animated Series, Justice League and, more recently, Batman: The Brave and the Bold.
It’s the end of an era.
(Thanks, Paul Burrows)
By: Jerry Beck,
on 7/27/2012
Seventy-two years ago today — on July 27th, 1940 — Bugs Bunny appeared in Tex Avery’s A Wild Hare. The Warner Bros. short is widely considered to be the first definitive Bugs Bunny cartoon, in which the character’s appearance, personality and voice gelled as a whole. It’s also the first time Bugs, voiced by the inimitable Mel Blanc, uttered his famous catchphrase, “What’s up, doc?”
All the major players involved with the production of A Wild Hare are dead except for one individual: 94-year-old Bob Givens. He was the character designer who redesigned the studio’s clumsy-looking rabbit character into the familiar design below. You’ll notice that Givens calls the character “Tex’s Rabbit” because they hadn’t officially christened him Bugs Bunny yet.
Bob can also claim responsibility for redesigning Elmer Fudd into the recognizable character that we know today. He speaks about working on A Wild Hare in this interview conducted by animation historian Steve Worth and animators Will Finn and Mike Fontanelli:
Bob Givens means a lot to me personally because he was the first animation artist that I ever interviewed. Who knows where I’d be today if Bob hadn’t been patient and encouraging of my interest in documenting animation history. I wish I could remember how I got in touch with him—it may have been simply by looking him up in the phone book—but when I first went to Bob’s modest bungalow home in North Hollywood, I was unaware of just how much of a key figure he’d been throughout the history of Golden Age Hollywood animation. I learned quickly though.
In 2001, a few years after our first interview, I had the honor of interviewing Bob a second time. This time it was onstage at the San Diego Comic-Con International where he was joined by fellow WB veteran Pete Alvarado. It’s doubtful that the event was recorded onto video, but this photographic memory remains:
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By: Stephanie,
on 7/31/2012
In celebration of a certain wizard's birthday today, Warner Brothers have released the list of exclusive features and memorabilia that will be included in the eight film, 31-disc Harry Potter Wizard's Collection, due in stores on September 10, 2012. Harry Potter Wizard's Collection contains more than 37 hours of special features, including all previously released special features from the eight Harry Potter films and nearly four hours of never-before-seen bonus features.
The complete list is as follow:
Films Included in this Collection – All on Blu-ray, DVD and UltraVioletBlu-ray Special Features for Hours of Entertainment – Includes all previously released Special Features
- Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone Theatrical Version and Extended Cut
- Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets Theatrical Version and Extended Cut
- Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
- Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
- Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
- Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 2D and 3D Versions
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 2D and 3D Versions
- Harry Potter Wizard’s Collection Bonus Disc: Nearly 4 hours of features including:
- All New! “The Harry Potters You Never Met” - Meet the stunt doubles for Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson as they demonstrate how they balanced major stunt work with seamlessly mimicking the actors they represented and share their favorite moments.
- All New! “Designing the World of Harry Potter” - Explore how production designer Stuart Craig and his creative team brought J.K. Rowling's imagination to life on the screen.
- All New! “When Harry Left Hogwarts” (Extended Version) - Hear candid and emotional stories about the final days on set in this extended behind-the-scenes look.
- All New! “50 Greatest Harry Potter Moments” (Definitive Version) - Take a look back with cast members who share their on and off-screen memories.
- All New! “Secrets Revealed! Quidditch” – At last, the secrets behind the special effects required for the breathtaking Quidditch scenes are revealed!
- All New! “Secrets Revealed! Hagrid”- See the camera tricks, towering stand-in and voluminous body suits behind the beloved Keeper of Keys and Grounds at Hogwarts.
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 Bonus Disc: Over 2 hours of features including:
- All New! “Creating the World of Harry Potter, Part. 7: Story"
- Plus all previously released special features!0
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 Bonus Disc: Over 4 hours of features including:
- All New! “Creating the World of Harry Potter, Part. 8: Growing Up”
- All New! “A Conversation with J.K. Rowling and Daniel Radcliffe: Extended Version” - with 15 minutes of new footage
- “Hogwarts’ Last Stand” (Extended Version)
- Plus all previously released special features!
· Exclusive Premiums
- Memorabilia designed exclusively for the collection by the graphic designers from the films
- Label Collection – A collection of prop labels created by the production for potions, wizarding products and more
- Harry Potter Catalogue of Artefacts – 48-page rigid book featuring the favorite props of the film’s graphic d Add a Comment
By: Jerry Beck,
on 8/1/2012
Um, I don’t see any putty tats in this video, but I see a lot of nice girls having a good time. And, after all, isn’t that what Looney Tunes are all about.
(Thanks, John Ryan, on Cartoon Brew’s Facebook page)
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By: Stephanie,
on 8/21/2012
Den of Geek has received a new clip discussing the creation of Hagrid from the special features of the Harry Potter Wizards Collection. The clip includes interviews with Nick Dudman, special makeup effects designer, and Martin Bayfield, the double for Hagrid. Watch the video at this link or below.
The 31-disc Harry Potter Wizards Collection is out Sept. 7 in the U.S. and Sept. 10 in the U.K.
By: Jerry Beck,
on 9/13/2012
With Halloween just around the corner, Warner Bros. has started selling a new crop of character costumes on their on-line store. Is it just me or do Scooby, Tom, and Jerry all look like demented PEZ dispensers about to vomit up small children?
(Thanks, Alex Rannie)
By: Jerry Beck,
on 9/29/2012
A Hitch in Time is a new one for me: a 1955 propaganda short directed by Chuck Jones that encouraged U. S. Air Force personnel to re-enlist. The cartoon appeared last year on the first volume of the Looney Tunes Platinum Collection
What impresses most about this short are the production values. Layout artist Ernie Nordli and background painter Philip De Guard give a masterclass in composition and color.
There is absolutely no reason a didactic re-enlistment film like this needs to look so good except that the artists who made it didn’t know how to do it anyway else. They were craftsmen at the top of their game, and they managed to turn the most mundane material into something entertaining and beautiful.
Chuck Jones is at his peak as an artist, and his character layouts of the two main characters are lots of fun. The animation is equally expert. Although the movement plays second fiddle to Jones’s overpowering poses, it’s no mean feat to give life to designs as organic and complex as these.
The film is no classic, but it’s a must-see for any fan of Chuck Jones and Golden Age Hollywood animation.
(via Cartoon Retro)
By: Jerry Beck,
on 10/2/2012
The post about the 1955 Chuck Jones short A Hitch in Time was well received, so let’s complete the story. Jones made at least two more military propaganda films following that one—90 Day Wondering in 1956 and Drafty, Isn’t It? in 1957.
The gem of the bunch may be 90 Day Wondering. I’d seen some of Maurice Noble’s layout concepts for this short when researching the book Cartoon Modern, but regretfully, hadn’t seen the short. It is an absolutely fantastic example of the ‘cartoon modern’ aesthetic, with an astounding level of craft that is far beyond the needs of the plebeian ideas expressed in the film.
The first minute of the film has an expert piece of temporal and spatial compression. We follow the main character’s ecstatic journey out of the military and back to his hometown while he runs around in a whirlwind a la the Tasmanian Devil. It’s also a great use of animated movement to illustrate the inner emotions of a character.
When the main character is finally revealed to the audience, he has arrived at his hometown of Spooner, which also happens to be Maurice Noble’s birthplace (Spooner Township, Minnesota). Noble is at his peak of layout powers in this short. He plays liberally with exaggeration of shapes in the background, perspective, pattern and color, and thinks nothing of it to key some of the backgrounds in full color while using stark white backdrops for other scenes in the film.
The main character, Ralphie, is designed with more realism than one might expect of a Warner Bros. cartoon, but that is a direct consequence of the cartoon’s purpose, which was first and foremost to convince military personnel to re-enlist. Ralphie’s realistic design also plays a nice contrast to the cartoonier characters Pete and Re-Pete, who play the role of his conscience.
It’s a thrill at this late date to discover new Chuck Jones cartoons from the Fifties. It’s also educational. Looking at Jones films that I’ve never seen allows me to be objective about their quality in a way that I can’t be about the classic Jones shorts that I’ve seen dozens of times.
This trio of military-propaganda shorts that Jones made is phenomenally impressive. Jones’s crew brings a level of expertise and professionalism to the table that is woefully lacking (dare I say, completely absent) in much of today’s cartoon animation. If anything, the films should serve as a reminder that almost any idea or concept can be enhanced by animation if the animation is entrusted to filmmakers who are passionate about the craft of visual storytelling.
By: Jerry Beck,
on 10/12/2012
Unabashed Plug: Out next week is Vol. 2 of Warner Home Video’s Blu-ray cartoon collection, Looney Tunes Platinum Collection. I’m a little biased because I helped put together the set which includes fifty Warner Bros. cartoon classics, restored to pristine condition, now in glorious 1080p Blu-ray format – containing such masterpieces as A Wild Hare, Book Revue, You Ought To Be In Pictures, the complete Cecil Turtle trilogy, The Nasty Canasta collection, the Chuck Jones’ Bugs-Daffy-Elmer Hunting trilogy, the complete works of Beaky Buzzard, A. Flea and Tex Avery’s Art Deco classic Page Miss Glory. Not to mention a nifty 28-page color booklet (written by yours truly).
The complete contents are listed here. I just got my advance copy and can’t be more pleased about how it turned out, especially as it restores original titles to several films, and a lost ending gag to the seminal Hardaway-Dalton rabbit-hunting cartoon Hare-um Scare-um (1939). Pre-order it now – and yeah, it’s available on DVD (minus a bonus disc and several bonus features). Highly recommended!
By: Stephanie,
on 2/9/2012
MTV News is reporting that actor Tom Felton (Draco Malfoy) has been cast in the film, "Therese Raquin" alongside Elizabeth Olsen and Glenn Close.Felton will play Camille, the husband to Olsen's Therese. Close plays
Camille's mother, who forces Therese to marry her sickly son. When
Therese takes a new lover, they plot to murder Camille and live happily
ever after. Things don't go as planned once Camille's ghost shows up to haunt the lovers.
Actress Jessie Cave (Lavender Brown) will be returning to the London stage in a production of J.M. Barrie's "Mary Rose." Cave will play the titular character at Studio 3 in Riverside Studios from March 28 to April 28. She previously performed as Thomasina in a West End revival of "Arcadia."
By: Edward,
on 3/3/2012
Retailer Amazon.com has posted images and information for what looks to be the ultimate showcase collection of Harry Potter films fans have been waiting for. The Harry Potter Wizards Collection contains a total of 31 discs, 18 of which present a mixture of regular and extended cuts of all seven films, 13 special feature discs compiling hours of extras from the series. This new boxed set, according to Amazon, contains over "5 hours of never before seen special features, in a limited and numbered edition." An animated video of the box and its contents accompanies the product page, and can be viewed right here.
While full details are scarce, a full list of films and features is as follows:
By: Stephanie,
on 3/10/2012
Harry Potter: The Exhibition will be making its first stop in Asia at the ArtScience Museum at Marina Bay Sands in Singapore from June 1 to September 30, 2012.
The traveling exhibition of props, costumes and set pieces from the Harry Potter films is currently at Sydney's Powerhouse Museum until March 18.
Tickets for the ArtScience Museum go on sale beginning May 1, 2012 through the museum's website.
By: Stephanie,
on 3/22/2012
The 31-disc Harry Potter Wizard's Collection Blu-ray/DVD box set will be released on Sept. 7 in the U.S. and Sept. 10 in the U.K., it's been announced.
This definitive collection will include all eight Harry Potter films, plus over four hours of never-before-seen footage. The massive box set weighs an impressive 19 pounds, and will also come with "artistic and authentic film memorabilia."
The official Harry Potter website has been updated to reflect the impending release of the Wizard's Collection. An interactive wand gesture game has been added to the site so fans can unlock exclusive previews of the bonus material every week.
This week, Yahoo! has the first exclusive preview which shows a young Rupert Grint (Ron Weasley) talking about a rather "unpretty picture" he drew of Alan Rickman (Severus Snape). The clip then shows a present-day Grint and Rickman talking about the drawing. Watch it below!
By: Edward,
on 3/28/2012
Leaky participated in a press tour of the Warner Bros. Studio Tour - The Making of Harry Potter this morning and now has a special gallery of high res photos from the experience right here! Stay close for Leaky's full report, set to be online soon.
The Warner Bros. Studio Tour opens to the public on March 31st. For tickets and more information, visit the official website here.
By: Stephanie,
on 3/31/2012
The red carpet for the grand opening of Warner Bros. Studio Tour - the Making of Harry Potter is about to get underway! Watch live as the cast and crew of the "Harry Potter" films arrive and speak to presenter Alex Zane. Leaky will have more coverage from the grand opening, so stay tuned!
By: Anastasia Goodstein,
on 4/26/2012
We were at the Time To Play toy showcase yesterday to keep an eye on the trends coming this spring and summer — and to have a little fun letting our inner child come out to play.
As usual, toy makers are putting out toys that are travel-friendly... Read the rest of this post
By: Catherine,
on 5/16/2012
Steve Kloves, who wrote seven of the eight Harry Potter films, has been asked by Warner Bros. to write and direct a new thriller: Defending Jacob. Defending Jacob is an adaption of William Landry's novel, a New York Times Best Seller. Variety reports:
Set in a wealthy Boston suburb, novel follows a district attorney who must leave his day job to defend his son from a murder charge while uncertain of his son's innocence.The film is still in the very early stages of production, so there is no set release date just yet. Add a Comment
By: Jerry Beck,
on 5/27/2012
Frank Tashlin’s extremely rare 1952 cartooning booklet How to Draw Cartoons has been posted online in its entirety. In the book, Tashlin promotes his SCOT Art technique, which simplifies every cartoon character into squares (S), circles (C), ovals (O) and triangles (T).
Tashlin’s idiosyncratic style is geared more toward print cartoonists than animators, owing to Tashlin’s beginnings as a newspaper cartoonist. Even though his old-school cartooning style was already on its way out when the book was published in 1952, somehow the style looks artful in his confident hands. Throughout the book, Tashlin uses examples from his own illustrated books, including The World That Isn’t, which still holds up as a masterpiece of graphic art commentary.
Not to take this too far off-topic, but if you’re interested in learning more about Tashlin, I’d also recommend this Michael Barrier interview, which was conducted just one year before Tashlin passed away.
Tashlin has never been properly given his due as an animation director, mostly because his career as a live-action director eclipsed his earlier work. But he was easily among the most forward-thinking, singular and influential animation directors of Hollywood’s Golden Age. Below is a fine example of his innovative directorial style—the 1943 Warner Bros. short Puss n’ Booty.
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By: Jerry Beck,
on 5/29/2012
If you’re trying to understand the 2012 US Presidential elections, here it is in cartoon terms: Barack Obama is Bugs Bunny, Mitt Romney is Daffy Duck. I’m voting for Porky Pig.
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By: Jerry Beck,
on 6/8/2012
Golden Age animator Phil Monroe (1916-1988) is rarely discussed, even amongst animation cognoscenti, which is unfortunate because he had an amazing career. Over the course of his career, he animated for an honor roll of legendary directors including Bob Clampett, John Hubley, Chuck Jones, Pete Burness, Friz Freleng, and Frank Tashlin. Animation historian Michael Barrier has posted a never-before-published 1976 interview with Phil Monroe that he and Milton Gray conducted.
The interview delves into details that may appeal to only a small portion of our twenty thousand-plus daily readers, but if you appreciate classic Warner Bros. shorts and animation history in general, the interview is guaranteed to blow your mind. There’s even a great story about how Monroe got Chuck Jones and Friz Freleng to square dance with one another, even though “they were barely on speaking terms.” Barrier conducted a follow-up interview with Monroe in 1987, which he promises to publish online soon.
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A tiger? In Africa?
What a great story. Love it!
Apparently, WB Archives is also going to try for the Hulu Plus and Netflix route: http://www.deadline.com/2013/04/warner-bros-launches-streaming-service-for-old-movies-and-tv-shows/
So you might be able to find some of those goodies on there as well.
~
Coat
Ron Ely! Back in the day, he WAS Tarzan. Those tv episodes probably haven’t aged as well as 74 year old Ely, but they sure were fun to watch.
And they ran just before Hockey Night In Canada, where 6 teams of real men fought to the death over possession of a little round chunk of black rubber.
These days, the tiger would be CGI … and todday’s actors might proceed to discuss the risks they took …
These days, the tiger would be CGI … and today’s actors might proceed to discuss the risks they took …