cartoons

Interesting things in the world of animation have happened. I will now tell you about them:

First of all, if you're a fan of The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, or you have kids who love the show, the recently-released DVD Billy and Mandy's Big Boogey Adventure is definitely worth the purchase. In this made-for-TV movie --which originally aired on Cartoon Network-- Billy, Mandy and Grim must race against Boogey (a.k.a. "the Boogeyman") to retrieve Horror's Hand, an ancient artifact that give its possessor the power to conjure up everyone's deepest fears, but only if one conquers their own fears first. Kids will enjoy the silly characters and booger jokes, and there are plenty of pop cultural references for adults: within the first five minutes of the movie we're treated to homages to Terminator 2, Stargate, Star Wars and Fractured Fairy Tales, just to name a few. Also, there's a nice lesson about facing your fears that ties all the random insanity together.

Hey, everybody, here's a few tasty tidbits from the world of animation for you. Please chew carefully:

A fourth trailer for The Simpsons movie was released not too long ago. Most of you have probably seen it already, but if not, I've placed it at the end of this post. The brief shot of Lisa fainting over the cute boy gets me every time. The animation in that sequence is unlike anything they do on the TV series, which leads me to believe this movie is going to kick twelve essential kinds of ass.

Happy Monday, everybody. I've compiled some interesting news and tidbits from the world of animation just for you:

In keeping with the current trend of depicting cartoon characters as real people, someone has drawn the South Park characters as real people.

As reported by Brad last February, classic Gumby shorts are now available on YouTube, Google Video, and In2TV (which is run by TV Squad's parent company, AOL). The shorts are being made available through DMGI, which is also releasing a Gumby DVD later this year. I've placed the first Gumby short at the end of this post.

First of all, I have to give a big ol' Minnesota-style "thank ya" to those of you who recommend some great anime for me to check out. A Minnesota-style "thank ya" is like a regular "thank ya" except you say it while keeping a herd of rabid moose away from your snow fort with a hockey stick.

When people talk about the greatest voice actors in cartoons, Mel Blanc is always at the top of the list, and for good reason: he solely provided the voice of the majority of the Looney Tunes characters, save for Elmer Fudd, who was voiced by Arthur Q. Bryan. His first real contribution was providing the voice of Porky Pig, a gig originally given to an actor named Joe Dougherty whose genuine stutter made it impossible for him to control the character's voice.

Blanc also worked in radio before and during his time at Warner Bros., working with such legends as Jack Benny, Abbot and Costello, and Burns and Allen. It was radio that helped him to create solid but unseen characters, a talent that carried over beautifully into animation.

After the jump is a clip from the Tonight Show featuring the man himself being interviewed by Johnny Carson. It's rather bittersweet to see these two great comedic minds on screen together, and to think of what the world of entertainment lost when they each passed away.

[via Frederator]

All day today, Boomerang is broadcasting cartoons about love and romance. You didn't forget it was Valentine's Day, did you? This is the day lovers exchange socks, shave their heads and carve a menagerie of mythical creatures out of frozen mayonnaise. Okay, that's not true, I'm just trying to start a new trend beyond all this boring "flowers and chocolate" nonsense.

At any rate, if you love yourself some cartoons, keep checking into Boomerang today for love-laced cartoons featuring the Looney Tunes characters, the Smurfs, Popeye, Top Cat, Speed Buggy, the Flintstones, 2 Stupid Dogs, Droopy, Tom and Jerry, and others. You can see the schedule here.

If you don't have Boomerang, you can always watch some of those same shorts over on the In2TV site.

Boomerang, the Cartoon Network spin-off that was once home to old, classic cartoons, is adding two new shows to its line-up that are neither old nor classic: Krypto the Superdog and Gerald McBoing Boing.

My fellow animation nerds are probably saying, "wait a sec, isn't Gerald McBoing Boing from the '50s?"

Yes, the original Gerald McBoing Boing short, based on a recording written by Dr. Seuss, first appeared in theaters in 1951 and won the Academy Award that same year. Boomerang, however, will be airing an updated version that ran on the now-defunct Tickle U block of preschool programming on Cartoon Network. It would seem logical that if you bill your network as featuring old cartoons you'd pick the Gerald from the '50s and not the one from 2005, but I stopped trying to figure out such decisions a long time ago.

Gerald McBoing Boing will debut on Boomerang Monday, February 5 at 6:00pm, followed by Krypto the Superdog at 7:00pm.

I placed the original Gerald McBoing Boing short after the jump.

Excuse me while I drool all over my keyboard.

If you love old cartoons and campy TV shows, you need to check out World's Best Comics and Toys. It's jam-packed with DVDs of all kinds of awesome old-timey animated goodness: there are old black and white Terrytoons, a complete DVD set of Friz Freling's The Ant and the Aardvark, and every episode of the original Batman series. Obviously, some of these are not official releases, but I don't know of any other place where you can find all these shows together.

Some other cool shows I found on the site:

• Lancelot Link: Secret Chimp
• AstroBoy
• Atom Ant
• The Banana Splits
• Beany and Cecil
• Clutch Cargo
• Crusader Rabbit
• Deputy Dawg
• George of the Jungle
• Gigantor
• Heckle and Jeckle
• Hoppity Hopper
• Mighty Mouse (original and The New Adventures)

That just begins to scratch the surface. Poke around the site and you're sure to find something you like. Of course, I have no idea of the quality of some of these DVDs, so caveat emptor and all that.

[via John K]

Steve Krantz, the producer who helped bring Marvel characters to the television screen, passed away due to complications from pneumonia on January 4 at the age of 83.

Krantz produced The Marvel Superheroes, a limited-animation series featuring The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, and Sub-Mariner. The series used artwork taken directly from the comic books, often from different artists so that the character designs would sometimes change within a single episode. Marvel Superheroes was a major influence on the graphic style of the Adult Swim series Minoriteam.

Krantz also produced the Spider-Man cartoon in the late '60s, and was also a producer for Ralph Bakshi's films Fritz the Cat and Heavy Traffic. Bakshi also worked as a writer on Marvel Superheroes. Krantz's other projects included developing series based on books by his wife, the novelist Judith Krantz. His son is 24 executive producer Tony Krantz.

[via Toon Zone]

You want a my personal picks for the best TV stuff of 2006? Sure, no problem. You also want my personal picks for the worst TV offered in 2006? Well, that's somewhat of a challenge. If I don't like something, I don't watch it, but I agreed to list my favorite and least favorite things about TV, so let's get the negative stuff out of the way first.

The point of this edition of The Five, besides giving me yet another chance to talk about cartoons, is to examine those weird quirks that set certain cartoon characters apart from their constituents. That is to say, something beyond the usual bulging eyes, springing hair, unraveling tongues, mallet-induced head lumps and stars and birdies that twirl about the head whenever they crash through a wall. I'm interested in quirks and traits a character possesses that no other character does. Some of these are easy: Fred Flintstone's "Yabba Dabba Doo!," Bugs Bunny's various catchphrases like "What's up, doc?" and "Of course you know, this means war!," so I tried to delve a little deeper and come up with some oddities only incredible nerds like myself would notice.

Maybe this will make more sense if I just jump right into it: