Showing posts with label cartoons. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cartoons. Show all posts

February 26 – Happy Birthday, Tex Avery!

Posted on February 26, 2017

Bugs Bunny!


Daffy Duck!

Porky Pig!



Have you ever heard of these characters?

Tex Avery is part of the Golden Age of American Animation - the time from the invention of the sound cartoon in 1928 to the 1960s, when animated "shorts" in movie theaters began to lose interest for people who had access to animated TV shows.

While Walt Disney and the Disney studios are most famous in early animation, Tex Avery, who worked for Warner Brothers and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, was able to steer the industry toward less sweet, less cute cartoons. Adults tended to like Avery's sarcasm, and kids liked his non-stop action. He even had a bit of an adult twist on fairy tale characters.

Here's another thing that Avery brought to cartoons: breaking the artifice of the cartoon.

I love this! 

Avery would sometimes have a cartoon character burst through the end credits to pop off one last witty remark... 

Or he would have a character directly talk to us in the audience... 

Or he would have a character complain about the plot of the cartoon...within the cartoon!

These clever bits almost always crack me up!

Avery was known for pushing boundaries of animation in many ways, and he was famous for saying, "In a cartoon, you can do anything."

Avery was an animator, cartoonist, voice actor, and director. His small hometown of Taylor, Texas, is where Avery was born on this date in 1908. 




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October 28 – International Animation Day

Posted on October 28, 2015


Animation can be as simple as a flip book or as complex as a modern CGI motion picture. It can be oriented towards kids or adults, or it can be meant for everyone. It can be made up of hundreds or thousands of drawings, or it can comprise hundreds or thousands of photos of clay, LEGO, or other positionable figures.

And these days, it can be GIFs!



Let's celebrate it all!

Today has been proclaimed International Animation Day because, on this date in 1892, the first public presentation of the Théâtre Optique wowed audiences with a motion picture – an animation.

  • Here is a video about how to make super simple flip books. 


  • Here is a video of some really great (and much more complex) flip books. 




  • Here is a super-simple stop-motion movie tutorial. 


  • I adore the stop motion animation called “A Year in Full Colour - Moleskine Planners”! You can watch it here – AND be sure to look at the second video, which shows how it was made! 


Of course, you can celebrate International Animation Day by watching some
of your favorite animated movies. Two of mine are Disney's "Alice in Wonderland"
and "Spirited Away."




 
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September 30 – Happy Birthday, Flintstones!

Posted on September 30, 2015


Have you met Fred and Wilma Flintstone, and their friends Barney and Betty Rubble? Do you know Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm? How about Dino and Baby Puss and Hoppy?

Even though The Flintstones has been off the air for almost half a century now (which is super shocking to me, by the way!), it is still popular and was rated in 2013 as the second Greatest TV Cartoon of All Time by TV Guide. (Number 1 was The Simpsons.)

You want to know why? Check out this or this or this other

The Flintstones was first aired on this date in 1960 and continued for 166 episodes until it ended in April of 1966.

The Flintstones is all about the everyday concerns of modern life plunked into a fantasy version of the Stone Age. (Part of the fantasy is the idea of dinosaurs living at the same time as humans – which of course never came close to happening!) 

Tons of absurd pre-historic technology, such as an instant camera that works when a bird carves a picture onto a stone tablet with its beak! 

Millions of word-play “Stone Age” names, like Sand-and-Stony-o for San Antonio and Mick Jadestone and the Rolling Boulders for Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones! 

A grand mix of cavemen, wooly mammoths, dinosaurs, and split-level homes in the suburbs!

Did you know...?
  • There is Flintstones Bedrock City in Custer, South Dakota, with a train ride and a playground and dinosaur models and a theater with The Flintstones cartoons playing. There is also a Flintstones Bedrock Town in Arizona and several other Flintstones theme parks.


  • Flintstones Chewable Vitamins are definitely one of the most successful Flintstones products...but there are also Halloween costumes, t-shirts, lunch boxes, collectable figures, ViewMasters, dolls, and much much more!
  • Until The Simpsons, The Flintstones was the title holder of longest-running prime-time TV cartoon, AND of most profitable cartoon.
  • Dino, the Flintstones' pet, changed colors throughout the series. Actually, the entire cartoon changed colors—because it was first aired in black and white!







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Anniversary of the first tooth extraction with anesthesia














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April 30, 2012 - Bugs Bunny Day



Oh, yes, some Bugs Bunny fans will tell you that July 27 is Bugs Bunny Day. That is the anniversary of the 1940 debut of the familiar rabbit and his adversary, Elmer Fudd. In that July debut people also heard for the first time Bugs's famous line, “What's up, Doc?”

But today is the real anniversary of Bugs Bunny. The “wascally wabbit” first appeared on April 30, 1938, in a short theater cartoon called “Porky's Hare Hunt.” Perhaps the reason people don't recognize Bugs from that early cartoon is that he was credited as “Happy Rabbit.” But, you know what they say, if it looks like Bugs Bunny, and talks like Bugs Bunny, and moves like Bugs Bunny...then it IS Bugs Bunny, no matter what they call it!”

Enjoy Bugs Bunny!

With this free WB game, you can help Bugs gather carrots.  Be sure to get a few carrots to munch on while you play!

Boomerang has all sorts of Bugs Bunny activities, such as this coloring page, this painting activity, and even a carrot cake recipe.

Here is a lesson in how to draw Bugs Bunny. 

Watch some silly bits from Looney Tunes cartoons. Like these(Here is the full cartoon from one of those bits.)


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