via Animation Magazine
It’s official. The most-watched telecast in Cartoon Network history is a live-action movie. The 90-minute telepic premiered in prime-time on Wednesday night and drew in nearly 4 million viewers ages two and up, out-performing the network’s 2002 presentation of Dragon Ball Z, which previously held the record.

Citing Nielsen ratings data, Cartoon Network says Race Against Time was also the top telecast of the day on all television—both cable and broadcast—with boys 6-11 and boys 2-11. The show also led the Network to post its most-watched day ever in total day delivery with kids 6-11 (785,000), kids 2-11 (1,101,000), boys 6-11 (615,000) and boys 2-11 (840,000).

What does this mean for the animated series? What does it mean for all animated series? What does it mean for Cartoon Network? Only time will tell.

Maybe Tim Ingle was right? Maybe there IS a Cartoon Network conspiracy?
-Floyd Bishop

While, this Episode is titled Leftovers, it by no means explains the quality of Awesomeness that this episode is.
That said, load up on your 23rd Turkey Leftover Sandwich with us and watch the newest episode of Channel Frederator.

By the way, Parental, Mature and Explicit Warning with this Episode.
(animated penises and breasts shown in this one.)

— Georgette Plays a Goth, submitted by George Pfromm II
Let’s hear it for the Goths! Yay! Warning: this song will get stuck in your head. The visuals are so cool that they will burn into your retinas.

— Countdown, submitted by Louis Hudson
Short and sweet. Like Sesame Street… if Hunter S. Thompson made animated spots for them.

— First Time Out, submitted by Temple Dog
This would make a cool video game. It also makes me want to break out my old robotech toys and rent Robot Jox.

— Dominate Wax, submitted by Flux Animation Studio
Wow. This makes me blush. Parental, Mature and Explicit Warning with this short.
(animated pee-pees and boobies shown in this one.)

This Thursday on The Meth Minute 39, Stand-Up Comedy BUGS out.

I think I’m ready for another Turkey Sandwich.
- Jeaux Janovsky

Mailed out the week of November 26, 2007

Frederator Postcards Series 1, 1998
Frederator Postcards Series 2, 1999
Frederator Postcards Series 3, 2000
Frederator Postcards Series 4, 2003
Frederator Postcards Series 5, 2004-2005
Frederator Postcards Series 6, 2007-2008

http://www.youtube.com//watch?v=nCaz91u4-go
The Happy Pumpkin was part of Fred-O-Ween not too long ago. Today someone posted a video response to The Happy Pumpkin on YouTube. The baby gets scared, but it looks like the power of the Happy Pumpkin overcomes the scary skull in short order.

-Floyd Bishop

Oh Yeah! Cartoons creator Bill Riling dusts off his comic strip as a comic blog.

CHECK IT OUT!

It’s that time of year again…time for shameless self-promotion!

I’m listing some of my strange (non-MTK) art on Ebay, just to see what happens. Want to support women in art? Why not bid on a unique holiday gift, created with colored pencils, quiet desperation, gouache, and a considerable amount of black illustration board.

Anne

Click a card to see the whole set.

As I was getting together the post about The Hanna-Barbera Treasury, I realized I’d added some rarities from my collection to my personal website and never mentioned them here or at RAW.

My close colleagues from over the years can attest to my obsessions of collecting printed artifacts with pop culture illustrations or photographs, like posters, calendars or skateboards. So in the early 1980s, when Yazoo Records commissioned R. Crumb to come up with his “Heroes of Blues, Jazz, & Country” for collector card boxes I thought it would be cool to apply the concept to cartoons.

From Hanna-Barbera’s founding in 1956 until 1992 (the studio was effectively closed by it’s latest owner Warner Bros. in 1997) the studio had no sense of its place in popular culture. When Ted Turner bought the company in 1991 he and Scott Sassa installed me as the president and we started to blow the roof off the sucker. There were many of us working at the company who grew up with it’s radical and wonderful innovations and wanted to finally gather up the respect we thought the place was due.

I figured collector cards would be a quick way to gather up a lot of the wonderful characters in our library (while we were busily trying to come up with new ones) in a way that would show them off in the hippest, most contemporary way possible (short of Frank Kozik’s posters). They were never sold at retail; they were for our various business associates and staff. Actually, I had no idea how bloated the bureaucracy at the studio ahd become and that it would take over two years to get both these sets out.

It was particularly satisfying to me that we were able to go into the never publicaly seen before archives and pull presentation art, storyboard frames, and work sketches and include some in the adventure set.

In retrospect, my biggest disappointment with these boxes is that they happened before I gained full appreciation of the way the HB art had changed over the years. Starting in the mid 1960s the original, funky, post UPA, designs of the classic characters (like Huck, Yogi, The Flintstones, and the like) started to cute-ify and became rounder, less raw, and overall less distinctive. When I asked about it at first I was told there was a need to standardize the models because the original animation was all over the place. There are some who claimed the changes began with the ascent of Iwao Takamoto to design director, but, not being there at the time I don’t know; however, it’s clear to all that everything that was done happened with explicit consent from Joe (in particular) and Bill. Eventually, it became clear to me that the prevailing winds just disliked the original art and there was a 30 year effort to actually deny its existence. I wasn’t able to do all that much about it until near the end of my tenure when we hired Craig Kellman to vintage up The Flintstones; but that’ll be another day of scanning and posting.

By the way, I can’t for the life of me remember why I was convinced The Flintstones should be included in the “Adventure” cards. Maybe it something to do with the movie… Ah well, such are the paradoxes that make collectors happy.
……
Hanna-Barbera Trading Cards
Hollywood, 1993

Credits (from the box):

Special thanks to all those people who made The Hanna-Barbera Trading Cards possible!

CREATORS

Wiliam Hanna, Joseph Barbera

DESIGN
Roy Guzman, Bobbi Jankovich

WRITERS
David Burd, Marty Pekar

THE HANNA-BARBERA CREW

Models
Linda Moore
Dana Granger
Barbara Kruger
Donna Zeller
Marcus Nickerson
Bob Onorato
Pete Alvarado

Xerox
Star Wirth
Martin Corssley
Richard Wilson
Danny Conté

Ink & Paint
Alison Leopold
Suzette Darling
Joanne Plein
Christine Kingsland
Nelda Ridley
Lori Hanson
Lydia Swayne

Creative Services
Curt Covert
Lynn Domenico
Mary DeMarle
Shannon Dashiell
Jill Jones
Sue Doc
Betty Tropp

Research
Iwao Takamoto
JeffEckert
Hillary Dunchak
Glenn Leopold
Jerry Eisenberg

Marketing
Fred Seibert
Sally Prendergast
……
Hanna-Barbera Adventure Cards
Hollywood 1995
©1994, Hanna-Barbera Cartoons, Inc.
…..
Credits (from the box):

Special thanks to Fred Seibert, William Hanna, Joseph Barbera, and to all those people who made The Hanna-Barbera Adventure Cards possible!

DESIGN
Jill Jones
Ray Guzman
Bobbi Jankovich

WRITERS
David Burd
Marty Pekar

THE HANNA-BARBERA CREW

Models
Iwao Takamoto
Ric Estrada
Tony Sgroi
Ron Roesch
Barbara Krueger
Donna Zeller
Scott Awley

Xerox
Star Worth
Martin Crossley

Ink & Paint
Alison Darling
Suzette Darling
Joanne Plein
Chirstine Kingsland
Nelda Ridley
Lori Hanson
Lydia Swayne

Backgrounds
Bonnie Callahan
Jim Hickey
Ruben Chavez
Jerry Loveland
Craig Robertson
Richard Daskas

Art Services
Mary DeMarle
Shannon Dashiell
Liz Watson
Scott Miller
Betty Tropp

Creative Services
Sue Doc

Research
Jeff Eckert
Hillary Dunchak
Scott Awley
Tom Barreca
Lance Falk

Marketing
Sally Prendergast
Stephanie Sperber

Although I am/have no longer been blogging/interviewing for Channel Frederator, I interviewed a very talented guy and am posting the interview on my personal blog! Nathan Malone is his name. Interesting name to, sounds like an undercover cop name..hmm, didn’t ask him though. You know how undercover cops are…

Nathan is an incredible artist and animator. His blog is full of tons of really interesting and incredibly created work. I’m boggled he is not working in the industry. Hopefully this interview helps him get out there to employers who read these fred blogs! You can watch a short of his called Squaresville by clicking on that.
—————————

1) Tell everyone alittle about yourself.
I once was running down a hill late at night and nearly stepped on a live alligator. I enjoy spicy food. Really spicy food. Habanero Peppers bring me joy. I have a neurotic bald lovebird named Draco

2) Who are some of the artists that inspire you?
Tex Avery, Theodore Geisel, H.R. Geiger, Edward Gorey, Bob Clampett, Zdzislaw Beksinski, Mark Ryden, Dan Krall

3) What got you into animation?
When I was a baby, my mother and father recorded all sorts of cartoons onto VHS. Loony Toons, world war 2 disney cartoons, winnie the pooh. My mother had VHS of nearly every Disney feature, and my father was a big Loony Toons fan. My uncle was a fan of Ralph Bakshi.

So I’ve always loved these things.

4) Have you worked on your own short films?
Yes. Quite alot of them.

5) What are they about?
They range from “short terrible and offensive” to “long and respectable”Alot of my more serious ones are based off of things I’ve dreamt or scribbled out of boredom. Usually if I do anything “comedic” is based off an idea one of my friends have come up with, as they are all pretty unhinged. But in a good way!

5) How long did it take you to make them?
It used to be where I’d stay up all day and night for a couple of weeks working nearly nonstop on a short. Not I’m more laid back about it, trying to take my time to ensure the cartoon does not suck.

6) Your film Squaresville seems to be very abstract. What inspired that?
I think the original idea was to make a grid, and give each grid a face, and then have them talk to each other, even though they couldnt move or shift around the grid. And I started doodling ideas on paper and eventually came up with the concept of the actual cartoon. I have a friend named Waldemar whom him and I liked to insult each other via MSN voice chat, and he has a hilarious voice, so eventually I asked him to just record some nonsense, and that turned into Squaresville.

7) Many of your drawings are very interesting, like the one above. What were you aiming for in that drawing?
It’s actually a screenshot of my next cartoon. I’m trying to do as much traditional animation as possible in it.

As an artist/animator, what are your goals?
I’d just like to be able to have time to do what I enjoy as a career. When I was a kid, I’d dream of turning some of the ideas in my head into series or films, and while I have done a few, there are still a bunch I havent touched on yet and would like to do. As of yet, animation still remains but a hobby for me. Really, I just want to share some of the stories that are in my head, and I think I am slowly reaching that point where I’m ready to tell them.

9) I really like this drawing (above)! Is music a big part of your life? Do you feel inspired by music?
Oh definitely. I always try to make my cartoons move with some sort of catchy music or have musical cues. I am forever thankful to MentallyDetached who provides the music for most everything I do these days.

10) Can you tell us a little bit about Polypeptide?
Polypeptide is my next…thingie. It’s hard to describe. It’s not complex or anything, but I am trying to do some sort of plot to it that will make sense to people other than myself. I’m doing my best to make it as nicely animated as possible.

11) Do you have anything to add that our viewers may be interested in hearing?
Yes. The last 10 percent of any soda you drink is almost entirely saliva backwash. Have fun thinking about that.

12) Thanks for your time!
Thanks for your kidney. It will work well in my kidney-powered robot.

Feel free to head over to Nathan’s blog for more awesome works of art!

Best,
Steve

Add Letters has recently put up a Disneyland sign generator. If you’ve ever been to the park, you know how iconic this sign is. Make a custom message for your friends, room mates, or significant others.

Have some fun with it before it gets shut down!
-Floyd Bishop

Jerry Beck gets involved with all the books we want. The latest (and the second this month) is The Hanna-Barbera Treasury which is a compendium of the coolest collectibles from the coolest years of Hanna-Barbera Cartoons (basically from the 50s till the early 70s). There are thousands of neato illustrations, so it’ll be a fine fine holiday gift for your favorite freaks.

I’m storyboard art obsessed, so The Jetsons storyboard scene they reproduce 2/3 size is one I liked best.

You helped me write the introduction, but the publisher proved itself as fulfilling expectations when they cut my last two lines.

“If I was compiling a book like this to collect those feelings, Jerry Beck would be my first ten choices to do it. Here’s hoping his publisher will send over a case of them to share with family and friends.”

I bought my own at Amazon.

–Fred