The current economic crisis may be a bit tough to figure out. ABC News showed a great cartoon, created by Odd Todd, to illustrate the crisis in simple terms. You may remember Odd Todd from his very popular “Laid Off” cartoon.
While the economy has been better, and the stock market hasn’t had a great couple of days, at least an independent animator is making some money, and helping the rest of us put things in perspective at the same time.
This cut-out animation (in the style of JibJab) was made for the organization Birthright Israel. I think it’s worth watching just to see cartoon John McCain blow the shofar.
It was produced by Jewish Robot. Written and animated by William Levin. Voices by William Levin and Andrea Praet. Concept by Jesse Epstein.
Here’s an interesting article about William Levin (founder of Jewish Robot) and how he learned Flash during jury duty.
Tonight’s airing of “The Simpsons” will mark the start of it’s 20th season on the air. This ties the record held by “Gunsmoke”. The series is still going strong in the eyes of Emmy voters, picking up it’s 10th Emmy for Outstanding Animated Series.
To put the longetivity into perspective, I was in 8th grade when the series started after a run of hilarious short segments on “The Tracey Ullman Show”. I’ll be 33 this year. That’s an impressive run.
Watch America’s favorite yellow family when they start their new season tonight on Fox, 8 ET/PT.
Paul Newman has passed away after a long battle with cancer. While he was famous for such great films as “The Hustler”, “Cool Hand Luke”, and “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”, many animation fans will remember him as the voice of Doc Hudson from Disney/Pixar’s “Cars”.
Two new animated series for grown-ups premiere this Sunday, September 28: The Life and Times of Tim debuts on HBO at 11 PM and Superjail airs on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim at 11:45 .
Here are the official descriptions:
The Life and Times of Tim follows this everyday working guy from one scandalous crisis to the next….Tim is a young guy who always tries to do the right thing, but for some reason the world conspires against him. In many episodes, he’s trying to better himself, but the harder he tries, the worse things become.
Heavy animation and violence run rampant in Adult Swim’s newest original series Superjail! Created by Christy Karacas, Stephen Warbrick and Ben Gruber… Superjail is the most intense and complicated jail in the universe, residing on a remote island under the tedious eye of the mysterious and slightly delirious Warden.
Although I am rather peaceful by nature, I am really looking forward to Superjail. The team behind it are Supertalented; Christy and Stephen first collaborated on the hysterically over-the-top short Barfight. The series was produced at Augenblick Studios in Dumbo. Lots of tasty show artwork and info here.
The Life and Times of Tim seems to be going for an award for Animated Show With the Least Actual Animation Possible. It’s attempting a charmingly inept drawing style, but I don’t think it can compete with the best of the genre: Beavis and Butthead and Dr. Katz. You can check some sample videos on this page. A few red flags for me: the creator’s big claim to fame is that he was co-creator of Budweiser “Lizards” TV campaign; the show was developed for FOX, which didn’t pick it up. But he did make a funny short called Angry Unpaid Hooker. Since HBO hasn’t had an adult animated series since Spawn, I guess I will hope for best…
Both shows plan to be outrageous…my money (okay, eyeballs) are on Superjail!
If you watch either of both of these shows on Sunday, please come by this thread on Monday and post your reviews!
After the jump…Barfight and Angry Unpaid Hooker, for those who haven’t seen them. Both NSFW…especially the second one. [Read more…]
Guess what! It’s time to award September’s Cartoon of the Month prize! As a reminder, the Cartoon of the Month prize goes to the highest viewer-rated film. This means that you, our viewers, choose your favorite films. The winner of the Cartoon of the Month prize gets a $100 extra-special pack of Channel Frederator goodies.
This month, episodes 139, 140, 141 and 142 were eligible. The winner is A Little Sunshine, submitted by Jason Jones, from episode 139.
I’m so excited that A Little Sunshine is our winner. I have such a soft spot in my heart for happy little pencil animations, and this one was particularly cute. I took the time to ask Jason a few questions about his film. Check out his answers below! [Read more…]
There is no nudity in this video by The Brighton Port Authority. The censors have black barred all of the “naughty bits” and middle fingers. The people in the video are aware of this however, and are using the censor’s black bars to create simple animations.
This latest issue of Giant Robot Magazine (#55) has an article about Monkmus, who has drawn and animated music videos for the likes of Badly Drawn Boy (hug-fest “Year of the Rat” is seen above), Kid Koala, Death Cab for Cutie, and Los Campesinos. (The interview is not available online–you have to buy the magazine, and you should!)
His real name is Ken Wong. He lives in NYC and is represented by Hornet. You can peruse his Hornet bio page here. Wong went to RISD, animated for The PJs, in-betweened for Prince of Egypt and collaborated with J. Otto Seibold on a webtoon.
You have to see this to believe it. It is hard to explain without ruining it. If you are a YouTube user (and who isn’t), then you will want to watch this.
The marketing people at Nintendo knocked this one out of the park.
