It’s been said that artists, like all creative people, draw from what they know in creating their artistic visions. This is particularly true for animator Charles “Chuck” M. Jones, who parlayed his experiences growing up with a quixotic father and an indulgent, supportive mother into a career that is virtually unparalleled for its influence and…
Friday, September 21st marks the 100th birthday of animation pioneer Chuck Jones, and in honor of this memorable natal day, True Classics is dedicating the next week’s worth of posts to the life and career of this cartoon genius. Several events marking the occasion have been scheduled in California for the upcoming week, but seeing…
Just a warning: this post is brought to you by the letter “X” and his two friends who are–funnily enough–also named “X.” (This is my roundabout way of telling you that there may be what we will politely term “delicate content” in this post, and if you are easily offended by pornography, you may want…
As recounted in Stefan Kanfer’s fantastic history of animation, Serious Business (1997), early in 1933, Walt Disney gave a personal tour of the Disney animation studio to movie star Mary Pickford. Disney was considering making a live-action version of Alice in Wonderland with Pickford in the title role, and in fact shot some test footage of the actress…
In 1918, Max Fleischer, the innovative mind behind early Walt Disney Studios rival Fleischer Studios, began producing a series of silent cartoon shorts called Out of the Inkwell. Much like earlier efforts by animation pioneers such as Winsor McCay, many entries in this series combined live-action with animation, showing Fleischer drawing the figures that would then…
For the next few weeks, we’re going to dedicate our semi-weekly “Saturday Morning Cartoons” feature to the men who set the stage for the art of animation in American film-making–the largely forgotten pioneers whose innovative work eventually inspired and facilitated the creation of Mickey Mouse, Bugs Bunny, and scores of other classic cartoon figures. The…
My bestie, Lisa, runs a nail polish blog called Shades of Magick. Apparently, there is a pretty large community of nail bloggers on the web—I was unaware of how large until I nudged (okay, pushed) Lisa into starting a blog to show off her absolutely gorgeous, all-natural nails and creative manicures. Recently, another nail blog,…
True Classics 