My son likes girls

 Well, he enjoys seeing other kids in general.  But, what I'm talking about here is based on what happened a few weekends ago.  It was a lovely Saturday afternoon and it just so happened that neither I nor my wife worked that day.  And of course, our daughter didn't have any school that day either.  So, we decided to go "out and about" as a family.  

We first went to the Natural History Museum in town.  Then after that we strolled through a nearby park.  In our wonderings, we found a water park full of kids playing.  We were very certain that li'l Avery would easily have fun here.  We were correct in our assessment.  He love love LOVED all the little sprinklers that shot up water.  He could've played with those all day.  He also enjoyed all the slides and other fun jungle jims all over that park as well. 

But, his favourite attraction at this park a little girl he saw.   The girl looked about maybe 3 years old.  My son is 1 almost 2.  When he saw her he couldn't stop smiling.  You can tell when Avery likes something alot by his arms.  He gets what I call "hummingbird arms".  He flaps them back and forth as hard as he can.  When he saw that girl, those arms were flapping like crazy, practically a blur.  All he wanted to do was walk over to that girl and give her a hug.  The girl was NOT into this though.  She kept hiding behind her dad.  This is fine.  She has every right to refuse a hug she doesn't want.  But, I can say with utmost certainty that Avery meant her no harm.  And, thankfully, Avery was not disappointed by her reluctance for contact.  He was just happy to see her at all.

Anyway, me being an artist dad, I have depicted this moment with a drawing.  Here it is:

I gave it a "Pepe Le Pew" twist because that's pretty much what this encounter was like.  I'm sure that little girl is doing fine wherever she is.

Angry man

 Here's a drawing I recently did of a very angry man.  "Why is he angry?", you ask.  Well, he's in my little film that I'm still working on and should hopefully be done in the near future.  Having a full time job AND a toddler son to chase around does make the work that much more difficult.  But, with perseverance I know I can make it happen. 

The writ has finally dropped

 Election season is upon us once again here in Canada. It was announced just today. Although, the circumstances for this election are a bit different than the ones I posted about in the past because this time around the sitting Prime Minister felt the need to resign.

*Justin Trudeau in the act of resigning*

He clung to power as long he could but, as of last February, could not hold on any longer. So he will NOT be in this leadership race this time around. There are a whole new batch of candidates to choose from, some new and some all too familiar. Here they are:

Mark Carney

 

Pierre Poilievre

Jagmeet Singh

Yves Francois Blanchet

Elizabeth May

...and bringing up the rear:

Maxime Bernier

The election day happens on April 28.  May the lesser evil candidate win.

Go Canada!

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!