Best Animated Short - 1940

Well, we're in the year of 1940. It's not quite as memorable as 1941, but it's got its moments. One significant moment was the suicide of Willard Hershberger. Hershberger was a catcher with the Cincinnati Reds. You'd think that somebody that's played baseball at the major leagues would be set for life, but you'd be dead wrong. There is nothing more mentally stressful than a career in professional sports. Think about it, you spend essentially your whole life dedicating yourself to a sport, where you dominated at virtually every level. Then you get thrust into a work environment where all of a sudden your best may not be good enough, and even if it is and you do get to the majors, you'd have to maintain your level of performance lest somebody else takes your job. And you don't have anything to fall back on. Those that are not on solid ground mentally usually do something drastic once their careers end.

History is littered with players that decided to end their lives: Catcher Marty Bergen killed himself and his family in 1900. Popular young star Win Mercer drank gas to end his life. A pitcher named Pea Ridge Day slit his throat after an unsuccessful operation on his pitching arm. And Christy Mathewson's brother Nicholas shot himself in the head from the stresses of trying to maintain his studies while playing professional ball. It's a brutal track record.

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Best Animated Short - 1941

1941, what a memorable year. It was the year Ted Williams hit a walk-off home run in the All Star game, and went on to hit .406 to become the last hitter to bat .400 in a year they qualified for the batting title. Yet his accomplishment went mostly unnoticed as fellow outfielder Joe DiMaggio stole most of the thunder with his legendary 56-game hitting streak. He later played a role in the Yankees' Game 4 comeback in the World Series that started after Mickey Owen couldn't get his hands on Hugh Casey's spitball. It was the year that Lou Gehrig lost his battle against what may or may not be the disease that bears hi name today. And of course the "date which will live in infamy" happened in 1941.


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Ranking the Oscar Nominated Shorts: 1942-1951

Well, it's that time again: Time to hunker down, look at the films from the past ten reviews and rank them subjectively by how much I liked them. It's the seventh time that I'll do one of these, and it's also the second to the last, as there are only ten reviews left to go. Unfortunately, there's no telling how long it'll take me to get those ten reviews out. I've made my list two weeks ago when I still had a sizable queue, but I've just gotten so busy and tired that I just haven't felt like writing. So now I've got like no queue. I'm hoping that I can get back on track after this week but considering the next review is the epic 1941 where ten films were nominated, I can't make any guarantees.

But enough talk, let's get to the rankings. There are 51 films from these past ten years, thanks to all the years with six or seven nominations.

NULL: Rippling Romance (1945)
This Columbia cartoon is now considered lost. That may not be the case based on what Thad (Komorowski?) has said, but he's also the one that says the film isn't worth getting declared not-lost.

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August Animation Tidbits

More tidbits for ya...

Planes once again proves that animated films that don't have much adult appeal won't fare too, too well. Planes is unabashedly a children's film, so it didn't set the box office on fire over the weekend unlike something like Monsters University or Despicable Me 2. You know, animation that's both for kids and adults.

But others (such as are ever-so-accurate press) would lead you to believe that Turbo, The Smurfs 2 and Planes underperformed because there's "too much animation", implying that people are getting sick of feature animation... No, they are getting sick of bland animation and animation that's aimed at kids only... Plus, with all these films opening so close to each other, families got super-choosy. I hope this summer teaches distributors a lesson: Don't open so many animated films so close to each other. 2 or 3 is fine, but 5 or more? A big no-no.

Opening with a small $22 million, Planes already made Disney very happy since the film only cost $50 million to produce. Plus, it's bound to make a good amount overseas given some foreign locations they cover in this film. All I can say is... Ehhhhhhhhhh. Why oh why does the sequel have to be a theatrical release?

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DreamWorks, in a rather surprising move, pushed their highly anticipated How To Train Your Dragon 2 a week forward. The film is now set to open on June 13, 2014, but honestly... I can kind of see Kung Fu Panda 2 happening all over again. Sort of.

If you remember, Paramount and DreamWorks for some reason felt that the sequel to their 2008 blockbuster would put up a good fight against The Hangover Part II. But what happened? The teens and adults flocked to The Hangover Part II, leaving Kung Fu Panda 2 to rely on family audiences and those who have no interest in The Hangover franchise... The result was a very disappointing $47 million opening while The Hangover Part II took in $85 million for the weekend. Its opening was certainly no major take off, especially when you consider that its predecessor opened 3 years earlier with $60 million... Without 3D ticket prices!

What opens the same weekend as How To Train Your Dragon 2? 22 Jump Street...

Let's see... A sequel to a sleeper hit R-rated comedy? Need I say more?

How To Train Your Dragon 2's opening may not be spectacular unless Fox plays their cards right. The teaser for this was fabulous, unlike the lazy "staring contest" teaser for Kung Fu Panda 2. Its official trailer better deliver and make audiences want to see it opening weekend, because Kung Fu Panda 2's underwhelming trailers and marketing didn't succeed in doing that. Hopefully Fox's marketing shows audiences why they should definitely see DreamWorks' epic sequel to their very good film and make the audiences think, "Hmmm... Yeah I'll see that instead of 22 Jump Street!"

I mean, this is supposed to be a very big follow-up to the leggy original. The original was lucky to have many weeks all to itself, so that the incredibly strong word-of-mouth was able to help the film climb to $200 million at the domestic box office. This sequel underperforming and making less would be terrible, especially since it's supposed to be like the series' Empire Strikes Back. I wouldn't doubt that, because DreamWorks went the darker route for their sequel to Kung Fu Panda but yet the poor handled of that stalled it from doing better than its predecessor at the box office. Let's hope the same mistakes aren't made again with this sequel, because DreamWorks needs a big hit and I don't quite think Mr. Peabody & Sherman will be a box office bonanza.

But apparently Fox and DreamWorks are confident in this, so it's possible that the dragons may outwit the cops that summer weekend. Personally, I think these poor choices of release dates are what's are partially killing most animated films these days. (Bolt and Winnie the Pooh, anyone?)

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On the home media front, we got word of the postponed Tom and Jerry Golden Collection Volume 2 set. In case you didn't know, this series was meant to give us - the animation enthusiast - the complete, fully uncensored collection of the entire Tom and Jerry filmography from the Golden Age to the post-Hanna-Barbera films. Volume 1 delivered the goods and then some, everything on there was uncensored and there were even a couple lovely bonus features.

But this upcoming set is a disaster in the making. Warner Bros. legal department will not allow two particular Tom and Jerry cartoons to be released in any form. The problem is, both are supposed to be on Volume Two since the series is going in chronological order. Mouse Cleaning and Casanova Cat are the two shorts in question. The legal department want to avoid a PR nightmare, but they are hypocrites because Warner Bros. has released material that's just as offensive for general consumers, from the uncensored Looney Tunes collections to the uncensored Popeye sets to the first volume of this series... And they all have warnings saying that they're for the "adult collector", and they also give viewers an explanation of the content in these films: Again, some of the certain gags in these shorts are offensive, but censoring them out is just as offensive. They're a part of history. The first set and all their other adult-oriented cartoon collections from Warner make this very, very clear.

However, WB's legal department doesn't want these two particular shorts to see the light of day for some probably stupid reason, not even through the WB Archive, thus contradicting everything the other sets stood for. So we can't have those two shorts on an "adult collector" set, but yet we can have other offensive material. The legal department apparently thinks that we're children or something.

Let that all sink in for a minute...

PR nightmare, alright. They created a new one just by playing this game with us. We're adults, we know why these cartoons are the way are, so stop trying to hide them from us when you've released other equally offensive cartoons to general consumers, general consumers! Anyone who has seen Mouse Cleaning and Casanova Cat will tell you that they are no more offensive than The Milky Waif and The Truce Hurts, or any other Tom and Jerry cartoon with a blackface gag that's readily available uncensored in the US for general consumers. Warner Home Video really wants all of these pieces of history to be released, but no, the legal department has something against those two particular shorts...

Anyways, this pointless and unfair censorship lead to (much-deserved) backlash, and it's made the news, too! The set was then postponed, though a December 17th date somehow got out there. Jerry Beck (in case you don't know, he's a great animation historian and has worked on many of these sets, including this one) appeared on Stu's Show not too long ago. The set was brought up and he outright confirmed that WB's legal department is giving Warner Home Video trouble, and they're not going to let those two cartoons see any form of release in America (note: They're available uncensored in the UK). He says that we shouldn't expect the set until 2014 at the least. I'm not holding my breath for a complete set.

Insert rant here...

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Speaking of home media, on October 15th, the surprisingly very good and well-written Disney Channel animated series Gravity Falls will be hitting some form of home media... Unfortunately, it's a DVD-only release with six episodes. "Six Strange Tales"... Yeah, because we can't have our full season just yet. Or ever, maybe... Given Disney's track record when it comes to these things.

If Warner Bros. and Cartoon Network can give us the full seasons of shows like Adventure Time and Regular Show, Disney can damn well do the same for Gravity Falls. Heck, where are the full season sets for Phineas and Ferb?! What they're failing to realize is that like those two Cartoon Network shows, Gravity Falls has a teenaged and adult fanbase that makes it very successful. People would also scoop up a season boxset of Phineas and Ferb, from families to fans to many others. However, it is possible that this is a set geared towards the kids and that they're saving the goods for the fans. (Making this show an exception to their TV shows on home media business model.)

Well, maybe. Here's hoping they do the same for TRON: Uprising, since they did a good job sending that show to the grave. At least Blu-ray sales or the fact that it's on Netflix could gain the series new fans... Though the third TRON film doesn't seem to be a go anytime soon. Director Joseph Kosinski has signed on to direct The Twilight Zone movie. Looks like that franchise is slowing down once again...

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Animated Views recently interviewed Jimmy Hayward and Aron Warner. Hayward, as you may know, is the director of Reel FX Creative Studios' debut theatrical feature-length animated film Free Birds (formerly known as Turkeys), which will hit theaters on November 1st. Warner is a big-time producer, and he's well-known for producing the Shrek films, as Free Birds' fun trailer mentions.

Hayward talked about some of its production history, and also said that the film's plot is "all in good fun" and that they aren't trying to send some PETA-esque "don't eat turkey" message. (Phew!) He also explained the title change, saying that they wanted something that would have international appeal. Then he also explained the release date change, the movie was pretty much in the can last summer and November 2014 was too much of a family film mine (Big Hero 6, Home, Night at the Museum 3, etc.)

Warner talked about Reel FX's plans, things I speculated about months ago. I'm in support of this studio because they've got risky things planned for the future (Hayward himself elaborated on that), and they also plan on spending reasonable budgets on their films. Hmmmm, maybe other studios should follow suit, yes? For the record, Free Birds has pretty good-looking animation if you ask me. See, I like this idea. Lower budgets mean greater risks can be taken, LAIKA and Aardman don't thrive for nothing.

He also mentioned a few things about Jorge Guiterrez's Book of Life...

"The movie is unlike any computer animated film I’ve ever seen. It looks different; it feels different; it sounds different. It’s definitely Jorge’s – it is so much a project from this guy’s heart."

Now see? That's what studios should be doing, making lower budget films that take some major-league creative risks. Book of Life might just change the industry if Free Birds is a hit, and prove that good computer animation can be done for less than $100 million and it doesn't have to come from someone like Disney, Pixar or DreamWorks. Again, Free Birds looks fun despite some formulaic elements, but it's a safer film for a reason. It's the debut, it's the kick-off feature. Safe film first, risks later!

No word on Beasts of Burden, though...

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What do you think of Reel FX? Do you think the studio has a lot of potential? Do you anticipate what they have to offer? Do you think Disney will eventually give us season box sets of shows like Gravity Falls, Phineas and Ferb and TRON: Uprising? Do you think Warner Home Video will triumph over the legal department? Or will they lose and all we'll end up getting is a censored set? Do you think DreamWorks and Fox moving How To Train Your Dragon 2 up a week was a good idea, or not?

Sound off below!

Joe Barbera's first cartoon storyboards (1935).

Above: Joe Barbera (left) and Bill Hanna (right) working on a scene for the Tom & Jerry theatrical shorts at the MGM cartoon division in the 1940s.

In 1940, Joe Barbera and his friend Bill Hanna directed their first of many Tom & Jerry cartoons for MGM, 'Puss get's the boot', which immediately got nominated for an Academy Award in the category 'Best Animated Short'. After 114 cartoons shorts and 14 Oscar nominations, winning the studio 7 Academy Awards, MGM closed down their cartoon division in 1957. Hanna and Barbera decided to start their own company, introducing many more characters to the world, and making them the most succesful cartoon producers for TV.

But before all that, Joe started his career in animation at the Van Beuren studio's in New York in 1932, a studio that produced silent cartoons, mostly known for Paul Terry's popular 'Aesop's Fables'. They also had a series of early sound cartoons that Barbera worked on, which featured two guys named 'Tom and Jerry'.

In 1936 Van Beuren closed down, but Barbera continued working for Paul Terry, who had left earlier in 1929 to start his own 'Terrytoons studio's'. One of the cartoons Barbera worked on was Terry's own 'Farmer Al Falfa' series, which he had started while still working for another early New York animation studio, run by J.R. Bray. In one of these cartoons, 'Farmer Al Falfa's prize package', released on July 31, 1936, the farmer receives a package from his brother, containing a kangaroo. This lead the way to a new series of ten cartoons starring 'Kiko the Kangaroo'.

Above: An authentic poster from 1938 presenting Paul terry's 'The last Indian' theatrical cartoon, with Farmer Al Falfa and his dog to the right and Kiko the Kangaroo left. The short was directed by Connie Rasinksi and released on June 24, 1938.

In  his autobiography 'My life in Toons', Barbera explained that he had taken it upon himself to create an eleventh story, where Kiko got in an airplane race against a handlebar-mustachioed dog named Dirty Doug. Director Manny Davis liked what he saw, and made arrangements to present it to Paul Terry himself. Terry passed on the story, but Barbera said he was not in the least disappointed. He had proven to himself that he could do a storyboard, and that he had gained the experience of presenting it.

So for the first time ever, have a look below at some of Barbera's original storyboards for his first own cartoon, which wound up with his mother, who passed them on to a nephew. They have always stayed in the Barbera family, until they were put up for sale recently. Click to enlarge!

Best Animated Short - 1945

Well, we're into 1945, and that means we're into the years that I've been dreading. Now there are rules in place limiting the maximum number of nominees in the Best Animated Short category to five. There were no such rules in place in the early 1940s, so there were more than five nominees every year from 1941-1945, with as many as ten in one year. Considering it's been taking me upwards of eight hours to write a review for a five-nominee year (although most of the time is spent distracting myself on sites like Facebook and Equestria Daily), I can't fathom how long it'll take me to write these reviews. Especially since I have the equivalent of a full time job now. But we'll try to power our way through.


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Best Animated Short - 1946

We're at 1946, and what it year it was! It was the year after World War II ended, and emotions were running high throughout the entire year. It was the year the Boston Red Sox finally made it into the World Series for the first time since 1918, but saw it all fall apart around them in the final game thanks to the hustle of Enos Slaughter. It was the year that the newly formed United Nations finally came together for their first meeting. And it was the year of the greatest controversy in the Best Animated Short category, but we're getting a bit ahead of ourselves.

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Best Animated Short - 1947

Sometimes I've been thinking, why do I even bother? I've been putting hours upon hours into this blog, and the posts with the most views have had nothing to do with Oscar nominated shorts. Granted I've done more advertising with those posts, but that may be because I don't feel like the actual reviews are good enough to warrant advertising. If I post it on reddit like I did with the Rainbow Dash film I'm sure it'll get a negative score so fast it'll make my head spin. So yeah, with my work ramping up exponentially I'm thinking I may have to go into another hiatus. But if a blog that nobody reads go into hiatus, does it matter?

Whatever.

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Best Animated Short - 1948

Aah! Residency has begun! I'm now experiencing the joys of working a full time job for the first time in my life! Now I'm not sure if I'll ever have time to finish up these last 17 reviews! And whatever you do don't go to a teaching hospital for the next few months. In reality I'm writing this a week before orientation starts, so I've got a little bit more time to churn out some more  reviews, but I'm not looking forward to losing all my free time...for the rest of my life. But hey, that's what I was getting myself into when I chose this profession so might as well suck it up and go in there with drive and ambition! It's what Rainbow Dash would do!


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Best Animated Short - 1949

I love my grandma. At 91 she has been through so much, from the Sino-Japanese War to the Chinese Civil War and eventual exile to Taiwan, but she is still sharp and optimistic. I enjoy listening to her stories about growing up in China in the 1920s and 1930s, about her mischievous adventures with her older brother*, and the embarrassing story involving my dad and aunts. Of course, she also had some difficult stories, such as stories involving Japanese brutality or the difficult times in the post-war Shanghai. One of the most haunting stories was how she was at the bedside of my great-grandmother when she passed away. In my sheltered existence it's hard to imagine how difficult it must have been. My grandma was only 27. She had just fled to Taiwan, and now she was watching her mother-in-law-to-be die in front of her eyes. The moment is still sharp in her memory, especially since she recently observed that two of her children had lived to be 60, which was how old my great-grandmother was at her passing.

*Most of her tales were involved middle brother, four years her senior. She also had an eldest brother that was nine years older. She usually held him in higher regard because he was so much older and more mature than her. I am nine years older than my youngest sister. I wonder what sort of stories she will tell her grandchildren when she is 91. How I am obsessed with a cartoon pony? How much of a baseball fan I was? Gosh, what would people think about animation like My Little Pony in 2085? And how many 300 game winners would there be by then? Sometimes I wish to have a time machine like in Doraemon to figure out the answers to these questions.

Gee...that's some heavy stuff. Why am I telling you all this? Because that happened in 1949. Yeah...let's move on to the Oscars.

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Best Animated Short - 1950

And we are now ready to bid good-bye to the 1950s. It was a good decade, with tons of classic films and several years with only three Best Animated Short nominees and the golden age of baseball when the Yankees ruled the sport. But most of all it was the decade where almost but one of my aunts and uncle was born*. My oldest aunt was born in the year 1950, and so she is now closing in on her 63rd birthday in August, which makes her approximately the same age my grandma when I was born. Which means I'm now the same age that my grandmother was when she had my oldest aunt. My reaction to that is the same as Ludwig von Drake after his horrible pun in A Symposium on Popular Songs. But such is the effects of time. We're all getting older, and some day in the distant future we'll be as relevant as the people from the 1860s that went about their daily life.

*My mom's youngest brother was born in 1961.

Well, that's enough depressing stuff. Let's move onto the Oscars.

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Best Animated Short - 1951

So sad that my post earlier this week about Rainbow Dash being awesome got more than four times the views than any of my other posts. That's what I get for posting it on Reddit. Maybe I should do it for my reviews. Hmm...

Anyways, here we are now at the year 1951. That year is significant because it featured the debuts of two of baseball's biggest and brightest stars: Willie Mays, and my favorite player growing up Mickey Mantle. Both of them were highly touted rookies, although they both struggled a little bit out of the gate. Mays famously went hitless in his first three games before blasting a home run off of Warren Spahn. He recovered to hit .274/.356/.472 and won the Rookie of the Year award. Mantle's story is even more famous. He was completely lost at the plate (although still hitting .260/.341/.423 but with 52 strikeouts in an era where strikeouts were shameful) so he was sent down to AAA Kansas City, where he continued to stink it up and threatened to quit. Then his father, dying of cancer, drove up from Oklahoma to bring his disgraceful son back home where he can hide in shame in the mines for the rest of his life. The incident was a slap in the face for Mantle, and he strove to continue on. He made it back to the majors and put up respectable numbers, although the Rookie of the Year award went to his teammate Gil McDougald. Then the two spent the next 15 years terrorizing pitchers, putting up legendary feats that would solidify their places in baseball history.

This sort of dual debuts of players that would become superstars are quite rare. There's been a couple of cases where both winners of the Rookie of the Year ended up in the Hall of Fame*, but except for Tom Seaver none of those Hall of Famers really feel like they're in the upper echelons of baseball history. It wasn't until 50 years later that baseball finally had two big stars burst onto the scene at the same time. Albert Pujols overcame his status as a 13th-round draft pick to blast 37 home runs and 130 RBIs, while Ichiro Suzuki came over from Japan to lead the American League in hits and stolen bases while helping his team win a record-tying 116 games. Those two continued to become the biggest stars in baseball until they started breaking down around two years ago. And last year had two very intriguing Rookie of the Year winners: Mike Trout and Bryce Harper. We'll see how they'll be remembered 62 years from now. But for now Mantle and Mays are the standard bearers.

*1956: Luis Aparicio and Frank Robinson
1967: Tom Seaver and Rod Carew
1977: Eddie Murray and Andre Dawson

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Best Animated Short - 1952

Ah, we have arrived at 1952. Apologies to everybody that was born in 1952 (including my aunt who would probably never read this blog entry), but 1952 just feels like an undistinguished year to me. Other than the birth year of my aunt I really can't think of anything significant from this year. Yeah, 1951 has the dual debuts of Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle, the Shot Heard Around the World, and an epic lineup of Best Picture nominees. 1953 saw the birth of George Brett, Mickey Mantle's legendary 565-foot home run (that probably didn't go 565 feet), and the fifth consecutive World Series win by the Yankees. And what did 1952 have? The birth of my aunt, which is much more of a personal thing.

Perhaps it's due to the fact that the films of 1952 were rather undistinguished. There is only one film that really stands out today, and that was the delightful Gene Kelly musical Singin' in the Rain. But Singin' in the Rain was only a modest hit at the box office, and scored only two Oscar nominations. The Gary Cooper Western melodrama High Noon is also highly regarded today, but it did even worse at the box office and was highly criticized for its supposed allegory on the Hollywood blacklisting.

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Best Animated Short - 1954

So today is George Brett's 60th birthday, and it is also one of the saddest days of my trip. Yes, as this post is going up I will be returning from Taiwan to prepare to return to my normal life, which includes graduating from med school, either moving or getting my unexpected roommate to move out after seven long months, and onto residency and beyond. Considering I'm only in my first week at Taiwan, it's a bit sad to think that in a few short days I'll be leaving, but that's just a consequence of the inevitability of the passage of time. That's something that has been bothering me for ages and is now still haunting me.

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A "Tom and Jerry" Update

Warner Bros. might be listening to us animation fans after all...

Of course, as many of you may know, Tom and Jerry Golden Collection Volume Two was to arrive to stores this summer but without two controversial cartoons: Mouse Cleaning and Casanova Cat. This was, of course, contradictory to the fact that the series was aimed at the adult collector and not for children, and that the series would contain all of the short subjects uncut. A representative for WB went as far as justifying the removal of the two cartoons on WB Classic Animation's Facebook page, saying that they were "inappropriate" for the "intended audience" - the adult collector. We sure got angry. Blog posts, forum posts and even close to 100 one-star reviews of the forthcoming set on Amazon.com ensued... Us animation fans weren't going to be robbed like this, especially after what we got with the excellent first volume.

What we know so far is that a higher up in Warner Bros.' legal department doesn't want these two shorts released in any form, not even through the WB Archive! Apparently this person has been there for a while and has something against these cartoons, I mean... Why else would Warner Bros. release equally controversial and potentially offensive cartoons in the Tom and Jerry, Looney Tunes, Merrie Melodies and Popeye series on home media formats whilst keeping these two and the Censored 11 locked up?

All hope seemed lost. It looked like we were not going to get these two uncensored cartoons on Blu-ray and DVD in the United States, but... TV Shows On DVD has confirmed that Warner Bros. has postponed the second volume of this series! This makes sense, because Home Theater Forum owner Ronald Epstein collected questions from animation aficionados and sent them to Warner Bros. Apparently they had a meeting about these cartoons, so maybe the postponement of this set may bring good things. However, we can't get our hopes up too high... Yet.

Anything can happen now...

Here's my theory: Warner Bros. (or more specifically, that person in their legal department) will drop all of this opposition to Mouse Cleaning and Casanova Cat. Thus, those two cartoons will be added to the line-up and the packaging will be altered. It'll say 44 shorts instead of 42, or the last 2 cartoons on the set (chronologically) - Puppy Tale and Posse Cat - will be left off for time constraints and will be the opening shorts on the third Golden Collection volume. The liner notes will mention both formerly missing cartoons. This is of course the win-win situation, the one everyone hopes will happen. Well, it better happen!

Why do I think it might happen? Well, WB announced that the set was postponed after those questions were sent... Plus it came off of a slew of negative reactions. I haven't seen such reaction to a home media release in a long while. Tom and Jerry Golden Collection Volume One has less than 40 reviews in total on Amazon.com, Tom and Jerry Golden Collection Volume Two has nearly 100 one-star reviews warning consumers to stay away from the butchered set whilst also calling WB out for their unnecessary censoring of a set that's meant for adults.

Also, WB can't just re-insert the shorts between now and June 11th, or make liner notes mentioning them. It's also possible that Mouse Cleaning and/or Casanova Cat had audio commentaries, so it'll take some time to put those back in as well. So maybe the delay does mean that WB gets it.

Now it's also possible that we will end up getting the butchered set later this year, which would only anger fans more resulting in a bigger backlash. The fans are now willing to give WB a chance to correct the mistakes they have made, and to not omit Mouse Cleaning and Casanova Cat from this set. If a new announcement for the set shows that the two cartoons won't be in the line-up... Well then, expect more heat, WB! And weaker sales, too!

Right now, we have no clear idea why the set was postponed. All we can do is speculate right now, but personally, I'm going to try to be optimistic here and believe that WB delayed the set to do the right thing: Include Mouse Cleaning and Casanova Cat, and never attempt to censor this set or any forthcoming adult collector set (whether it's Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies or Popeye) ever again.

Hopefully everything will turn out alright. If Tom and Jerry Golden Collection Volume Two arrives to stores complete and uncensored with Mouse Cleaning and Casanova Cat, then... Immediate sale!

News Roundup: LEGO Update, Tom and Jerry, and More Disney Blu-rays

Looks like some more animation news has come over the last forty eight hours!

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Warner Bros. has officially unveiled the new title and the logo for their upcoming animated film based on LEGO.

Yes, the film is now called The LEGO Movie. The logo looks pretty sweet if you ask me, though I did kind of like LEGO: The Motion Picture. Oh well, this one is simple and it works. Definitely looking forward to seeing the trailer for this Phil Lord-Chris Miller film... It should be right around the corner!

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Speaking of Warner Bros., it looks we're getting some answers concerning Tom and Jerry Golden Collection Volume Two, which is coming to Blu-ray and DVD on June 11th. Of course, as you all know, two full cartoons were omitted from the upcoming set due to potentially offensive material - despite the fact that the first volume and this release are intended for the "adult collector".

Animation historian and Cartoon Research author Jerry Beck, who was closely involved with the first volume and other Warner Bros. classic animation releases, was interviewed on Stu's Show last night. He has confirmed that Warner Bros.' home entertainment division has listened to our complaints and they are on the same page as we are. The higher ups at the company are responsible for the removal of the two cartoons. So does this mean that CEO Kevin Tsujihara, a suck-up to the powerful force of political correctness, was responsible for this along with the other bigwigs? Seems like it!

During the show, the idea of releasing classic cartoons through distributors like Shout! Factory was brought up... What if Warner Bros. sublicensed their classic animation to them for adult collector releases? That would work, because the company can release the sanitized versions of Looney Tunes and Tom and Jerry for general consumers, while the smaller company gives us the goods.

One can only hope...

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Last but not least, Disney has added three more animated classics to their Blu-ray release schedule. Remember how Atlantis: The Lost Empire was supposed to come out on March 12th? Well now it's coming out on June 11th alongside... The Emperor's New Groove and Lilo & Stitch!

But you know me... I won't be buying them, because they'll be packaged with their direct-to-video sequels. Lilo & Stitch's pack will contain Lilo & Stitch 2: Stitch Has a Glitch, so I assume the other two direct-to-video Stitch films will get a double pack later this year. But still... Packaging The Emperor's New Groove with Kronk's New Groove... Just NO.

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What's your take on the new title for Warner Bros.' LEGO film? Do you think there's still a possibility that we'll get Tom and Jerry Golden Collection Volume Two uncensored? Are you excited that those three Disney films are getting a Blu-ray release? Or will you avoid them because they have the sequels included?

Sound off below!

Don't Censor Me!

Back in 2011, Warner Bros. released what I would call a definitive set for the legendary Tom and Jerry series. Called the "Golden Collection", the first volume presented the first 37 theatrical shorts, beautifully restored and all uncensored in their original format. All the questionable humor and gags were present. To top it off, there was a warning that you couldn't skip that wonderfully explained why the cartoons have that potentially offensive material and why it's absolutely wrong to censor them.

This was a great set for us animation aficionados. It wasn't aimed at young audiences or the whole family, it was aimed at us. The adult collector, as the back of the case says. You can only imagine how pumped I was for the next couple of volumes, because they were going to include everything uncensored. Then they were going to include all of the post-1958 shorts as well! The complete Tom and Jerry series on Blu-ray!

Volume Two has been on and off for years. A few times, Warner Bros. announced release dates for it, but it never happened. Now it's on track for a June 11th release, but the shorts line-up that was released a while back was curiously missing two short subjects: Mouse Cleaning and Casanova Cat. Both films contain blackface gags, Mouse Cleaning's gag is especially notorious. However, the blackface gags on these two short subjects are no more offensive than similar gags that we saw in the shorts that are on the first volume. For a while, it seemed like this list was not official and was just a mistake... After all, the original nitrate elements of Mouse Cleaning had been found and lots of work had been done to restore it, but... Warner Bros. recently put this on their Classic WB Animation Facebook page as a reply to fans who were questioning whether the next volume would in fact be sanitized or not.

Condescending and just plain wrong...

This contradicts the whole idea of the Golden Collection. Why go through all the trouble of restoring all the offensive content and making an impassable warning for the beginning of the disc for the first volume, only to omit two entire shorts from the second volume because of the content? It's not just edited versions of those cartoons we are getting, we're not getting them at all. If that's so, will the other shorts on the set be the television edits where Mammy Two-Shoes' voice is re-dubbed? This is a total atrocity and Warner Bros. Home Entertainment ought to be ashamed.

Inappropriate for the intended audience? Warner Bros., who are you to deem this content inappropriate for us? The very audience that understands that these cartoons were made during a different time... Again, you went through all the trouble of restoring these "offensive" shorts and putting a big warning at the beginning of disc... Now you sanitize Volume Two, remove two shorts entirely and say that they might be "inappropriate" for us?! Warner Bros. Home Entertainment, you have made a massive mistake and you have also insulted us animation aficionados who admire this series and are mature enough to understand what was going on during the 1940s and why this racial humor was in some the cartoons.

Maybe I shouldn't be surprised, but after all the effort that was put into the first volume, you wouldn't think that Warner Bros. would just all of sudden go against their plans and also talk down the collectors who buy these sets...

I just hope Warner Bros. didn't get cold feet over the first volume and are now making Volume Two suitable for the PC crowd. Again, the first volume was strictly intended for adult collectors. The packaging itself says so, there's a warning at the beginning of the disc... Why follow that up with a sanitized set? It makes no sense on any level.

Now if this was a kid-oriented set with the edited versions, that would be one thing, but again; this is a follow-up to an adult-oriented set. It's not only a slap in the face to the audience it's intended for, but it's just censorship ruling the day once again.

Warner Bros., if you were smart, you wouldn't go through with a censored set that's a follow-up to an uncensored adult's set. It's a rip-off and an insult to us, the buyers. It only pushes the belief that these cartoons are nothing more than children's films, when that's definitely not true. It feeds into a greater evil. Censorship is so selective. Certain things can't be shown, but it's totally alright if something else that's equally offensive is shown. Need I bring up Disney's reluctance to release Song of the South, yet they happily release Peter Pan complete with the controversial depictions of Native Americans?

Unfortunately, we live in a world where cartoons and animated works are immediately labelled "kid's stuff". Disney and Pixar are already victims of this, and everyone else. Classic Warner Bros., Fleischer and MGM shorts? All perceived as kid's stuff. It's easier to release older live action films with potentially offensive material, or films that are unabashedly offensive (Birth of a Nation, anyone?), but since animation is viewed as a babysitter, it's not okay. Far too often, home media releases of animation caters to parents who are looking for something to keep their children busy for an hour or two. The belief is what's at the core of this problem. Warner Bros. probably wants to sell units, rather than putting a lot of money into a set that only collectors are going to buy. But hey, Disney did it with the Walt Disney Treasures sets and they continued to make many.

There's still the fact that the first collection and the recent Looney Tunes sets have the offensive material on them. It just further proves that it makes no logical sense to omit two full shorts from a set all because of a single gag in each. It's like releasing a controversial film on home media uncut, and releasing its equally controversial sequel in censored form. Makes... No... Sense...

Now there's also a possibility that the two shorts will show up on a third volume, but if they show up uncensored, then it wouldn't make sense to leave them off of this upcoming set. It leads me to believe that whenever they will show up, they'll be sanitized. It also leads me to believe that all the shorts on this collection will be sanitized as well.

Luckily, animation fanatics are raising hell about this. Go to the set's Amazon page and see all the one-star reviews convincing consumers not to buy it. Fans have also raised hell on other forums and they have responded to the terribly condescending reply from WB Classic Animation on their Facebook page. Let your voice be heard!

Once again, censorship and ignorance towards the animated medium is going to rule the day here. The existence of an adults-only "Golden Collection" of one of the greatest cartoon series in cinema history was fun while it lasted...

Note: This article originally went up on February 13, 2013. It was taken down since the press release with the list of shorts seemed like a mistake... Now it's official, those two shorts will be omitted from the set...

Module 5: MGM

MGM may not have the prestige of Disney or Warner Bros., but when all is said and done they probably had just as much success as the other studios in both Oscar success and critical prestige. Like Warner Bros., MGM's animation division had humble beginnings, and didn't start to pick up until they hired Rudolf Ising and Hugh Harman from Disney. The duo made some successful films for the studio, but the output really became fantastic after they hired a trio of animators in William Hanna, Joe Barbera, and Tex Avery. Hanna-Barbera won over a half dozen Oscars for Fred Quimby mostly on the strength of their Tom and Jerry films, while Tex Avery made the films that rank near the top of the best animated short films.

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MGM production layouts.

Hey guys, I got an email from Mike van Eaton this week. His gallery sells fine art and vintage artwork from the early animation age. Recently he got some amazing pieces from Disney and a lot production layouts from MGM, which he is selling at his place, and I thought I'ld post some here, in case he takes them off his site, when the collection is sold. You know the drill, just click to enlarge! I've added some frames from the original animations where possible.

Here's a great Production pan layout designs were created for backgrounds in scenes, where camera animation was used to create anticipation, or another, dramatic effect. The camera would truck or pan over the finished background from one spot to another, leaving the viewer to visually interpret what was going on, or what was about to happen in the scene. Here are two for 'Little Quacker', the 1950 Tom & Jerry short, animated by Irv Spence, Ray Patterson, Ken Muse and of course Ed Barge. In this cartoon, Tom steals an egg from a breeding Duck which, hatches when he tries to cook it. Jerry enters the plot to try and save the little ducking from Tom and his hatchett. In this scene Jerry and the duckling are safe in his little hide out behind the wall, and he has grabbed Tom's tail through an electric outlet, feeding it to him through the opening of his lair, so that Tom will hack up his own tail, when he plunges down his hatchett.

A little later in this short, the duckling has found it's mother and explaines everything to her. Tom is still trying to get his hand son him, of course. After listening to all the bloody details from her duckling's little show and tell, shoe goes like 'He did???' and turns to Tom. The camera pans over to him. This is right before the father duck comes in, which  appears to be a huge, tough bird!

In the 1954 Tom & Jerry short 'Downhearted Duckling', our little feathered friend returned, but Joe Barbera and Bill Hanna put a little twist one this one. The little Duckling is depressed and cries his heart out thinking he's ugly after seeing a fairy tale book featuring 'The Ugly Duckling' story. The little guy tries to kill himself and after that doesn't work out, he constantly offers himself to Tom to eat.  Most of the scenes play out in the yard featuring a grand old tree. In the layout, Tom's action is ghosted out on the left. 

Also from 1954, Tom & Jerry's little western showdown titled 'Posse Cat', which is full of hilariously famous gags.  In this short Tom's isn't getting any dinner until he he's gotten rid of the saucage stealing vermint, meaning Jerry. The following production layouts were designed for a chase scene, where Jerry runs around a corner and pushes a standing lark, which falls against a triangle hanging in a window, at the exact moment that Tom catches him, making him think it's dinner time for him as usual. Tom then flies off and throws Jerry aside. The notes on the pan designs clearly read 'Bob, complete B.G.  1/2 inch above normal 12 field.' (Bob was of course, Robert Gentle, twho usually painted the final backgrounds for these shorts at that time). In the other design we can see the triangle is drawn in blue pencil and the comment reads 'Triangle animates'.

By the way, this is the short that also has that famous scene, where Tom flees from a hail of bullets and afterwards, makes faces at the chef, who was shooting at him, from behind a tree. He then takes a sip of fresh water to celebrate his escape, only to discover he's full of bullet holes. Pretty amazing jokes here, and all visual!

Okay, here are two more from that magical year, 1954. 'Neapolitan Mouse' and 'Touché Pussy Cat', the prequel to Academy Award winning 'The Two Mouseketeers' from  1952 ('Touché' also won a nomination for 'Best Animated Short', but didn' t fetch the prize).

In 'Neapolitan Mouse', Tom and Jerry visit Italy.While Tom is chasing Jerry across town, Jerry gets help from an Italian mouse, who even isn't affraid to take on some stray dogs who get into the action as well. On the Pan design, you can clearly see Tom as he's squashed while slamming into the wall (right). The dog who tackled him, is leaning onto the middle wall. Afterwards, he'll be usin Tom to make music, playing him like an accordian after he's squashed. The same dog is tied with his own ears on the left, while he's attacked by the avnging Italian Mouse afterwards. Don't see it? Check the frames from the short below! Backgrounds were painted by John Didrik Johnsen.

Below is the pan layout background design for a scene from 'Touché Pussy Cat', the first T&J short produced in CinemaScope (the 2.66:1 ratio used between 1953 and 1967).  Although Tom & Jerry shorts are normally without dialogues, this one, like 'Neapolitan Mouse' (which was theatrically released two months earlier, in October that year) features some foreign dialogues, (french this time, the other one had Italian dialogues). In the short, Jerry is a mouseketeer in Paris, having a hard time teaching his skills to the younger, adolescent mouse Tuffy. On the right you can clearly see Tom, after Jerry has messed up his costume, revealing his underwear, a reworking of the same joke from 'Two Mousketeers'.