Tagged: animated
Whatever Happened to H.E.R.B.I.E. the Robot?!
Well the one good thing about having your own blog is that you can shamelessly hype your own shit! In this day and age of the internet let’s face it, it’s hard to get anyone to help you get the word out there on your own projects. So as you may or may not know, my musical alter ego is Mister Saturday, the first and as far as I know ONLY nerdcore reggae dancehall artist. I’ve been cranking out these ridiculous songs for years now, singing or toasting (as a Jamaican might call it) which is essentially rapping about the kind of stuff I want to hear in a reggae song. Stuff like Star Trek, The Incredible Hulk, Land of the Lost, Three’s Company, Godzilla, D&D and comic books. Basically stuff that you would never hear a reggae artist sing about ever, past or present.
Being a big fan of reggae since I was a kid in the 80’s I decided it was time to make these type of songs myself, whether anyone liked it or not. So, this brings me to my latest song, I wrote over a popular Swedish dancehall riddim about H.E.R.B.I.E. the Robot. I realize most people probably don’t even remember Herbie the Robot, but in the 1970’s he replaced The Human Torch on the animated series!
They actually thought The Human Torch was bad for children because they thought kids might try and light themselves on fire to emulate the character! So we got good ol’ Herbie instead! Well he kinda disappeared after that series, so I decided to find out where he went! Check it!
Junkyard: A Truly Breathtaking Animated Short!
Check out this animated short film that was just released online today called “Junkyard” by Dutch animator Hisko Hulsing. It’s easily some of the most breathtaking animation I’ve seen in quite some time. Here’s the trailer:
It recalls Ralph Bakshi in style by utilizing rotoscoping as in movies like The Lord of the Rings” and “Fire & Ice”. This is a pretty powerful little film clocking in under 18 minutes in length. Check it out in it’s entirety HERE!
The Grinch’s Halloween Special Prequel?!
Call me severely uninformed, but I just discovered today that Dr. The Suess’ The Grinch had a holiday special before the classic “How the Grinch Stole Christmas”! Yep-The Grinch was grumpy as hell in the 1977 prequel “Halloween is Grinch Night”. Maybe this is common knowledge for most people but I had no idea the Grinch had a Halloween special-that won an Emmy!
The Grinch is once again a total dick to the people of Whoville and this gives us all a little more insight to his back story-so if you, like me, never knew the Grinch first “celebrated” Halloween then feast your eyes on this cool little forgotten cartoon….I still can’t believe I never saw this one!
Does MC Chris Deserve His Own Cartoon TV Show?
So a couple days ago we got a six minute teaser of the proposed MC Chris cartoon he’s been hoping would be picked up by an unsaid network. From what I understand it hasn’t happened yet and now he’s trying to get the word out there in other ways to get some sort of buzz going about this cartoon.
I’ll admit I’m not entirely certain at this point in time about what I think about Chris personally as I have seen some bummer videos on Youtube and heard several stories where he’s supposedly treated fans in a less than respectful fashion. However, the guy has went out of his way to apologize for being a douche, admitted wrongs and seems to have turned around his general attitude toward playing live and respecting the people who have made him who he is today. Yeah all that aside MC Chris is a pretty bad ass nerdcore rapper, in fact he’s probably the best around. So I give the guy another chance for redemption and now we all get to judge for ourselves if his cartoon has the potential to be a bonafide hit! Here it is:
Well what do you think? Is this the next Invader Zim?! Is Chris the next Bugs Bunny?! It’s hard to tell at this point, this 6 minute clip shows some potential. The animation is decent enough for something like the Adult Swim swim crowd and it’s got some cool, fun action sequences however some of the comedy aspect of it could use a little more work. Parts seemed to drag a bit at points, but I did enjoy how it bursted into a cool rap song after the rather tedious “Don’t get me started” bit. I think personally this could be a pretty rad show, Chris knows his nerd culture and with a little more planning I think the show could move in some genuinely awesome directions. So yeah, I think this has got what it takes to win over a network, with a little more comedic planning I’d hope this show could prove to be a real laugh, because for me that’s all that was really missing from this otherwise rad little teaser…
Weird Ass Forgetten Cartoons: Disney’s Anti-Nazi Short Films?
I recently ran across this old Disney Anti-Nazi cartoon and it’s a truly weird piece of animation! This ten minute cartoon was released on January 15th, 1943 and these cartoons actually saved Disney from going bankrupt after a low box office return for the now legendary classic Fantasia.
Disney was contracted to make 32 cartoon WWII propaganda short films for $4500.00 each. This one is most popular of these largely forgotten cartoons. I guess in a weird way the world’s hatred for Nazi’s saved Disney’s career. These are some really bizarre cartoons that were based on a book by Gregor Ziemer. I wonder what the rest were all about? Apparently these shorts were banned for quite some time. Honestly strange stories about Walt Disney never cease to fascinate me!
Masks: Cool Old School Hand Drawn Animation!
I am always on the search for cool new hand drawn animated films, to be quite honest I miss this genre a lot. I enjoy a lot of the CG animation as well but there’s really a special quality that’s missing from most of those films that just can’t be replicated from hand drawn. To me it feels as if the CG animation is pulled from the same pool meaning that it at times to me looks a bit too similar from one movie to another. So any chance I get to promote a cool old school animated film I take!
So I recently ran across this neat little short film on Youtube. It’s created by a guy named Patrick Smith who if you click the link will bring you to more of his cool short animated films. This one is a cool little sci-fi short! Check it out and keep your eyes peeled for more from this guy!
Planet Hulk Movie is a No Go! Where to go with The Movie Hulk?
I’ve just read via Ain’t it Cool News that supposedly there are NO plans to bring the Planet Hulk story to the big screen. As much as I enjoyed Planet Hulk, the idea of this being a big Hollywood blockbuster movie really didn’t excite me all that much. First I had wondered how they would pull this off with Ruffalo, as Marvel has recently stated they were concerned that Planet Hulk was missing one key ingredient for big screen success….Bruce Banner!
Yeah as cool as it may have been for this Hulk story to be told if, I remember correctly Banner only appeared in Planet Hulk for a brief moment in a small side story which perhaps showed up in an annual of some sorts during that time. I do wonder why Marvel would have to have a Banner-less Planet Hulk? They’ve changed a lot in the movies from their comic origins so why couldn’t Banner co-exist with The Hulk in the big screen version? Perhaps they just don’t want to waste the time of having to make Hulk a menace to the world on screen? He seems to be working out nicely right now in the books as an Avenger and an agent of SHIELD.
So for a second though let’s imagine Marvel did indeed want to make Planet Hulk a reality, following the comic book storyline strictly. What we would have on our hands would be an entirely CG, animated movie. We all know that the big Hollywood studios rarely use live sets anymore especially for an alien world, we all know that they refuse to use any practical effects or make up to bring The Hulk to life, we all know in big Hollywood movies that aliens are 99.9% of the time entirely CG creations and since we have him teaming up with aliens in the movie there would be no use for any real on screen actors. We would have some big name actors voicing. This really leaves nothing for Ruffalo in that storyline. So to me it would be like a PIXAR flick. That could be cool, but it’s not what Avengers and Hulk fans want at the end of the day. So where does this leave the poor Hulk?
Perhaps he’s better as a team player? Perhaps the Hulk doesn’t work the way he did back in the 70’s when Bixby and Ferrigno brought him to life on TV weekly. If they do bring another Hulk movie it’s going to need a lot of Ruffalo/Banner and smaller doses of the Hulk. I personally would love a simpler classic Hulk approach to a movie. Give me The Leader as the Mastermind, throw in some henchmen like the U-foes, Half-life or the Bi-Beast and give us She-Hulk plus Doc Samson and let’s get down to business of some good smashing the old school way! What do you think should happen with the Hulk on the big screen? Should he just stay a team player? Should he have another shot at a solo film? What story would you like to see brought to life?
Amazing Animated Short Shorts! The Hulk Runs Out of Toilet Paper!
I just discovered three of the most kick ass animated short films yesterday, I liked them so much that I had to share them here. Now don’t get me wrong I love the new Pixar type animation, I really do, but I still have a soft spot for the old school type animated cartoons. You know the ones that look like they were hand drawn. Well I seemed to have hit the jackpot with these three little cartoons!
David Stodonly has animated at Dreamworks for about ten years now and done films like “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, Kung Fu Panda 2 & How to Train Your Dragon” to name a few. Here in these shorts he’s decided to animate some crazy great shorts old school style by drawing by hand and his style and fluid movement reminds me of one of my faves, Don Bluth. Check these out and demand he create more!
The first one is right up my alley as it’s about a little everyday occurance that turns Banner into The Hulk!
The Hunger Games…which is quite Bizarre!
Finally a completely awesome Harry Potter cartoon..
Yeah What DOES Nick Fury Do?! Best Video Ever!
I love this little cartoon so much, it’s probably the funniest shit I’ve seen in quite some time!
It’s pretty spot on because you know it never really seems like Nick Fury really contributes very much at the end of a battle for The Avengers at least in the movie! So check this out if you haven’t already! It’s guaranteed to make you laugh I promise!
Asia’s Answer to Snow White…Oh & Superman Too!
I was watching some old cartoons today starting out with some of the awesome Max Fleischer animated Superman stuff. I hadn’t even realized that the animation was based on rotoscoping, which is essentially tracing over real actors to get the smooth real life movements into cartoon form. That explains a lot as to why those Superman cartoons feel so damn special. I knew that technique was employed by Ralph Bakshi for many of his films but had no idea that Fleischer was the originator of that style. Shows how much I know huh?
Well this also lead me to another amazing cartoon, Princess Iron Fan which was Asia’s first feature length animated film. They too used the rotoscope style of animation back in 1941.
What we get as a result is one truly breath taking little film. Directly influenced by Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the films directors, The Wan Brothers tried to rival it with this Chinese epic. Check it out…
Later in 1966 we got this awesome live action version-Amazing!!
Universal Dork 