Back when Al Gore was busy inventing the internet, he consulted a Wise Guru about what to do when the operator of a weblog was too busy to post regularly. You see the result above - putting up a picture of Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom soup. Who am I to buck a tradition that was good enough for Lincoln’s gas-powered modem and Washington with his horse-drawn keyboard? (Hey, if, as the administration claims, those guys could use wiretaps to spy on people, why couldn’t they have had computers, too?)

So, posting will be light to nonexistent until mid-next-week. Don’t forget about me! I hate looking at my web statistics and seeing all those Code 304’s: Not modified since last retrieval, but it can’t be helped.

In the words of the Wise Guru: What? You’re out of tomato soup?

Warner Bros. Animation has produced a brand-new series of thirteen half-hours called Tom and Jerry Tales. Each show consists of three shorts. As I mentioned in the previous post, it will begin running on Kids WB! in the fall. I can honestly say that this is the first attempt to be true to the spirit of Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera’s original theatrical shorts. That’s not saying much when it comes to the other television incarnations, but I’ll be so bold as to say these are truer to the originals than what either Chuck Jones or Gene Deitch did, at least content-wise. Which brings me to this:

MINI-RANT: I’m annoyed at some of the people that call themselves animation fans. Animation snobs would be more appropriate. Tom and Jerry Tales is already running in other parts of the world and here is a typical exchange found on an animation forum:

Poster A: I just saw one of the new Tom and Jerry cartoons.

Poster B: Was it any good?

Poster A: Of course not.

Okay, everyone is entitled to their opinion. I’m not expecting everyone to like these new cartoons. Maybe no one will like them, but it’s the attitude that they can’t possibly be good that gets to me. Personally, I don’t like the Chuck Jones’ Tom and Jerrys, but at least I think it’s fair to rate them against the Hanna-Barbera cartoons because they were made in a similar manner. You can’t expect cartoons produced for television to look exactly like theatrical cartoons made in the 40’s. I don’t pretend to think that we are making classic cartoons here, but we are attempting to make something entertaining. Dismissing them out of hand isn’t fair.

So, in concussion, just remember, beauty is in the eye of the beast. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to catch a cold.

Zick, the lead character on the new Kids WB! show “Monster Allergy”

According to MediaWeek, two shows I worked on will be running back to back on the new Kids WB! in the fall. When the WB and UPN combine to form CW, they will continue to run their Saturday morning block as Kids WB! due to the recognition factor.

As part of that block they will be running Tom and Jerry Tales from Warner Bros. Animation at 8 AM, followed at 8:30 by Monster Allergy, produced by Italy’s Rainbow S.r.l. I was a writer on both shows, which were produced in early 2005 and have already been running in Europe and other parts of the world.

Monster Allergy is a comedy-adventure show about a boy, Zick, with a peculiar allergy. As you have probably figured out from the title, he’s allergic to monsters. The show was based on a popular comic book that was sold in Italy, France and Germany. 26 episodes were produced and the interesting thing is that although each episode can stand alone, there is a story arc that runs through every episode. I haven’t seen any of them yet, but I imagine some of them will have to start with a “Previously on Monster Allergy…” teaser. The character designs are really fun and they have an official website. Look around the site and you will find a short trailer without sound, only generic music (possibly the theme song). If the animation in the whole program looks this nice, it ought to be a good show.

Elena Potato, Zick’s friend and fellow monster hunter

Rainbow S.r.l. (which, since Monster Allergy, has become Rainbow S.p.A. - I don’t know what either of those sets of intials mean… probably some Italian equivalent of Ltd.) also produces Winx Club, which airs on Fox Kids. That show is going into a third season, and I’ve written three of those episodes that will also premiere in the fall.

More on Tom and Jerry Tales in the next post.

For a review of last night’s Musical Theatre Guild’s production of L’il Abner, mentioned in the previous post, go here.

I agree with almost every word of this review. I think there might have been one preposition that I had a quibble with, but that’s splitting hairs.

Original Broadway Cast, l. to r.: Bern Hoffman (Earthquake McGoon), Joe E. Marks (Pappy Yokum), Peter Palmer (Li’l Abner), Charlotte Rae (Mammy Yokum) and Edie (then billed as “Edith”) Adams (Daisy Mae)

Tonight at the Alex Theatre in Glendale, The Musical Theater Guild of Southern California is doing a one performance, concert-style version of the Broadway show, “Li’l Abner”. It’s actually a a cross between a concert and full-blown production. They don’t really have sets, the orchestra is on the stage, but they do have some set dressing, props and costumes.

Back in September of last year, I saw their production of the show “Do Re Mi”, which starred Phil Silvers in its original incarnation. Mark Evanier has a great article, not only on the background of the show itself, but of the Musical Theater Guild’s production. Basically, my take is that it was a great mounting of a mediocre show.

“Li’l Abner”, on the other hand, is a great show, so I’m expecting this production to be fun, too. I just checked and as of the time of this writing, there are still some tickets available. Click on the Alex Theatre link above.

And speaking of “Li’l Abner”, this is not generally a political weblog, but I found this link and as it’s appropriate, I thought I would point it out.

If you can’t make it tonight, check out the DVD of the “Li’l Abner” Paramount movie musical from 1959 (not to be confused with the earlier 1940 movie, that has nothing to do with the Broadway show). The good news is that it’s a widescreen transfer. The bad news is that they did little or no restoration on the film. It’s certainly watchable, but there are some scenes where the three-strip technicolor is out of alignment. I wish they would have given this film better treatment, such as some bonus material, but I’m still glad that they even put it out.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, that is. Beginning Friday, May 12th, the Academy’s Fourth Floor Gallery will showcase numerous models, both small and large, maquettes, and animatronic creatures and their mechanisms, accompanied by video clips of the final product.

You can read the complete press release here. The Academy is located at 8949 Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills.

“Be vewy, vewy quiet! I’m hunting Vice Pwesidents!”

Here’s a story idea I pitched to DC Comics for their Looney Tunes book that I often write for:

“Chain Knee” ELMER FUDD is sneaking though the woods hunting wabbits (BUGS), when he “accidentally” shoots YOSEMITE SAM in the face. Sam retaliates with a tow chain, which “accidentally” breaks Elmer’s knees. Bugs can’t believe it. They’re actually beating on each other for a change, instead of going after him. When the two goons wind up in the hospital, Bugs disguises himself as their nurse and takes his revenge for all their years of torture with ice cold bed pans, open hospital gowns and so-called “food”.

I’ll let you know if they buy it.

The fellow in the picture is Walker Edmiston, and while you’ve probably never heard his name, you’ve definitely heard his voice. Walker goes all the way back to the early days of TV with his puppet characters, Kingsley the Lion and R. Crag Ravenswood. He was also the voice of Bob Clampett’s Willy the Wolf (aka William Shakespeare Wolf).

If you’ve ever seen a Krofft show, then you’ve also heard Walker. He was the voices of Ludicrous Lion and Dr. Blinky on “H.R. Pufnstuf” and took the lead as Sigmund in “Sigmund and the Sea Monsters” among many others.

But what’s truly remarkable about Walker is that he’s a vocal impressionist. Not the kind that you would see on SNL or SCTV. While Dana Carvey, Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas are brilliant at what they do, their impressions of George Bush, Sr., Woody Allen and Bob Hope are caricatured for humorous effect. When Walker does a voice, he does the person as they actually sound. He’s looped voices in movies where you would swear you’re listening to the actual person. Here’s the best example: When they did the trailers for “Young Frankenstein”, Mel Brooks was unavailable. Walker did Mel’s voice on the trailers. I dare anyone to listen to them and be able to tell the difference.

If you’d like to meet this wonderfully talented man, he’s appearing tomorrow at the Hollywood Collector’s Show at the Burbank Hilton. There are some other stars there, too, but tell Walker you came just for him.

No, not “King Kong”. TV Shows On DVD reported on the 19th that the Magilla Gorilla set I’ve been talking about is scheduled to be released August 15th. They’ve got an incomplete list of the cartoons on the set, which is missing Disc 4. Since I’m the one that made the episode list, which they seem to be following, here is what should be on Disc 4:

Season 3

Show #1

That Was The Geek That Was (Magilla)
Rapid Romance (Ricochet Rabbit)
The Mouse From S.O.M.P. (Punkin’ Puss)

Show #2

Montana Magilla (Magilla)
El Loco, Loco, Loco, Loco Diablo (Ricochet Rabbit)
Host Of A Ghost (Punkin’ Puss)

Season 3 Extra Magilla Gorilla Cartoon

Magilla Mix-Up

Season 4

Show #1

Wheelin’ And Dealin’ (Magilla)
Big Town Show Down (Ricochet Rabbit)
Feudal Feud (Punkin’ Puss)

Show #2

Mad Avenue Madness (Magilla)
Space Sheriff (Ricochet Rabbit)
Heir Conditioning (Punkin’ Puss)

Show #3

Beau Jest (Magilla)
Red Riding Ricochet (Ricochet Rabbit)
Hyde And Shriek (Punkin’ Puss)

Show #4

Super Blooper Heroes (Magilla)
Jail Break-In (Ricochet Rabbit)
Misfortune Cookie (Punkin’ Puss)

What isn’t clear from the list they published is whether the shows are packaged as originally seen with Main and End titles, or whether it’s just the cartoons.

I do know that there are extras being worked on. At this point, I don’t know what they are.

So, what do you name a cartoon rhinoceros? We wanted something funny sounding and yet appropriate. I came up with the name “Hornsby”, which Jerry liked. Unfortunately, as you can see in the picture at left, we soon discovered that there is a Hornsby’s cider, that even has a Rhino on it.

Jerry went back to his friend, Bill Vallely, who came up with a whole list of prospective names. Jerry picked out about seven or eight that he thought had possibilities and sent them to me. The moment I saw “Hornswiggle”, I said that has to be it. I’ve always liked the word “wiggle”. Despite not having a “k” sound in it, it’s a funny word. So, with that, we christened our character Hornswiggle.

While all the business with the name was going on, I was still rewriting the script. Jerry finally got an appointment to pitch again. It was well received, but there were notes. I rewrote the script. Jerry pitched again. Not counting the original rewrite from the “Sidney” script, this went on for a total of five rewrites.

After the first rewrite, they told Jerry that the script was too long. At this point it was 15 pages. My whole career, I was taught to breakdown shots in a script. This is basically directing with words. If you want a character in close-up, you call for the shot. If it’s a two-shot, you put that in the script. This makes animation scripts longer than those for live-action. The rule of thumb was that it would time out to approximately 30 seconds per page. Nickelodeon only wanted 10 pages for a seven minute short. In the last 10 years or so, most studios have stopped having writers breakdown the shots. This makes an easier job for writers, but a harder job for storyboard artists, although many artists have assured me that they never followed the writer’s shot breakdowns anyway. In any case, I went through the script and took out all the shot breakdowns, bringing the page count to 11, which means my original length was almost exactly right, except it had a lot more words in it. Hmm, “too many words”… I can finally relate to Mozart.

After the fourth rewrite, Jerry and I had a conference call with Nick producers. They had some questions about some of the gags and how they would play. It seems that, having taken out the shot breakdowns and some of the description to lower the page count, it was now difficult to understand parts of it. I explained how the gags worked and they were satisfied. But I had to go back and reinsert some of the stuff I had taken out.

Even after all of that, it was still a long time before they gave the final green light. And then, it’s just one short out of 39. Fred Seibert hopes that some series will be spun off of this show, but it’s not up to him or anyone at Frederator. It’s up to Nickelodeon. Will “Hornswiggle” make the cut? I hope so. We spent an awful lot of our lives for six minutes and forty-eight seconds.