Branded in the 80's: Peel Here From the obvious to the obscure to the downright frightening, Peel Here documents the collectible stickers of the 80's and related ephemera.
posted on Jun 26, 2008 - View this thread

Enjoy 10 variously attributed^* vintage Monkey Cartoons and more courtesy STWALLSKULL and BOOM!
Also available for your viewing pleasure, an itemized list with embeddable links:
posted on Apr 12, 2008 - View this thread

I'm not a big fan of youtube posts. But without youtube, these two favorites of mine would be lost to obscurity. One from Seymour Kneitel, "La Petite Parade". The other is a Tex Avery, "Symphony in Slang".
posted on Feb 2, 2008 - View this thread

The Katzenjammer Kids* are 110 years old this month, the world's longest running comic. Watch 1918's Policy & Pie (pt. 2), rare animation by creator Rudolph Dirks who lost the strip to William Randolph Hearst in a court case. The strip was taken over by Harold H. Knerr, but Dirks retained rights to the characters and produced a rival cartoon under The Captain & the Kids for Pulitzer papers for several decades. Five artists followed Dirks and Knerr creating the strip for Hearst.
posted on Dec 27, 2007 - View this thread

Sometimes called "The Ed Wood of Animation", director Sam Singer had an interesting career. He was responsible for some of the most godawful cartoons ever produced, and through his work on 1975's Tubby the Tuba, was present at the birth of Pixar.
posted on Nov 16, 2007 - View this thread

Evil Bee (embedded QT) is a gorgeous & interesting animated short about a worker bee in a factory who rebels; bonus points for awesome soundtrack by menomena.
posted on Nov 8, 2007 - View this thread

The Donald Duck animated short film anthology. Donald Duck's family tree. More Donald Duck family trees. Donald, Donald, Donald. Quack, Quack, Quack.
posted on Sep 28, 2007 - View this thread

Friday Fun Time: Fight sequences are always fun to watch, but even more fun, I've learned, when they're animated. There are some great fights with some great characters like stick figures, monks and even fuzz-ball heads. Even the classic animator vs animation fights are pretty good (volume 1,2).

Look Ma! No YouTube links (thanks to aniBoom and MyTunes)
posted on Sep 7, 2007 - View this thread

The New Yorker now has animated cartoons. Animating by Ring Tales.
posted on Aug 17, 2007 - View this thread

The author of this site takes screen-shots from long-pan scenes of classic animation and puts them together to re-create the original larger background images. Much cooler than it sounds, honest. [via MeFi's own kokogiak, sort of]
posted on Aug 10, 2007 - View this thread

1, 2, 3,4, 5,6,7, 8, 9,10, 11,12! Classic Sesame Street taught us Counting and other important stuff.
posted on Jun 15, 2007 - View this thread

Wicked Crispy is the personal site of artist & animator Jeff Victor, who draws Star Wars characters (among other things) in adorable bobblehead style. Found via Drawn.
posted on Jun 7, 2007 - View this thread

Selected Cartoon Introductions from the 1980s [YouTube]
posted on Apr 29, 2007 - View this thread

Get lost in the fabulous labyrinth of Coconino World, a mammoth French site with thousands of images from illustrators, graphic artists, and cartoonists ranging from the classics to the contemporary. Some personal favorites: the generous selection of graphics from Simplicissimus, the celebrated German satire magazine published weekly from 1896-1944. James Swinerton's Canyon Kiddies. George Herriman's Krazy Kat. -more-
posted on Apr 15, 2007 - View this thread

There is a bear in the woods. Some people say he is adorabley blotto. Some people say he is a ponderous Pooh. Still others say he is as cute as a bug's bottom. Since nobody really knows for sure, isn't smart to be smarter than the average bear? If there is a bear? YouTubery Ahoy
posted on Mar 10, 2007 - View this thread

Somewhere deep inside a fractal.... Bizarre, nonlogical, glitchy cartoons that are "not ashamed of coming out of a computer." Satire? Or serious attempt to point animators away from "cushioned, balletic movements" and traditional stories, and towards "an aesthetic which adopts the native idiosyncrasies and flaws of the software in which it was born"? (Note: the 'PLEASE DO NOT WATCH THESE CARTOONS IF YOU SUFFER FROM PHOTOSENSITIVE EPILEPSY' applies mainly to the flashing intros, forward through the first 25 seconds in each cartoon and there's other stuff.) [via]
posted on Mar 1, 2007 - View this thread

Robert "Bobe" Cannon's 1951 Oscar-winning animated short "Gerald McBoing Boing" (u2b), is an early example of a modernist animation style (previously) experimented by UPA studios in an attempt to counteract the mounting realism of Disney cartoons. (The 2005 series it inspired is currently re-running on Boomerang.)

On another note entirely, Theodor "Seuss" Geisel's character Gerald is considered one of a number of celebrities with autism.
posted on Feb 24, 2007 - View this thread

Adventure Time is an awesome animated short by Pendleton Ward, who also has a site with some cartoons, animation, comics, and a blog.
posted on Feb 8, 2007 - View this thread

Aniboom bills itself as "the home of animation," a place to discover new up & coming artists online. Towards that end, they've sponsored a $50,000 competition for the best animation across five categories. The field has been narrowed to 25 finalists, and all 25 entries are online for viewing/voting here.
posted on Jan 22, 2007 - View this thread

The 50 Greatest Cartoons Ever: the List - including links to the full-length videos of the corresponding toons on YouTube and Google, etc. Based on a twelve year-old-vote by the animation industry, which explains why there are no appearances by Cartman, Bart, or Fry.
posted on Dec 21, 2006 - View this thread

The last of the great animation directors has died. Joe Barbera was half of the Hanna-Barbera duo that created the Oscar-winning Tom and Jerry cartoons for MGM. When that studio closed, they learned how to do cartoons for television on a much smaller budget, and gave us so many memorable characters. Mark Evanier worked for Barbera, and is sharing his memories on his always excellent blog.
posted on Dec 18, 2006 - View this thread

Friz-Freleng-For-All About thirty blogs paid tribute this past Monday to the renowned animator, keeper of pigs, tweety-bird-hungry cats and panthers, and model for the roughest, toughest hombre that ever locked horns with a rabbit. Happy 100th birthday, Friz!
posted on Aug 23, 2006 - View this thread

Japanese animation from 1933. A bizarre Max Fleischer-inspired 11-minute cartoon about some critters from traditional Japanese folklore, complete with a soundtrack of traditional Japanese music. [youtubefilter]
posted on Jul 24, 2006 - View this thread

The Do-It-Yourself Cartoon Kit - a 1961 instructional clip from 85-year old master animator Bob Godfrey, also known for such classic works as Instant Sex, Henry's Cat, and Roobarb. (alert: some links to YouTube)
posted on Jul 11, 2006 - View this thread

Always Help a Bird (1965); Sleeping Beauty (1959); Rooty Toot Toot (1952); and even more modern design cartoon and animation treasures from author Amid Amidi's blog Cartoon Modern. Look for the book to be out in August.
posted on May 8, 2006 - View this thread

Advanced Animation by Preston Blair, "the best 'how to' book on cartoon animation ever published." Blair, a Disney and MGM animator, put the book together in 1947 to illustrate the various basic principles of animation, only to have the book pulled from shelves after the rights to use some of the characters were revoked. Animation historian Jerry Beck has been hunting for a first edition of Blair's landmark book for many years. He finally found a copy and is sharing high-quality scans on the Animation Archive. (Archive previously linked in this thread; discovered via this thread.)
posted on May 7, 2006 - View this thread

I Like Pandas (flash), by Spümcø animator Jessica Borutski, from the Nicktoons Animation Festival (flash again), which is currently accepting submissions. Music by Plone. Not that Plone.
posted on May 6, 2006 - View this thread

Real-life recreation of The Simpsons opening. (YouTube link)
posted on Mar 4, 2006 - View this thread

John Kricfalusi GHOFB -- "I make cartoons and play in a band. I like playing in a band because it's actually fun and no one tells you to be lousy on purpose."
posted on Feb 19, 2006 - View this thread

Dec. 9, 1965: "Isn't there anyone who knows what Christmas is all about?" [Realmedia] [More inside]
posted on Dec 9, 2005 - View this thread

Froghat Studios The illustration, animation, and design of Chris Appelhans. Don't miss his comic, Frank and Frank, or the Superman animated short.
posted on Nov 29, 2005 - View this thread

Felix the Cat set the standard for animated character design with his rubber-limbs and blackface, predating Mickey by nearly a decade. Since he doesn't get nearly the exposure of Mickey, we're lucky there's sites that make at least a sampling of his cartoons freely available.
posted on Nov 16, 2005 - View this thread

Hey, kids, let's watch a cartoon! May I present The Ship That Never Came In by Kim Deitch, comix genius. It's a piece with his magnum opus Boulevard of Broken Dreams. Both, as Time magazine's comix critic Andrew Arnold notes, focuses on Ted Mishkin, a talented animator whose gifts can never quite overcome his curse. His curse is Waldo, a mischievous cat who walks on his hind legs. Waldo may be a delusion or he may be real, but only Ted can see him. Wotta concept!  More inside ? Fuckin' A !
posted on Oct 15, 2005 - View this thread

How Bob the Tomato got squashed by Barney the Dinosaur
Phil Vischer, creator of those Veggie-Tales cartoons gives a reflective account of why he did not become "The Christian Disney". So why did Big Idea Productions fail while other "Holy Cultural Warriors" are thriving? (Maybe this guy was too sincerely Christian?)
A shorter version of this Tale from "Christianity Today" magazine here.
via the spiritual center of animation on the web: Cartoon Brew
posted on Apr 30, 2005 - View this thread

Spongebob is pointed at as causing moral decay today. But the idea of blaming animated characters for societal ills is nothing new. The 1934 Production Code changed the scantily-clad Betty Boop into a wholesome girl. Racial stereotyping dominated cartoons of the 1940s. The Flintstones even shilled for Winston cigarettes. Should cartoon characters reflect the morals of cartoon watchers?
posted on Jan 28, 2005 - View this thread

MGM animator Irv Spence's cartoon diary for 1944. A cartoon of the day's happenings for every day in 1944 -- reprinted daily thoughout 2005. "These images are scanned from xeroxes an incalculable number of generations removed from the originals. Apparently, no amount of shoddy reproduction can suck the life out of these drawings..."
posted on Jan 12, 2005 - View this thread

The Warner Bros. Cartoons Filmography And Title Card Gallery has more title cards and coloured rings than you can shake a carrot at. A great resource that goes hand-in-hand with this and this for all your Looney Tunes-related research.
posted on Nov 29, 2004 - View this thread

Go Team Venture! The official Venture Bros. website is now up (though slightly incomplete). While you're waiting, download Brock's workout song, read interviews with the creators or make your own Super Secret Agent license.
posted on Nov 4, 2004 - View this thread

Toon Tracker: Home of the Lost Cartoons
posted on Dec 12, 2003 - View this thread

scary russian cartoons [note: flash]
posted on Nov 21, 2003 - View this thread

Dr. Seuss, politcal cartoonist. Before the Cat strode in wearing a Hat, and before Horton heard a Who, Dr. Seuss drew for a liberal New York newspaper called PM. Through most of 1941 he drew images that criticized isolationists who thought we could sit out the war. He already had developed his idiosyncratic style, and the University of California at San Diego has all 400 of his PM cartoons on its site. Here's what he drew Dec. 5, 1941, and this is his cartoon of Dec. 8. Later in the war, he wrote scripts for 28 "Private Snafu" animated cartoons, which taught servicemen what not to do. Some were directed by Chuck Jones.
posted on Jul 31, 2003 - View this thread

They sold everything from Earthquake Pills (caution: not effective on Road Runners) to Trick Balls (warning: explode on contact!). They may be the world's most diverse goods & services company, with the possible exception of Wal Mart. I speak, of course, of the fine folks at ACME, whose full catalog is finally available online. Go, now, read! Don't make me use my Ultimatum Dispatcher!
posted on Jun 28, 2003 - View this thread

Mark Fiore is a Californian political cartoonist, whose work may be familiar to those of you in the States, but who is new to me. His animations are topical as well as funny.
posted on Jan 9, 2003 - View this thread

Gloomy the Vicious Bear - we had a recent thread about the teddy bear turning 100. Here's a cute pink Japanese variation that retains a frighteningly feral blood lust. Osaka-based illustrator Mori Chack's innocent cartoon style belies the macabre nature. Just in time for the holidays, get your Gloomy Bear stuffed toys, hightops or other goodies before supplies run out! thanks, gmtPlus9.
posted on Dec 13, 2002 - View this thread

The Vancouver Company that created ReBoot will be making a CGI Spider-Man cartoon for MTV. Neil Patrick Harris as Spidey, Lisa Loeb as Mary Jane and Ian Ziering as Harry Osborn will inhabit a "seemingly realistic neon lit city of the immediate future". Will this show set a new standard of production for cartoons based on comics? Will MJ wear glasses?
posted on Jul 30, 2002 - View this thread

A Q & A session with two guys who work at that aspiring animator's Mecca - Pixar. One of them, Victor Navone is famous in his own right for the great short "Alien Song".
posted on Jul 10, 2002 - View this thread

mysterio sympatico is the latest collaboration between jazz guitarist bill frisell and cartoonist jim woodring, who designed a few covers for frisell's records. in honor of flash friday, whimgrinder is online for your amusement (though sadly without frisell's score). what are some animation/music combos you'd like to see?
posted on Jun 13, 2002 - View this thread

Room-a-zoom-zoom! These cartoons were bad in a good way! When I was a wee lad, I loved cartoons like Blue Falcon/Dynomutt and Hong Kong Phooey. My gotta-watch cartoon was The Superfriends, which had some of the most unintentionally-hilarious dialogue ever. And can anyone for get The World of Sid and Marty Krofft? Anyone else get nostalgic over shows like this?
posted on Apr 11, 2002 - View this thread

Speedy Gonzales Censored? Cartoon Network officials have banished Speedy Gonzales from their day and prime time lineups for fear of offending Mexican Americans, but fans of the Mexican mouse hero are fighting back.
posted on Mar 25, 2002 - View this thread

From Marco Polo Jr. vs. the Red Dragon to Fat Albert Meets Dan Cupid, the Big Cartoon Database has the skinny on a mindboggling 33,563 animated features, featurettes and series.
posted on Feb 5, 2002 - View this thread

Save "The Tick" Petition A true travesty of justice was the cancelling of the Fox series "The Tick." In a world where naked statues are veiled at public expense, can we afford to miss out on original programming?
posted on Jan 29, 2002 - View this thread

Family Guy, the uproariously funny and at times controversial Fox cartoon, has apparently been cancelled as of this season. A petition is presently circulating. Many others are writing letters. For me, I'm just sobbing quietly in a dark corner.
posted on Jan 28, 2002 - View this thread

Karma Ghost! There are a couple of animations on this site, but this one rocks my socks.
posted on Aug 21, 2001 - View this thread

Windsor McKay (of "Little Nemo in Slumberland" fame) and George Herriman (of "Krazy Kat" and "Archie & Mehitabel") weren't just innovative, influential cartoonists; they were also pioneering animators. The Library of Congress' Origins of American Animation project has downloadable short films by McKay (including his celebrated Gertie the Dinosaur) and Herriman as well as others from the early, early days of animated film.
posted on Jul 26, 2001 - View this thread

I'm no longer offended by products being marketed specifically to the Boomers, but the majority of the cartoons being run on Cartoon Network's new channel "Boomerang" totally antedate even the more generous boomer demographic. Hong Kong Phooey? Inch High Private Eye? Those both ran during *my* last seasons of Saturday Morning Cartoondom, and I hung on longer than most of my peers.
Whither art thou, Channel X?
posted on Mar 10, 2000 - View this thread