I’m still not clear: what did he do with Professor Utonium? And was the professor on board with it?
Posts Tagged ‘animation’
Teevee Time: Powerpuff Girls
July 19, 201112 Days of Highly Tolerable Holiday Movies: The Nightmare Before Christmas
December 20, 2010
The third and final “Tim Burton” film in the 12 Days of Highly Tolerable Holiday Movie countdown is The Nightmare Before Christmas (Henry Selick, 1993). The guy has two favorite times of year and we all know what they are.
Jack Skellington, king of Halloweentown, discovers Christmas Town, but doesn’t quite understand the concept.
(the imdb)
Regarding just how much of a Tim Burton film it really ended up being, Mr. Selick told Sight and Sound in 1994,It’s as though he laid the egg, and I sat on it and hatched it. He wasn’t involved in a hands-on way, but his hand is in it. It was my job to make it look like “a Tim Burton film”, which is not so different from my own films. …
… I don’t want to take away from Tim, but he was not in San Francisco when we made it. He came up five times over two years, and spent no more than eight or ten days in total.”
Be that as it may, Burton had conceived the project while still working for Disney back in 1980. It was originally a narrative poem. He began toying with the idea of making something of it. Disney agreed, and they discussed a short film like Vincent, or maybe a televised holiday special.
He shared his vision with friend Rick Heinrichs in the mid-1980’s, and the two worked up some concept art, storyboards, and even early character sculptures. By the time Burton actually had a budget for the movie from Disney, he was overextended across the board with Ed Wood and Batman Returns. He brought in his friend Mike McDowell, with whom he’d worked on Beetlejuice, but they couldn’t agree on a direction for the screenplay.
Burton reimagined the story as a musical and put together the bare bones of it with Danny Elfman’s help, also collaborating on most of the music and lyrisc. Then Caroline Thompson, who Burton worked with on Batman Returns, came in as a writer. She has also written The Addams Family, Edward Scissorhands, and Corpse Bride. Caroline first came to Tim Burton’s attention because of a short story she wrote in the early ’80’s called First Born, in which an abortion comes back to life.
Director Henry Selick said in that same Sight and Sound article where he dissed Burton, “there are very few lines of dialogue that are Caroline’s. She became busy on other films and we were constantly rewriting, reconfiguring and developing the film visually.” Okay, Henry. We get it. You did it all, buddy.
In all honesty, the guy is an artistic auteur, with the attendant talent that entails, and it probably sucks for him to have to rely on other people so much in a project. And he probably did do more than anyone else. Hence: director.
In vino lepidopteras.
The stop-motion animation was produced by a crew of over 200 animators in San Francisco, headed up by Joe Ranft and Paul Berry. The production yielded some cool new inventions, including a silent alarm that went off if a light failed to go on during a shot.
For just one second of film, up to 12 stop-motion moves had to be made. Can you imagine this being done today? When even the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse is done with CGI? I feel like there is an aesthetic suffering accompanying the automated innovations in the direction that film has been heading. I can’t see a production like The Nightmare Before Christmas, with the meticulous labor and attention to craft it requires, being approved and given a budget by Disney today.
Although that’s not totally fair, since they’ve been doing that 3-D re-release thing. I guess I should not be quite so cynical about The Mouse Who Sold the World. I just really, really dislike that company.
On the other hand, sourpuss Mr. Selick is something of a dear and mercurial curmudgeon to me. He has continued working in stop-motion since The Nightmare Before Christmas, and I have a deep respect for the artistry in his body of work.
He has directed Coraline and James and the Giant Peach, and worked with Wes Anderson on The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. Although I find it curious that he seems to have had nothing to do with Fantastic Mr. Fox if Life Aquatic was Anderson’s first foray in to stop-motion (which, once you see Fantastic Mr. Fox, you feel like it should have been his exclusive genre all along: the static stiltedness of Anderson’s compositions, against which his wildly inventive dialogue is such a perfect foil, are absolutely born for stop-motion).
I’m guessing from the stories about the rest of Mr. Selick’s projects that they probably stopped seeing eye to eye on something and Anderson went his separate way.
Collaborator Joe Ranft, the one who headed up production in the City, the 415, the sparkly town where we leave our hearts, for The Nightmare Before Christmas, said that Selick “has a rock’n’roll meets Da Vinci temperament,” with bursts of brilliance and, occasionally, the passionate need for solitude.
Mr. Selick is presently working on an adaptation of the YA mystery-comedy Bunnicula, which makes me want to cry with joy. I only hope it is successful enough that they can do one of the sequels: The Celery Stalks At Midnight, which I have believed since I was seven years old to be the greatest pun ever written in my native tongue.
If you want more of the backstory on all this Nightmare Before Christmas production shenanigans, pick up a copy of the Frank Thompson book Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas: The Film – The Art – The Vision, to read all about it.
All photos via the Pumpkin Patch.
Daily Batman: Teevee Time, “The Simpsons”
December 7, 2010
The Simpsons. Season 8, Episode 9: “El Viaje Misterioso de Nuestro Homer.” Original airdate January 5, 1997.
Teevee Time: A story in stills — Gumby, “Balloonacy.”
May 11, 2010Oh, my gosh, dudes — Gumby!! Turns out it’s simply all over that there ol’ youtube. I’ve had flu today and it has kept me some Excellent Company. So it’s Teveee Time!
From the late-breaking children’s nostalgic expansion series The Gumby Adventures, which aired in the ’80’s — and I am glad of being able to have at least been in on the ground level of that much of this wonderful franchise — by which time good ol’ green bendy-flexi hero Gumby had gained a sister and quite the phalanx of diverse friends. This episode was titled “Balloonacy.”
It’s Denali’s birthday, so Gumby and Pokey get some balloons for the party. As well as some normal helium balloons, they decide to pick up some magic, self-inflating balloons.
The episode begins with Granny, the neighborhood Model T aficionado, pulling up to the Gumby household, having just fetched home in her gleaming hearse of a jalopy young Minga (Gumby’s little sister, a latebreaking Material World addition to the Gumby family of characters) from a birthday party, from which Minga has clutched in her gooey little hands the souveneir of a single, crummy balloon.
Gumba, mater familias to Gumby and Minga, invites Granny in for some tea to thank her for ferrying Minga about Whatever-Its-called town (I’m sick or I’d wiki it, sorry).
Naturally bored, Minga wanders with her balloon out to the front yard, where Pokey the Pony and Gumby are playing a little frisbee.
Yikes. I have no idea why Pokey looks so unbelievably sly and spooky here. What gives, good pal?! Good gravy!
So then the worst thing ever happens, and Gumby and Pokey accidentally send Minga’s balloon back to that great party store in the sky.
Oh, shit! Minga tries to be really sweet and cool about it but you can tell (as can good brother Gumby) that she is in actuality totally bummed.
Pokey and Gumby were heading in to Town after aimless coy-eyed frisbee anyways to pick up supplies for their friend Denali the Mastodon’s upcoming hopefully-surprise birthday party — not making this up, and everyone knows how tough it is to “surprise” a mastodon …
… so have some empathy for their plight, please — and the pair secretly agree to replace Minga’s lost balloon while they’re at it, using Any Means Necessary.
Oh, my heavens. Loose cannons, these two! Gumby and Pokey, I want your guns and your badges on my desk by three o’clock, and if I ever catch you up to the shenanigans you were trying to pull at the mayor’s wife’s Tupperware party again, you’ll be on traffic patrol the rest of your natural careers! And I hope you two know another thing — I … I …. *sniff* god dang it — I’m proud of you (we all cry).
Okay, so then they pick up some balloons on the regular streets of toy Town of your expected, standard, non-magical variety in several shapes and sizes, and then Gumby does this Totally Freaky Thing where he turns his two triangle leg-thingies into a vestigial single tail-thingy and straight up slithers back into his car.
Tried to capture it fully but this is the best Science can do. Totally not okay.
Shortly after the slithering and with not even slant eyes from Pokey, who is apparently hep to his friend’s possesssion troubles, Gumby and Pokey are cruising back to their yellow dinosaur-friend thingy’s farm-place to assemble Denali’s party surprises when they pass what appears to be Just The Ticket to appease young Minga and her tragic, all-their-fault balloon loss!
They clamber from the car to go see what’s up with that. No tail visible, please note. (Look. All I want are answers. None come.)
Unbeknownst to them, Gumby and Pokey have an audience — the badassical Blockheads, “G” and “J”. (May the lord strike me dead if I ever stop rooting for them. They are red and they are good archers. What is so wrong with adoring them?! Gumby is kind of a goofy putz, you must admit: it’s not like thwarting him has ever stopped Nobel peace work or something.)
Gumby and Pokey enter the book, beautifully …
… and encounter an intriguing and powerful magician who is really frankly styled to be outlandishly Mexican (how I wish this was not so. But it is, and how — sorry.).
They explain their predicament.
The magician is astonished, but then assures them he can help them, and he blows their minds with some tricks. What the magician and I are now about to show you, I am not sure is legal …
… but Gumby and Pokey soldier through the guttwisting demonstration and wisely surmise it is the End to their Troubles with finding dazzling birthday gifts for Denali, because what do you get the prehistoric beast who’s literally seen it all, and young sister Minga!
(After all, why should she not also have the best in inflatable pig-anus-whosa-whatisis-thingy-balloon-dolls? just because she is a little kid and the entire inflation process looks hella ten kinds of traumatic? don’t make me laugh!)
Soon, Gumby and Pokey are on their way, with the Blockheads trailing them, all the way to Prickle’s barn.
Prickle the dino-thingy acts totally shady about the helium inflater. I don’t know if he’s a former huffer or what the deal is, but his actions and expressions around it are really weird and out of character. He seems untrustworthy in its presence. And that is a concern.
Gumby, like Lucille Bluth and your loving, flu-ridden hostess E, hella sucks at winking. Phew! There are so many more of us than I thought!
Gumby and Pokey explain the crazy magic balloons to Prickle and Goo. Why are you puzzling over Goo? Goo is a flying mermaid, duh, and she can take on any shape she chooses. Happens all the time.
Okay, now do you see what I mean about Prickle and that helium tank? Hecka shady! I haven’t seen a little yellow dinosaur looking so sneaky since B.J. from Barney and Friends knocked up Sesame Street’s Prairie Dawn. Oh, my gosh. Worst joke ever. I need to go eat glass now. I’m so sorry. Forever.
The Gang heads to Denali’s big pink mansion with the ballons (which completely dwarfs the suburban tract house that Gumby and Minga live in, where we can only assume Pokey is stabled, unless he stays on Prickle’s farm when Prickle is not busy huffing hecka all kinds of inert monoatomic gasses).
Goo is all in to the tiger, while Prickle goes for the pink elephant. Gumby, meanwhile, has slipped off to patch things up with Minga.
I’m not precisely sure into what Gumbo is trying to talk Gumba in this scene — although I have my definite suspicions — as she bemusedly washes dishes at the sink while he clearly spins a spiel.
While they are tied up in whatever exactly private-times planning they are doing, Gumby has dropped off with Minga the inflatable bunny balloon from the magician and shown her how to pump him up. (Anally. No connection, I’m sure, to their parents’ conversation.) The shock of all this sauce combined with a giant bunny, the very symbol of fertility, makes Gumba faint in to Gumbo’s arms.
Back at Denali’s place, Denali wakes up and goes out to investigate the noise from his front porch.
Oh, holy crap! A bunch of giant balloons and a banner! What a — oh, my ticker, gassssspppp…
Way to go, you guys. You killed him.
Yes, Goo, you should be perturbed, you shapeshifting blue scamp — and let that be a lesson to you about plotting to “surprise” a thing that has been around longer than sin and cockroaches.
Aw, just kiddin’, kiddos! Look: Denali is okay! Yay! — although I must grimly warn you that being a pachyderm he will Never Forget this shock, even 70 years from now when you are drooling in your oatmeal at an old folks’ home and he unexpectedly bursts through the door to yank you outside and stomp your shoulder blades in the street while you can only moan “why?” — he will know why, even as you struggle to remember how to piss your pants from the pain. That’s what you get. Anyway, happy birthday, Denali!!
The Blockheads have had just about all they can stand of this merry and cheesey, “all-gods-chillun-gots-birthdays” chicanery so they amiably start shooting arrows at the balloons, which naturally pops them.
This freaks Pokey out so bad that his eyes turn in to Shelley Duvall’s rack. (Sick left-field ’70’s burn on one of my favorite actresses!)
G and J get totally busted by Goo, Denali, and Prickle (look at Goo all flying off with her determined, shapeless little blue body to catch those bad boys) before they can do more than pop a few. Bummer.
By the time Gumby gets back from mending fences with Minga, the Blockheads have been captured and are sailing off in a balloon toward an uncaring horizon, ostensibly chastened by the prospect of cruel starvation and never setting foot on land again (just punishment? I think not).
And that’s “Balloonacy”! Sorry that went forever but I am sick as hayull. Thanks for playing!
Talk nerdy to me: Inaugural edition feat. Legos, Stormtroopers’ Picnic, and Sesame Street
April 15, 2010“1, 2, 3 — 4, 5, 6 — 7, 8, 9 — 10, 11, 12
Stormtroopers came to the Stormtroopers’ picnic…”
Photograph by Mark, aka smokebelch on the flickr.
The counting song “Ladybugs’ Picnic” was written and recorded in 1971 for the Childrens’ Television Workshop masterpiece Sesame Street. It was written by Bud Luckey with lyrics by Dan Hadley, and sung for the show by Muppeteers Richard Hunt (R.I.P., wonderful you) and Jerry Nelson. The first episode in which it aired was marked 0416 and appeared as Season 4, Episode 12. Original airdate December 11, 1972.
Though most of the Sesame Street content was usually filmed/animated at the same time in good-sized chunks in various studios after long brainstorming and writing sessions, individual segments could often languish on the shelf for awhile, until just the right spot in the exactly perfect episode was found for them. Such is the case in the gap between the writing of “Ladybugs’ Picnic” by Luckey and Hadley, its recording with vocal track by Jerry and Richard — you know them better as Waldorf and Statler, among the many characters they voice — and its eventual appearance almost two years later on the show.
I have much more to say about wonderful Richard Hunt a different day. That’s one that I won’t be forgetting.
Music and Movie Moment: Nancy Adams — “Love,” featured in the cartoon Robin Hood
March 27, 2010Nancy Adams – “Love”
For me, Disney’s animated adaptation of Robin Hood (Wolfgang Reitherman, 1973) is the definitive version of the legend, but it is widely documented that I am immature and impressionable.
If the love story between cartoon fox Robin Hood and cartoon vixen Maid Marian did not absolutely melt your young heart then we have nothing to offer each other and you are furthermore a robot who has not been programmed to know love.
Love, It seems like only yesterday
You were just a child at play
Now you’re all grown up inside of me
Oh, how fast those moments flee
Once we watched a lazy world go by
Now the days seem to fly
Life is brief, but when it’s gone
Love goes on and on.
Ooooooh Love will live
Oooooh-ooooh-oooh Love will last
Ooooooh Love goes on and on and on.
Once we watched a lazy world go by
Now the days seem to fly
Life is brief, but when it’s gone
Love goes on and on.
Robin Hood: We’ll have six children!
Marian: Six? Oh, a dozen at least!
Hoo! The lady would like to double down, Mr. Hood. Dag. This is a vixen with some serious brass balls.
Marian: Oh, Clucky, surely he must know how much I really love him.
Lady Cluck: But of course, my dear. Believe me, someday soon, your Uncle King Richard will have an outlaw for an in-law!
Hiss: Sire! Sire! They may be bandits.
Prince John: Oh, poppycock. Female bandits? What next? Rubbish.
Prince John: Robbed. I’ve been robbed. Hiss! You’re never around when I need you! Hiss — I’ve been robbed!
Hiss: Of course you’ve been robbed!
Little John: You’re burning the chow!
Robin Hood: Sorry, Johnny. I guess I was thinking about Maid Marian again. I can’t help it. I love her, Johnny.
Little John: Look, why don’t you stop moaning and moping around? Just marry the girl.
Robin Hood: Marry her? You don’t just walk up to a girl, hand her a bouquet, and say, “Hey, remember me? We were kids together. Will you marry me?” It just isn’t done that way.
Little John: Aw, come on. Climb the castle walls. Sweep her off her feet. Carry her off in style!
Robin Hood: It’s no use, Johnny. I’ve thought it all out, and it just wouldn’t work. Besides, what have I got to offer her?
Little John: Well, for one thing, you can’t cook.
Robin Hood: I’m serious, Johnny. She’s a highborn lady of quality.
Little John: So she’s got class. So what?
Robin Hood: I’m an outlaw, that’s what. That’s no life for a lovely lady, always on the run. What kind of a future is that?
Friar Tuck: Oh, for heaven’s sake, son. You’re no outlaw. Why, someday, you’ll be called a great hero.
When ABC used to have that Disney Sunday Night movies segment, I recorded this on to a VHS. Around a year later, one of the other networks ran Sixteen Candles, which, being a dutifully Molly Ringwald-worshiping young woman of the 1980’s, I naturally recorded, carefully fast-forwarding through Robin Hood to the blank remainder of the tape. Some time later that Spring were the televised Grammy awards, which I also recorded, on to that same tape, at the request of my mother because she had some kind of a PTA meeting/Tupperware presentation/murky, boring grown-up shenanigan to attend and my mom is a big Grammy guy from Way Back. She is a fan of Awards Shows in general. My mother approves of an industry’s recognition of those within it who have displayed special talents. She is a kind lady like that.
I rewatched the videotape a few years ago, beginning with Robin Hood for my kidlet, then Sixteen Candles while she napped, then all the way through to the Grammys, mainly on fast-forward with a nostalgic half-smile at the 80’s fashions, and then suddenly I stopped in awe — as a-ha performed “Take On Me” in cramazing outfits of formal ruffled tuxes and the keyboardist in mad rad white gloves.
So, to recap this little anecdote: 1. Robin Hood. 2. Sixteen Candles. 3. a-ha dressed to kill and doing “Take On Me” live at the 1986 Grammy Awards.
Best VHS I own? I think so.
Prince John: I sentence you to sudden, instant, and even immediate death!
Marian: Oh, no. Please. Please, sire. I beg of you to spare his life. Please have mercy.
Prince John: My dear, emotional lady, why should I?
Marian: Because I love him, Your Highness.
Prince John: Love him? And does this prisoner return your love?
Robin Hood: Marian, my darling, I love you more than life itself.
Oh, Robin, you’re so brave and impetuous.
Little John: And now, your mightiness, allow me to lay some protocol on you —
Prince John: Oh, no, no! Forgive me, but I lose more jewels that way…
There really was a King Richard the Lionheart and a younger brother named Prince John with his eye on the throne. In fact, John staged a rebellion when his older brother ascended to the throne in 1189 but it was unsuccessful and resulted in him being generally unpopular in his brother’s court, where he was called “Lackland” (because he was not the inheritor) and “Softsword” (I hope this is only a reference to being shitty at rebellions and not a veiled mockery of impotence. that happens to lots of guys and it’s nobody’s fault).
Richard and John (along with their brothers Henry and Geoffrey, all of whom attempted at one time or another to take the throne from their father) were Plantagenets, the sons of Henry II and the infamously strong-willed Eleanor of Aquitaine. This is probably why the mere mention of his mother makes John go on a thumbsucking frenzy in the animated film. Her husband Henry had her imprisoned beginning in 1173 until his death. He basically said something like, “You can’t come out ’til you stop helping our sons try to depose me,” and, indeedy, she was not released until Henry II died in 1189. (cf: The Lion in Winter.)
Eleanor was the most powerful woman in the High Middle Ages, a real force to be reckoned with, and, unusually, all sources contemporaneous to her life agree that she was not only outstandingly beautiful, but not voluptuous or blonde as was the ideal at the time — she was able to pass herself off in drag as a man even in her fifties, at a time when ladies had some pretty serious hams. (I love that the words “hams” and “cans” can mean any body part on a woman and work.)
In reality, when Richard inherited the throne in 1189 and went gallivanting off to the Third Crusade, it was Eleanor, not bonny Prince Johnny, who stood in for him. She even went to Germany and negotiated Richard’s ransom. Following his brother’s death without an heir, John ruled from 1199 to 1216 and was supposedly so dreadful as a king that the English swore never again to have a king named John.
True to their word, they haven’t.
(However, I’d like to point out that John signed the Magna Carta, a document which was in many ways the forerunner of democratic rule, while Richard started an abominable straight-up pogrom in London that killed thousands. I’m just sayin’.)
Wes Anderson recently featured this song on the soundtrack to Fantastic Mr. Fox, which is probably an homage, because he probably really liked this movie when he was a kid, too, because I did, and we’re probably going to get married someday and bang, like, all the time. Just all kinds of places, even, too. All over the house and the neighborhood, so much that they will rechristen our town Bang City. Bangsville. Bang Island. St. Bang’s Township, the jewel of Bangburg County, in sunny Bangland. Swing by and visit us at Banglots Village, elevation: banging.
People will call us all like, “What are you doing next weekend?” and we will be like, “Banging. We are emphatically not free for dinner,” and my mother will email me to sadly say in all caps, “E— WHY DO I NEVER HEAR FROM YOU ANYMORE,” to which I will reply, “It is because I am very busy doing all this banging of my husband, Wes Anderson.”
Not really. I’m not that interested in Mr. Anderson anymore. He is still a great director, but I no longer see myself banging him, certainly not all the time and definitely not while we are both married. I’d just been sitting on that little “banging” diatribe for awhile and wanted to use it.
Special thanks to the sources of these screencaps, cheesechimp and bottle_of_smoke in the Nostalgia Party No. 2 community on the lj.
Music Moment: The Tom Fun Orchestra
October 20, 2009Today I am all about dark, quirky, folksy Nova Scotia indie rockers The Tom Fun Orchestra. Don’t they look cute? And like real people.
The Tom Fun Orchestra – Tar Pond Tango
If you are in a mood for monotonous, predictable music that you can have on in the background while you do something mindless like drive in a large group of chatting people, or if you do not care with what music you fill your mind whatsoever, and despise creativity and creepiness and roots-style swampy fun, then this band is not for you at all. Skip this post, scroll down the page to BDSM Catwoman pics and keep listening to some godawful derivative unimaginative all-alike tripe like Coldplay. They’re your ears. But if you are a One for quirk and high times, read on!
Here is the UK MVA Best Animation-nominated video for the track “Bottom of the River,” directed by Alasdair Brotherston and Jock Mooney. Other nominees were Coldplay, Prodigy, Hauscha and Röyksopp. (For the unhappy record, Shynola won for Coldplay’s “Strawberry Swing,” which basically swept all categories. This is the explanation for my earlier left-field tall glass of Coldplay-haterade, although I admit I do most of the time generally dislike them.)
The video is entirely animated, very creative, spooky, and fun and well-suited for just-before-Halloween.
The Tom Fun Orchestra – Watchmaker
At first you think it’s a creepy stalker song, which I am not opposed to, but then it ends up being kind of a metaphor for God. I think, anyway. I mean, it’s a pretty obvious and heavyhanded symbolism right out of the gate just from choosing the loaded term “watchmaker,” in the opening lyrics so for once I can honestly say that I doubt I’m misinterpreting it.
The Tom Fun Orchestra – Last of the Curious Thieves
I’m going to try to let the wiki handle this one because I’m still not feeling totally my tippy toppy bestest. The Tom Fun Orchestra “combines elements of folk, roots, blues, rock and punk to create a sound that is at once familiar yet entirely unique” (wiki). I don’t know about the punk part but I am in no kind of mood to get in to that debate today.
To me, sounds like: the Pogues, Creedence, Tom Waits, Billy Childish, Dan Melchior, the Holmes Bros, Firewater, the Pierces, Blackbird Raum, Gogol Bordello, Squirrel Nut Zippers, the JOU, Flat Duo Jets, Nick Cave, Dropkick Murphys, Charlie Daniels Band. But not at all Arcade Fire or Broken Social Scene. I honestly don’t see where the wiki got that. Explain if it is something you hear and understand, I’m lost.
Getting long again. Happens so fast! Okay. So. Pretty much the rest of the album is streamed after the jumpy-jump, along with buying advice and more pics of the members of the band. Click here for pictures, music, and more from The Tom Fun Orchestra!
The Thought Experiment 