Hey, Remember Treasure Planet Was A Movie People Paid To See Once

The other night the kids and I popped in Treasure Planet, Disney's 2002 animated futuristic adaption of the classic Robert Louis Stevenson novel Treasure Island. It's one of the last few Disney animated classics that my kids haven't seen yet, and I myself only saw it once upon it's theatrical release. At the time, it was a rare misstep for Disney Animation but having had another odd flop a few years earlier with Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001) it was to signal the end of Disney's decade long reign of producing classic animated fare year after year. Now, Treasure Planet sits on a growing list of titles like Chicken Little, Bolt and Home on the Range as lesser loved and lesser known Disney Animated Films.

So it is with some trepidation that I started up the movie. For me, Disney films are best when they are about princesses and magic and funny animals. They are at their least inviting when they are trying to do something outside of the "Disney Box." Treasure Planet is not a bad film but it's one main flaw runs throughout the entire film. The character design of almost the entire cast is unpleasant and perhaps uninspired.

A dog/man scientist, a cat/person captain, a rock thing is a suit, a lobster, a spider...none of these really played for laughs. The human characters are all bland, and the Long John Silver character is supposed to be half machine half something else...I'm not sure what.

The story is tight, the action is good, there's plenty of humor...although a Star Wars reject character that only speaks through rear-end noises seems a little low brow by Disney standards. I just can't get by how ugly and unappealing the characters look.

Two characters stand out as having a traditional Disney look; a little floating shape shifting blob called Morph and a crazy robot named B.E.N who is voiced by Martin Short. These are the only two characters that could even support any merchandise from this movie. And that's kind of the strange thing about this movie, because even though it's only 12 years old - I don't think the suits at Disney would even finance a movie nowadays that wasn't chockfull of characters that would easily translate into plush toys, action figures, T shirts or the 100 Million other things they need to make a movie a real cash cow nowadays.

In the end, Treasure Planet is not as bad as it's legacy would lead you to believe. It's based on a time tested story retold by master storytellers who chose to step a little too far out of the magical world of Disney for their visual inspiration.

#EverySimpsonsEver Marathon (The First Half)

People always talk about how The Simpsons isn't as good as it used to be. What they are basically saying is, "I don't watch The Simpsons anymore. It's been on for too long. I've lost interest. Hey, let's watch videos of people dumping buckets of ice water on their head!" The Simpsons has been consistently one of the most funniest, and at times THE funniest, show on television for the past 25 years. Sure, they have had some off episodes that weren't as funny as others. But nowhere else on the tube will you find the rich, biting satire on American culture that the folks in Springfield have been providing season after season.

The Simpsons became a series in 1990. I was a junior in high school at the time. I have been watching The Simpsons for more than half my life! It's unimaginable to have a world without The Simpsons. Hopefully the show will be around for a long time.

Speaking of long times, cable network FXX (yes, that's a real station) is running every episode of The Simpsons starting Thursday, August 21 (my birthday) and running for 12 days until they run every single one of the 564 episodes and the feature film...in order, non-stop. That's pure television joy right there. I'm not in the position in life to lay around on the sofa for a day and watch non-stop, but here's some of the highlights from the schedule - so set your DVRs accordingly!

The #EverySimpsonsEver marathon kicks off this Thursday at 10:00am with the 1989 Christmas special "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire" and continues to run all of season one until 4:30pm EST.

Season 2:
8/21 5:30pm - Treehouse of Terror
8/21 7:30pm - Bart Vs. Thanksgiving
8/21 8:00pm - Bart The Daredevil
8/21 9:00pm - Bart Gets Hit By A Car

Season 3:
8/22 8:00am - Flaming Moe's

Season 4:
8/22 3:30pm - Kamp Krusty
8/22 6:00pm - Itchy & Scratchy: The Movie"
8/22 9:00pm - Marge Vs. The Monorail
8/23 12:00am - So It's Come To This: A Simpsons Clip Show

Season 5:
8/23 2:30am - Homer's Barbershop Quartet
8/23 4:30am - Treehouse of Horror IV
8/23 9:00am - Lisa Vs. Malibu Stacy

Season 6:
8/23 3:00pm - Itchy & Scratchy Land
8/23 9:00pm - Bart vs. Australia
8/23 11:00pm - Two Dozen and One Grayhounds
8/24 1:30am - Who Shot Mr. Burns? Pt. 1

Season 7:
8/24 2:00am - Who Shot Mr. Burns? Pt. 2
8/24 3:30am - Bart Sells His Soul
8/24 6:30am - The Simpsons 138th Episode Spectacular
8/24 12:00pm - 22 Short Films About Spingfield

Season 8:
8/24 8:30pm - Simpsoncalifragilisticexpiala(Annoyed Grunt)cious"
8/24 9:00pm - The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show
8/25 2:00am - The Simpsons Spin-Off Showcase (perhaps my favorite episode)

Season 9:
8/25 3:00am - The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson
8/25 7:30am - Miracle on Evergreen Terrace

Season 10:
8/25 5:30pm - When You Dish Upon A Star

Season 12:
8/26 7:00pm - The Worst Episode Ever
8/27 12:00am - Simpsons Tall Tales

Ok, it goes on for days. You get it...this should be a good start!

Dial S For Spinach

Here's a nifty TV ad from 1980 featuring Popeye, voiced by Jack Mercer who did Popeye from 1935 until his death in 1984. At one time he was even married to the girl who provided Olive Oil's voice.

2013 Oscar Nominated Shorts - Animation: Parent's Guide

The Oscar Nominated Shorts Programs are a rare opportunity to see some of the short form films nominated for Academy Awards on the big screen. Last year I was really excited to take my kids to see the Animated selections but I couldn't find a single helpful resource online providing information on content since the packages are unrated. So hopefully, this post will reach at least one parent in a similar situation. I took a chance again this year and took my kids to the 2013 program and it really is a delight for the whole family.

The show this year consists of 8 shorts and some host segments. Seven of the cartoons are dialogue free - which makes the host segments a nice filler of sound in an otherwise quite theater. There is no bad language in any of the shorts, one of the hosts says hell or damn in an off-cuff remark. There are no gory or violent images in any of the shorts either.

Two of the films contain brief/tasteful nudity. Of course, it's cartoon nudity and it's not graphic or sexual in any way. The second film on the lineup, Adam & Dog, features Adam & Eve of Bible fame. Adam is seen nude throughout most of the picture. He's drawn in a cartoony style and even though he is seen from the front quite a bit, his man parts are only vaguely drawn. It looks more like he's wearing long underwear. Eve is seen nude in one scene, from a slight distance. She is sitting down so you only see her top half, the caricature reminded me of how a girl is drawn in one of those silly Playboy magazine comics. If you explain to your kids going in, that the man and woman are Adam & Eve none of it is shocking, inappropriate, or profane. Since the cartoon has no dialogue it's a little hard for kids to pick up that it's supposed to be Adam & Eve.

Dripped is the seventh film in the collection. The short centers on an art thief who eats the paintings he steals and takes on characteristics of the paintings. At one point he eats a painting of angels, at which point he spouts wings. His clothes shed off, with a very brief glimpse of his cartoon pee-pee and cartoon behind. It's super quick and not graphic at all.

In the end, the 2013 Oscar Nominated Animated Shorts is really a fun treat for kids. The two films that bookend the program are the most kid appealing: Maggie Simpson in The Longest Daycare and The Graffalo's Child. Also featured is Paperman which was seen by many before Wreck-It Ralph this past holiday season. Besides The Simpsons short, which is really funny and really sweet, My 7 year old enjoyed Adam & Dog the most. He's a big sucker for dog stories. My 9 year old singled out Fresh Guacamole as his favorite - a stop motion film using everyday items to represent food.

It's a fun night out at the movies and a way to introduce your kids to other types on animation besides Ice Age and Spongebob.

My Week In Movies - Oh, Anna Faris

What's Your Number? (2011) Anna Faris takes center stage in this romantic comedy about a young lady attempting to revisit all of her 20 past sexual partners in the hopes of finding Mr. Right among them. What has to be one of the stupidest set-ups for a movie ever, just rolls completely out of control downhill the further the movie goes on. As always in a romcom, it's pretty darn obvious who's going to end up together fairly early on in the film...especially when the first two names in the credits are a male and a female. This lame brain flick attempts to trick us the whole way along about who's Faris is going to end up with. By the time she meets up with ex-sex partner #5, this movie is cruising on cruise control like I've seen no other romantic comedy before it. It's downright painful to watch the predictable plot points come one after the other. Anna Faris is funny, very funny. But as I've said before, when you let a lame plot take over the movie - it's not usually good news.

The Stupids (1996) I was excited to see this Tom Arnold vehicle appear on Netflix Instant. This was just about the end of Arnold's brief "name above the credits" phase of his career. I saw this in the theatre way back and enjoyed it, and I had a feeling my kids would get a kick out of it. They did. As you can guess, any movie where humans have cartoon pets is a-ok in my book. The story involves The Stupids, who are very stupid, thinking they are wrapped up in some plot to overtake the world. They aren't but in the process end up actually foiling a plan to take over the world. Bob Keeshan, who played Captain Kangaroo on TV, appears in his only film credit as does legendary director Robert Wise. It's neat to see both of them having fun in a picture and it's fun to watch this good natured silly movie with your kids.

License To Drive (1988) Another recent addition to Netflix Instant is this teen semi-classic from the 80's. I used to love this movie, and recall watching it several times in my youth. I'm afraid it's one I'm not going to have to take off my list of fondly remembered movies. It was pretty stale and boring this revisit. The whole "sneak out of the house for ultimate date and everything in the world goes wrong" plot has been done so many times, this one just doesn't have enough steam to keep my interested. There are some decent performances by the Corey's (I can't believe I just said that) and a very young and beautiful Heather Graham but otherwise, pretty lame.

The Oscar Nominated Short Films 2012 - Animation (2012) I wrote about this collection now showing in theatres the other day. The package we saw featured 8 shorts, 4 of this year's nominated animated shorts and 4 other critically acclaimed shorts from years past. The best one of this year's nominees is probably "The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore." which packs the look and feel of a feature length film into about 15 minutes. My favorite, though, had to be "A Morning Stroll" which not only utilizes several different styles of animation, it also made a statement about the attention span of people today. The one short nominated for the Oscar this year that is not included is "La Luna" supposedly a masterpiece from Pixar. I'm not sure why it was not on the bill where I saw the show, as reviews for this package universally include it. I couldn't help feel a little let down that I didn't get to see this new Pixar short, but over all the 8 cartoons are a fun night at the movies.

Heavy Petting (1989) Not as lewd as it sounds, this is a brief 75 minutes of clips from old sex education films interspersed with interviews from various famous and not so famous people about the sexual morals and expectations of the 1950's. I'm always down for a good retro trip down Memory Lane (even if they're not my memories) and this is a fun, breezy documentary that is always fun around Valentine's Day.

Skylight by David Bass

This is a great little animated short that I caught the other night along with the Oscar Nominated shorts, If you've got 4 1/2 minutes take a look. It's very funny.

2012 Oscar Nominated Shorts - Animation: A Quick Parent's Guide

Just wanted to do a quick post regarding the package of animated shorts that is playing in theaters this week. For years I've wanted to see the annual collection of Oscar worthy toons and take my kids to expose them to different styles of animation. And year after year, I can never find any information regarding the content of the short films. Just because they are cartoons doesn't mean they aren't chock full of sex, violence and profanity. I've stayed away from the toon feat in the past but this year I made a somewhat more aggressive attempt to find out if the Oscar package was child friendly.

The studio was nice enough to quickly answer my query on Facebook and said it was "family friendly and full of laughs". So I took the kids last night and found the proceedings to be the equivalent of a PG rating.

There's actually very little dialogue in the 8 shorts featured and besides one use of "hell" there is no objectionable language. What you will find is an old man flipping the middle finger, another guy mooning the old man - pressing his butt cheeks up against a car window, and a cute fish getting his head chopped off. There is a startling scene where a zombie jumps out at the camera and a brief chase leads to a small bloodbath. My 6 year old was very off put by the zombie and spent the rest of the night worrying that there would be more scary parts.

But in the end, the kids and I greatly enjoyed the eight films. Only one of them is very dry and drags on a bit. The rest are a mix of charming, funny and thought provoking.

edTunes - When We're Human

My Week In Movies - Not Too Smurfy

The Smurfs 3-D (2011) The Smurfs movie looks pretty bad from the trailers. It's not actually as bad as it appears...but it's pretty darn close. The main problem with this movie is that the Smurf franchise deserves so much better than this. The movie starts off wonderfully in the Smurf village. Seeing the Smurfs in their town o' mushrooms with all the detail CGI provides over Saturday morning animation is really neat. Unfortunately, the Smurfs get sucked out of their village in the first 10 minutes of the film and by means of some magic portal, end up in the mysterious village of New York. Here the Smurfs meet Doogie Howser and the pretty girl from Glee and then it's all pretty much jokes and situations recycled from Alvin & The Chipmunks and numerous other recent kiddie movies. The "realistic" design of the Smurfs grows on you and works in the film. There are some funny and cute moments but mostly the entire production is bogged down by the sad fact that this was the best Hollywood could come up with for beloved characters that are 30 years old in this country...50 years in other parts of the world. Hank Azaria does a great job as Gargamel, capturing the voice from the cartoon down to a tee and he adds his own bit of silly humor to the role. The great Johnathan Winters provides the voice of Papa Smurf and Katy Perry adds a bubbly personality to Smurfette. While there are a handful of notable actors lending their voices to other Smurfs, the majority of the movie only centers on six Smurfs leaving the rest of the village to appear only briefly in the beginning and the end. It was neat seeing the Smurfs exist in actual three dimensions but the film fails at doing anything at all with the 3-D technology. Again, overall not a bad film but certainly a disappointment as a Smurfs Summer Blockbuster.


How To Eat Fried Worms (2006) This feels like it was made simply to try and make a few bucks off the popularity of kids books as movies....i.e. Harry Potter. Not much happens in this tale of a new kid at school who crosses paths with the school bully. They end up making a bet that the new boy will eat 10 worms and then it's just pretty much the kids coming up with gross ways to cook the worms. Silly, innocent fun - my kids liked it and that's who I rented it for!

Yogi Bear (2010) Third time seeing this flick and I gotta say I enjoy it more and more each time! This is probably the best cartoon-to-live action film that they've been able to make. It's faithful to the source material and they avoided adding in too much cynical & crude humor.

The Puppetoon Movie (1987) George Pal was the innovator of a film stop motion animation process known as Puppetoons, where he made cartoon shorts using materials other pencil and paper. The effect was the forerunner to films like Rudolph and The Nightmare Before Christmas. This movie is supposed to be a tribute to Mr. Pal but after a brief introduction scene featuring Gumby & Pokey the film just settles in for over an hour of old cartoons. Without any historical context or background information the toons start to run together and become rather bland. These sort of things work in brief 7 to 8 minute spots but a feature length presentation of them is hard to sail through.

July Movie Count: 16
Best New Movie: Winnie The Pooh
Best Rewatch: The Jungle Book
Worst Movie: The Puppetoon Movie
2011 Movie Count: 118

My Week In Movies - Behold The Bear

Yogi Bear (2010) I enjoyed the "real world" antics of Yogi and Boo Boo even more the second time around. I think I was able to relax about if they were going to screw up this movie or not, and sit back and enjoy what I knew was an enjoyable flick. Yogi Bear isn't phenomenal, but it's a really well done family film adaptation of a beloved classic cartoon series. The movie manages to maintain being funny throughout and not interjecting potty humor or a single curse word. My only two complaints about the movie are that the interaction between the human actors and the CG bears doesn't look too convincing. It looks as if they decided to change the height of Yogi after the filming had taken place. Ranger Smith seems to over shoot looking directly at Yogi. In the film's defense, it appears that there was a conscious effort to keep human/bear shots to a minimum. My biggest complaint however, and there is no excuse for this...is the absence of the classic Yogi Bear theme song. It would have fit perfectly into the ending of the film, but for some reason it is nowhere to be found. Other than that, a really fun film that is good for kids and adults. Even my wife laughed twice before she fell asleep 14 minutes into it!


Rio (2011) I happily went and saw Rango and Hop but had to be talked into seeing this animated bird comedy. I ended up enjoying it way more than the other two animated flicks I had seen in theatres this year. Rio's story isn't all that fresh. A domesticated bird and a wild bird from the jungle end up captured together and must escape the bad guys. It plays as a buddy film and there are lots of great musical numbers sprinkled throughout. The humor is light and breezy and the visuals are impressive. There's a few too many characters but they are all given something fun to do. The bulldog character is probably the most unnecessary, but he's voiced by Tracy Morgan so you can't complain.

Country Strong (2010) I should mention first off that I came to watching this country music melodrama at the hands of my wife who very rarely shows interested in any particular movie, so when she said she wanted to see it, I was up for a viewing. We both agreed half way though it that it's pretty lame. This is basically a Lifetime Movie with a good cast. Gwyneth Paltrow plays a country singer just out of rehab. Tim McGraw is her manager/husband. I liked Leighton Meester as a younger star who is brought on tour to open for Gwyneth's character, although her character seemed to be an unnecessary (and ugly) slam at the likes of Miley Cyrus and Taylor Swift. Tim McGraw is a really good actor, I've liked him in everything I've seen him in - and he's really good here. He's just not given all that much to do. This is a pretty bad film with a few enjoyable musical sequences but they don't make the entire experience worthwhile.

Doctor Detroit (1983) My friend Kevin had been quoting this 80's comedy quite a bit lately. I'd never seen it. He thought I should, so I did. Dan Aykroyd is a nerdy college professor who ends up becoming the pimp for a group of high priced call girls. In order to stand up to the city's crime boss, Aykroyd creates the alter-ego Doctor Detroit - a whacked out old guy who speaks with a slur, wears neon yellow and green and dons a metal hand. The character is pretty crazy and all sorts of mishaps happen as Danny tries to juggle his double life as an uptight professor and the world's greatest pimp. Again, this is one of those films that if I had seen when I was younger I would probably love but seeing it for the first time almost 30 years after it was made - it was just so-so. Sorry, Kevin!

The Pigeon Finds A Hot Dog Preview

Here's a clip from the new animated adaptation of
The Pigeon Finds A Hot Dog by Mo Willems.



The cartoon is a short that is initially made available for classroom use only and will eventually find it's way to the retail market. The first book in the series, Don't Let the Pigeon Drive The Bus, also has a cartoon to go along with it and it was released on DVD (although I've never seen it in a store!) My kids have it and they love it. It's available on DVD.

My Week In Movies - March Comes In Like A Lizard

Rango (2011) An odd animated tale with Johnny Depp as a lizard who gets wrapped up in the troubles of a small western town. Rango ends up becoming the sheriff of Dirt, and helps the town folk restore their lost water supply. It's kind of a neat idea to do an animated western, and this movie does look neat but it's too odd and strange in the beginning to really get into. By the second half, things start to get rolling but 107 minutes the whole affair is a little too long to hold kids attentions. There are lots of jokes aimed at adults and as my son noted, most of the verbal humor went over the kids heads. If you enjoy animated features it's worth checking out as some point. Rated PG for violence and mild profanity.

The Other Guys (2010) What starts out as a pretty smart parody of the action genre, eventually just becomes the standard run of the mill police picture. Will Ferrell and Marky Mark are mismatched partners who stumble upon the biggest case of their careers. Michael Keaton shows up as the department's chief, and he's really good. It makes you wish Keaton was still headlining vehicles of his own. There's a bunch of other familiar faces that pop up along the way and it's nice to see Ferrell play a somewhat normal guy instead of an over-the-top SNL character which he's done effectively in the past but just a bit too often. Theatrically the film was rated PG-13, the DVD features both the theatrical cut and an unrated version. I watched the unrated version and didn't see anything that went beyond a PG-13. It's all the usual swearing, violence and sexual innuendo.

Grown Ups (2010) This Adam Sandler comedy from last summer has absolutely no plot. I don't just mean a flimsy excuse for a plot, I'm talking about no attempt at a story what-so-ever. But you know what, every movie doesn't need a story. This is just some good simple fun as five buddies get back together after 30 years to pay their last respects to their high school basketball coach. All the business with the coach is wrapped up in the first 15 minutes of the movie and the rest of the picture is just the great cast of Sandler, Kevin James, Chris Rock, Rob Schneider and David Spade just cracking on each other and having a good time. It's exactly the kind of time you'd love to spend with a handful of old buddies of yours. Rated PG-13 for dirty words and dirty jokes.

imps* (The Immoral Minority Picture Show) (1983/2009) Now, this is saying alot coming from me...but this has to be one of the worst movies I have ever seen. I was excited to dig up another sketch movie from the past but this one was a real stinker. The sense of humor in this thing is so lame, what passes for a joke wouldn't even make a 7 year old laugh. The title suggests that this movie is a take-off on the Moral Majority, with content supposedly so offensive it will offend everyone. It never really gets raunchy it also never really gets funny. There's a parade of familiar faces in it but none of them are given anything to do. The skits build and build to a punchline that never pays off...if there even is a punchline at the end of the skit. This flick is so terrible it was apparently completed in 1983 but NEVER saw the light of day until a DVD release in 2009. The world wasn't missing anything all those years. Rated R for language, attempted crude humor, sexual situations and nudity.

The Pom Pom Girls (1976) We spent last weekend at the beach and there happened to be a Cheerleader competition in town. The whole resort town was crawling with cheerleaders aged 4 to 18. In honor of our time with the cheerleaders I thought I'd catch up on a couple of my favorite cheerleader movies. I hadn't seen The Pom Pom Girls in a long time and it was fun to revisit it. This is one of those low budget, drive-in classics that the old USA Network used to run on weekend nights on USA Up All Night. This one was in heavy rotation and I saw it many times in my high school years. According to my internet research, this R rated high school flick was a big box office performer and was later reissued in a slightly trimmed PG version. My copy appears to be the PG version as it's not as steamy as the poster suggests. It also doesn't really have anything to do with cheerleading or the Pom Pom girls. It's about two dudes and three gals that just hang out during their last year of high school. They make-out in vans, they drink, they have food fights and they steal a fire engine in broad daylight...you know, typical high school stuff! It's actually a fairly innocent look at a time gone by when life was much more simpler. The PG rated version has some swearing and fairly heavy sexual situations but there is no nudity. From what I can tell, the R rated cut had a couple of locker room scenes with topless cheerleaders. Still fun in the watered down PG rated version.

You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger (2010) Woody Allen's latest film takes all the familiar characters, situations and film making techniques of all his other movies and gently mixes them up for a light but pleasant look at finding true love and dealing with relationships that have run their course. Woody's newest cliche' that he seems to be employing alot recently is a narrator who keeps the film popping along at a nice pace. Woody's not on screen in this one, but Anthony Hopkins does a nice job playing the "Woody" role. I'm not good enough a writer to try and sum up the events in this film. Rated R for language.

My Week In Movies - Roly Poly Fish Heads

Piranha (2010) Anyone who is interested in seeing this movie should not be disappointed. This 3-D adventure from last summer is wall-to-wall gore and nudity and it's all done in the name of fun. I'm not one for gory pictures, but Piranha is so much fun. It doesn't take itself seriously and it's hard to really buy into the over the top gore. One of my favorite actresses, Elizabeth Shue, is on hand as the local police officer who must save her Spring Break crazy town from the tiny little jaws of prehistoric mutant fish. Trust me, you haven't seen this much blood and boobies since a double feature at an 8th grade sleepover. This movie is filled with reasons for it's R rating: strong language, graphic nudity, sexual situations, gory horror violence, and recreational drug use.

Ernest Goes To Camp (1987) My kids and I have been watching the Ernest TV series which I finally picked up on DVD and they are loving it. They wanted to see more of ol' Ernie Baby so we popped in the first of Ernest's nine feature length films. It's a great summer movie that really captures the spirit of summer camp and it serves as a great vehicle for the Ernest character. Ernest is a handyman at a camp where he dreams of one day being a full fledged counselor. His dreams finally come true when he's put in charge of a group of misfit kids from a local detention center. There's a food fight, Ernest gets hit with alot of different things and tons of bits from Ernest's famous commercials are worked into the story. Before it's all over, the camp goes head to head with an evil land developer. I've said it before and I'll say it again: I love evil land developers! As with all the Ernest movies, it's rated PG - this time for some violence. Good fun for the whole family.

Lady and the Tramp (1955) There's not much to say about this Disney classic except that it's easily in the top ten of Disney's greatest animated achievements. My kids love dogs and dog movies so it really was a crime that they hadn't seen this one yet. They loved it! It's rated G, although there is some discussion of canine promiscuity.

February Movie Count: 14
Best New Viewing: Splendor in the Grass
Best Rewatch: Sesame Street Presents: Follow That Bird
Worst Movie: The Filthiest Show in Town
2011 Movie Count: 34

Goofy For Disney Cruise Line

This is a piece of animation done to promote a new feature with the Disney Cruise Line check in process. It was done in the style of Goofy's "How To" cartoons from the 40's & 50's. Very brief, but Big Fun!

Old School Frosty

Here's a nifty little video featuring a 1953 animated short of Frosty The Snowman. This was made 12 years before the popular TV special that we all enjoy today. The cartoon was produced by the UPA studios. After the short, this video has some retro images of Frosty from books and merchandise from the early days up through his appearance on television.

Christmas Comes But Once A Year

Here's a pretty neat little cartoon I like called Christmas Comes But Once A Year. It was released on this date back in 1936 from the Fleischer Studios. Fleischer was responsible for the original Popeye cartoons, as well as the old Superman shorts and Betty Boop. In fact, the star of this cartoon - Professor Grampy - is from the cast of the Betty Boop shorts. The cool effect used in the beginning of this film with the house and again at the end with the Christmas tree was achieved by building actual cartoon sets and filming them traditionally. The effect doesn't stand out from the rest of the picture nearly as much as today's computer animation tucked inside hand drawn work.

Super Fun Superhero CD

I'm not really big into superheroes but I do appreciate their place in pop culture. After all, superheroes are essentially cartoon characters that fight instead of throw pies and run into walls. One thing I am a fan of though are TV theme songs! So I gotta tell ya, I enjoyed the heck out of the new CD The Music of DC Comics: 75th Anniversary Collection.

This is an awesome collection of music from various television shows and motion picture outings for several of DC Comic's top stars. It's not just the amount of superheroes that are represented here that makes this CD impressive. It's the span of time the tracks cover. The first track on the CD is the theme music to the old Max Fleisher Superman cartoon shorts of the 1940's. The music takes us all the way up to the jazzy retro theme song for Batman: The Brave and the Bold, a newer series currently in it's second season on Cartoon Network.

DC's two biggest stars have always been Supes and the Bat, and they are represented here the most. The Superman tracks include the John Williams theme to the 70's/80's film franchise, themes to the Filmation cartoons of Superman and Superboy, and the music to the prime time entries Lois & Clark and Smallville. The Caped Crusader tunes include the opening to the 1943 serial The Batman, various cartoon shows along the years and the themes to both Tim Burton and Chris Nolan's incarnations of Batman. One of the inclusions that sold me on picking up this CD is the groovy theme to the 1960's Adam West Batman show - which is really where I got my first taste of superheroes.

Another great show from my childhood was The SuperFriends. There have been several reboots of the concept over the years. Six different series are represented on this disc but none greater than Hoyt Curtan's theme to The All-New Super Friends Hour from 1977. That show was the bomb!

There's still 10 more tracks after that! How great is a CD with the theme to The Plastic Man Comedy Adventure Show and Swamp Thing!? And where's Wonder Woman you ask...this compilation ends with not only the theme to the recent Wonder Woman animated film but also the classic Linda Carter television series from the 70's. Well played, DC...well played!

An eclectic mix of all sorts of shows and films that the DC Universe has populated over the last 75 years. A great and unique listen!

Let The Halloween Cartoons Begin

Halloween is just a few weeks away and the kids and I have been in the mood to kick off the holiday special viewing season. So, this past weekend we decided to relax after a day of pumpkin picking and hay rides with the annual ritual of "Pulling Out The Halloween Videos."

We started things off with a screening of Bugs Bunny's Howl-oween Special, a good ol' fashioned CBS primetime offering from 1978. As with the majority of the Looney Tunes specials, this show mixes a handful of classic animated shorts with some newer low-grade animation to form one continuous half hour cartoon. Even as a young kid, the newer bits of the cartoon stuck out like a sore thumb in the middle of the original masterpieces. Sometimes the new animation was just used to link together three or four complete cartoons, other times (such as the case with Howl-oween) the newer bits are sprinkled in and out the old cartoons to try and make it seem like one whole story. When the latter approach was used, the shows feel disconnected and choppy. Animation style, character design and voices change every couple of minutes and it makes viewing a bit difficult. It's a wonder why they didn't just collect a handful of Halloween themed shorts and air them in their entirty.

I was never really a huge fan of these chop shop Warner Bros. specials, but I watched them every time they were on because that's how we rolled back in the old days before VCRs and 24 hour cartoon channels. In more recent years, I kinda had a nostalgic yearning for some of these specials and have sought some out on video and DVD. Bugs Bunny's Howl-oween Special makes it's debut on DVD this year, having not been released since a 1994 VHS cassette. The special itself features clips and scenes from nine vintage shorts including Broom-Stick Bunny (1956), Hyde and Hare (1955) and Transylvania6-5000 (1954). One of my all-time favorite Looney Tunes shorts, Scaredy Cat from 1948, is also used luckily without too much interruption.

All in all, even though the show alters the original state of the cartoons the special is entertaining and promotes enough Halloween spirit to get everyone in the mood. The new DVD also features the complete short Hair-Raising Hare from 1946. This is the one where Bugs Bunny meets the giant orange-haired monster and does his nails. Good stuff and actually worth the price of admission alone!

In the mood for more classic animated shorts, we then popped in Tom & Jerry: Hijinks and Shrieks. I picked up this DVD at a yard sale a couple of years ago (they had it priced at $3 but I talked `em down to $2...suckers!) but we had never gotten around to watching it. This isn't an old TV special, but rather a collection of 7 top-shelf Tom & Jerry shorts from 1952 to 1965. The bad news is that only two of these shorts have anything at all to do with Halloween, the good news is that they are all pretty good cartoons. The amazing thing is that after 60+ years, these cartoons are still laugh out-loud funny to kids and grown ups alike! And quite frankly, there is no greater sound than hearing your kids crackup to pieces laughing at silly things like animals running into walls and cats getting their tail chopped off!

The two Halloween themed shorts, 1956's The Flying Sorceress & The Haunted Mouse from 1965 are both filled with sufficient levels of spooky fun to carry the other 5 titles into making this a fun collection for the Halloween season. A couple of the shorts were produced in CinemaScope and of course are presented here in pan and scan. I think a DVD of just a handful of cartoons presented in their widescreen glory for new television sets would not only be an awesome addition to the WWoB DVD library, I think it would be a big seller as well!

Both Bugs Bunny's Howl-oween Special and Tom & Jerry: Hiijinks & Shrieks are available at Wal-Mart, Amazon and for rental from Netflix. Good stuff for your pre-Trick or Treat viewing!

Funny Little Bunnies

There's actually not a lot of Easter-themed material from the Walt Disney Studios early years. Walt Disney felt that Easter wasn't as marketable in other parts of the world so the resources were never put into backing many Easter cartoons. In fact, here's about the closest Disney ever came to an Easter cartoon - the 1934 Silly Symphony Funny Little Bunnies.

Happy Easter!

Mickey in Wonderland

From 1936...