Talk to the Snail

Congratulations to Nicole Mitchell. Her CalArts hand-drawn cartoon, “Zoologic”, is one of eight films nominated in the animation category in this year’s Student Academy Awards. Frederator knows the film real well; it won Grand Prize in the Nicktoons Network Animation Festival last year (that’s Nicole with NNAF host Hal Sparks above). Winners of the Student Academy Awards are announced at a ceremony in Beverly Hills on June 7. Nicole, we’re keeping our fingers crossed for you.

– Eric

My name suggestion of Wubbzy and the Pippettes didn’t fly.

– Eric

Watch the premiere of The Mighty B on Nickelodeon Saturday morning at 10:30 a.m. or else! I’ve seen a couple of episodes, and the best of the many compliments I can pay it is I think it’s funny just looking at the video, and I think it’s funny just listening to the audio. (But you should do both.)

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For you Angelenos out there, an animated verison of Felix Figueroa (aka Freddy Martin) and his Orchestra’s “Pico & Sepulveda” by SlushoSteve.

– Eric

A big congratulations to John Dilworth. His contribution to Random! Cartoons, “Garlic Boy”, is going to be screened at the Newport Beach Film Festival in Newport Beach, California. If you want to see the boy of garlic with his tonic that’s “good for what ails ya”, you need to go to the Shorts for Shorties screening at 12:30 p.m. on Saturday, 4/26.

Oh, and you may also want to attend An Evening of Disney Animation Rarities with Roy E. Disney and Don Hahn, part of the festival on Wednesday night, April 30. From the festival website:

“Join noted filmmakers and Academy Award nominees Roy E. Disney and Don Hahn as they present an unforgettable evening of rarely seen Disney animated shorts and experimental films. Roy and Don will screen a collection of short animated films that had limited theatrical presentations, many of which are not available for viewing on DVD.”

– Eric

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The fine folks over at Juxtapoz have a sneak peak of some upcoming Kooky Kollectables from Bob Boyle’s Wow! Wow! Wubbzy! They’ll be available in August at all the usual places where you buy your vinyl stacking character figures.

Hey. How’d they get those pictures?

– Eric

Random! - hey, Nick, when are you ever going to air them? - Cartoons alum Doug TenNapel is in the news again - in a good way. Turns out Paramount has bought the movie rights to Doug’s next graphic novel, Monster Zoo. With his Tommysaurus Rex and Creature Tech also headed for the big screen, it’ll only be a matter of time before Doug will be buying and selling all of us ten times over.

– Eric

Okay, so Mitchell and Webb are sending up the world of the author/editor, but you can just as easily imagine them in most any artist/executive relationship. Or… don’t.

– Eric

This Animation Magazine calendar I’ve got hanging on my wall says the Nickelodeon Animation Studio here in Burbank opened ten years ago today, March 4, 1998. I don’t know if that was the official opening or what, because folks were moving into the building weeks before that. In any event, Tracey, who not only runs the studio’s operations but is one of the very few folks who has been at NAS throughout the whole decade, was kind enough to lend me some pictures of the facility being built, incorporating an existing building, during the previous May. Here are a handful of 1997 shots, mixed in with a few taken just moments ago.

– Eric

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