No, not THAT!

This is to show up all those kids zipping around on those “Heelies” shoes! You strap these on, and if you manage to NOT fall on your rear, and go zipping down the street - or office hallway. The cool thing with these is that the wheels light up and flash as they’re moving!
Check it out HERE!
That site has a lot of other cool toys as well. I’m not much into the rave scene, so I’m not sure if that stuff is all new or not - but it’s new to me! So, if you’re a little leary of jumping right into buying action figures, then start out easy with some crazy light up heel skates! You’ll be the envy of your accounting firm!

And if you get a pair of these - you’d have to open them!

-Matt

This is a great insight into two figures from art and music.

Al Capp, cartoonist most known for his “Lil’ Abner” comic strip, shows up at John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s peace bed-in in Montreal. Al Capp had been seen as a liberal kind of guy, but in the 60’s, he turned quite conservative, lampooning many anti-war advocates. These included individuals like Joan Baez, and entire groups, such as the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS).

Anyway, as you can see in the video, Al Capp shows up with quite a bit of hostility toward John and Yoko. He asks John to explain a lyric he wrote that talks about crucifixion.

Christ, you know it ain’t easy
You know how hard it can be
The way things are going
They’re gonna crucify me

Al Capp repeatedly insults not only John, but also Yoko. Watch John’s facial expressions during this clip. Pay special attention when Yoko suggests that we are all married to one another. Capp says in response to Yoko “Now that is a very unpleasant thought for you to plant in my mind”.

I guess he’s trying to be funny, but it sounds very insulting, and John doesn’t like that.

For me, the best part of the video is at the end, when one of John’s assistants (I think his name is Derrick) tells Al Capp to get out. John is quick to reprimand the guy, saying to “please leave him, we asked him here, we asked him here”.

What an insight into the peaceful John Lennon. The guy wasn’t just talking about the stuff, he was living it. This little encounter sums up so much of what he was all about.

When the guy apologizes, Al Capp’s response is: “It’s not me to forgive you, it’s for your psychiatrist!”

In 1971, Capp was charged with attempted adultery by a female student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Capp pleaded no contest to a reduced charge and withdrew from public speaking. The resulting bad publicity led to hundreds of papers dropping his comic strip. Al Capp died in 1979, one year before John Lennon was killed by a fan.

-Floyd Bishop

This is one of my favorite Tom & Jerry cartoons, even though it has some elements I usually hate to see in Tom & Jerry cartoons.

Usually, I don’t like the guest star type shorts. You know what I mean? The ones where a small animal shows up, Tom starts fighting with them for one reason or another, and it’s up to Jerry to keep the new guy safe. It works really well in this short though. Maybe that’s because Uncle Pecos is such a tough guy character, and he’s the one going after Tom, and not the other way around?

Another thing that shows up in this short is the impossible gag. Yes, I know that anything is possible in a cartoon, but certain rules have been established, and they shouldn’t really be broken. I think it requires an extra stretch or suspension of disbelief to a point where the viewer laughs because it’s so ridiculous. Not the gag itself, but the fact that we are asked to believe it. I think it works here because it’s the last gag of the short. If this showed up sooner, the cartoon wouldn’t have worked as well.

The last thing that’s in this short that I usually don’t care for in a Tom & Jerry short is the song. Many times, they feel forced. In this short, it’s part of the plot. Uncle Pecos needs to practice his act. The singer who played Uncle Pecos, George Clinton “Shug” Fisher, did an incredible job on this short. I would argue that the short wouldn’t be half as good with anyone else doing this part.

So there you have it. A Tom & Jerry cartoon that goes against everything I like in a Tom & Jerry short, and is STILL a great cartoon. Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera knew their stuff!

-Floyd Bishop

I’m about 13% done with new Tiffany storyboard which will then become new Tiffany animatic which will then become new hit show Tiffany!!!

Look out Peaches!
Goddess Perlman of Nice Jewish Girls Gone Bad serves us up a tasty rendition of the Hamantaschen Song. Hilarous and hunger inducing.
The Goddess sat down with us and answered a few Q’s about the Hamantaschen.

Photo Credit is Patti Lin

1) How did you get the idea for the Hamantaschen Song?
From a feminist perspective of the Hamantaschen by Judith Shapiro. We’ve been led to believe that the Hamantasch is a hat or ears but in fact it looks more like a fertility symbol AKA the porn of our forefathers and mothers. I wanted to come up with some cute and adorable in a visual and audible sense that could be misinterpreted as something completely innocent. Who doesn’t love eating hamantaschen?

2) How did you hook up with the animator, Mike Enright?
Thru my web designer Patrick..I was working with another animator who was calling me every name in the book, which is always delightful so Mike was a refreshing change and he got the concept as we both have an appreciation for everything cute and kitsch.

3) Tell us a little about what Nice Jewish Girls Gone Bad is all about. How did it start?
“Nice Jewish Girls Gone is Bad” is a comedy, music and burlesque extravaganza featuring performers from Comedy Central, HBO and other highly visible media outlets. We started at joe’s pub in NYC five years ago and have traveled pretty extensively around the country. We are at the Zipper Theater in NYC right now.

4) Do you have a recipe for Hamantaschen?
I think you mix the X chromosome with the Y

]5) What’s next for Nice Jewish Girls Gone Bad?
We are Off Bway at the Zipper Theater in NYC until April 26th, Saturdays at 7:30pm. Please tell everyone you know so I can quit my day job. That’s my long range goal!

Let’s hope it comes true Goddess! We’re rooting for you!
-Jeaux Janovsky

Anne Denman came by Frederator a while back to catch up and introduce us to studios she’s working with like MonkeyPaw Media, Sketch Engine Studio, Spank Productions, Harbour Block Productions, and Denman Wilde Productions.

Anne was the delightful person who helped us so much with the Drinking & Drawing event at last June’s Platform Animation Festival (she’s the Director of the Student Program and Panel Coordinator) and put neat bow on things, she’s worked a lot with our great friend Marv Newland at International Rocketship.

Wow! A Youtube user by the name of Valcera has made this homemade tribute song to Space Cowboy. Using classic lines of dialogue and harmonica, he’s given props to the future’s coolest hero.

-Thank you Valcera, you’re free now… it’s cool.

Are you Jealous?

To stop yourself from further fits of jealousy, I suggest you order one too. This week’s limited edition is pretty good!
Thanks Pen (and Fred)!
-Jeaux Janovsky

Thanks to Funko, now one of the creatures that has haunted my nightmares most of my life can be mine - and help me save money! Here, they have made a Sleestak in all his cheesey goodness. I always felt they should have made toys from Land of the Lost, but that never happened. But with Will Ferrel doing a movie based on the old series, maybe we’ll see figures?
It amazes me that these things scared me as a child, with their slow moving lumber and icessant hissing. At least they had the friendy brown one from Harvard - Enoc, I think it was? I still watched and loved the show, even though they haunted me (my brothers had a little something to do with the fear of them). My Dad had these snowmobile gloves that looked just like Sleestak claws, and my brothers would get those and hide in the closets around the house, just to hiss and leap out at me. Hmmm…maybe that’s why I don’t like closets?
But what a very cool little bank, if I see one of these at Comic-Con this summer, I may just have to snag one! It’ll just have to stay at the office, not the house!
Check out this review and images of it HERE!

Now, go lumber and hiss your way to opening those figures!
-Matt

In the never-ending chaos of directing a short cartoon every week, it’s easy to forget some detail. But forgetting assistant animator Josh Weisbrod in the credits on episode 26 was (in the words of Space Cowboy himself) “unacceptable, man.”

Josh exquisitely animated Space Cowboy’s pushups as well as the evolutionized horse’s run cycle months ago when it was the Ultra & The Lazerhearts pegasus.

Josh Weisbrod is a super-talented artist who, within a couple hours of coming into the studio, elevates The Meth Minute 39 characters from being a bunch of “Flash puppets” into fully animated beings. Forgetting his name in the credits is a crime punishable by getting thrown out the goddamed window by Space Cowboy.

-Dan

-Dan