Dan Meth's Blog

The newest Meth Minute Cartoon is my tribute to the strange animation of Eastern Europe. I’ve always been interested in all things Eastern Bloc, probably because my family lineage originates from Hungary, Belarus, Romania, etc. If we had never immigrated to America, I might be making cartoons like this:

When I had finished the animation and was looking for a background soundtrack, I knew it needed some E. European instrumentals to keep it authentic. The choice was obvious: My Hungarian-born grandfather Abraham Meth’s very own opera overture.

This past November, we flew to Arizona to see Grandpa’s opera (composed in the late 1950’s) performed by a professional orchestra. Although it’s the story of Moses and the Exodus, I had a feeling it’s instrumental overture would be perfect for my cartoon about anthropomorphic hands that spill coffee on each other!

The performance was recorded and the CD came to me in the mail hours before the cartoon needed to be edited and distributed all over the internet. A couple splices of the music with the cartoon and it was appeared to be cosmically destined.

Collaborating with my 95 year-old grandfather on a film was awesome. He was a student of Bela Bartok and Zoltan Kodaly at the Budapest Acadamy of Music in the 1930’s and wrote music and drew all his life. Abraham Meth is where I inherited any of my musical and artistic traits from so I guess it’s all come full circle.

-Dan