Once the things that pretty much everyone loves about Doctor Who is how human he/she is, a pretty impressive achievement for a Galifreyan with two hearts who may be a sworn protector of humanity and their home planet Earth but who most certainly doesn’t come from there. But what if, Continue Reading
Animation
Video essay: Technique not design defined early Disney animation
SNAPSHOT The real Disney style isn’t in design but in technique. Techniques that are universal and style agnostic, which is why when budgets were tight, Disney was notorious for repurposing animation from its archive to save time and they were able to recycle that work between two completely different characters Continue Reading
Retro movie review: Wreck-It Ralph
It’s easy, through the divorced-from-childhood eyes of adulthood, to assume that cartoons- all bright colours, manic movements and quippy oneliners – are lacking in any kind of real substance. After all, we’ve been trained to see cartoons as childish bits of frippery and live action as suitably adult, a demarcation Continue Reading
Happy pop culture new year everyone!
Thoughts on A Charlie Brown Christmas
In a world of dazzling CGI special effects and ever more postmodern, cleverly-interwoven stories, the beautiful simplicity of 1965’s A Charlie Brown Christmas is striking. Holding close to the look and spirit of Charlie Schulz’s immortally-brilliant comic strip Peanuts, the animated Christmas special features, as you might expect given the Continue Reading
A Christmas tree you can see from space: Come join the apocalyptically-festive LEGO party!
It’s fair to say that celebrating Christmas is not exactly high on the list of priorities in your average garden variety apocalyptic wasteland? After all, resources are slim to none, it’s really dusty and bleak, and there’s all that time that must be devoted to brooding sessions. There surely isn’t Continue Reading
Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and Hank Azaria attest to the genius of Mel Blanc
SNAPSHOT Do you know how hard that is? To do to take your own character, have it imitate another one of your own characters? It’s almost impossible. If you try to combine two voices that you’re doing, you kind of just land in the middle. …we all tried to Continue Reading
Goodbye Woody! Dive into this poignant supercut of Pixar film endings
I am always torn when it comes to endings. On the one hand, I love following the myriad twists and turns of a story, gathering up its various narrative loose ends, threads and ideas until I am in possession of (hopefully) a satisfying conclusion. But on the other hand, Continue Reading
Archer and Scooby Doo in the same cartoon? Butch Hartman winningly marries up kids and adult cartoons
Unless you want to spend the next month answering awkward questions and/or potentially scarring dear little John, Judy or Millicent for life, you’re likely not to sit them down with you to watch Family Guy, Rick and Morty or South Park. SpongeBob SquarePants or Peanuts? Sure! Archer or The Continue Reading
Just four fingers? How most cartoon characters came to be missing an appendage
SNAPSHOT Cartoon characters have had four fingers for as long as we can remember. Sure, some cartoons have five fingers, but the majority of animation shows characters with only four fingers. How did this become the standard in the animation industry? Will cartoons always only have four fingers? We Continue Reading