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Happy Birthday Foghorn Leghorn! Made his debut in “Walky Talky Hawky” on August 31st, 1946....
One of my favorite animated characters turns 80 today
The seventieth anniversary of Good Will to Men
It was on December 23rd, 1955 – seventy years ago tomorrow – that Metro-Golden-Mayer released Good Will to Men. This is one of my all-time most favorite Christmas cartoons. It’s essentially a remake of the considerably darker Peace on Earth from 1939. Although we may not live under the threat of war as much as those during the era did, the themes of this animated short are perhaps more timely than ever before.
“Love thy neighbor.”
Directed by none other than William Hanna and Joseph Barbera (who went on to create The Flintstones, Scooby-Doo and many other animated favorites), here is Good Will to Men…
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“Make Mine Freedom” from 1948: Don’t drink the Ism!
So help me, I’m going to show this cartoon from almost eighty years ago until I’m blue in the face, if that’s what it takes to stop people from drinking Ism!
It was in 2009 when I first came across “Make Mine Freedom”, a 1948 educational film produced by Harding College. I was immediately struck by how prophetic this animated short was. How it warned against the dangers of socialism. “Ism” is a blight that corrupts and destroys everything that it touches.
Not for the first time, not for the last, there are people in this country trying to sell “Ism” to us. But it is a bitter elixir that will do naught but poison us and rob us and our children of precious liberty.
America
is not perfect. It never has been. It never will be. We have made
mistakes along the way, just as any other nation ...
The Berenstain Bears learn about sound economic policy
I knew it! I just knew that I hadn’t imagined this. A cartoon from 37 years that I saw only once ago and I still remember it!
Around the mid-Eighties there was an animated series based on the beloved Berenstain Bears children’s books. The show ran on Saturday mornings on CBS. It was pretty good as I seem to recall. And often quite humorous.
Well, the other day one of the episodes sprang to mind as I was reading the news about the latest attempt to avoid a government shutdown. It involved the Bear kiddies learning all about money. How those little green pieces of paper don’t have value on their own. Instead they must be backed up by something with real tangible worth. In the bears’ world this happens to be the purest honey in existence. Without that backing, as the kids’ father puts it there would be total ...
“Zathras warn”: The trailer for BABYLON 5: THE ROAD HOME
It was released earlier today. I’ve watched this trailer for Babylon 5: The Road Home at least five times now… and I am stoked. It looks beautiful. And it seems that they’ve done an excellent job at casting the voice actors for the characters whose original portrayers have “gone beyond the Rim” over the years.
(I’m hoping that we get at least one look inside Garibaldi’s quarters aboard Babylon 5. Just to see if the painting of Daffy Duck is still there.)
Anyhoo… enjoy!
Babylon 5: The Road Home hits digital download, 4K, and Blu-ray on August 15th, 2023.
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“Faith manages”: Babylon 5 returning with animated movie!
I’m feeling some geeky gears in my gray matter starting to rotate like they haven’t in a VERY long time.
Babylon 5 – the single greatest television series that the Nineties ever spawned – is coming back as an animated film.
The show’s creator J. Michael Straczynski unloaded the news on Twitter earlier this afternoon. More details are coming soon, including the movie’s title and release date.
I cannot emphasize enough how stoked I am about this. Babylon 5 was like an extra few years of education on top of what I got in college. The five-season story about that miles-long space station all alone in the night, the “last best hope for peace” in a galaxy rife with plotting and intrigue, shattered the ceiling both as a broadcast series and for what the medium was capable of giving viewers. Had it not been for Babylon 5 paving the ...
Lenten Blogging 2022: Day 24
What a week! I was so pooped last night that I couldn’t watch the Duke/Texas Tech game (GO DUKE!). Your friend and humble narrator has transported four clients, made five drug runs (what I call getting medication to patients) and did all kinds of other stuff in the past several days. Now it’s the weekend. Time for lots of playtime with Tammy and doing some minor tasks around the house.
But that’s not much of an entry for “blogging during Lent”. I thought that since it’s Friday, time for a little fun…
This spring is the fortieth (?!?) anniversary of G.I. Joe: that much beloved toy line from the Eighties. Not just toys, but also the comic series (which was quite a serious read) and the animated series. Lately Hasbro has been posting full episodes of G.I. Joe on YouTube and I’ve been relishing these little visits back to ...
Lenten Blogging 2022: Day 23
I’ve posted this cartoon before at least once. And I think it’s way past time that we watch it again. This is from 1948 and if we had only heeded its wisdom all along.
But, I like to think that it’s not too late to say “NO!” to “ism”.
Courtesy of Harding College and in glorious Technicolor(tm), here is “Make Mine Freedom”:
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STAR WARS: TIE FIGHTER anime-style short will leave you lusting for more
If Disney was really smart, they would hire this guy to make a bunch of traditional-animated films like this!
There was a shorter version that Paul Johnson released a few years ago, but this is the full-fledged vision: Star Wars: TIE Fighter. And it is breathtaking. I dare say that I speak for a lot of fans out there when I say that this… THIS… is what we want to see. And see more of.
Here it is:
For all the wonder of CGI-animation, the traditional 2D style has more… I dunno… “character”? “Emotion”? How about “heart”? And that’s what this video has in spades. This is as much of a Star Wars story as the live-action films, in my opinion. And it’s one that I would gladly pay to see more of at the box office....
Classic SESAME STREET: “Ladybugs’ Picnic”
It’s been some time since I posted any classic Sesame Street material. Need to get better about that.
Well anyway, here from 1971 or so it’s the very timeless “Ladybugs’ Picnic”!
Few items of interest about this clip. Firstly, that’s legendary muppeteer Jerry Nelson singing, with fellow muppet operator Richard Hunt playing the kazoo.
And it’s also worth noting that this was animated by Bud Luckey, who is currently an animator at Pixar. Just think: this cartoon is from a guy who went on to work on stuff like Toy Story, WALL-E and a bunch of other Disney/Pixar movies.
This song was always memorable to me for some reason. At one point it was seriously stuck in my head. So now I’m showing it to you guys so that you can share my, errr… enjoyment 🙂...