Copyright Craziness

Warner Bros. is accusing itself of pirating its own copyrights.  If this doesn't prove that modern copyright enforcement is hopelessly broken, I don't know what does.

Warner Bros hired Vobile to search the web for sites that violate Warner copyrights and to send notices to Google to prevent the sites from being listed in searches.  The only problem is that Vobile listed the following sites as pirates:

http://www.warnerbros.com/dark-knight
http://www.warnerbros.com/matrix
http://www.warnerbros.com/lucky-one

I hope that Vobile will become even more aggressive, listing every Warner site so that eventually Warner Bros. is completely invisible to search engines.  At that point, maybe somebody will realize that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and its take down notices are not workable and that some sort of reasonable balance between copyright owners and the public has to be established.

Mini History Lesson

Profiles in History is having an auction entitled Icons of Animation on December 17. While the majority of items are out of my price range (maybe all of them actually), you can download a catalog of the auction for free.

Even if you're not in the market to buy, the catalog is a mini history lesson by itself. It contains art from Disney, MGM, Warner Bros, Fleischer and Hanna Barbera. There is work by Bill Tytla, Fred Moore, Carl Barks, Bob Clampett, Virgil Ross, Irv Wyner, Mary Blair, Preston Blair, Gustav Tenggren, Charles Schulz, etc. There are worse ways to spend time than by paging through the download and admiring so much beautiful stuff.

(link via Disney History)

Warner Bros. Animated Coming Attractions

In addition to voicing the Loony Tunes characters for animated cartoons, Mel Blanc also voiced them on records for children. Warner Bros. has now created new cgi animation to go with one of those records.

I previously mentioned Sam Register's address to Mipcom Jr, a TV market in Europe. Above is the video of that address and at 27:03, you can see a clip of the Daffy Duck animation done to the Mel Blanc record. You can also see a clip of Thundercats at 19:33 and the cgi Green Lantern at 23:39.

A Clay Animated Batman?

Those of you interested in what's happening with the Looney Tunes characters, Thundercats and the animated version of Green Lantern should read coverage of Sam Register's keynote speech to MIP Jr, a European TV market for children's programming.

One of the revelations in the article is that Warner Bros. is teaming up with Aardman Animation to make clay animated Batman shorts. There's also a cgi Batman series coming in 2013.

Jaime Weinman on The Looney Tunes Show

Jaime Weinman reflects on the latest updating of Bugs and Daffy, with quotes from Amid Amidi, Michael Barrier and yours truly.

Jones and Freleng Interviewed in 1980

Chuck Jones (top) and Friz Freleng. That's a Blackwing pencil in Jones' hands and he spends the interview playing with it. I don't know where the Jones interview was shot, but Freleng's is in his office at DePatie Freleng. I met Freleng there in 1978.

For years, Elwy Yost hosted a show called Saturday Night at the Movies on TV Ontario. He would run classic films and TVO would send him to Hollywood once a year to film interviews that related to the films he scheduled. In 1980, he interviewed Chuck Jones and Friz Freleng.

Elwy was very much a fan, and not a particularly informed one. His questions were often naive and his reactions were overly enthusiastic. However, he did speak to a great many important Hollywood figures and was genuinely interested in their careers.

I have these interviews on VHS somewhere and remember being disappointed by how superficial they were. If I recall correctly, you could see Freleng's patience getting a little thin at times. However, how many on camera interviews are there with Freleng? Jones certainly received a lot of coverage in those days and had his stories down pat, but it's still nice to see and hear him again.

Michael Barrier has recently printed an interview with Warner Bros. director Robert McKimson from 1971. That's essential reading and frankly way better than Yost's interviews. If you hunger for more Warner directors looking back, though, you can watch Yost's interviews with Jones and Freleng here.

A Perfect Snafu

Steve Stanchfield, proprietor of Thunderbean Animation, is already held in the highest regard for his historical animation DVD releases. Stanchfield works on a shoestring, yet the quality of the prints he uses, the commentaries and extras he includes, rival DVDs from multinational corporations. The simple fact is that he cares more for the contents of his DVDs than they do.

Steve has outdone himself with his latest release, the Private Snafu Golden Classics. These cartoon shorts were made for the American military during World War II and were humorous tales of the many ways a soldier could screw up, risking his own life and the lives of others.

What makes this release so special is that Steve has located the original 35mm negatives to use as his video masters and these cartoons, which represent the Warner Bros. studio at the height of its skills, have never looked better. Cartoons directed by Chuck Jones, Bob Clampett, Frank Tashlin and Friz Freleng, with animation by Ken Harris, Bob Cannon, Bob McKimson, Rod Scribner, Art Davis, Izzy Ellis, Virgil Ross, and Gerry Chiniquy, look as good as the cartoons restored by Warner Bros. The stills included here are from the DVD.



Besides great looking films full of wonderful gags and animation, Steve has recruited John Kricfalusi, Eric Goldberg, Jerry Beck, Mike Kazaleh and yours truly to provide audio commentaries. In addition, there are storyboard panels, magazine covers of Snafu by Ray Harryhausen(!) and a maquette of Snafu from the collection of Tony Eastman.

Whether you're interested in animation history, Warner Bros, great animation or you just want to laugh -- because these cartoons were for soldiers, they're a lot more risque than any Looney Tune -- you will find this collection highly satisfying.

Chuck Jones Reminder

This Tuesday, March 24, Turner Classic Movies will be running four and a half hours saluting the work of animation director Chuck Jones. The complete schedule is here.

Highlights include the TV premiere of the documentary Chuck Jones: Memories of Childhood, as well as such noted cartoons as What's Opera Doc?, Duck Amuck, One Froggy Evening. The evening will also include early works, such as Jones directorial debut The Night Watchman, as well as Prest-O Change-O and Elmer's Candid Camera, two early steps in the evolution of Bugs Bunny. TCM will also screen The Phantom Tollbooth, Jones' feature, based on the book by Norton Juster, made for MGM.

The entire program will be repeated twice during the evening, followed by 1001 Arabian Nights, a UPA feature starring Mr. Magoo and directed by veteran Disney director Jack Kinney.

The Last Hurrah

A rather startling layout from Chuck Jones' Bear Feat. The trees are an animated pan, adding even more interest to the shot.

The latest, and last, Looney Tunes Golden Collection has been released. It's the sixth volume in a series that has delivered over 300 restored Warner Bros. cartoons as well as behind the scenes documentaries and commentaries. This edition contains two live action films of the staff made for Christmas parties in 1939 and 1940, several Captain and the Kids cartoons directed by Friz Freleng at MGM, two TV specials, a documentary on Mel Blanc, a generous selection of early black and white cartoons as well as propaganda cartoons made during World War II. All this in addition to a generous helping of the expected Warner Bros. cartoons.

While Warner Bros. will undoubtedly continue to release cartoons on DVD, this may be the last time we see such elaborate extras and relatively obscure cartoons. My guess (and fear) is that we'll be inundated with no-frills sets devoted to the most famous Warner characters, leaving the lesser-known cartoons to languish in obscurity.

There is much to celebrate in this set. While many have expressed disappointment that a whole disk has been devoted to early Bosko and Buddy cartoons, I'm thrilled to have them (though happier about the Boskos than the Buddys). The early Harman-Ising cartoons run on adrenaline. The enthusiasm that created these cartoons, and the speed and anything goes qualities on screen, are a reminder of how exhilarating animation can be even when it lacks polish. There's more animation in a single Harman-Ising cartoon than there is in a whole season of Family Guy. It's ironic to me that a culture that is obsessed with sports and watches reality shows like Dancing with the Stars somehow thinks that motion is an unnecessary frill in animated cartoons. When did animation become a synonym for stasis?

The youthful energy that propels the Harman-Ising cartoons sometimes resulted in great films. Bosko the Doughboy takes a perverse glee in the murder of cartoon characters. It's total war, stripped of politics or ideology. There's no reason for the chaos on the screen except for the pleasure of doing damage. This cartoon is a nihilist black comedy, fit to be run on the same bill as Dr. Strangelove.

Bosko the Doughboy

The two Christmas party films are live action equivalents of Looney Tunes. They show, without a doubt, that it was the sensibility of the entire staff that was responsible for the humour that ended up on screen. Martha Sigall and Jerry Beck provide commentary, and Sigall is one of the few people living capable of identifying so many of the crew, including the secretary and ink and paint women who normally remain anonymous. It's a real pleasure for me to see footage of animators such as Ken Harris and Bobe Cannon.

Ken Harris

Robert "Bobe" Cannon

Bob Clampett's Russian Rhapsody is both a political satire about the relationship between Hitler and Stalin and a catalogue of caricatures of the Schlesinger staff, identified in the commentary by animator Mark Kausler. You have to turn to South Park for anything similar today, and of course, the quality of the Warner Bros. art and animation is far superior.

All the directors are represented by excellent, though rare works. Besides Russian Rhapsody, Clampett's Horton Hatches the Egg is here, based on the book by Dr. Seuss. Chuck Jones cartoons include Rocket-bye Baby (a favorite of mine with lovely designs by Ernie Nordli), Chow Hound (a black comedy worthy of an E.C. horror comic) and Now Here This (Jones imitating the Zagreb studio). Freleng has Goo Goo Goliath in the UPA mode and Herr Meets Hare, written by Michael Maltese and an obvious precursor to Jones' later What's Opera, Doc? Bob McKimson not only has mainstream work of his like Crowing Pains in this collection, but also two more experimental films, The Hole Idea, which he animated himself, and Bartholomew Versus the Wheel, a modernistic fairy tale written by John Dunn. Tex Avery's Page Miss Glory is here in all its art deco splendor.

Page Miss Glory

There's more than 30 years of Warner Bros. cartoon history here, but even if you're not particularly interested in animation from a historical standpoint, these cartoons are a treasure chest of artistic riches. There's a wide variety of stories and design approaches. There's great animation by Rod Scribner, Bob McKimson, Manny Gould, Ken Harris, Bobe Cannon, Ben Washam, Art Davis, and Virgil Ross. These cartoons are a textbook on how music can accompany animation and how it can be used to propel animation forward. There is more to be learned from a set like this than from any book written about creating animation. And this set is also an inventory of all the animation techniques that the industry has abandoned or forgotten. Sadly, it may also be the last time the Warner Bros. cartoons are collected with this much love and respect. Enjoy the Looney Tunes Golden Collections because we may not see their like again.