Harry McCracken's website
Happy 2008! Things are off to an outstanding start hereabouts. Or at least I assume that the fact that I’ve started the year by winning a surprisingly good Beaky Buzzard doll from a crane game in a Denny’s in Cordella, California is an omen of good things to come…
History Detectives, the PBS show, has a black-and-white cel they’re trying to identify. They think it’s from a TV commercial or industrial film, possibly from John Sutherland Productions. I don’t have a clue. Do you?
I bought this toy at an Asian mall in San Jose, California, on Thanksgiving. Despite all evidence, it’s not a Winnie the Pooh product–it features the beloved Mr. Bear, who I’ve never heard of. Whoever designed the packaging would seem to have borrowed some Disney art, but the words were surely 100 percent original–and a lot more entertaining than anything I’ve seen more officially associated with Winnie the Pooh in a good long while..
I don’t mean to look gift movie tickets in the mouth (does that make any sense?), but my friend Marie and I attended a showing of Robert Zemeckis’s mocap epic Beowulf for ASIFA-San Francisco members last night, and left without having seen the movie. For forty-five minutes, we and a few dozen other people sat in the theater, and never got more than three or four minutes of movie without crippling technical problems of one sort of another. So the projectionist had to start over–again and again and again.
During those few brief periods when we got more than about fifteen seconds of uninterrupted movie, it was blurry at best, and despite the fact that we were wearing 3D glasses, we couldn’t make out any dimensionality at all. (Marie and I are both glasses-wearers; it’s possible the 3D specs provided were a bad fit over our everyday frames.)
We wanted to see the movie–honest we did–but we eventually left, along with much of the rest of the audience. I’m not sure whether the showing ever got back on track…and if it did, how many people were left to see it.
The folks in charge of the screening weren’t very communicative about what was going on, so I’m not sure whether the woes related to the fact that the movie was in 3D, or whether gremlins had simply decided to muck up a screening that was designed to get some good buzz going for the film before today’s official release.
Looks like I’ll wind up paying to see this film; somehow, yesterday night’s debacle left me more curious about it. Has anyone out there seen it? Can you confirm that it’s not inherently blurry and generally hard on the eyeballs?
(Disclaimer: The blurry image below is a recreation for dramatic purposes.)
Here’s my piece on how Apple’s latest operating-system upgrade compares to Windows Vista…
I ask you: Is this the most disturbingly wacko drawing ever done of a major American animation character?
(For the record, I bought this phone card at a liquor store in Mountain View, California.)
As I mentioned recently, I happened to be in LA on Friday for work–and that night happened to be the one on which ASIFA-Hollywood through a birthday bash for June Foray at Pickwick Gardens in Burbank. I attended, of course (as did people such as Jerry Beck, Ray Pointer, Earl Kress, Mark Evanier, Floyd Norman, Mark Evanier, Tom Kenny, organizer Steve Worth, and many others) and had a thoroughly enjoyable time.
Sources say that June was born in 1917, but that’s clearly a laughable error–the woman whose birthday we celebrated looked more like she was born in 1937 or so. Here she is cutting into her cake:
And here’s a video, badly shot by me, in which she addresses her well-wishers. Interestingly enough, her talk is mostly about the art of animation and ASIFA, which she’s long supported, not about June Foray:
June Foray is more than one of the greatest voice actors ever to work in the business and one of our last living links to the golden age of the artform; she’s a delightful person. It was only when I was driving back to my hotel that it dawned on me that she neither mentioned any of her work nor did any of her voices, unless you count the one she gives the “young girl” she mentions in the above video. But I didn’t mind a bit…
I’ll probably weigh in on the controversy over the new Charles Schulz biography once I’ve had a chance to read it. But for now, here’s another Schulz-related item: When I was perusing birthday cards in a Boston CVS recently, I came across this one decorated with images of Charlie Brown and Snoopy as they appeared at the very start of their careers:
This is the only current product I’ve seen with retro Schulz drawings–but I suspect it’s part of an attempt to bring very early Peanuts back into fashion on new merchandise. That makes sense from a business standpoint–presumably, Disney has made hundreds of millions from items using the 1930s version of Mickey Mouse over the past forty years or so. I wouldn’t be startled if the success of the Fantagraphics Complete Peanuts has inspired this revival, and I kind of like it.
But am I wrong in remembering that Charles Schulz wasn’t crazy about his early work–and in fact didn’t even like using that much of it in books about the history of the strip? And if so, how would he feel about 1950 Charlie Brown bumping late-model Charlie Brown off a Hallmark card?
I live across the street from an Office Depot, which is awfully handy when you discover that you’re out of printer paper or need a new office chair. So I’m there a lot.
Am I the only animation fan who thinks of Natasha, Rocky, Nell, and Granny when I glance at the dozens of Office Depot products which carry the chain’s private-label brand?
Good news: On the evening of October 19th, ASIFA-Hollywood is throwing a birthday party for June Foray in LA.
Better news: As it happens, I’ll be in town on business (covering the E For All Expo, produced by a sister company of PC World) on that day. Now I know what I’ll be doing that night.
Hope to see some of you there!