Bronk & Bongo

If Bronk is angry look out. He may be small but he’s got a lot of attitude and something to prove. Although he never really takes his anger out on anyone but Bongo, who is usually the one to make him mad in the first place. Don’t get him wrong, he loves BONGO like a brother and if anyone but he were to take advantage of him, well, Bronk would be all over them like white on rice in a glass of milk on a paper plate in the middle of a snow storm. He’s like a tiny Tornado of anger.

And speaking of tornados, (bad segue) I’m sorry we haven’t posted in a while. Not only have Alan and I been swamped but we had a small tornado hit my town in NJ last week and I lost power for 4 days and it will be about a month before [Read more…]

Here are some shots of some of the secondary and tertiary characters in COLOR. Above you see poor old Bronk and Bongo’s hapless patient Mr.Twister, voiced by JEFF BENNETT.

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…they look a little sketchy.

So I found these old sketches of BRONK and BONGO and thought I’d post them so you can see how much they have evolved in the last year.

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At the corner of Patriarch Eftimie and Vitasha in Sofia, Bulgaria, at a spot still known as Pharmacy Corner, Perry’s and Lily’s great-grandfather — a promiment bio-chemist, pharmacist, and inventer — owned his drugstore. In recent years it was, until just days ago, a video store. We scouted it as the potential site of the Bronk and Bongo licensed products outpost. Almost time to come home. Bloggingly yours, Manny and Alan.

Twenty-two successive kings of Bulgaria ruled from this spot in Veliko Turnovo in Central Bulgaria. For a place over 1500 years old, it still looks pretty good! As you walk through the gates, a guy at a little homemade keyboard controls a marionette show that seems to have something to do with the history of the site, but the kids mostly liked that one of the puppets squirted water at them when they reached in to give the operator a tip. Tourism hasn’t really taken off here yet — the puppeteer will almost certainly be replaced by a computer someday, and everything will be electronic. And something charming will be lost in the process.

Here’s a wider view — amazing lookout from here. Wish you were all here.

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The summer tour continues in Istanbul! This mosque is just outside the walls of Topkapi Palace. Throw a Turkish lira and you hit a mosque around this joint. Which is why we don’t let B & B handle the money. In Turkey, we gave the hotel clerk an assignment: Try and find Perry’s and Lily’s Turkish babysitter from nearly 8 years ago when she lived in NY. Lily was just a baby, Perry just 3, but we have deep connections to this woman. Sadly, we had only her name. A day later we arrived at the hotel and she was waiting in the lobby! A wonderful reunion. She is now a partner in an advertising agency and told Alan a book he turned her onto, “Positioning,” created her carrer. Even B & B were moved to tears by the whole event. Their parts are falling off from moisture. . . [Read more…]