Cartoons

Someone made a Lego version of the song "Do What You Wanna Do" from the "Elementary School Musical" episode of South Park. In this episode, the boys find that the whole school has gone crazy for musicals because of a cute boy named Briden, and resist attempts to break into song every time there is an emotional moment. It turns out Bridon doesn't even want to sing all the time and the episode ends with all the roles reversed.

A little catch-up here on a potentially groundbreaking legal story that we don't have time to completely break out, but basically early Betty Boop cartoons are now in the public domain, despite Fleischer Studios still owning the trademark and licensing out contemporary versions of Betty Boop (which you see all over the place on purses, Ts and so on.)

Disney's plans for their TRON resurrection include big plans for it to be a tentpole for their boy-friendly offerings; although TRON LEGACY didn't quite slay as much as hoped at the box office, that never stoped the Disney Army from following a plan. TRON UPRISING the cartoon starts airing on XD in fall 2012 and it has some good folks attached: director Charlie Bean and painted Alberto Mielgo. Definitely looks like something folks can watch late at night while they come down from being party people, which is of course exactly the audience Disney planned it for.

Whatever you thought of the hosts, the win in the Best Animated Short Film for Shaun Tan -- which we correctly predicted -- was a nice win for a very talented artist. Although the Australian Tan is more of an illustrator than a cartoonist, his best known work, THE ARRIVAL, is certainly an example of graphic storytelling -- so if he isn't exactly on our team, he's pretty darned close.

As we point out every year, picking the big categories at the Oscars is easy -- sentiment and other awards and past voting practices make for a formula that is easy to call, even when it changes over Awards season -- see: THE KING'S SPEECH. So to truly ace your Oscar picks and win the big prize, you've got to master the obscure categories like Best Documentary Short and Best Animated Short. We don't handicap the first caegory -- although you can't go wrong picking anything about horrible genocide topics like AIDS, Rwanda, the Holocaust and so on.

Because you can't get enough surreal cartooniness today,. here's the first episode of CAT SH*T ONE, an anime version of the war in the MIddle East starring violent bunnies and camels. It's based on the manga series by Motofumi Kobayashi, which was set in the VIetnam War, but there's plenty of guerilla war to go around for reboots. Sadly, the kitty kat Viet Cong in the original are replaced by camel terrorists here.

David OReilly is the Chris Ware of animation -- his work is modern, haunting and bleak. His new film "The External World" just won an Honorable Mention at Sundance -- the only cartoon to do so -- and it's 17 minutes of video game era dread, alienation. Is there redemption? FULL SCREEN.

http://www.youtube.com/v/kikA9pUAnWs&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&version=3 Although this morning's Oscar nominations revealed a paucity of comics-themed movies -- IRON MAN 2's SPX nom being the only one for Team Comics...

Back in August we noted that the upcoming Yogi Bear movie appeared to be horror film about deviant sex, based on the perverted poster. When we finally saw the trailer in theaters, we suggested in jest that shooting the filmmakers was the only way to stop this abomination. It turns out someone had a similar idea. Except it was instead to show Booboo shooting Yogi to get a measly $5000 in blood money reward.

Do we have a new holiday classic on our hands? Just about. Tom Neely and some friends have made this 6-minute cartoon based on his Henry and Glenn characters -- any resemblance to rockers living or dead strictly coincidental, even when characters named John and Daryl show up. This will seriously make your spirits bright and metal at the same time.

Over at tropical toxic, the blog of artist twins Asaf and Tomer Hanuka, they share some concept art for an animated version of HARD APPLE, a crime series based on the work of Jerome Charyn.

Every year the producers of the best cartoon of the 21st century, The Venture Brothers, unleash a new Christmas single -- here's a handy link to all of them to date Including Venture-Aid 2006 and The Monarch singing The Christmas Song. There are rumors of a new song for 2010, but until then, enjoy the mellow sounds of Venture-mas past.