Invader Pet Blog

Kaeley & Spike watch Pink Panther

2009-10-20T11:32:00.000-07:00

Incidentally, Pink panther cartoons are running on Cartoon Network now, weekday mornings at 12:30pm

The History of Bugs Bunny 1938

2009-10-17T09:33:00.000-07:00

Chuck Jones became a director in 1938, after Frank Tashlin had left (although Tashlin eventually came back in the early 40s). Jones is mostly known for the slapstick humor, and wordplay gags which were present in many of his classic cartoons from the mid-40s onward. But his first several shorts were more slow and Disney-like, and usually focused on cute, small animal characters like Sniffles the Mouse. "Prest-o Change-o" was the first short Jones made to feature a wacky character, in this case, the crazy white rabbit from "Porky's Hare Hunt".

Ben Hardaway and co-director Cal Dalton, went back to the "hunter chasing a crazy rabbit" schtick, and brought us a short entitled "Hare-um Scare-um". Hardaway and Dalton had character designer Charlie Thorson create a new design for the rabbit. Thorson made the character grey, and a rounder head and torso, big cheeks, and big big teeth. The model sheet was labeled "Bugs' Bunny". Because, remember, Hardaway's nickname was "Bugs". Warner Bros. merchandising department took note of this idea, and began calling the chatacter "Bugs Bunny" on certain products such as glasses and booklets.

As you may have noticed, the ending to the cartoon seems abrupt. Follow the link below to learn more about the censored ending:
http://ramapithblog.blogspot.com/2009/04/legendbreakers-hare-um-scare-um.html

The History of Bugs Bunny: "Porky's Hare Hunt"

2009-10-15T08:58:00.001-07:00

Bugs Bunny is the most recognizable Looney Tunes character ever, and undoubtfully the most popular. But the character came a long way, and developed under many hands before he became the cool rabbit we know today.
Bugs' history actually begins with Tex Avery's 1937 short "Porky's Duck Hunt", which first introduced the world to the wisecracking waterfowl, Daffy Duck. It also marked the first time Porky Pig's stuttering vocals were supplied by the talented Mel Blanc (before, Porky had been voiced by Joe Doughtery, a man who has a real stutter). Although Daffy had not yet been named, he became very popular with audiences, and Avery directed a second short entitled "Daffy Duck and Egghead". It was the Duck's first cartoon in color. The short was written by Joseph Ben "Bugs" Hardaway".

In 1938, director Friz Freleng left Warner Bros. for MGM (it won't last long), and Bugs Hardaway was promoted as director. His first major idea was, as he told studio painter Martha Sigall, "put a rabbit suit on that duck." The realization of that idea was Hardaway's "Porky's Hare Hunt". The story was by Howard Baldwin (there sure are a lot of "Baldwins" in show business isn't there?).

Not that around the 3:30 mark, the rabbit does Woody Woodpecker's laugh, even though that character had not been created yet. That infamous laugh was created by Mel Blanc himself, and had actually thought it up while in school! Can you imagine the looks he must have gotten?
As for "Hare Hunt" itself, the short is pretty funny, but i hesitate to call it a classic. Martha Sigall has used the word "unlikable" for the embryonic Bugs. One problem is the rabbit laughs manically everytime he either outsmarts or harms Porky and his hunting dog, making the character quite devious. But still, the whole idea of a "screwy wabbit" heckling a hapless hunter is there, and thankfully, the Boys of Termite Terrace didn't give up on attempting to further develope this new character.

Up Next: "Prest-o Change-o", and "Hare-Um Scare-Um".

I feel like my throat's been torn out

2009-09-14T19:45:00.000-07:00

Here's to The King of Pop...

2009-06-26T15:12:00.000-07:00

Cartoon Innovators

2009-05-23T16:35:00.001-07:00

One of the members of the Golden Age Cartoons forums found this and posted it.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry about this.

On a more serious note, Wayne Allwine who provided the voice of Mickey mouse for nearly 3 decades passed away. Only major Disney fans knew this, but he and Russi Taylor, the voice of Minnie Mouse were actually married in real life. This is a sad thing that has happend, and I hope things turn out alright for Russi and the rest of the family.

Blog Plug!

2009-04-27T17:05:00.001-07:00

David Gerstein has a new blog! Who is David Gerstein you ask? He is an animation historian, and he just made an incredible discovery! For years people have believed the cartoon "Hare-um Scare-um" ended with a family of rabbits beating up the hunter, and his head and his dog's heads are seen rolling down the hill into the iris-out.

David's post shows that while the rabbits DO beat up the hunter, the gag that follows afterward is anything but "heads rolling down the hill", but David does bring up an interesting theory on how that urban legend got started.

http://ramapithblog.blogspot.com/2009/04/legendbreakers-hare-um-scare-um.html

The coolest part about the post is he designed it "Snopes" style.

Hey, Barbara Mikkelson! Add this dude's work to your website! Um... with his permission of coarse.

Daffy Duck Goes Animal Quackers

2009-04-08T17:59:00.000-07:00

Matthew Hunter, one of the owners of he Mice-Looney-ous Blog has recently been posting his old Looney Tunes collection of toys and memorabila, so I thought I'd do the same thing. Because I'm a sheep...

In this story, Daffy Duck wants to go to the zoo and paint pictures of the animals, but a sudden rainfall causes him to change plans. For whatever reason, Daffy decides to go to the zoo and paint the animals themselves! Screw authority!

As you may have guessed from the above "page", the story is told in rhyme (and oddly enough, when I was a little kid I never noticed this), but it is a unique story, with some funny illustratons, such as Daffy painting a group of zebras in plaid, and an elephant into an apple tree, and an intresting ending where the rain washes the paint off the animals and forms a rainbow by the zoo's exit.

This book was made by "Brad Gilchrist" (LOL) and he apparently made two other Looney Tunes books, one starring Porky Pig, the other Bugs Bunny.

So anyway, I just thought I'd dig this litte LT childhood memoryandshare it with my two readers. Yes, my blog only has two readers. They know who they are.

Hi, Kelly! Hi, Corrissa!

Actual Interview with Eddie Selzer!

2009-03-31T18:54:00.000-07:00

We've all heard stories about Eddie Selzer, the producer of Looney Tunes, and about how he had no sense of humor. Well, guess what? i actually uncovered an old magazine article dated August 4, 1969 from Film Culture magazine that included an interview with him! I received this magazine from a friend who collects old magazines. Reading this interview is actually quite laughable, and you'll see that the stories Chuck Jones told about Selzer being a humorless bozo, were not exaggerated.

My scanner does not work, so I had to actually RE-TYPE this thing word for word. The things I do for you guys.

FC: What was it like being the head producer for a company creating what many consider the greatest cartoons ever?
ES: You'd never know it, but I found it quite boring. Watching a cartoon get produced is tiring. Seeing storyboards, and looking a scripts is a pain. It's the equivalent of reading. I hate reading. And I know there are those who say reading is good for you. Well if hating to read is bad then I don't want to be right. The only entertaining part was seeing the final cartoon on the projection screen before release. Knowing you're the first person to see these cartoons makes me feel good. Like I'm ahead of the average person. And winning those Oscars was great.

FC: Explain your role as a cartoon producer.
ES: It is my duty to make sure the cartoons are funny. I attend story meetings, and look at the storyboards, see what the cartoon is about, look at the gags, and then let the directors and writers know which gags don't work, and which ones do. Or tell them if a new type of character is good or bad. Unfortunately, they rarely listen to me. I'm just one person, and don't have that much power over their work. For the most part it's up to Jack Warner the head of Warner Bros. Being the only producer in one cartoon studio is a pain. The cartoon executives of today have it easy. They work in groups now, and it's easier for them to control animation people, so we can get what we want.

FC: Why is it a bad thing to let the animators do their own thing, and not have a person looking over their shoulder? Can't they have a little freedom.
ES: That's what a teenager would say to their parent.

FC: I met Friz Freleng once. He said you two once fought over the character of Tweety Pie. You wanted to use a woodpecker character and Freleng wanted to use Tweety.
ES: There was a story man by the name of Bugs Hardaway, who worked at Warner Bros. long before I came aboard, and from what I understand he created Woody Woodpecker. Well that character became a hit. Friiz Freleng eventually made his own Woody Woodpecker cartoon, although oddly enough, he felt the need to redesign the character to be cuter, and he paired the woodpecker with Sylvester. Now I like Woody Woopdecker, and wanted Friz to do more cartoons with that character, but Friz wanted to use Tweety who was originally created by Bob Clampett. Friz threw a fit and walked out. Bob Clampett, who was in the process of being let go at the time, talked me into calling Friz back up. He convinced me that Friz was a terrible talent to lose, so that's what I did. Friz came back, he made the cartoon his own way, and it won an Oscar, which the Academy said I was allowed to keep. In fact, they said i could keep all the oscars we won, instead of the artists. That was real nice of them. I wonder if Walt Disney gets such special treatment. And the Woody Woodpecker cartoons continued as well, but strangely enough, they were made at another studio.

FC: Did you ever meet the original Looney Tunes producer Leon Schlesinger?
ES: No. And i can't really comment on his producing techniques, but just to point out, no Looney Tunes cartoon won an Oscar until I took over. Think about that.

FC: Of all the Looney Tunes characters, who is your favorite?
ES: Bugs Bunny. He makes us the most money.

FC: And least favorite?
ES: I hate Tasmanian devil, and that skunk Stinky, I guess that's his
name. It's never really mentioned in any of the cartoons. The odd thing is these characters are just as well-liked by the public as Bug and Daffy are. Honestly, where is this world coming to?

FC: Are there any cartoon shorts your regret producing?
ES: I hated the one where Bugs fights the bull. Bullfighting isn't funny. I also hated the one where Bugs is fighting a camel. Camels aren't funny. And they're ugly too. They're big lips, big humps, they spit everywhere, and go freakishly long without water. And have you ever looked at a camel's foot? Particularly their toes? Camels have some ugly toes.

Ranting Reaper - Great Mouse detective storybook

2009-03-07T10:06:00.001-08:00

New idea for the Oscars.

2009-02-24T11:09:00.001-08:00

The only entertaining moment of last night's Oscars

2009-02-23T08:30:00.000-08:00

Can anyone guess why?

Varied Programs

2009-01-30T14:32:00.001-08:00

Where the Hell is Sofia?

2008-12-17T14:43:00.001-08:00

The Ranting Reaper on Gift Cards

2008-12-03T22:14:00.000-08:00

Mike is not stupid.

2008-11-21T11:11:00.001-08:00

Hodgson gets his reward

2008-11-18T15:07:00.000-08:00

Finally! A new comic strip!

2008-11-15T11:37:00.000-08:00

This time I got Chopper the Chupacabra and his nemesis Mike Hodgson. Remember when I did drawings of these characters a few months back?

Blog Plug!

2008-11-02T08:36:00.001-08:00

My best friend Corrissa has her own blog now, and I thought I'd promote it. Might not be much, since a lot of people don't even read my blog, but hey, any publicity is good publicity.

http://rosesnape.blogspot.com/

Tweety is a boy!

2008-10-06T08:07:00.000-07:00

Of coarse, if you're a real Looney Tunes fan, this is no secret. But, apparently a couple was bickering, of all things, about Tweety's gender, and asked Parade Magazine what it is.

E-mail interaction...

2008-10-02T08:52:00.001-07:00

... between myself and animation director Gary Goldman (he works with Don Bluth).

Me: I just heard the news that Morris Sullivan has passed away. Can you tell us a little about him, and the contributions he made to Bluth's early films. Also was the character "Sullivan" in The Secret of NIMH named after him? All the best.

Goldman: Brandon, Thank you for writing. In the fall of 1982, after the dismal performance in theaters by The Secret of NIMH. We were feeling pretty low. At the end of July, 1982, the Motion Picture Screen Cartoonists went on a 73 day strike (we were a union studio, including Don, John and me). More negative: the financiers for the film in production, East of the Moon: West of the Moon, were fearful that the strike would cause wage increases for the artists, and seriously affect the $11.5 M budget for that film - they walked away after spending almost $500,000 on development. So there we sat -Don, John, me, our production manager, Fred Craig and the receptionist, Carolyn Warren. In October, one of the female animators, feeling pretty low, went to a phrenologist and had her fortune told. She came back to the studio with the following story: She was told that she was an artist. Something to do with a group of artists were are some sort of "crusade" to save their art. She was told to stick with them. That there would be a "silver-haired gentleman" who would come into their lives and take them away to a far away island, where they would become very successful. Very weird, to say the least. We all had a good laugh. However, four months later, in January of 1983, we met Morris Sullivan. Our attorney brought him by the studio to see if he could help find financing for the Dragon's Lair game. He was an acquisitions and merger expert, with many wealthy associates. He was silver-haired, and 21 years older than Don. We found that the number of years difference interesting because Don, I and John are all 7 years apart, age-wise, John being the youngest. (Morris was three times the difference in our ages.) Are we superstitious or what? We did a presentation for Morris and showed him a few minutes of The Secret of NIMH. When we were done, he thanked us for a "very impressive presentation". He said that he would love to help but at the time he was involved with a very big and important merger, something to do with large companies on Wall Street. He left. We didn't see Morris again until late September of 1983, when we were almost finished with the production of our second arcade game, Space Ace. By this time he was done with his merger and came back to see how we were doing. We were sailing and all was looking good, though we were being to have business issues with the manufacturer/distributor of the first game, Dragon's Lair. We hired Morris to consult business with us, and took him with us to the 1983 New Orleans Arcade Game convention. He guided us thru the turbulent relationship with our partners and while our company fought thru a lawsuit with the manufacturer, Morris set up a company to handle our collaboration with Steven Spielberg on An American Tail and The Land Before Time. It took 5 years to settle the lawsuit. By that time Morris had moved us to Ireland with our American/Canadian crew of 87 artists and technicians. Huh?! The silver-haired gentleman moved us to a far away island? How's that for a prophecy? Well, within a year of the move, we were half-way thru the production of The Land Before Time and already had become the largest animation studio in Europe with almost 400 artists, technicians and management staff. Morris WAS the silver-haired gentleman. A good businessman and an honest partner to what we were trying to achieve. Morris recognized that we would always have difficulty getting financing at a level to satisfy the needs of production, that is why he suggested that we move to Ireland, there were tax benefits, low interest loans for infrastructure, equipment, training grants and rent subsidies. Plus, a lower salary expectation in a foreign country. The issue was going to be training of artists that had no knowledge of classical animation. Morris never blinked an eye. He reminded us that we had a lot to do with the training of the staff we had in California and most of those were going to Ireland with us. They can assist in the training of new staff. And, that's what we did. Morris stayed with the company, running the business side from offices in Burbank, until the last financial funding, in 1991, with a Belgium company, when he was bought out by the financing company. He went into retirement. But his business influence is what helped us finance five films, all to be made in Ireland, some, after 1988, with a satellite company of 88 artists and technicians at Don Bluth Animation in Burbank, a company that was set up as some of the American animators decided to return to the USA. The name on the Irish company was changed to Don Bluth Entertainment, Ireland, LTD. But, all those that made the trip and those who became part of that super crew will all remember, Sullivan Bluth Studios...and to answer the other question: No, Morris Sullivan was not the namesake of Sullivan in that film. Thanks again for writing. Regards, Gary

New Commentary!

2008-09-23T13:21:00.000-07:00

This time I discuss the rarely-seen 2000 short "Little Go Beep", written by Earl Kress, and directed by Spike Brandt. It includes an audio clip of Kress himself discussing the short, back when he appeared on Shokus Internet Radio.
Admittedly, I made a boo-boo on the commentary. I said that Dee Bradley Baker was originally hired to voice the Coyote's father, and Stan Freberg was brought in later. This is incorrect, and I apologize for making this error.

Here's some blog entries by Kress himself talking about the cartoon:
http://www.mynameisearlkress.com/weblog/?p=57
http://www.mynameisearlkress.com/weblog/?p=58
http://www.mynameisearlkress.com/weblog/?p=59
http://www.mynameisearlkress.com/weblog/?p=60
http://www.mynameisearlkress.com/weblog/?p=61
http://www.mynameisearlkress.com/weblog/?p=62

Stephen Colbert & Tina Fey

2008-09-22T07:32:00.000-07:00

Congratulations to both of you for your Emmy wins last night! You both deserve them!

Fun with the Webcam

2008-09-18T20:25:00.001-07:00

lip-synching to Heathcliff

Quest for Camelot

2008-09-15T07:54:00.000-07:00

Agony Booth just posted its recap of the failed animated film "Quest for Camelot".

http://agonybooth.com/recaps/Quest_for_Camelot_1998.aspx

It's an interesting read, but personally, I think the recaps I tried to send in of Space Jam, were funnier.

First Sunday strip with a logo

2008-09-14T11:43:00.000-07:00

Time to focus on Spike...

2008-09-13T08:53:00.001-07:00

Dust and Raccoons

2008-09-12T09:45:00.000-07:00

2 new Teachers' Lounge strips!

2008-09-09T13:33:00.000-07:00

As always, feedback is welcome.

R.I.P. Bill Melendez!

2008-09-03T17:23:00.000-07:00

Bill Melendez, one of the animators for Looney Tunes (particularly, the Bob Clampett unit), and director for many "Peanuts" specials, the voice of Snoopy, and director of "Frosty Returns" has passed away. He was 91 years old. He will be missed.

The return of Teachers' Lounge!

2008-09-02T16:00:00.001-07:00

Original Chopper sketches

2008-09-01T12:02:00.001-07:00

Some sketches I did of Chopper, before the "finalized" version down below.

My NES Road Runner review

2008-08-28T13:36:00.000-07:00

Chopper the Chupacabra

2008-08-12T13:03:00.000-07:00

This is an idea for a new cartoon series. It's about a character named Chopper the Chupacabra who is accused of blood-sucking CIA goats, and is captured by paranormal investigators.

Mike Hodgeson is an investigator who believes Chopper is guilty. Chopper eventually escapes to find out who framed him, and Mike remains in hot pursuit of him.

This is Chalke Miller. Mike's assistant. She believes Chopper is innocent and helps him escape. She is psychic (somewhat), and has great mind powers.

Daffy Duck fan dub

2008-08-06T18:56:00.000-07:00

Yes, I have dreams that one day, I will become the new voice of Daffy Duck. And if that dream ever comes true, it will be a nightmare for everyone else. Watch at your own risk.

All This & Rabbit Stew Commentary

2008-08-04T10:43:00.000-07:00

Matthew Hunter's not the only cartoon fan that can do commentaries!

No comics for two weeks

2008-07-21T10:05:00.003-07:00

Sorry gang, but I'm going on vacation to Wyoming in a few days, and won't be back for 10 days. But, I'll still draw some cartoons while I'm there. All the best!

Teachers' Lounge Cast cont'd

2008-07-14T12:26:00.001-07:00

More comics on their way!

Introducing the cast

2008-07-01T11:43:00.001-07:00

Feel free to leave comments and let me know what you think.

5 new comic strips

2008-06-24T11:03:00.000-07:00

I recommend you read them in order bottom to top. That's the order I did these. I still haven't gotten the hang of Blogger yet.

Bad news

2008-06-16T12:25:00.000-07:00

If you'd like to see more comics by me, that won't happen right now. The library at my college is under maintanance, and that's where I scan my drawings. The library won't be back open until next Monday. That's too bad, as over the past weekend, I drew some more strips, and I think (hope) they're better than the first three. Oh well, I'll just take advantage of this time to do some more.

Until then, you can always check my MySpace profile, see my own cartoon albums there. I think they're woth a look.

http://www.myspace.com/brandontoons

Teachers' Lounge Comic

2008-06-13T10:37:00.000-07:00