Cartoon Horse and rider - Wander Over Yonder

I've become a big fan of Wander Over Yonder. and noticed over the years how the cowboy, or adventurer theme comes back to TV animation every now and then.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/WesternAnimation/WanderOverYonder?from=Main.WanderOverYonder

Wander Over Yonder seems to have some roots in these old shows.
Wander is the hippie-cowboy who rides his alien "Zbornak" named Sylvia.
Sylvia serves as his horse.
In most of these shows, the horse is very often the reluctant companion,
or, after a misadventure, is the one who usually says "I told you so."

(copyrights clockwise from upper left: Terrytoons, Filmation, Jay Ward Productions, & Disney)

Starting in the upper left, we have The Adventures of Lariat Sam from Terrytoons in the early 1960's. Lariat Sam was produced by Bob Keeshan (Captain Kangaroo). Lariat Sam's horse was Tippy Toes, a fussy horse who wore a bowler hat with a white dickie and bow-tie. While Lariat Sam relied on his lasso instead of a gun, Tippy Toes often took the brunt of the jokes in the show's physical humor.

Then in the 1980's, there was BraveStarr with his cyberhorse 30-30 by Filmation. 30-30 could use his bionic limbs to transform from a four legged horse to a person that stood upright. 30-30 was large, strong, had a short temper, liked a good scrap, and seemed to be a weapons expert. (He even talked to his gun "Mary Jane" in one episode.) But it was BraveStarr who saved the day in overcoming the villians with the right amount of reasoning, insight and directed power. 30-30's direct confrontations with opponents never seemed to end well.

Going back to the 60's, there was Dudley Do-Right. As a Mountie in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Dudley was far from being the sharpest knife in the drawer. His horse, simply called "Horse", was the only one to notice when things were going wrong. Horse was also the only cartoon horse that I know of who could not speak.

Which brings us back to Wander Over Yonder. Wander is a good-natured alien meddler who travels from planet to planet with his best friend Sylvia, who also happens to be his "Sapient Steed".

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SapientSteed

Sylvia is the more grounded "straight man" to Wander, and the voice of reason in contrast to his impulsive need to bring help and fun across the entire galaxy. She also gets more than her fair share of physical punishment from their enemies, and just by trying to keep Wander out of trouble. It's amazing she still stays with Wander with all the abuse she has to put up with.

*  *  *  *  *  *

Another show that was kind of obscure was Luno the White Stallion: I actually only saw one episode while on a car trip to Florida while passing through Atlanta. From then, I was hooked. It took me years to find some episodes on VHS. Luno was another version of Pegasus that symbolized travel, adventure, and magic. Luno and Tim could fly back in time to classic storybook adventures.

(original copyright Terrytoons)

Hey, the Aquabats liked him enough to put him in a song:
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpmwW68FOJU
www.theaquabats.com

While not a TV show,  I have to bring up the Magic Pony by Soyuzmultfilm. CFPL TV 10 in London, Canada would drift over Lake Erie to northeast Ohio. The CBC brought me an extra range of children's shows in addition to the U.S. networks in the 1960's.

 (copyright Soyuzmultfilm)

To my knowledge, the Magic Pony was never shown, but I loved the full animation Soyuzmultfilm put out. The boy in this story learns the dangers in telling tall stories, and gets more than he bargained for when he accidentally captures the queen of the magic horses.

Tove Jansson

I stumbled across a copy of "Who will comfort Toffle" while on an expedition to Hi-De-Ho Comics in Santa Monica last week. I had seen some of the Moomin books before, but it never quite clicked in my head that it was all written and drawn by Tove Jansson.

 

Anyway, there were some interesting characters in Jansson's work, besides the Moomins. Earnest, yet surreal at the same time, Jansson's characters grapple with the mysteries of life, along with the humdrum chores that go with it. And also some very strange neighbors:

 

from

http://www.drawnandquarterly.com/blog/2006_11_01_archive.php

Something about the work made me feel young again, as corny as that sounds. It took me back to when I was little, and all ladies were lovely, mysterious giants.

(all artwork copyright Tove Jansson)

Sorry I didn't find these books sooner. But it made sitting on the 405 with an overheating radiator worth the trip.

www.tovejansson.com

Ernest and Célestine - Prejudice is Manufactured

Finally saw Ernest and Celestine. I can't say I loved it completely, but it was still a good team production from France, Belgium and Luxembourg. I had been feeling run down from work, but Ernest and Celestine had already left the Valley/LA area. I had to drive down to Long Beach to see it, but it was worth it. The version I caught was in English. Oh yes, spoiler alert for folks who haven't seen it yet.

(Artwork copyright-)

• La Parti Productions
• Les Armateurs
• Maybe Movies
• Mélusine Productions
• StudioCanal

http://ernestetcelestine-lefilm.com/
http://www.cartoonbrew.com/feature-film/feature-preview-ernest-et-celestine-62824.html
http://cinema.jeuxactu.com/video-conference-de-presse-ernest-et-celestine-9797.htm

In their world, mice fear being eaten by bears. Lauren Bacall  lends her voice to "The Grey One", the elderly matron mouse who runs the orphanage where Celestine lives. "The Grey One" reinforces their fears by telling the mouse children horror stories about the bears. In their initial meeting, Ernest attempts to eat Celestine, but only because Ernest is literally the starving artist. I think. Celestine brings Ernest back in line with a quick smack on the nose, sort of the way Dorothy did with the Cowardly Lion.

My feeling is that their prejudices are manufactured: Bears are portrayed as voracious monsters, and mice are shown to be greedy little parasites that would run amok. This seems to benefit the bears who dominate the surface, but the mice seem to be trapped underground. This obviously gives control to the leaders on both sides, and keeps each population subdued. After being underground all her life, Celestine is struck by the beauty of the surface world after the snow finally melts.

I like the matter of fact way in which one bear father runs a candy store, and his wife runs a "tooth boutique" across the street. Creative destruction is good for business it seems. However, the bear couple forbid their cub from eating candy. They have a little racket going, and they don't want their son being one of their victims. Strangely enough, getting new teeth is just like buying a new flash drive for the bears. Just plugin and go!

The emphasis on the mice children gathering teeth from the bears left me squirming in my chair a bit. The mice need replacement teeth, since chewing and gnawing is the only way to build and maintain their infrastructure. Dentistry is big business, and William H. Macy did a sublimely insidious job as the voice of the head dentist in the English dub. Most mice children are expected to become dentists, since so much of their population spend a lot of time in the chair!

I did like the open line, freehand artwork and the watercolor art style. All the animation was done on Cintiqs with good old Flash. With all the expensive overhead, and dependance on cutting edge technology and software, the production of Ernest and Célestine is a refreshing return to what makes us love animation. They still used current technology, but the story, design, color and character  animation make Ernest et Célestine a nice little gem.

Space Jam 2

Back in the 1990's, I was still new to animation. My days working at Warner Brothers Classic Animation were some of my happiest and proudest times of my life. (Although some folks there thought I was a naive fool for believing that. That's their problem.)

                     (Foghorn Leghorn copyright Time-Warner)

Here's one of my cleanups of Foghorn Leghorn in a Space Jam uniform. It's actually from a McDonald's TV ad we did at Warner Classics, although I did freelance on the film.

But the news of a Space Jam sequel leaves me with mixed feelings. Will it be hand drawn? Will the work be done in the U.S.? Will it be a dud like Looney Tunes-back in Action? (Although I appreciate the work in LT-BIA. I even sort of like it, especially the scenes on the Warner backlots, and the plot device of Daffy Duck getting "fired" to go on an adventure with Brendon Frasier.)

At the time, I was glad to be working on another animated feature. Then a friend pointed out that a star like Bugs Bunny (yeah, he's a fictitious character) should NEVER play second banana to any live action actor or sports celebrity. After taking her to see a private screening at the Warner lot, she nearly clawed my eyes out. It seems I helped write a big corporate love letter to Micheal Jordan and the Chicago Bulls. Oi vey.

I admit, the excitement and hoopla at the time completely carried me away. I wanted to show my devotion to animation, and the success of the project. Live and learn I guess.

Just recently, there was a rumor that LeBron James might be in the sequel. But now the news is he is out already. Being a Cleveland area native, it's even harder these days to root for my home teams, especially after LeBron abandoned the Cavaliers. Hey, it's just business right?

http://www.deadline.com/2014/02/lebron-james-space-jam-sequel-dick-ebersol/

https://www.facebook.com/groups/254411461352100/

http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/02/22/space-jam-2-is-happening?utm_campaign=fbposts&utm_source=facebook

And...Daffy Duck! from my Warner Classic Daze.
Daffy's beak is out of joint from some mishap.
Wabbit Season! Duck Season!