(YouTube Link)

Here’s your WTF moment of the day, an animated short featuring a giant hot dog eating the Caped Crusader! The hot dog has no facial features save a giant maw, so it’s hard to tell what it’s thinking about as it chomps down on old Batsy, but I bet it wishes it had a giant beer to help rinse the taste of spandex out of it’s mouth.

And so, the question remains-why would a giant hot dog do such a horrific thing? Because it’s hungry, of course!

BTW this video (LINK) could well be the reason why the giant hot dog went after the Dark Knight in the first place. Apparently payback reeks of mustard and relish…

–via i09

Who knew Homer was speaking dragon this whole time?

Link Via The Daily What

Falcon Girl is artist James Hance’s wonderful mash up of Princess Leia and Tank Girl. I don’t know about you guys, but I kind of want to see this become a whole comic book instead of just a cool poster.

Link Via BoingBoing

(YouTube Link)

First motion pictures went talkie, then everybody got on board the color train, leaving those black and white gems to gather dust because later generations found the lack of color “uncool”.

This video shows a side-by-side comparison of the black and white original versus the colorized version of “Smile Darn Ya, Smile” Here’s how this Merry Melodies short got it’s color:

…in 1992, Ted Turner paid to colorized a batch of black and white Merrie Melodies from 1931-33. This was back before computers were employed to add colors, so the cartoons were shipped to South Korea, traced frame-by-frame (well, almost), new cels were inked and painted and shot under the camera – creating a “color” cartoon from a “worthless” black & white print.

I can’t believe they would go through so much trouble just to add color, and the end result looks a bit too wonky to me. But what do you guys think-with digital colorization available now, should we colorize black and white films or not?

–via Cartoon Brew

(YouTube Link)

With the start of a new calendar year, movie studios have started rolling out teasers and previews for their upcoming features, to ensure that ticket sales are high.

Personally, I don’t really care about the latest Hollywood blockbusters, and I prefer my features, and actors, to be animated. That’s why this list of animated features being released in 2012 had me so excited, and most of them look like great fun!

But you don’t have to take my word for it, peruse the titles for yourself at the link below, and sound off about which ones you’re looking forward to watching on the big screen.

Link

Chilean artist Fabian Ciraolo thought it would be fun to show what 80s cartoon characters looked like when dressed up in fancy retro clothes. Is it just me or do the hipsterific outfits and pouty faces of the models make most of the pictures look like pages from an Urban Outfitters catalog set in a cartoon world?

Link

In the alternate reality presented by these slick illustrations by Coran Stone, Calvin and Hobbes grew up to be super spies, and Christopher Robin and Pooh Bear are hell bent on bringing them both down.

These illustrations, and the story behind them, are just begging to be made into an animated series of some sort, and you can read the whole thing at the Geeks Are Sexy link below.

It’s the ultimate battle of imaginary friends, and I like the fact that, in the Pooh picture, Hobbes is still a stuffed animal!

Link –via GeeksAreSexy

If you love Christmas animations, but start to feel like they’re a little too old and cliched, here’s the real reason why intrepid animators never update them to fit in with modern times.

Link Via Laughing Squid

What happens when you combine one of the world’s greatest comic books with one of the cutest cartoons on TV? You get a great mash up piece like this one by Dan Hipp.

Link Via The Mary Sue

As the young’ns become slightly older’ns, and a new decade fad replaces the old, our popular interest sights are set upon the 1990s, a time of Bush/Clinton, Nicktoons and Cross Colours (which some kids felt the need to wear backwards, thanks to flash-in-the-pan kid rap act Kris Kross).

This massive desk doodle seems to sum it all up, in terms of animation anyways, with all the greats present and accounted for- Rugrats, Johnny Bravo, the Simpsons, Animaniacs, Sonic and Gumby? What’s he doing in there?

Link

(YouTube Link)

This collection of rock star appearances in animation is fun to watch, and may turn you on to some sweet cartoons you’ve never heard of, like this clip from Rock & Rule featuring Lou Reed performing “My Name Is Mok”.

Iggy Pop, Debbie Harry, Tom Petty, Marilyn Manson and Donnie Osmond all make guest appearances in this collection, and I know that Donnie Osmond isn’t who most people think of when the term “rock star” is used, but he’ll be the first to let you know that he’s a “little bit rock n roll”, so I guess that’s good enough for me.

–via Flavorwire

Who knew that Super Mario and the X Men could go together so well? Apparently artist Casey Edwards did because she’s the one who came up with these clever mash ups.

Link Via BuzzFeed

(YouTube Link)

Disney’s animated tv shows used to be so good, especially the adventure packed series like DuckTales and Gummi Bears that appealed to audiences of all ages. These shows were so good that I felt superfan nostalgia sweep over me as I watched these 16 intro videos, and I know i’ll be singing the theme songs for days to come!

If cute cartoon theme songs that easily get stuck in your head is your idea of personal hell, then don’t watch these videos. If you enjoyed these shows back in the day and like taking trips down memory lane, then seeing the intro will make you feel like a kid again. Don’t hate!

Link

Ben Balistreri is a storyboard artist and character designer for Dreamworks Animation, so the energy he brings to his Marvel re-designs is fresh and full of cartoon charm.

I would love to see an animated series featuring these re-designed characters, you can see all 50 of them for yourself at Ben’s site below. My faves are Taskmaster and Juggernaut, with his massive frame and little tiny face, but which ones do you like?

Link –via ComicsAlliance

Speaking of fashionable Halloween rides that only add to a costume, just check out this incredible Flintstones mobile that was actually driven through a drive through.

Link Via BuzzFeed

Have you ever wondered what would happen if Disney characters switched faces with one another? The result can be even stranger than you could imagine. BuzzFeed has a variety of bizarre Disney face swaps for your enjoyment.

Link

If our favorite toon people were allowed to age, which of course they’re NOT, we might not like how they turn out. Head to the link and witness a gallery of adult versions of cartoon children that is cute, funny and somewhat disturbing.

This gallery made me think the following:

How did Spongebob grow up to be so creepy? Did Mike from Monsters Inc. take steroids? Are Lilo and Stitch more than just friends?

Will we be able to look at these characters in the same way ever again?

Link

Designer Yoni Alter made this adorable print featuring the eyes of a variety of famous cartoon characters? Can you name them all? If not, don’t worry, she also released a cheat sheet for the poster.

Link Via BoingBoing

Even funnier than the punchline for this pic of corporate Prince Adam (He-Man) giving a powerpoint presentation is the fact that furry briefs are appropriate attire for their office! I guess it comes as no surprise that He-Man’s power bar is so much bigger than everyone elses.

Link

This wouldn’t be nearly as sad if everyone who ever used YouTube couldn’t attest to the fact that it’s totally true.

Link Via Laughing Squid

This cartoon, that Geeks Are Sexy rightfully titled “You’re A Skywalker, Not A Street Walker,” just goes to show how everyone’s adolescent years are pretty much the same -even Princesses.

Link Via Geeks Are Sexy

(YouTube Link)

If you’re like me and miss the old Batman animated series, then the new feature length film Batman: Year One, based on the comic by Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli, is going to get your bat fever burning again.

Featuring that Warner Brothers look that made the original series so iconic, and actors like Bryan Cranston and Eliza Dushku lending their voices to the production, this is one tale of the Batman not to be missed!

-via ComicsAlliance

This is what Finn from Adventure Time would look like if Frank Miller drew up the character design. Drawn in stark comic style by John Suarez, this battle scarred and bloody Finn is not to be f@%#d with.

Link -via ComicsAlliance

As a shepherd, you normally don’t have to worry about much more than a stray sheep or wolf attack. But in this animated short by Junaid Chundrigar we see what happens when UFOs take interest in the wool industry, and the lengths a good shepherd will go to in order to reclaim his precious flock. Let the hilarity ensue!

(VimeoLink) -via GeeksAreSexy

These fun, comical and totally cartoony character redesigns are from Thomas Perkins, an artist who really knows how to capture attention with dynamic poses and visual appeal. All of the designs found on his DeviantArt page and blog would make awesome cartoons, and the humorous nature of his redesigns (Captain America as luchador, for example) breathe new life into these iconic superfolks.

DeviantArt link;  Blog Link -via ComicsAlliance

You may think you know Scooby-Doo, but unless you’re a die-hard fan, there’s a good chance you haven’t even heard of half of the movies and you probably haven’t seen most of the TV shows. That’s nothing to be ashamed of –after all, the series has been running for almost 42 years straight. So for those of you who haven’t caught up on decades worth of episodes and movies, here’s a run down on the different incarnations of the franchise in honor of Scooby’s September 13^th birthday.

Image via abibrooks [Flickr]

Whining Sometimes Does Help

I know a lot of our readers take issue with how overprotective many parents have become in the last few decades, but if you like Scooby-Doo, then this is one time you might be able to forgive them. As it turns out, the idea for the show arose after parent organizations, particularly Action for Children’s Television, began protesting the violence of Saturday morning cartoon shows. The pressure was so high that many of the most popular Hanna-Barbera shows, including Johnny Quest, were cancelled due to the protests.

As a result, CBS was scrambling to come up with a Saturday morning cartoon line up that parents would be able to get behind. The first successful new show was The Archie Show, which was based upon the Archie comic book. One of the most popular parts of the show was the musical numbers performed by The Archies during each episode. To capitalize on this idea, Hanna-Barbera was hired to come up with a show that would feature a teenage rock group that solved mysteries between gigs.

Image via informatique [Flickr]

Mysteries Five Was Just Too S-S-Scary

The first version of the show was called Mysteries Five and it featured five teens, Geoff, Mike, Kelly Linda, W.W., and their dog Too Much –who played the bongos in their band. Eventually it was decided that Too Much should be a Great Dane. The character designer, Iwao Takamoto, then consulted a Great Dane breeder to learn more about the breed’s distinguishing characteristics. He then promptly ignored almost everything he learned, designing Too Much with overly bowed legs, a sloped back and a double chin, making him look much more humorous than the real dog breed.

By the time the show was ready for review, Geoff and Mike were merged into a character who eventually became Fred, and Kelly, Linda and W.W. were all renamed to “Daphne,” “Velma,” and “Shaggy” respectively. The show’s title was also changed to Who’s S-S-Scared?

When CBS saw the storyboards for the show, they thought the artwork looked to spooky for young viewers and decided to pass on it.

The creators quickly scrambled to come up with something more acceptable and soon decided to make the show funnier by focusing on Shaggy and Too Much and decided to drop the rock band angle of the show. The CBS executive in charge of the children’s lineup was listening to Frank Sinatra’s song “Strangers in the Night,” on a way to one of the development meetings when he was hit by the singer’s scatting “doo-be-doo-be-doo.” And thus Scooby-Doo was born and the show was quickly retitled Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! When the newest incarnation of the show was presented to CBS, it was immediately approved.

Image via TheNixer [Flickr]

Hearing Voices

Have you ever thought that a certain Scooby Doo character’s voice sounds vaguely familiar? You’re probably right. Many of the original voice actors from the show have loaned their voices to other productions throughout the years. Most notably, Scooby Doo’s voice was provided by Don Messick, who also voiced Astro from The Jetsons, Boo Boo Bear and Ranger Smith from The Yogi Bear Show, Muttley from Wacky Races, and Papa Smurf from The Smurfs. He also voiced Scrappy Doo after the character’s first year in the series.

Regular cartoon viewers may also recognize the voice of Fred, who was performed by Frank Welker. Welker also was responsible for the voice of Slimer in The Real Ghostbusters, Doctor Claw in Inspector Gadget, Hefty Smurf in The Smurfs, a variety of characters in both the G.I. Joe and Transformers cartoons, Garfield in post-2005 Garfield cartoons, and he even does the voice of Nibbler in Futurama.

Of course, Shaggy’s voice is also pretty well-known to most readers –he was performed by radio DJ Casey Kasem (pictured).

The gals on the show were not performed by such successful voice actors, but it is worth noting that Daphne’s voice changes after season one because the original voice actor, Indira Stefanianna Christopherson married and retired in 1970. Her replacement, Heather North, voiced Daphne for over 25 years, retiring in 2003.

Image via Alan Light [Flickr]

A Working Format

While Scooby Doo may be a classic these days, the idea really wasn’t all that original. The original episodes were largely based on the sitcom Dobie Gillis and the radio show I Love a Mystery. In fact, each character directly related to Dobie Gillis characters, Fred as Dobie, Velma as Zelda, Daphne on Thalia and Shaggy on Maynard. Shaggy even looks like a cartoon version of Maynard, featuring a similar hairstyle and a goatee. The premise was also very similar to the Famous Five book series where four kids and a dog would set out to solve a mystery that was almost always created to divert attention from the villain’s true goal. Sound familiar?

Of course, Scooby-Doo’s success led to it becoming an influence on other Hanna-Barbera cartoons of the 1970’s, most notably, Josie and the Pussycats and The Funky Phantom.

Image via prayitno [Flickr]

Revitalizing A Classic

Image via fuzzcat [Flickr]

While Scooby-Doo episodes and movies are still being made, the original series as we know it ended by 1978, a few years after the show switched networks, moving from CBS to ABC. That was by no means the end of the iconic character though, instead, ABC launched Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo in 1979 to help bolster the show’s slipping ratings. After the first year of the series, Fred, Daphne and Velma were dropped from the show and the series was changed to comprise of three seven-minute-long adventures, rather than one half-hour-long story. Another big change –in the Scooby and Scrappy series, the supernatural villains were actual ghosts, not criminals in costumes.

The show changed formats again in 1983, when Daphne was brought back in and the show was adapted into two eleven-minute mysteries per show. Velma and Fred periodically appeared in these episodes, but not all the time.

In 1985, the show was completely reworked to become The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo, which featured  Daphne, Shaggy, Scooby and Scrappy working alongside with the new characters of Flim-Flam and Vincent Van Ghoul (the cartoon version of Vincent Price –who did voice the character). The show depicted the characters traveling the world to capture the 13 most terrifying ghosts on earth.

The network stopped playing new Scooby-Doo episodes for the next two years after the final episode of The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo in 1986. But in 1988, they brought out an entirely new incarnation of the show called A Pup Named Scooby-Doo, which featured the original characters as junior high students. The show was much more comedic than the originals and was heavily inspired by classic cartoons by Tex Avery and Bob Clampett. This show was a success and managed to last until 1991. This would mark the end of new Scooby-Doo shows until the 2000’s.

While new episodes of the show weren’t being released, reruns were being played constantly at first on a variety of networks and then exclusively on Cartoon Network and Boomerang after 1998.

After the live-action movie came out, the Cartoon Network and Warner Bros. felt it was time to bring Scooby back and they launched a new version of What’s New Scooby-Doo? in 2002. First-run episodes were played on Kids’ WB on Saturday mornings and then reruns were played on Cartoon Network. The show is largely similar to the original version only it includes modern technology and cultural icons, making it easier for modern kids to relate to.

In 2006, this new incarnation of the show was replaced by a new show, Shaggy & Scooby Get a Clue! The plot involved Shaggy inheriting money and a mansion from his rich uncle who went into hiding after fearing that villains were trying to steal his secret invention. The main enemy is named Dr. Phibes and is based on Dr. Evil from Austin Powers and Vincent Price’s character from The Abominable Dr. Phibes. While Scooby and Shaggy usually foil the plots alone, Fred, Daphne and Velma periodically make guest appearances.

The most recent version of the show, Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated is unique in that while each episode contains its own mystery, the show is a serial built upon the ultimate discovery of one great secret.

Image via JD Hancock [Flickr]

Scooby the Movie Star

No matter how old you are, if you’ve ever been a fan of Scooby-Doo, then you’ve almost certainly seen at least one of the movies. That’s because they started making movies featuring the character all the way back in 1972 and there have been tons of flicks since then.

The first Scooby-Doo movies were created for television by CBS. Each one starred celebrities (real or imaginary) as guest stars. Guests included Josie and the Pussycats, Sandy Duncan, Phyllis Diller, The Harlem Globetrotters, the Three Stooges, Don Knotts, The Addams Family and Batman & Robin.

In the mid-eighties, Hanna-Barbera created three more movies, this time featuring just Scooby, Scrappy and Shaggy. These flicks were similar to the early Scrappy-Doo episodes and featured the gang running into real monsters and ghosts.

As the show halted production in the early nineties, so did the movies, but they started back up again in 1998 with the direct-to-video films Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island, Scooby-Doo and the Witch’s Ghost, Scooby-Doo and the Alien Invaders and Scooby-Doo and the Cyber Chase. These films were notably darker than many of the other animations and the characters faced real supernatural villains instead of criminals pretending to be monsters. Since then, more animated films have continued to be added to the lineup almost every year, some featuring real monsters and some featuring detective stories.

The Scooby-Doo movie that most people are familiar with (although many fans wish they could forget it) is the full-length live-action version released in 2002. This movie featured some of the top teen stars at the time, including Freddie Prinze, Jr. as Fred and Sarah Michelle Gellar as Daphne. Scooby was a computer animation. The movie was such a success that they released a sequel two years later.

In 2009, Cartoon Network premiered a live-action prequel to the films called Scooby-Doo! The Mystery Begins. It did not feature any of the original cast, but this same crew was also used in another made-for-tv movie in 2010, Scooby-Doo! Curse of the Lake Monster.

Image via thisiscow [Flickr]

Character Changes

After so many years of cartoons and movies, it’s not surprising that the characters have gone through a number of changes. One of the biggest differences occurred when Daphne, originally inclined to be nothing more than kidnap fodder, started to perform karate and other defense techniques in the late 90’s movies.

Another change, Shaggy became a vegetarian after the 2002 television series because Casey Kasem, a dedicated vegetarian, demanded that Shaggy follow his way of eating. So much for his habit of eating anything under the sun.

A Pup Named Scooby-Doo gave the characters a little bit of a background story, including the fact that they all hailed from Coolsville, something that stayed in effect throughout the years.

In Scooby-Doo, Mystery Incorporated, the characters were first able to explore romantic feelings between one another, but it’s hard to say if this should count towards the regular story line because creators considered this a reboot of the other shows and the characters have different names of their parents.

Image via World of Oddy (Flickr)

Do you dig Scooby-Doo? And if so, which version is your favorite? Personally, I loved the original series, but I could never stand Scrappy-Doo, even so, I’d take a billion Scrappy episodes over the live-action movie.

Sources: Wikipedia #1, #2, #3

Have you ever wondered why certain superheroes don’t get as much attention, or as many fans, as the big name spandex superstars? Well, these audition videos from College Humor should help clear that up for you, and proves that even D-list superfolks have star power!

Link

Link

While those of you with kids might have gone to see the Smurfs movie, I’m assuming the rest of you haven’t. From what I’ve heard, you aren’t missing much if you haven’t seen it, but I can’t talk from first-hand experience because I haven’t gone either. Regardless of what you think of the new movie, it’s always nice to look back at the things that made The Smurfs so great in the first place.

Image via It’s Meng! [Flickr]

What’s In A Name?

You may have wondered where the heck the word “smurf” came from and why the characters use it so often in the show, but as it turns out, the original characters weren’t “smurfs,” they were “schtroumpfs.” The whole thing started when the creator of the comics, Peyo, was at lunch with a fellow Belgian comic artist named André Franquin. If you’ve ever had a moment where you forgot the name of something, then you’ll understand Peyo’s frustration when he couldn’t remember the word “salt.” Being a goofy guy, he instead pointed at the salt and asked his friend to pass the schtroumpf. Franquin responded, “Here’s the schtroumpf — when you are done schtroumpfing, schtroumpf it back.” The rest of the meal, the two joked around using the word “schtroumpf” periodically throughout their conversation.

From Schtroumpfs to Smurfs

Now you know why the characters use their name so much in conversation, but suddenly, the question of how the comics became The Smurfs instead of The Schtroumpfs. Well, as I said, this all happened in Belgium, where the native language is French. The first language the comic was translated to was Dutch and while the name could have stayed the same (do you really need to translate an imaginary word?), Schtroumpfs didn’t quite sound right to Dutch speakers, so the name was instead changed to smurfen. When the comic was translated to English, the word “smurf” sounded good, so it was based on the Dutch version.

Image via Stephen and Claire Farnsworth [Flickr]

From Minor Diversion To Lead Characters

The first introduction of the Smurf characters started in Peyo’s earlier comic, Johan and Pirlouit. This strip took place in the Middle Ages and incorporated elements of sorcery and sword fights. In 1958, Peyo started a new series of the strip, which revolved around the characters searching for a magic flute. At one point in the story, the characters run into a number of schtroumpfs, small creatures with blue skin and human-like features. The smurf characters were a smashing success, so Peyo wrote them their own strip that first appeared in 1959. Although the smurfs would periodically interact with Johan and Pirlouit, the spin off was largely based on their own stories.

Why Is There Only One Girl?

Technically there are two girls, Smurfette, who everyone is familiar with, and Sassette, who first appeared in the fifth season of the cartoon. According to the smurf back story though, there are actually no smurf females. Smurfette was actually created by Gargamel in part of an evil plan to cause jealousy amongst the smurfs and Sassette was created by the smurfs using the same magic formula they stole from Gargamel. Sassette was intended to provide Smurfette with a female friend, but because Sassette was a pretty big tom boy, the two didn’t get along at first. If you’re wondering why Sassette is so much smaller than the adult smurfs if she’s not supposed to be a baby, it’s because all adult smurfs stand 3 crab apples tall, but they only had two crab apples worth of clay when they created her.

Strangely, after making sure the two female characters were both made from clay and magic spells, season 8 featured another female, Nanny Smurf, with no background story explaining her creation. Nanny Smurf was Grandpa Smurf’s gal, but she disappeared in a haunted house for 500 years before the smurfs rescued her. She only lasted one season and appeared in one episode in season 9 before disappearing forever again.

If you’ve been itching for more female characters in the comic, Peyo’s son who is the current writer of the French comics has promised that he will be introducing more females in upcoming years.

Image via Scottobear [Flickr]

What Is A Smurf Berry?

Most people seem to think that smurf berries aren’t real, but as it turns out, they are really supposed to be the berries from the sarsaparilla tree. Interestingly, in the comics, the smurfs don’t eat smurf berries, but instead gorge on the leaves of the plant.

Classic Cartoon Voices

If you’ve ever watched the cartoon and thought that Papa Smurf or Gargamel’s voices sounded familiar, you’re right, you probably have heard them somewhere else. Papa Smurf was voiced by legendary cartoon voice actor Don Messick who also did the voices of Boo Boob Bear, Ranger Smith, Astro, Muttley, Scooby Doo, Scrappy Doo and Droopy. As for  Gargamel, his voice was performed by Paul Winchell, a professional ventriloquist who became a voice actor later in life. Some of Winchell’s more famous roles included Dick Dastardly (that’s right, he and Mesick worked together before) and everyone’s favorite spring-tailed predator, Tigger.

Image via DNNYA17 [Flickr]

Do you guys dig The Smurfs? What about the movie, if you’ve seen it, what did you think?

Sources: Wikipedia #1, #2, #3, Smurfs Wiki #1, #2, #3

Unless you are an ultimate Nintendo fan, and know every game that came out on the console in 1988, you’re going to have a hard time identifying all of these great games. But really, who’s keeping score? These awesomely adorable illustrations are by Campbell Whyte, and have a quirky cute style all their own. See if you can figure them all out, and be sure to follow the link over to Destructoid if you want to see all 65 of these adorable illustrations!

Link -via Destructoid

Sure you might love Ariel, Belle, Glinda, Scarlet and Sherlock, but did you know they all have serious mental disorders? Cracked takes a look at the character’s questionable mental states with this great article. I think their assessments seem pretty spot on for the most part. What about you?

Link

When you think about it, Winnie the Pooh makes a lot more sense when you consider all of the characters simply live inside of a mental institution. Dan Meth hit the nail on the head with this great medication chart.

Link via Laughing Squid

After considering the new Smurfs movie, the folks at Slate compiled an interactive color wheel to show the spectrum of colors by which we know our favorite cartoon characters. At the site, you can mouseover to enlarge and identify each character. Link -via Buzzfeed

(Video Link)

If you like the show Adventure Time, then you’ll get a kick out of this gender-swapped version Cartoon Network showed at Comic Con. The rest of the episode will be premiered on September 5 during the show’s regular time slot.

Link Via The Mary Sue

In honor of Pixar’s 25th anniversary, YouTube member NkMcDonalds put together a video montage of twelve feature films and 20 short subjects you know and love. -via Slashfilm

Previously: The Beauty of Pixar

TV Shows:

Fans of the British series The IT Crowd will instantly recognize Flickr user a440’s depiction of the the characters from the show’s intro, as well as Roy’s catchphrase, “Have you tried turning it on and off again?”

Craftster’s forums are always filled with excellent examples of geeky crafting, but when user Jessii shared two years of projects, it was hard to choose the best of all of her works. While her pieces featuring characters from Rocko’s Modern Life, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Futurama and Cowboy Beebop are my favorite, but I highly recommend clicking on the link to check out the whole post.

Over on the Sprite Stitch forums, user Liquid Karma (aka Deviant Art user Karma Pudding) shared a huge collection of her past projects which include the Megaman project seen in the videogame stitching post, along with these depicting characters from Futurama, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Full Metal Alchemist and the Star Wars inspired “Come To The Darkside We Have Cookies” (if you like that one, be sure to check out the similar shirt in the Neatoshop).

Sprite Stitch user Bamiyan is yet another Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle fan and his Donatello cross stitch is yet another great take on the characters.

While this piece by The Autumn Society looks like it might belong in the videogames post, Rainbow Brite and Strawberry Shortcake are most certainly cartoon characters. There’s also a similar piece on the post with two Care Bears fighting it out.

If you like Pokemon, you’re sure to enjoy the cross stitching works of Deviant Art user Skyregabbro. There are plenty more at the link, but I chose Pikachu to display since he’s my favorite character.

Computer and Internet:

If you’re familiar with the song, then just seeing this “Peanut Butter Jelly Time” cross stitch seen on Steotch is certain to get it stuck in your head. These guys also did a great job turning the TSA protester “if you touch my junk I’ll have you arrested” meme into a nice wall hanging, and they also seem to have trolled their own family Thanksgiving dinner by leaving out a Pedobear cross stitch with all of the unsuspecting relatives around. If you had any doubts, the husband-wife team at Steotch do seem to be the masters of the cross stitch meme.

If you love Keyboard Cat then you’re certain to appreciate this great depiction of him by Julie of Subversive Cross Stitch.

Here’s a cross stitch a lot of geeks will find unbelievably useful. Just hang it above your desk and whenever someone bothers you about a computer issue, just point to the beautifully stitched sign. If it looks a bit familar, that’s because Flickr user vonkrankipantzen was inspired by a similar shirt found on Think Geek.

Movies:

Where there is geekery, there is Star Wars and bombastitch’s “Han Shot First” cross stitch pattern is a perfect way to start your own geeky cross stitch project.

If you prefer a good Han quote over a quote about Han, then this project by Craftster forum user Zhad_Squad might be more up your alley.

When you like to mash up your science fiction favorites, this R2D2/Dalek love scene by Flickr user Krupp is the ultimate in robot crossovers.

Flickr user Stitchfight’s xSTITCH collection has a great collection of movie and comic inspired projects including this glow-in-the dark Iron Man, Alex from Clockwork Orange, and Rorschach.

While there are a lot of talented cross stitchers in this article, this Logan’s Run pillow by Flickr user Kiddy Amunda is probably one of the most intricate. Even if you don’t care for the film, it’s hard to ignore the skills needed to complete this masterpiece.

Classic Cross Stitch Themes:

If you like cross stitches with the classic Serenity Prayer but still wish they had more flare, then choose your side: Star Wars or Star Trek. Both pieces are by our meme-loving friends at Steotch.

If you prefer the old classic “home is where the heart is” projects, but your heart is a little more geek-oriented than most than perhaps you’d prefer the Xbox controller version by The Domesticated Scientist or the Lego version by Flickr user Softsarah.

Cross Stitch Art Projects:

Flickr user Pichu71 created this QR code for her brother-in-law’s birthday. It reads “Joyeux anniversaire Hatim,” which means “Happy birthday Hatim.”

By now you’ve seen plenty of awesome cross stitches on the blog, but none are quite as unique as this cross stitch animation by Holly Klein.

Maggie and Mildred from Holly Klein on Vimeo.

Now it’s you turn guys. Share any projects you’ve made or get cracking on your own geeky crafts for National Craft Month. I can’t wait to see what you’ve got.

Please allow me to introduce you to team PROBLEM SOLVERZ, created by artist Ben Jones and Eric Kaplan, one of The Big Bang Theory writers. If this doesn’t blow your mind, nothing will. (Hat tip to Dave Goetsch!)

Science Service was a nonprofit news organization that decided to “jazz up” their information releases by adding humorous pictures in the 1920s. Some of these “cartoonographs” are preserved in the Smithsonian Institution. Many of the early cartoonographs were drawn by Elizabeth Sabin Goodwin; see more examples at The Bigger Picture. Link -via Nag on the Lake

I always liked Fantasia, but since I’ve been watching it as a kid, I had no idea just how significant the movie was to both Disney and the history of motion pictures in general. Did you know that it was the first movie ever made featuring stereoscopic sound? Or that the original showings were supposed to be more like a symphony performance than a movie and that the audience was expected to wear formal wear and sit in assigned seats? It’s also the only Disney movie to extend over two hours in length.

While many of us may fondly remember Fantasia as an interesting movie, the behind the scenes of this breakthrough animation are equally fascinating. So throw on your favorite classical album and enjoy this detailed look at one of Disney’s most inspired creations.

Image via Lauren Javier [Flickr]

A Shared Vision

The inception of Fantasia started with The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. Disney wanted to do a special Silly Symphonies episode based on Goethe’s poem Der Zauberlehrling. The animation would be completely voiceless and set to the music of Paul Dukas’ L’apprenti sorcier. He wanted it to star Mickey Mouse, who was losing popularity against many other cartoon characters of the time, even Donald Duck was proving to be more profitable. Disney saw this as an opportunity for a Mickey comeback.

The studio immediately set about making this a notably high budget version of Silly Symphonies. Mickey was updated with a more modern look with more weight and this is the first time he was seen to have pupils (because the creation of Fantasia took so long, four new cartoons featuring this new version of Mickey were released in the meantime). The animation was slated to run two minutes longer than most of the cartoon shorts seen at the time, running a full nine minutes.

As animators started working in the studio (basing the unnamed wizard on Walt himself and nicknaming him “Yen Sid” –Disney backwards), Disney happened to run into the second most famous conductor in America at the time, Leopold Stokowski (above), at a restaurant. He talked to Stokowski about the project and was shocked when the composer said he loved the idea and offered to conduct the music for no charge. Stokowski quickly collected over 100 musicians in Los Angeles to record the score for the animation, making it the only section of Fantasia to not feature the Philadelphia Orchestra.

Budgetary Inflation Leads To Expansion

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice was one of the animation department’s most ambitious projects up until that time. Every bit of the film was done with the utmost attention to detail and it wasn’t long before the animation ended up costing $125,000 –an outrageous amount for a single short. Disney’s most profitable short up until that time only brought in $60,000, so he knew he couldn’t make the money back releasing it as a Silly Symphonies cartoon like he originally proposed.

Stokowski proposed that Disney expand the short into a full concert feature with several music pieces and animations. Disney loved the idea and cast musician and critic Deems Taylor (above) to provide live action narration between each of the pieces.

As The Sorcerer’s Apprentice was approaching completion, the studio geared up to start working on the additional cartoon and musical segments, which received every bit of the same level of detail given to the first cartoon. The movie used a total of eleven directors, sixty animators and twenty background artists. By the time the writers, designers, inkers, drawers, special effects artists, sculptors, sound engineers and modelers were added in, it took almost a thousand people to finish. It wasn’t long until the film ended up reaching a budget of $2.8 million, making it the most expensive hand drawn animation ever -an investment the studio didn’t recoup for almost 30 years.

Cranking It Up

After The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, Stokowski hired the orchestra he conducted for, the Philadelphia Orchestra, to record the music for the remaining songs. During the filming, Stokowski  kept using a word that meant “a medley of familiar themes with variations.” The word? “Fantasia.” It wasn’t long before Disney started using the word to describe the movie.

Although Disney thought the orchestra was playing great when he heard it live, he thought it sounded too tinny and flat when played back on tape. He asked his engineers to see what they could do about the sound. They came back with a multi-channel sound format, making the movie the first major film to use stereoscopic sound. The film also was the first to use a click track, to overdub orchestral parts and to use simultaneous multi-track recording. They called their creation Fantasound.

With all the innovations in the sound mixing process, it’s not entirely surprising that a full fifth of the budget went towards sound editing.

The End Result

Fantasia starts out with Toccata and Fugue In D Minor, the most abstract of all of the film segments. The first part of the song shows the orchestra playing with strange light patterns and heavy shadows. It’s worth noting that the orchestra in the movie isn’t the one on the score, it’s a few local musicians and Disney employees pretending to play the songs already recorded. Union and budget concerns prevented the Philadelphia Orchestra from actually appearing on screen. To show how impressive the Fantasound was, the first few parts of the piece are each played on different sound channels moving from right to left. After this, the song flows into an animation piece inspired by German abstract animator Oskar Fischinger, who worked on the segment for a short time. The animation then fades back into the live action performance.

After each performance, Deems Taylor appears on screen to segue into the next song by providing an introduction that describes the composer’s original intention of the song. This is cut out of most of the versions released all the way up until 2000.

The second song is a selection of pieces from The Nutcracker. It starts with the “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy,” showing fairies sprinkling dew on the flowers. Then a cluster of little mushrooms starts dancing in a Chinese-styled dance. Next, blossoms that look like ballerinas perform the “Dance of the Flutes,” and then a school of goldfish perform an Arab-inspired dance. Thistles and orchids are then seen performing a Russian-styled dance, and lastly, autumn fairies decorate everything in brown and gold before frost fairies add an icy layer, all to the tune of “Waltz of the Flowers.”

I’m sure I don’t need to repeat the plot of The Sorcerer’s Apprentice for you, but watch the wizard and notice his thick gray eyebrows that are directly inspired by Disney. When he’s mad at Mickey near the end, he even raises one eyebrow –an expression the animators saw an angry Walt make all too often. In the original version of the movie, Mickey and Stokowski shake hands and the orchestra applauds them, but this is cut out of most versions.

The next musical number is the Rite of Spring (although the order of the arrangement is changed for the purposes of pacing the animation), which is set to a shortened version of Earth’s history. It starts with the creation of the planet and quickly moves on to the age of the Dinosaurs. The dinosaurs are notable for being the inspiration for the “Primeval World” diorama seen from the train at Disneyland.  At first, Disney wanted to transition from the dinosaurs ruling the Earth to man and his discovery of fire, but he later decided against that in an effort to not offend fundamentalists. Videos of part one and two can be found here and here.

After the Rite of Spring, the audience was given a 15 intermission from the 124 minute experience. After the break, the orchestra performs a little jazz, which transitions into the Meet the Soundtrack sequence. This short bit shows the audience how sound is rendered in waves. Taylor narrates this segment and an animated line that portrays an equalizer bar helps give the music and instruments visual appeal, and a personality.

The Pastoral Symphony is the only one of the films to be cut due to content and not length. The segment featuring centaurs, cupids and Bacchus also included a black servant centaur with minstrelized lips and hair. The scenes with her were first abruptly cut from the film and as technology improved, they simply zoomed in on the frames with her in them so she was out of the shot. Interestingly, Bacchus has two African American zebra centaurs serving him, but these two are not cut from the film. The segment also opens up to topless female centaurs bathing, and despite complaints from conservatives, this part was not censored or removed. If you want to see the original version of the film, with the controversial servant girl, here it is:

The next segment, Dance of the Hours, is probably the most famous piece in the film, outside of the Sorcerer’s Apprentice. It is the delightfully fun cartoon showing ostriches, hippos, elephants and alligators gracefully dancing ballet together. The main creatures in this part are some of the only ones in the entire film. The main ostrich is Madame Upanova. The lead elephant is Elephanchine. Best known though are Hyacinth Hippo and Ben Ali Gator, who fall in love through the course of the story. Part one can be found here.

The only part of the film to include music from two different composers is The Night on Bald Mountain.  The segment not only includes music from the title track by Modest Mussorgsky, but “Ave Maria” by Franz Schubert. The star of this segment is Chernabog, who is based on a Slavonic god, although Disney has referred to him as “Satan himself.” The demon was originally to be based on Bela Lugosi, but after he was brought in as a model for the animators, lead animator Bill Tytla found him to be unsuitable and he later had a colleague from the studio fill in instead. Strangely, Chernabog has a direct relation to Super Golden Crisp’s Sugar Bear mascot –they were both created by Tytla.

In the animation, Chernabog  scares up demons, harpies and other spirits until the sound of the Angelus bell scares him away. The camera then pans from Bald Mountain to show a line of robed monks carrying torches, as they walk through the forest towards the ruins of a cathedral. Disney was originally going to have them going to a church, but he decided he didn’t want the animation to appear religious, so he instead opted to have a cathedral of the forest.

Because the animation required one long shot near the end that showed much of the entire background, the scene had to be painted on connected glass panes that stretched over 200 feet long and the monks had to be painted incredibly small, meaning the camera had to be only an inch away from the glass. It took three attempts to film the shot because the first attempt used the wrong lens and an earthquake took place during the second try. This was also the last of the scenes to be shot and was actually only completed on the morning of the movie premiere, November 13, 1940.

A Pitiful Reception

Because Disney’s distributor, RKO Radio Pictures, backed out before the release, Disney decided to exhibit the film as a roadshow. This ended up being a major problem because every theater required an immense level of set up in order to equip them for Fantasound. Before the studio had a chance to develop a more portable solution, WWII broke out and most of the sound systems ended up being scrapped to support the war effort. In the end, the roadshow was only shown at 12 theaters and there were only 16 Fantasound-equipped prints created.

Even if they could have shown more of these roadshows, the film received mixed reviews with critics and audiences were wary of the film, thinking it would be too highbrow since it involved classical music.

RKO eventually did pick up the movie for mainstream distribution, but the cropped the movie from 124 minutes to only 81 minutes. They also redid the film’s soundtrack so that it could be played in mono at theaters around the country. Unfortunately, the movie still didn’t attract many fans (largely because the war left people of the time anxious for action films), leaving the studio in serious financial strain. They decided to immediately push out Dumbo as a result, knowing it could be a low budget film that would still bring in a wide audience.

The movie wasn’t seen in stereo until it was rereleased in CinemaScope in 1956. By this point, there was only one Fantasound-equipped print that had survived and all of the sound negatives had deteriorated beyond repair.

It wasn’t until 1969 that Fantasia finally made a profit. By this time, the film started to develop a cult following amongst college kids and teenagers who thought it was pretty trippy and sometimes even watched it while getting high. The studio rereleased the film again (this was the first release where the black centaur was removed) and promoted it with a psychedelic-styled poster that helped bring in the crowds.

In 2000, Disney released the original, uncut roadshow version of the film for the first time since 1940. Unfortunately, Deems Taylors’ narration was only preserved on original copies of the film, meaning the sound was too deteriorated to use. The studio hired Corey Burton to record all of Taylor’s lines for him. Although this release is uncut, it is still edited and you will not see the black centaur in this version.

Image via Loren Javier [Flickr]

Making A Lasting Impression

Although it took 30 years to become profitable, Fantasia has become one of the most successful films of all time, ranked #21 of all movies in terms of gross profits. Even when it was released, the Academy Awards recognized the contributions it made to the industry and William E. Garity and J.N.A. Hawkins won a special academy award for their “contribution to the advancement of the use of sound in motion pictures.” Leopold Stokowski also won a special academy award for “unique achievement in the creation of a new form of visualized music, thereby widening the scope of the motion picture as entertainment and as an art form.” In 1998, the American Film Institute named it the #58 movie of the last 100 years and in 2008, they proclaimed it to be the #5 animated film of all time.

Image via ShootsNikon [Flickr]

Sources: Wikipedia #1, #2, Amps, IMDB

Who’s your favorite cartoon character? Ears ours.

IMPRESSIVE STATS

Bug Bunny is the world’s most popular rabbit:

* Since 1939, he has starred in more than 175 films.

* He’s been nominated for three Oscars, and won one -in 1958, for “Knighty Knight, Bugs” (with Yosemite Sam).

* Every year from 1945 to 1961, he was voted “top animated character” by movie theater owners (when they still showed cartoons in theaters).

* In 1985 he became only the 2nd cartoon character to be given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (Mickey Mouse was the first).

* For almost 30 years, starting in 1960, he had one of the top-rated shows in Saturday morning TV.

* In 1976, when researchers polled Americans on their favorite characters, real and imaginary, Bugs came in second …behind Abraham Lincoln.

THE INSPIRATIONS

Bugs was born in the 1930s, but cartoon historians say his ancestry goes further back. A few direct antecedents:

* Zomo. You may not have heard of this African folk-rabbit. but he’s world famous. Joe Adamson writes  in Bugs Bunny: Fifty Years and Only One Grey Hare:

Like jazz and rock’n'roll, Bugs has at least some of his roots in black culture. Zomo is the trickster rabbit from Central and Eastern Africa who gained audience sympathy by being smaller than his oppressors and turning the tables on them through cleverness -thousands of years before Eastman invented film. A con artist, a masquerader, ruthless and suave, in control of the situation. Specialized in impersonating women.

* Charlie Chaplin. “It was Chaplin who established that ‘gestures and actions expressing attitude’ give a screen character life.” Adamson writes. The Looney Tunes directors, all fans of Chaplin, even stole many of his gags. For example:

The abrupt and shocking kiss Charlie plants [on] someone who’s getting too closse for comfort in The Floorwalker went on to become one of Bugs’ favorite ways to upset his adversaries. [And] the walking broomstick in Bewitched Bunny does Chaplin’s trademark turn, with one foot in the air, at every corner.

There are literally dozens of other Chaplin rip-offs. Bugs also lifted bits from silent comedians Harold Lloyd and Buster Keaton.

* Groucho Marx. “Bugs uses his carrot as a prop, just as Groucho used his cigar,” points out Stefan Kanfer in Serious Business. “Eventually Bugs even stole Marx’s response to an insult: ‘Of course you know, this means war!’ ”

TIMELINE

1937: Warner Bros. animation director Tex Avery makes “Porky’s Duck Hunt.” Porky Pig hunted a screwball duck named Daffy -”who didn’t get scared and run run away when somebody pointed a gun at him, but leapt and hopped all over the place like a maniac.” “When it hit the theaters,” recalls another director, “it was like an explosion.”

1938: Warner Bros. director Ben “Bugs” Hardaway remakes the cartoon with a rabbit instead of a duck, as “Porky’s Hare Hunt”. Says one of Bugs’ creators: “That rabbit was just Daffy Duck in a rabbit suit.”

1939: Bugs Hardaway decides to remake “Porky’s Hare Hunt” with a new rabbit (as “Hare-um Scare-um”). Cartoonist Charlie Thorson comes up with a gray and white rabbit with large buck teeth. He labels his sketch “Bugs’ Bunny”.

1940: Director Tex Avery becomes the real father of Bugs Bunny with “A Wild Hare”. Bugs is changed from a Daffyesque lunatic to a streetsmart wiseass. “We decided he was going to be a smart alec rabbit, but casual about it,” Avery recalled. “His opening linewas ‘What’s up, Doc? …It floored ‘em! …Here’s a guy with a gun in his face! …They expected the rabbit to scream, or anything but make a casual remark… It got such a laugh that we said, ‘Let’s use that every chance we get.’ It became a series of ‘What’s up, Docs?’ That set his entire character, He was always in command, in the face of all types of dangers.”

* Bugs also gets his voice in “A Wild Hare”. Mel Blanc, who did most Looney Tunes voices, had been having a hard time finding one for the rabbit… until Bugs Hardaway showed him the latest sketch for “A Wild Hare”. Blanc wrote:

He’d obviously had some work done. His posture had improved, he’d shed some weight, and his protruding front teeth weren’t as pronounced. The most significant change, however, was in his facial expression. No longer just goofy, he was a sly looking rascal.

“A tough little stinker, isn’t he?” Hardaway commented… and the light went on in Blanc’s brain.

A tough little stinker… In my mind I heard a Brooklyn accent… To anyone living west of the Hudson River at that time, Brooklynites were associated with con artists and crooks… Consequently, the new, improved Bugs Bunny wouldn’t say jerk, he’d say joik.

* The rabbit is now so popular he needs a name. According to some sources, he is about to be dubbed “Happy Rabbit”. Tex Avery wants “Jack E. Rabbit”. But when Thorson’s year-old drawing labeled “Bugs’ Bunny” is turned up, producer Leon Schlesinger chooses that. Avery hates it. “That’s sissy,” he complains. “Mine’s a rabbit. A tall, lanky, mean rabbit. He isn’t a fuzzy little bunny!” But the name sticks.

1941: Bugs Bunny becomes competitive. Four extremely talented directors -Avery, Fritz Freleng, Bob Clampett, and Chuck Jones- try to top each other with new gags and aspects of Bugs’ personality. It’s the key to the character’s success -he’s constantly growing. “As each director added new levels to this character,” Adamson explains, “it was picked up by others and became part of the mix.”

1943: Animator Robert McKimson (later a director himself), working for Bob Clampett, refines Bugs’ features into what they are today. “We made him cuter, brought his head and cheeks out a little more and gave him just a little nose,” McKimson says. He looks more “elfin” and less “ratlike” now.

1945: During World War II, Bugs has become a “sort of a national mascot.” Critic Richard Schickel writes: “In the war years, when he flourished most gloriously, Bugs Bunny embodied the cocky humor of a nation that had survived its economic crisis [in surprisingly good shape], and was facing a terrible war with grace, gallantry, humor and and solidarity that was equally surprising.” By the end of the war, Bugs isn’t just a cartoon character, but an American icon.

BUGS FACTS

Saved by a Hare. The inspiration for the original rabbit came from Walt Disney. In 1935 Disney put out a cartoon featuring a character called Max Hare. Hardaway’s rabbit looks suspiciously like Max.

Trademarks. Where did Bugs’ carrot-crunching and “What’s up, Doc?” come from? No one’s sure, but experts have suggested they might have been inspired by a couple of popular films.

* In Frank Capra’s 1934 Oscar-winning comedy, It Happened One Night, Clark Gable nervously munches on carrots.

* In the classic 1939 screwball comedy My Man Godfrey, William Powqell uses the line, “What’s up, Doc?” repeatedly.

On the other hand, Tex Avery had a habit of calling everyone Doc -so he may have inspired the phrase. (Mel Blanc -Bugs’ voice- also claims in his autobiography that he ad-libbed the line, but he seems to take credit for everything- so we don’t believe him.)

Tough Act. Blanc said that recording the “What’s up, Doc?” line turned out to be the most physically challenging part of doing the voice:

“What’s up, Doc?” was incomplete without the sound of the rabbit nibbling on the carrot, which presented problems. First of all, I don’t especially like carrots, at least not raw. [Ed note: In another BR, we erroneously reported that he was allergic to carrots. Oops.] And second, I found it impossible to chew, swallow, and be ready to say my next line. We tried substituting other vegetables, including apples and celery, with unsatisfactory results. The solution was to stop recording so that I could spit out the carrot into the wastebasket and then proceed with the script. In the course of a recording session I usually went through enough carrots to fill several wastebaskets. Bugs Bunny did for carrots what Popeye did for spinach. How many…children were coerced into eating their carrots by mothers cooing… “but Bugs Bunny eats his carrots.” If only they had known.

Eat Your Veggies. Actually, there were pressures to switch from carrots. “The Utah Celery Company of Salt Lake City offered to keep all the studio’s staffers well supplied with their product if Bugs would only switch from carrots to celery,” Adamson reports. “[And] later, the Broccoli Institute of America strongly urged Bugs Bunny to sample their product once in a while… Mel Blanc would have been happy to switch… but carrots were Bugs’s trademark.”

Surprise Hit. To his creators, Bugs Bunny was just another character that would probably run in a few cartoons and fade unnoticed into obscurity. “We didn’t feel that we had anything,” Avery recounted years later, “until we got it on the screen and it got a few laughs. After we ran it and previewed it and so forth, Warner liked it, the exhibitors liked it, and so of course [the producer] ran down and said, ‘Boy, give me as many of these as you can!’ Which we did.”

Bug Bunny became so popular with the public that he got laughs even when he didn’t deserve them. “He could do no wrong,” remembers dialog writer Michael Maltese. “We had quite a few lousy Bugs Bunnies. We’d say, ‘Well he haven’t got time. Let’s do it.’ And we’d do it, and the audience would laugh. They loved that rabbit.”

___________________

The article above was reprinted with permission from The Best of the Best of Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader.
Since 1988, the Bathroom Reader Institute had published a series of popular books containing irresistible bits of trivia and obscure yet fascinating facts.

If you like Neatorama, you’ll love the Bathroom Reader Institute’s books – go ahead and check ‘em out!

Barney Gumble

Barney was based on a drunkard character named “Crazy” Guggenheim that was in the “Joe the Bartender” sketches of The Jackie Gleason Show. Matt Groening wanted him to be the most pathetic sitcom sidekick ever and he always wanted to break the unspoken rules of television that made it taboo to have alcohol serve as the source of comedy. As for his name, it was based on another popular comedy character, Barney Rubble of The Flintstones.

Video link.

Bart Simpson

While Bart’s name is just an anagram of “brat”, the character was largely based on Matt Groening’s older brother. On top of that, the character is an extreme version of a bratty child, and Groening incorporated all of the bad traits from Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn and Dennis the Menace.

Bleeding Gums Murphy

Image via Hans Reitzema [Wikipedia]

Bleeding Gums’ character design is loosely based on the now deceased saxophone player LeRoi Moore, who played for the Dave Matthews band. His character is believed to be a homage to saxophone player Sonny Rollins, who quit his jazz career to play by himself on a bridge.

Bumblebee Man

Bumblebee Man is the Simpson’s version of a popular Mexican television character known as El Chapulin Colorado (The Red Grasshopper). The show’s producers said that whenever they watched Telemundo, the character seemed to always be on the screen, which served as inspiration for Bumblebee Man to always be on TV as well.

Video link.

Charles Montgomery Burns

Image via James Duncan Davidson [Wikipedia]

The city’s most diabolical millionaire was based on a number of tycoons including the Rockefellers, but a main inspiration for the character was Fredrik Olsen, a reclusive mogul who owned a number of companies, including Timex. Another source for Mr. Burns personality came from Matt Groening’s his high school teacher, Mr. Bailey.

The look of the character was based on Fox founder Barry Diller (seen above) and a praying mantis.

Doctor Julius Hibbert

When Doctor Hibbert first appeared, he wasn’t based on anyone specific, but when The Simpsons were moved to the same time slot as The Cosby Show, the staff thought it was appropriate to make him a character of Dr. Huxtable, Cosby’s character on the show.

Duffman

Bud Man’s superhero advertising character is a direct inspiration for Duffman. The catchphrase “Oh Yeah” came from the song of the same name by Yello, which was a popular advertising tune during the eighties, which fit right in with Duffman’s persona.

Video link.

Jimbo Jones

If you like the bully, John Bender, from The Breakfast Club and you like Jimbo, there’s a reason for that; Jimbo is based on the Brat Pack character. His name, on the other hand, has a source much closer to the show’s heart…he was named for executive producer James L. Brooks.

Krusty The Clown

Image via Carl Lender [Wikipedia]

Many Simpsons fans already know that Krusty the Clown was based on a television clown that Matt Groening watched as a child, named Rusty Nails. On the other hand, fewer people know that Krusty’s biography is largely based on the life of comedian Jackie Mason (seen above), who was the son of an orthodox rabbi. Mason voices Krusty’s father, which must have been cathartic for him during the first episode he was cast in.

Moe Syzlak

Moe was largely based on a two people, one of the main inspirations was Louis “Red” Deutsch, a boxer-turned-bartender made famous when tapes of prank calls made to his bar were released to the public. Two Jersey City pranksters repeatedly called him and when he started to catch on, he started angrily threatening the callers and their families. This played directly into Bart’s phone relationship with Moe throughout the series.

Another inspiration for Moe was comedian Rich Hall, who was friends with writer George Meyer.

Nelson Muntz

Nelson was also based on John Bender to some extent, and his name is not only a reference to the full nelson wrestling hold, but also to Judd Nelson, the actor who portrayed John Bender in The Breakfast Club. Nelson has even more in common with John Bender than Jimbo does, particularly when it comes to personality and his home life.

Professor John Frink Jr.

Originally the geeky inventor we’ve all grown to love was supposed to be a mad scientist, but when Hank Azaria first voiced him, he did an impression of Jerry Lewis’ Nutty Professor and everyone loved it, so the writers changed the script around to make him more goofy.

Troy McClure

While it’s easy to see that Troy is more of a stereotypical Hollywood wash up than a caricature of any one specific person, his name is based on two B-movie actors: Troy Donahue and Doug McClure. Doug’s daughter said that while her dad considered it an honor to have such an iconic character named after him, she still enjoyed talking back to him by calling him “Troy.”

The Yes Guy

Although he has no real name, every fan is familiar with the mustachioed character that constantly says “yeeeessss.” The character is a tribute to Frank Nelson’s many appearances on The Jack Benny Program and other shows of the period. His trademark was the same “yeeeeesssss” that Yes Guy is known for.

There are tons of Simpsons characters out there, who’s your favorite? And do any of you know any other stories behind the characters?

Source: Simpsons Wiki

DI: Songwriters are often asked, which comes first, the music or the lyrics. How about you? Do you first come up with the story and then draw it, or does a doodle sometimes give you the idea for a story?

LY: A little of both. The series began like this: I had just moved to San Francisco, and I knew almost no one there. If you move from the East coast to the West, it takes a little time to adjust to how people relate to each other differently. I usually say, it takes forever to make a friend in Boston, but you will have that friend for a long time. You can meet your soul mate every fifteen minutes in San Francisco, but you’ll never see them again. Anyway, I was keeping these journals with me at all times, drawing and writing, just to keep myself company, just to have something to do. After a while, I started keeping track of what I was doing by drawing very crude, very mundane cartoons. I woke up one day with a hangover, and did a video version of one of the entries in my journal. It was basically verbatim, exactly what I had written & drawn. That one was called “Party”, about the party I had been to the night before.

Now that I think of it, I should try doing it that way again.

(Read on for your chance to score the book + DVD!)

DI: Talk a little bit about the process of making these awesome videos. What do you do first? Second? etc.

LY: These days, almost invariably, I write first. I try to figure out whatever it is that has been on my mind the most in the last week or so, something that I’ve been thinking about semi-conciously. Then, I write down everything I can think of about the subject. I try to read a little about whatever it is too, if I am disciplined enough. I usually have about 3 pages of random thoughts. I print them out, and get on the bus or ride my bike somewhere, and see what parts could go together to make some sort of narrative, could possibly seem like I could be making a point, even if the piece never gets around to making one. Then I rearrange the order, and it usually starts making sense around there. From that, I cut out the flab, fill the holes, and the script is done. The shooting is the easier part usually.

DI: How do you achieve that neat effect where we can sort of see you reflected off the paper doing the drawings?

LY: It’s either negligence, accident or witchcraft.

DI: How many static cartoons does it take to make the average video?

LY: It depends on the length. My average has been 3.5 minutes lately, although I think I should be making them shorter. 3.5 minutes usually winds up being about 40-50 drawings.

DI: Do you wind up scrapping a lot of drawings or by now do you pretty much get it right the first time?

LY: I screw up maybe one drawing in ten, and oh man, I hate it- that may not sound like much, but I almost always set up for the shoot first thing in the morning, ready to go, and then procrastinate and fritter the day away and finally start shooting at about 9:30 PM. On average, I finish at about 5 AM, so when it’s 3:45 in the morning and you bone a drawing up, you don’t have a lot of sympathy for the error.

DI: Talk a little about The Mystery Of Picasso and how that influenced you.

LY: It was an influence… no, more like a dead blatant thievery of the technique. I’m not shy about saying I took the technique outright. I thought it was a beautiful movie. It was simply a technique I remembered when I wanted to start telling this sort of story, and I thought “Well, that may work, to put this together with this…” and there it was. Technique, by and large, does not interest me much. It’s only a means to the end, which is storytelling.

DI: What cartoonists or artists are you most into?

LY: My favorite cartoonist is not one that influenced me much, Reuben Bolling who does “Tom The Dancing Bug”. He’s from Neptune, this guy- I wouldn’t know how to be influenced by it, he hits you from angles you never knew existed. He has two major books that I would recommend to everyone, the more recent being “Amazing Tom The Dancing Bug Stories”.

Now that I have that out of my system, the most obvious influence of mine has been “Life In Hell”, of course. It’s funny, I had those books and was influenced heavy by those comics before I had ever bothered to watch an episode of The Simpsons. I did it sort of backwards. “Life In Hell”, for me was mostly the liberation of seeing something that was all about the writing, and even though the drawings were simple, the facial expressions on the characters could make or break the piece. That was all I needed to know, and I went from there. I would say though, that the largest influence on me was Vonnegut’s “Breakfast Of Champion’s”. I’m not shy about that either- Everytime I say “It looked like this” in one of the videos, I’m thinking Vonnegut.

DI: How about a Dr. Katz-style TV show? Any plans along those lines?

LY: I’m interested in Television now a lot more than I used to be, as It’s pretty clear that TV is going through something of a new creative Renaissance. My reluctance up to this point has been as follows- I’ve heard WAY too many stories of people starting work on shows, and then the market research people come in, and tweak the project until it’s unrecognizable. My friend Odd Todd, the fella who did the major viral piece “Laid Off- A Day In The Life” did a great animation about that, called “Hollywood Bound”.

I’ve gotten a few calls over the last couple of years. Let’s just say that if an executive is busy telling me about how many Reality T.V. shows he has produced, and that he only has a minute because he’s in his car on his way to meet (Insert name of flavor of the week B actor)________, It’s pretty clear to me that they’re not interested in what I’m doing, they’re only interested in it’s popularity. See what I’m getting at? I don’t think you would have to see too many of my videos to conclude that I would have no interest in Reality T.V. shows, so if they’re trying to make me go “Ooooh, Ahhh…” about that, I get very very leery. I have met some people that are exceptions to this, thankfully.

The hardest thing in thinking about a “Tales” show, would be how it could be done. Purely the technique I use now wouldn’t work over a half hour, and I don’t think the writing style would work in straight animation either. I am now figuring out a way it could be done though, if the opportunity arises.

That’s the thing, I’m just very cautious about this. If I do it, I want it to be something I’m proud of.

Here’s how to score the autographed Lev book, plus DVD. Answer the following two questions and send them to me: david ‘at’ neatorama.com. I’ll pick one winner at random and notify you via e-mail. Simple, right?

1) From where does Lev say he copped his technique?

2) How many drawings does Lev say go into the average vid?

1. Never stick a body part, or your gun, in to a hole.

2. When your life is on the line, it’s okay to dress like a girl and seduce your captor.

3. Even a Grinch can be lovable.

4. Control your anger at all costs. Otherwise you will end up repeatedly falling off a 500-foot tall diving platform.

There are 25 things in this list; maybe you could think of more! Link

Ask Otis was animated by neatoramanaut kalapusa who you got to know last week when Alex posted his awesome Super Mario Bros. Piranha Plant Sculpture. We hope you enjoy the pilot episode. Leave comments below telling us what question you’d like to see Otis answer next, or, again, as already requested, leave video comments on our YouTube page. If we pick your question, you’ll win your pick of any neato-tee in our shop! So make sure you tell us which tee you want when you leave that comment, okay?

Got a tweet you think deserves a Twaggin’? Send it to Twaggies.com, because who doesn’t like a visual?

Yes, we know Phillip is spelled wrong… but that’s how it was written in the original Tweet and so we wanted to be true to the author…

Recognize the artist? That’s because I discovered her right here on Neatorama through a user-submitted post: He-Man on His Day Off (artwork by the awesome Kiersten Essenpreis).

Anything you’ve ever wondered about Simpson’s Comics, Radioactive Man, Bartman, Bart Simpson’s Treehouse of Horror, Roswell – Little Green Man, or Futurama, etc. etc, etc.? Now’s your chance to ask the main principal writer and artist/editor. (Also the editor of this new book!)

So go ahead and leave your question in the comments below and we’ll select some to put in front of Bill!

It’s been 15 years since the beloved characters Calvin and Hobbes left the comic pages. Creator Bill Watterson hasn’t given an interview to anyone since 1989, but he recently answered some questions for Cleveland Plain Dealer reporter John Campanelli. Here he explains what he would tell grieving fans.

It’s always better to leave the party early. If I had rolled along with the strip’s popularity and repeated myself for another five, 10 or 20 years, the people now “grieving” for “Calvin and Hobbes” would be wishing me dead and cursing newspapers for running tedious, ancient strips like mine instead of acquiring fresher, livelier talent. And I’d be agreeing with them.

I think some of the reason “Calvin and Hobbes” still finds an audience today is because I chose not to run the wheels off it.

Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by rosekat.

Philipp Lenssen of Google Blogoscoped, Nikolai Kordulla and Dominik Schmid have just released a nifty new website called Sketchory. The site features over 250,000 sketches (cartoons, scribbles and other fascinating artwork) that you can copy, remix, embed, view as animation and so on.

The sketches use Creative Commons license, so you’re free to use it even in commercial settings (say, create a book of sketches – with a maximum of 1,000 images).

Check it out: Link – Thanks Philipp!

Also, Waldo is somewhere in the whole thing, but I’m not going to look for him. You can, if you want, and let us know where you found him! The link includes plenty of close ups and much more detail.

Link

Japan has painted a number of their trains with some really amazing anime art, including Pikachu, Doraemon  and the Anpanman one above.

Link