Mr. Men Show Premier

I just got word that "The Mr. Men Show" will be on at 9:00am and 1:30pm daily and 6:00am on Saturdays on Cartoon Network, starting Monday, February 4th. Promos are now running on that network like crazy and promo time has also been purchased on Kids WB and Fox.

Working on the first season was great fun and I think it's going to appeal to a broad group of people. It's very well done and very funny.

Here is Tim Whitnall, the voice of Mr. Lazy and a soon to be revealed character.

Here is Jo Wyatt the voice of Little Miss Sunshine, Little Miss Helpful, Little Miss Naughty, & Little Miss Scary.

Here is Rob Rackstraw the voice of Mr. Noisy, Mr. Pernickety, Mr. Messy, and Mr. Tickle.

Here is Teresa Gallagher, the voice of Little Miss Chatterbox, Little Miss Whoops, and a soon to be revealed character.

Dancing James Baxter

I can't remember where I came across this,(it's got the Baxter flipping pages logo so it may be from his site), but a friend wrote thanking me for posting the running horse cycle by James Baxter on YouTube. They said James Baxter was one of their heroes, (mine too), so this is for them.



There is no sound to this.

Sita Sings The Blues

Cartoon Brew has the full account of Nina Paley’s offbeat indie animated feature Sita Sings The Blues. The film, which Paley started production on in 2004, is uniquely personal, tackling the story of breaking up with her husband in India, combined with an unlikely mashup of Indian mythology and 1920s American jazz. Paley made the film entirely on her own, without a producer or studio backing, and still needs $20k to create a 35mm master.
Sita Sings The Blues recently was accepted into the prestigious 58th annual Berlin International Film Festival, where it’ll be having its world premiere next month. But as Paley writes on her website, “The bad news is, she’s programmed in a theater that doesn’t do Digital Cinema. That means unless I have a 35mm print by February, her one and only World Premiere will be on, well…video. I can’t let that happen.”

She is accepting tax-deductible donations through this website. It’s a worthy cause for animation fans who have a few extra bucks to spare.

Secrets from the Barnyard

There was much more music to the Paramount/Nickelodeon’s 2005 feature film, “The Barnyard”. It was decided to remove some songs because the film ran long. Originally Hanna the white hen acted as a Greek chorus and sang about the hero Otis and his situation. Here is an unfinished song sequence without textures or lighting. Notice the red-eye on some of the chicks, (fixed in final render), and the large freaky chick named Boil who falls off the log. There was a song with all the chicks singing “Peaches and Cream” to Otis and an opening sequence before the title that had some great animation of Miles the donkey drumming on crates and cans that began the first song and introduced Hanna. Hanna also had another song in the third act that was cut.

I did all the animation in this sequence except the pigs that were animated by Bart Goldman. Animation Director Dave Andrews, who really is a drummer, took over Miles from me and did a beautiful job which is not shown here.