The Golden Globe nominees for Best Animated Feature Film are Disney’s Bolt, DreamWorks Animation’s Kung-Fu Panda and Disney/Pixar’s WALL•E. Both Bolt and WALL•E have songs nominated for Best Original Song. “Down to Earth” from WALL•E features music by Peter Gabriel and Thomas Newman, with lyrics by Peter Gabriel, and “I thought I Lost You” from Bolt has music and lyrics by Miley Cyrus and Jeffrey Steele.
The animated documentary Waltz with Bashir from Israeli filmmaker Ari Folman is up for Best Foreign Language Film.
In 1952, the Tex Avery directed a short Rock-A-Bye Bear premiered. The short, written by Heck Allen and Rich Hogan featured a simple premise: Spike has a job running a house for a hibernating bear, who insists on quiet. Tex was strained by the amount of work, so he left MGM shortly after completing the piece (the film was actually completed in 1950, but not released until two years later due to the backlog of cartoon shorts). In Tex’s absence, his unit was directed by former Walter Lantz director, Dick Lundy.
Tex returned to MGM in 1951, where he took back his animation unit. He went on to direct eleven more cartoons. Most of these had a similar look to the UPA cartoons that were gaining popularity at the time. In March 1953, MGM closed down Tex’s unit, believing that 3D films that were quickly taking theaters by storm would end the [Read more…]
I would move Clayton from Tarzan up to the #1 spot from #4. I half expect to see him hanging from the Tarzan Treehouse (formerly the Swiss Family Robinson tree house) at Disneyland each time I go.
I also wouldn’t have listed Syndrome, and instead filled that spot with the witch/queen from Snow White. That was pretty terrifying. The storm is building, the lightning is crashing all around, and then the cliff edge crumbles, sending the witch down… then the rock falls after her. The scene ends with her two vultures smiling as they descend and the shot dissolves away. Very creepy stuff.
On this day in 1940, Walt Disney’s 3rd feature film, “Fantasia” premieres at New York’s Broadway Theater (formerly known as the Colony where Steamboat Willie debuted). The film introduces stereophonic sound to the motion picture via a special sound system dubbed “Fantasound”.
November 13th is also my birthday. I’m 33 today: 16 on the left, and 17 on the right.
This morning’s New York Times has an article about the Disney “lifestyle brand” which highlights couture clothing, chandeliers, and $1200 fountains pens–with many of the products totally devoid of Disney cartoon characters or even abstract Mickey ears. Dresses are inspired by the colors in Fantasia; pens are modeled after the “window architecture” in Alice in Wonderland.
As a fan of Mid-Century modern design, I do covet some pieces in the Walt Disney Signature Furniture Collection by Drexel, with names like “Storytellers Sofa” and “Scriptwriter Ottoman”. There’s a “Studio Martini Table” perhaps inspired by our hard-drinking animation heroes of the past. I’m not naming names.
After the jump, some Disney-inspired products not officially sanctioned. (Found among the endless listing on a certain crafty online marketplace site.) [Read more…]
In Disney’s 1929 Silly Symphony “The Skeleton Dance”, we see several skeletons dancing around in a graveyard. This cartoon was quite popular, and was the first cartoon to use non-post-sync sound.
The cartoon was so well received that ten years later, Mickey Mouse was trapped in a haunted house, playing music for a group of dancing skeletons. This cartoon was “Haunted House”. It reused many bits from “The Skeleton Dance”, many of which were the exact same drawings, frame for frame.
In production from 1951 until the end of 1958, this film set a record for the longest production schedule in the studio’s history. This record was later tied by “The Black Cauldron”. Featuring elaborate backgrounds and a much more angular character design, this film was initially no favorite of critics.
While the film seems to drag in some spots, it gives us perhaps one of the best villains in animation, Maleficant.
Maleficant is pure evil, from here color scheme, to her voice by Eleanor Audley (also the voice of Madame Leota in the Haunted Mansion), and animation by Marc Davis. In my opinion, the film is worth the purchase price just to see her in action in HD.
This Thursday (August 28th) is the last day to see the exhibit “Golden Legacy: Original Art from 65 Years of Golden Books” at the Children’s Museum of Manhattan. I was there last weekend I can confirm that there were adults attending sans kids. (Much of the artwork is hung close to the ground, so be prepared to get down on your knees to take in the details.)
As you may know, Golden Books illustrators included many Disney artists such as Gustav Tenggren and Mary Blair. I was particularly thrilled to see two original pieces by Mary Blair from I Can Fly.
(My one gripe is that the medium of the pieces is not indicated, and although advertised as a collection of “original art”, there seem to be some digital prints in the mix.)
Amazing fact: There have been two BILLION copies of Golden Books printed to date!
There is a piece on “Sleeping Beauty” over at the 
