Geddytoons Episode 1: The Big Bummer

I had the idea for this cartoon a couple of years ago, based on audio I found by accident on some fan site.


It has been pretty popular among Rush fans so far, so I will definitely be producing some additional "episodes"!


I am pretty happy with the cartoon, but, of course, the internet being what it is there was of course a bit of negative feedback. One guy on some message board said something like "what's so funny about people getting crushed?" Well, obviously there's nothing funny about that. What's funny to me is just Geddy's attempts to get the audience under control. I thought that went without saying but I did fear that was a sensitive issue with some people, given recent events.


Anyway, enjoy!

Mysterious Drop In Views...

I cannot explain it, but for some reason my Santa Claus Video has experienced a steep decline in views over the past week or so. It was doing pretty well for a while there... maybe I should invest more in advertising?

Or, I suppose I could just wait and see how it does next year. Thanks to all who checked it out, commented or "liked" it!


Happy New Year!


(Just in case... you can still buy the song on iTunes or Amazon!)

Do You Know Santa?

Ho ho ho! I just released a new original Christmas song, "Do You Know Santa?", and for your yuletide enjoyment created a full animated video. Check it out below:

Play it for the kids! I actually wrote this a while ago and recorded it last Christmas, and the concept goes back way longer. My friends and I rented a movie called "Silent Night, Deadly Night" about twelve years ago, and, as you can probably imagine, it wasn't exactly great cinema. If you watch Siskel & Ebert's review of it, that's about all you need to know. There was one line in it, however, that we just found hilarious and repeated to each other all these years. At some point, I figured it might make a pretty good tune.


But this song is just meant to be pure fun, and hopefully fits in nicely with all the traditional Christmas classics. I would really appreciate it if you would take a minute to watch the video, and leave some comments letting me know what you think.


You can buy the song on iTunes or Amazon, too!


Merry Christmas!

More On John K's Simpsons Intro

As I mentioned yesterday, this week's Simpsons featured a couch gag guest-animated by none other than animation legend John Kricfalusi himself. Today, Cartoon Brew posted an exclusive interview with John about the creation of the piece, along with a good number of sketches and production animatics.


http://www.cartoonbrew.com/tv/exclusive-john-k-talks-about-his-simpsons-opening.html

For me, it was great to see The Simpsons (the height of cartoon writing) paired with John K (the king of the visual side) join forces. Check out the Youtube video here starting at 0:49 (for some reason Homer's speech has been omitted, hopefully they will fix this soon).

John K. Does The Simpsons!

Today is my birthday, and when I got around to watching The Simpsons on DVR, I got one of the best presents imaginable: a couch gag created by John Kricfalusi himself!

This is about the greatest thing on The Simpsons in 15 years, if not ever. Judging by the style and animation, I guess this was a one-man job. John's style is all over this: the characters look absolutely insane, and there is so much going on it's just about impossible to catch it all- I kept rewinding it and must have watched it 20 times in a row. Homer hasn't been this funny in years. Great job, John! 


Hopefully a video will be online tomorrow; I'll link to it then.


http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2011/10/surprise.html

Roger Rabbit 2 CGI Test

The rumors have been going around recently that Roger Rabbit 2, the sequel one of my favorite movies of all time, is getting closer to actually moving ahead. At this point, the original is 22 years old- and Robert Zemeckis is threatening to use his awful-looking mo-cap technology to render the humans. Personally, I don't care how realistic it looks- it takes away from a lot of the charm of the original, which was about 1940's ink-and-paint interacting in the real flesh-and-blood world. It captured my 7-year-old imagination like no other film I have ever seen, and I don't think digital characters could ever have the same effect.

That being said, this here is a CGI test done in 1998, which just leaked on Cartoon Brew. 

It actually doesn't look as bad as I would have thought. Very fluid and rubbery, especially for 1998. Still, for my money, if you're gonna do it, do it right.

Again, not bad, but it doesn't really hold up on still frames. Give the work to those veterans of hand-drawn!

Rens & Stimpies

Some doodles I did with my pen tablet.

Two of the most fun cartoon characters in the world to draw... mainly because the rules are so loose. To draw Bugs Bunny, there are a lot of little subtleties you have to get right or it just doesn't look like him. Ren & Stimpy, on the other hand, look different in every scene. That's because John Kricfalusi has a much more liberal idea of "on-model" than most animators.

This remains one of the best cartoon series ever made. Everything about it was fun: the voices, the crazy plots, the cartoony expressions. And it was the first cartoon I remember to give kids what they really want: booger and fart jokes!

I'm feeling good: here's a cartoon!

What the heck, they're free... here's another:

UPDATE: My mistake- I didn't realize the version of "Big Baby Scam" was the edited version. Here's the deleted scene of Ren & Stimpy in the bathtub with Grandpa:

Lonesome Ghosts

Hey gang- here's another great cartoon!

This is one of the many Disney cartoons I saw as a kid, over and over and over again on VHS, taped off TV.

As an adult, a part of me finds the Warner Brothers cartoons more appropriate to my tastes- the humor is sharper, the characters better. The prevailing opinion is that while Warner Brothers had better gags and more appealing characters, Disney excelled in smooth, technically brilliant animation. So with a Disney cartoon, you're less likely to actually laugh out loud.

This sounds about right to me... think about Bugs Bunny's wit vs. Mickey Mouse's personality, or lack thereof. On the other hand, Donald Duck, while somewhat narrowly defined, is one of the funniest cartoon characters to watch. More about him in a future post. For now, let's get down to my insane-obsessive analysis.

First of all, look at these bums, lying around, waiting for the phone to ring. This cartoon came out in 1937 – 47 years before Danny Aykroyd & company captured our imaginations with Ghostbusters. Now that's forward-thinking!

I also love the idea of trying to catch ghosts with shotguns and nets. At around the five minute mark, Donald even punches a ghost in the face. Who would think of doing this?

The ghosts' voices are funny to me too- the creators just added a weird echo to them to make them sound "otherworldly" or something, but it's a 1930's effect so it sounds like they're in a bathroom stall or something. I love it- it's one of those details that brings me back to watching it as a kid.

This above is the kind of thing you see more of in the Disney shorts. Both Disney and WB showed you crazy things you couldn't see in real life, but while a Bugs Bunny cartoon might be filled with quotable dialogue, shorts like this were more based around complex visual gags. Mickey bouncing off the door (twice), then having to catch his balance before pulling the door to the floor. It's the kind of thing you can only see in cartoons and here is rendered beautifully- the timing, the subtle details that go by before you even realize they're happening.

Mickey catching his balance after bouncing off the wall is one of those moments I love. It happens so fast you barely notice it, but goes so far in terms of bringing life to the character.

Here's another one of those visual gags- this is a fairly long, slapsticky scene of Goofy getting caught up in this armoire-type thing. He's not saying anything particularly funny, but the animation is executed perfectly so it's great to watch.

I haven't seen this one in years, I can't imagine why these old cartoons are never on TV anymore. Kids would still love them. Youtube is great!

The Old Grey Hare

Hey everybody, here's a great cartoon:

A couple of thoughts: first of all, Elmer Fudd has to have the greatest cartoon voice of all time (provided by Arthur Q. Bryan, not Mel

Blanc as I always assumed). They always tried to work in lines that

sounded especially hilarious in his voice - like "My, that weawwy was a dewicious weg of wamb."

In this one he goes "What happened- I'm aaaalll winckled." And it's GREAT.

Bugs Bunny shows up as a rascally old coot, torments Elmer til he gets himself shot, and then, as always happens in situations like this, Elmer feels terrible and cries, "So wong, old fwiend!" There's so much good stuff in this cartoon.

Back in these days, they used full animation (as opposed to limited animation- an explanation can be found halfway down the page here) and drew so many details... and they happened so fast, you might miss them. With limited animation, the characters hold their poses so you have time to dwell on every nuance. These Golden Age characters keep moving. Like when God is talking to Elmer and he's looking around- and does this funny little twist to look behind him:

Or when Bugs is "dying" and says, "who turned out the lights?" and Elmer looks around to see what he's talking about, for some reason:

Look how horrifying this frame is! A demonic Bugs Bunny is strangling an old man!

I could go on but this cartoon speaks for itself. Maybe I'll do more of these at some point.

UPDATE: Aparently this cartoon was removed from Youtube due to a copyright violation from Warner Bros. I'm not going to bother searching for and re-posting right now, because I imagine it will just get taken down again, but if you can find it on Google video or anywhere, I highly recommend checking it out.