Airplane test

 

Just a bit of airplane animation I did for my upcoming video.  I still have tons of work to do on it.  I can't wait until it's done and I can finally show everybody.

Tex Avery: In His Own Words

 

 

 Recently, some lovely person found an old recording of Tex Avery giving an interview about his life and career.  Apparently, at Chapman College back in 1974, somebody was doing a retrospective showing of animated films and Tex was an invited guest who spoke at it.  That's the year I was born so if I had been there I wouldn't have gotten so much out of that interview.  It would've been great if I was there at the age I am now or even 25 years ago.  Oh well, the best I can do for myself is embed this interview clip on my own blog for what would've been Tex's 117 birthday had modern science managed to avert death in any way.

What perked my ear the most about Tex's speech is what he thought of "modern" cartoons, those being made at about that time.  He's right about how the tight television deadlines as well as the sponsor's imposing opinions put a huge damper on the animation industry as a whole. There was not nearly as much room for creativity as there was for Tex at WB and MGM in the 1930's and 40's.  Things weren't 100% perfect of course, but they were marginally better than the Saturday morning era of the 70's and 80's.

Tex did express a small bit of hope that the industry could improve in the future.  Whether it has improved at all since 1974 is certainly a matter of opinion.  However, I think one thing that Tex might've overlooked in lamenting about the future of animation is the technology. One big reason animation studios couldn't afford full animation at the time was because they were using the same method of animating on paper followed by inking and painting onto cels. The late 80's and all of the 90's had the rise of computers being used which caused animation projects to be completed that much quicker.  That's why at Disney they could finish one fully animated every year instead of every 12 years or so. And, of course, we saw the rise of a small fledgling studio called Pixar which would soon be purchased by Disney and become huge. 

People at Pixar are just as nostalgic for short cartoons in theatres as Tex was. To that end, whenever they released a feature film in theatres they would make room to attach a short animated film before it. Below, I've embedded one such Pixar short. It won an Oscar as I recall. It's also highly comedic and full of gags that Tex Avery may have enjoyed. Maybe some future Pixar employees were at that Chapman film festival back in 1974 and were inspired by Tex's words when they heard them? Mmmmmmmm.......... could be. At any rate, for your viewing pleasure, here is For the Birds. Maybe Tex is looking down on this and smiling? Here's hoping.

How my son deals with Archie Bunker

 

A birthday present I bought for myself last June was the All in the Family box set. It's got all nine glorious and hilarious seasons. At this point I'm just about finished season 7. I'll be moving on to season 8 and 9 very soon.

However, of course, I have much more to do that just watch some old TV show. I have a full time job AND a baby son to look after.  He alone requires so much attention. He's got to be fed and entertained on a very regular basis.  Anyone who has kids or has raised kids in the past knows all of this and more I'm sure.

Anyway, like I said, I'm often called upon to keep my son Avery entertained whilst mom is busy with work and other things. While entertaining him, he has come to glance at the antics of the Bunker household now and again. He of course understands absolutely nothing of what he sees, but it does turn his head at times.  He definitely notices when Archie starts yelling. He certainly can't understand what Archie says when he yells and he most certainly can't understand to context of what Archie is yelling and who he's yelling at.  All he sees is a crazed and angry old man.

You'd think that my son would be saddened or even somewhat traumatized by seeing such vitriol being spouted like that. But no, that's not how he reacts at all. He has instead taken one of the small mallets used on his toy xylophone, walk over to the TV and hit Archie right on the head with it.  It wasn't a hard hit that could wreck the TV thankfully. It was just a tap big enough to express how he felt about Mr Bunker's bellowing.  I have made a quick drawing commemorating that very action:

He's only done that once, but for me it was quite memorable.  

Anyway, I do plan to keep working my way through the seasons any time I can.  I'll end this post with a song that I've been hearing so many times in the past few months as you can imagine.  It's stuck in my head so now I'm getting it stuck in yours. Enjoy!

Cleaner kitten animation for an upcoming video I'm making

 

The animation for my video is coming along nicely, I'd say.  Remember the kitten animation from my previous blog post?  Well, this is a further cleaned up version of it.  What do you think?

I'd also like to point out that having a kid is quite a time consuming thing.  When my son was still a tiny baby, he could just in his crib or wherever he was comfortable and either just sleep or play.  This gave me some time to dedicate to this video of mine.  However, now he can walk around and get into things.  So, he needs so much more attention now, especially since my wife's maternity leave has ended.  This, as you can imagine, has pretty much reduced the production process to a small trickle.  I'm not sure when this will be done, possibly when my son starts kindergarten.  

But, at any rate, I look forward to the finished product and the reaction it will get.

Kitten animation test for my upcoming video

 

 Up top is some animation of a kitten I just roughed out.  I'll clean it up nice and as polished as the time on my hands can allow me.  As you can imagine, having a full time job AND an infant son can eat up sooooo much of that time.

Hey, speaking of my infant son:

            sx z    

My son was on my lap for a brief time while I was making this blog post.  That "           sx z  " text is the first thing he ever typed.  I enlarged it and changed the colour for emphasis like the proud father I am.  Could this be the start of him typing many profound and thought-provoking things? Only time will tell.

At any rate, please give enjoy and/or give critiques of the above animation.  Thank you.

More animation commentary

 

I managed to get some more commentary onto Anthony's Animation Talk channel.  This time it was for a cartoon called Catty Cornered.  As I mentioned in the video, this is one of my Top 5 Sylvester & Tweety shorts and if you have ever seen this cartoon in its entirety you could probably see why.  My dialogue starts at about the 16:30 mark but I'd still recommend watching the whole video.  It's loaded with info and insights that you wouldn't want to miss.

Oh hey,  I did another commentary on Anthony's channel more than a year ago but I never got around to posting it here for some bizarre reason.  I participated in a massive pastiche of commenters for the cartoon Rabbit Fire.  For those who don't know, that's the first of three "duck season / rabbit season" cartoons.  There are many guest commentators plus a guest appearance from the original director's daughter.  I forget exactly where exactly my bit starts.  I guess you'll have to watch the whole thing to find out.  Whatever! Enjoy!

 

I Had a Birthday + Shout Out to a Free Speech Martyr

 

As of last Monday, I have reached a milestone I knew I'd reach but never imagined myself reaching.  Yep! I turned the big 5 - 0!!! I still don't quite feel "old" yet, but I can easily see I'm part of an older generation.  It would be great to be young again, but at the same time I'm glad I was born when I was.  Gen X is having a good run I'd say.  I certainly do NOT want to sit around grousing about my age and my life lamenting "OMG I'M 50" all over the place.   For one, it would be a waste of time and energy.  But also for a bigger reason, obsessing over age is exactly what the baby boomers did.

Many of you younger millenials and all of Gen Z have only known boomers as these creaky old curmudgeons.  But, those of us in Gen X witnessed the boomers when they started aging and, believe me, it was pathetic.  Practically the moment the first boomer turned 30, age is all they would talk about.  "Oh my God! I'm 30 now! What am I going to do??", is something we heard from them all of the time.  There was even a prime time drama dedicated to placating these people:

That is a real show.  It was a drama series with a highly depressive tone that was just 54 minutes of people trying their darndest to cope with the despondency of...................... being more than 30.  I'm so proud of my generation for not getting like this.  Millenials are in their 30's and 40's and they haven't said much about their aging either.  We're watching Gen Z though.  They could create shows on Netflix/Hulu?TikTok all about being "triggered over becoming old and cringe".  Here's hoping that can be avoided.

OK! That's all about aging I'm going to talk about in this post and anywhere else.  I'd like to spend the rest of this time talking about someone who everyone should be talking about more.

A man named Jose Rizal!  He is a great man who made the ultimate sacrifice and started his home country of the Philippines on a path to freedom.  It all started by him simply writing a book.

It all really started in 1521 when the explorer Ferdinand Magellan landed on the shores on the Philippines and conquered it for Spain.  He and his conquistadors immediately and brutally imposed so much of Spanish culture on to the island inhabitants.  Heck, the place was named Maharlika when before they showed up.  Magellan then renamed it the Philippines after Prince Phillip,  One of the biggest aspects of Spanish culture foisted upon the Filipine people was its catholicism, which still very much exists to this day.  

This was all very much a way of life for the Philippines when Jose Rizal was born in 1861.  He went to school just like every other kid at the time.  However, his grades were so exceptionally high that he was granted the opportunity to attend university in Madrid, Spain. Living outside of his island country of origin gave Rizal a much broader perspective.  He recollected all of the Catholic missions in the Phillipines run by the Spanish.  Upon reflection, he could see just how restrictive and even abusive they were.  This inspired him to write a book about his experiences with these missions: Noli Me Tángere (Touch Me Not)

You can pretty much guess how both the Spanish Government and the Vatican felt about Rizal's work.  They weren't just mad because of the words he published, they were absolutely seething moreso because his book had sparked a revolt among the Phillipine populous.  The United States then intervened on the Philippines' behalf and they were soon liberated from the iron fist rule of Spain.

Sadly, before that liberation could happen, by order of both the Spanish government and the Vatican, Rizal was executed by a firing squad on December 30, 1896.  Still to this day in the Philippines, December 30th is a national holiday.

Someone being killed by two authoritarian institutions for the "crime" of expressing oneself is definitely someone who belongs among the pantheon of free speech heroes, much like other people we know:

FREE AT LAST! FREE AT LAST! GOD ALMIGHTY, HE'S FREE AT LAST!

So, in that spirit, attempted drawing a picture of Mr. Rizal.

This is my first and only crack at it so far.  Not the best nor the worst picture I've ever drawn, but I think it looks fine nonetheless.  Leave your opinions in the comments below.  My bigger point is that more people should be drawing pictures of him and celebrating him.  But, more than that, we should all stay vigilant that no place on Earth slides into the kind of dystopian nightmare scenario that lead to the execution of people like Rizal ever again.

With that, I leave it there and thank you and one last happy belated birthday to me.