I'm reminded of the day I met George Romero (you KNOW who he is - - don't make me SMACK you!!) and the first thing I said to him as he was signing an autograph picture for me was "Well, first off I want to THANK YOU for scaring the shit outta me all these years!" and he looked at me with the most sincere look I've ever seen and said
"Oohhhh.... I'm SORRY!!"
- - as if I had meant that LITERALLY - and he was imagining me ACTUALLY having involuntary BOWEL MOVEMENTS in my pants...
Well - - THIS Halloween goes out to ole' George... and yes - - once again THANK YOU, sir!! You're right up there with all the greats who've one way or the other have made this such a continuing odd holiday - - filled with monstrous delights filled with your zombie creations!
Do yourself a favor, folks - - watch the ORIGINAL Night Of The Living Dead - - when all the Trick Or Treaters have rang their last doorbell for the night... even if you've seen it a hundred times already - - just to remind yourself what good old fashion scares feel like again - - and thrill again to that ominous catchphrase "They're coming to GET YOU, Barbara!!"
“The Day The Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie” February 2025
- as announced in Animation Scoop by Jerry Beck, Editor
Ketchup Entertainment announced today the wide North American release date for its latest theatrical acquisition, The Day The Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie, which is slated for Friday, February 28th, 2025.
The critically-acclaimed film produced by Warner Bros. Animation made its world premiere to a sold-out enthusiastic, international audience at the prestigious Annoy International Animation Film Festival in June earlier this year. Ketchup Entertainment's presentation of The Day The Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie will make its North American premiere this Friday, October 18 at the Animation Is Film festival...
(already SOLD OUT)
...considered an Oscar launchpad for films in the race for Best Animated Feature, with plans for a Academy Awards qualifying run in 2024.
One of the greatest comedic duos in history, Porky Pig and Daffy Duck make their hilarious return to the big screen in The Day The Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie, as unlikely heroes and Earth’s only hope when faced with the threat of alien invasion. The animated sci-fi comedy adventure is a richly-crafted story told on a scope and scale that’s out of this world, with all the laugh-out-loud gags, vibrant visuals, and beloved characters who make theLooney Tunesso iconic.
Gareth West, CEO of Ketchup Entertainment said, “For generations, the Looney Tunes have held a soft spot in the hearts of fans the world over, including my own. It’s a true pleasure to bring into theaters Peter Browngardt’s hilariously smart, emotional, and gorgeously rendered story for fans and movie-lovers of all ages to experience a wholly new and original cinematic adventure with our friends, Porky and Daffy.”
Presented by Ketchup Entertainment and produced by Warner Bros. Animation, The Day The Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie is directed by Pete Browngardt and written by Darrick Bachman, Pete Browngardt, Kevin Costello, Andrew Dickman, David Gemmill, Alex Kirwan, Ryan Kramer, Jason Reicher, Michael Ruocco, Johnny Ryan, and Eddie Trigueros. Sam Register and Pete Browngardt serve as Executive Producers, Alex Kirwan as Supervising Producer, Michal Baum as Line Producer, Nick Cross as Art Director, and Aaron Spurgeon as Production Designer.
If John Lennon were still alive today he would have turned 84 years old yesterday... Paul McCartney posted this pic from a recent concert of his and wrote "Happy Birthday John. Thanks for being there."
My sister in law sent me a picture of John Lennon with his son Sean, both of them celebrating their birthdays which were coincidentally on the same day - - and I couldn't help adding myself crashing the party!!
Spend the creepy season with Haunted Barnat the grand old Paramount Theater for our annual 2024 Horror-Thon! We'll be haunting the lobby with our collection of movie artifacts, monstrous memories and all those stories! (Make sure to ask about the one with the miniature ghost couple sitting at the end of the bed - that one is guaranteed to give you chills!)
Come SEE the best weekend of monster movies anywhere, eat a truck full of popcorn and meet up with all your favorite FIENDS! It's going to be a FANGtastic weekend!
Individual Movies are $7 or grab a weekend pass for $30
- - -
The Wolf Man – Friday, October 25th at 6:00 PM
1941 – 1 Hour 10 Minutes
Upon his return to his father’s estate,
aristocrat Larry Talbot meets a beautiful woman, attends a mystical
carnival and uncovers a horrifying curse.
Horror – Fantasy
Friday the 13th – Friday, October 25th at 8 PM
1980 – 1 Hour 35 Minutes – Rated R
A group of teenage camp counselors
attempt to re-open an abandoned summer camp with a tragic past, but they
are stalked by a mysterious, relentless killer.
Horror
Christine – Saturday, October 26th at 1:15 PM
1988 – 1 Hour 50 Minutes – Rated R
A nerdish boy buys a strange car with an evil mind of its own and his nature starts to change to reflect it.
Horror – Fantasy
The Wickerman – Saturday, October 26th at 3:45 PM
1973 – 1 Hour 28 Minutes – Rated R
A puritan police sergeant arrives in a
Scottish island village in search of a missing girl, who the pagan
locals claim never existed.
Horror – Mystery
Dracula – Saturday, October 26th at 6:00 PM
1931 – 1 Hour and 15 Minutes
Transylvanian vampire Count Dracula bends
a naive real estate agent to his will, then takes up residence at a
London estate where he sleeps in his coffin by day and searches for
potential victims by night.
Horror – Drama
Eraserhead – Saturday, October 26th at 8:00 PM
1977 – 1 Hour and 29 Minutes
Henry Spencer tries to survive his
industrial environment, his angry girlfriend, and the unbearable screams
of his newborn mutant child.
Horror – Fantasy
The Witches of Eastwick – Sunday, October 29th at 2 PM
1987 – 1 Hour 58 Minutes – Rated R
Three single women in a picturesque
village have their wishes granted, at a cost, when a mysterious and
flamboyant man arrives in their lives.
Just some random model sheets to brighten your day of my favorite cartoon character of all time - - and a naked Elmer Fudd, because - well - - WHY NOT?...
Hats off to Jim Soper - the character designer for the latest incarnation of our Looney Tunes favorites. I like the obvious harkening back to the Warner Bros Bob Clampett hey-day, and little touches which are just (chef's kiss) moo-whah!! The yellow gloves on Bugs - - Elmer's red nose...
and of course the truly daffy, Daffy!!
and of course this would be a perfect time to mention Daffy and Porky Pig in their very first ever full motion picture, The Day The Earth Blew Up - - yep, you heard right, mister!! - - keep an eye out for THAT!!
I was minding my own business on the world wide web and someone slapped me on the back yelling "TAG!! YOU'RE IT!!" I got hit with The Album Challenge - - Damn!! - - and since this blog is in need for some new content, might as well put it HERE TOO, albeit out of context - but that doesn't really matter, does it? Enjoy... and just be thankful I can't slap YOU on the back!!...
- - -
DAY ONE...
Okay, Julian, [the back slapper who tagged me]
I'm not going to be able to rack up a list but I will (quite randomly)
pick a few albums I remember being - what's the assignment -
influential? Inspiring? Part of my childhood? Okay - here's an odd one.
My first pick...
The Muppet Movie (1979)
... includes of course "Rainbow
Connection". I can recall listening to that album quite a bit - in fact,
I'll tell you something you probably might find amusing - but there's a
cassette tape somewhere of Lloyd and I doing the
whole damn movie (I kid you not!) - including all the songs. Imagine
Lloyd, practically bursting blood vessels in his head - doing Miss
Piggy's "Never Before". We also did a pretty convincing "I Hope That
Something Better Comes Along" I was Kermit and Lloyd did a pretty
impressive Rowlf The Dog.
We would often slip into everyday
conversations lines like "millions of people happy!" just for a laugh.
If you've seen the movie (which I bet you have) that's what intrigues
Kermit to set out on his adventure, when Dom Deluise (as a Hollywood
agent) coaxes Kermit to spread his talents outside of his familiar
swamp.
"Moving Right along" - another good song, a very buddy-movie
moment between Kermit and Fozzie Bear- and then there was a song you can
almost imagine Aerosmith covering, Dr Teeth and The Electric Mayhem
doing "Can You Picture That?" (Has sort of a "Walk This Way" feel to it,
I think).
Now I'm no Mike Sargent,
but this being a "soundtrack" album - you think he'd approve? Who needs
Jerry Goldsmith when you've got Paul Williams and Kenneth Ascher! Oh,
lest I forget, the album also includes the beautiful and yet oddly out
of place "I'm Going To Go Back There Someday" sung by Gonzo.
What's he
singing about? Where's this fit in with the rest of the movie? No one
knows - and it's never explained. Perhaps that's all part of the plan.
"We were still in the thick of telling our Turtles' stories when we were told to put our crayons down, so it's a huge treat to get to work with the Green Team Supreme again, and to get to tell a new story with Khary Randolph and Emilio Lopez, my brothers from the show... it just couldn't be better!"
If there's one thing that ALL of my Out Of Bodies brothers LOVED to do for each other - it was THIS... we LOVED to present each other with mixed tapes. Not just ordinary mixed tapes, but very often mixed tapes in which we spent WAY TOO MUCH TIME creating ridiculous cover art for. It didn't really matter what was actually ON the tape - the COVERS were the thing that would always get us chuckling.
We loved cutting out pictures... applying rub-on lettering (remember Letraset? Now THERE'S a blast from the past!)
Here's one (or two, or three) that Joe recently re-discovered while going through some things he had in storage, that I made for him years ago... and he sent me these pics.
I love the fact that he intentionally presented this one in SUCH a delightful setting...
Every now and then, just for shits and giggles, I do a search to see if any of the animated things I've done YEARS ago while I worked at Ovation Films pop up on YouTube. You'd be surprised at what I've found... long forgotten things like McGruff The Crime Dog, The Berstain Bears Play Ball, Deck The Halls With Wacky Walls... and lo and behold, someone posted a drug PSA I worked on... "WASTED: a true story" - a 30 min live action Public Service Announcement with interspersed animated segments throughout.
It's always fun to find these - keep in mind I was only 19, this was my FIRST job - and here I was working in a relatively small animation studio at 33 West 45th street that looked pretty much like what you'd expect it to look like in the early 80s - an old building a few doors over from a greasy spoon diner where a guy was flippin' burgers on a grill - just around the block from the diamond district. I'd take the subway and a bus before that, all the way from College Point in Queens - this lanky, long haired kid who didn't look all that much different from the kid I was drawing (minus the bloodshot eyes, of course!)
Ovation Films was run by Art Petricone and Howard Basis - who I met a year earlier in '79 during my senior year at The High School of Art & Design as part of an Internship Program. When High School finished they offered me a job - and although I just applied to SVA I thought... Hmm... go to SVA with the HOPES of someday working in the animation biz - or ACTUALLY working in the animation biz RIGHT NOW! (seemed like a no-brainer, eh?) I actually ended up STILL going to SVA (at nights) where I'd frequently bump into my other friends - who all seemed to be working on one thing or the other - one guy (Hi James!) was working on decapitating zombie heads at Industrial Light & Magic... another (Hi Pierre!) worked with Neal Adams... my OOB brothers (Hi Dan, Joe, Mark, Lloyd) to name just a few, were all buzzing around - these were indeed magical times!
Eventually I was approached by the Motion Picture Screen Cartoonists Guild, like a scene out of Goodfellas - welcome to The Animation business, kid! You're a made man now... now pay your dues! This is also when I met some unforgettable people - animators like Bill Davis, Helen Komar, Yvette Kaplan, Vinny Cafarelli and Candy Kugel - all who've taught me immeasurably valuable lessons! I remember groups of us would go to the Art Students League together to do life drawing - we'd go to the Thalia Theater to watch a Max Fleisher retrospective on Betty Boop - Oh, and did I mention on one occasion with them I had a face to face with Jim Henson (and Kermit The Frog)?
Okay, okay - but you came here for Wasted: a true story... sorry, I got carried away... Back in the early 80s PSA's were all the rage - McGruff The Crime Dog was Taking A Bite Out Of Crime and First Lady Nancy Reagan was kicking off her "Just Say NO!" anti-drug campaign. Ovation won out on the bid to the "Wasted" project and Howard presented me with the task of drawing out the scenes, depicting Tim (the real-life character of this story) in various scenarios of drug-addled decline. Tim going after his sister with a knife, Tim confronted by his mother when she notices her family heirloom candle-stick holders have gone missing, Tim smoking weed, Tim popping pills, Tim drinking booze, Tim hitting rock bottom, Tim not fitting in anymore with his friends - you get the idea.
Howard did the animation and as usual, I assisted him with the in-betweens. The ladies in the ink and paint department, which was within ear-shot of where I sat, were having a ball adding bloodshot eyes to the cell drawings when the client sent the note that Tim needs to look "more stoned".
I actually don't think I ever got to see the completed film until now - over 40 years later! Seeing it now I was reminded how the tail-end of the film was done by another studio - I had forgotten about that - who for some reason seemed to ignore how Tim looks in the beginning of the film, as if they had never seen the preliminary drawings, and they drew him unrecognizably different - but perhaps that was the whole idea? It was, after all, meant to show how getting high changed Tim into an "old man version of himself".
I believe the last sequence animated by Howard was when Tim is in such bad shape he sees the Devil itself - just before the animation style seems to slip into this weird, dream sequence with photographic backgrounds and a stumbling figure that appears to have been a live action segment that's been rotoscoped - very reminiscent of what Ralph Bakshi was doing in those days. Suddenly it turned into a very different film altogether.
Me, as drawn by Bill Davis
I also remember that nobody liked the pacing of the live-action segments. Tim and his sister seem to tell their stories in slow motion - the viewer begins to feel stoned just LISTENING to them - and that was when it first came out! It did not age well... recent reviews of the project have called it "cringe-inducing"... and it's prompted many reaction videos on YouTube and even a re-dub.
And yet, back during its premiere, when its prime audience was older elementary, junior and senior high school students, as well as teachers, parents, counselors and law enforcement authorities - "Wasted: a true story" had won awards. It was part of a cooperative effort of the public school system, the American Council for Drug Education, the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments - and back when they were still counting these things the project involved 7,400 teachers and 184,000 students and their families in 592 Washington-area schools. But that was then... today a staff writer at The Merry Jane warns "This Anti-Weed PSA will make you LOSE YOUR MIND."
Well - if YOU'D like to lose YOUR mind as well I've included it here below for YOUR viewing pleasure - - or displeasure - - whatever... Don't like it, you can blame Nancy Reagan.
Courtesy of 4Kids Flashback Tara Sands and Steve Yurko here's an exclusive interview with my buddy Lloyd!
Anyone here would know him as a member of our band The Out Of Bodies - but did you know Lloyd was a Director and Writer at 4Kids Entertainment who worked on Yu-Gi-Oh!, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Incredible Crash Dummies, Viva Piñata and Rocket Monkeys? Hold onto your hat, 'cause its true! And for a short while here's a link to an interview that was recorded just a few weeks ago! ENJOY!!
The link below will take you to the 4Kids Flashback Podcast page - once there just click on the episode:
