Tag Archives: Animation

Dexter’s Laboratory: The Complete Series (DVD)

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Now Available from Warner Home Entertainment

In 1996 the cable channel Cartoon Network had solidified itself as a competitor with fellow kids channels like Nickelodeon and Disney Channel. After spending many years playing reruns from their massive Hanna Barbera back catalog, the channel began to dabble in airing their own original series. They recruited a slew of brilliant creators to offer up their own unique animated series, and among them was “Dexter’s Laboratory.” Created and animated by Genndy Tartakovsky, “Dexter’s Laboratory” was an entertaining and often hysterical animated show that dove head first in to the over the top realm with an extraordinary premise packed to the brim with comedic potential.

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Every Bugs Bunny Ever: Rabbit Hood (1949)

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Rabbit Hood (1949)
Directed by Chuck Jones
Written by Michael Maltese
Animation by Ken Harris
Music by Carl Stalling

After the nastiness that was last week’s “Which is Witch” it’s nice to see Bugs Bunny return to the basics again. “Rabbit Hood” is one of my top ten Bugs Bunny shorts of all time. It’s a hilarious spoof of the Robin Hood tale that ranks up there with 1958’s “Robin Hood Daffy” in terms of hilarity and clever jokes. Oddly Bugs isn’t Robin Hood but he is falling prey to the fascism of the king who is desperate to snag Robin Hood at every turn. Now with the king’s property guarded, Bugs comes under attack by the Sheriff of Nottingham. When Bugs seeks a few carrots from the king’s garden, the two go at it, prompting a hysterical war between the pair.

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Every Bugs Bunny Ever: Which is Witch (1949)

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Which Is Witch (1949)
Directed by Friz Freleng
Written by Tedd Pierce
Animation by Arthur Davis
Music by Carl Stalling

Like “All This and Rabbit Stew” and “Nips the Nips,” this one is strictly for hardcore Bugs Bunny completists. It’s not that “Which is Witch” is so unabashedly racist and filled with racial stereotypes. It’s that it’s so painfully unfunny. Even at his worst director Friz Freleng can pull out a few chuckles here and there, but “Which is Witch” trades good solid laughs and prime comedy in order to once again punch down and turn a gross racist caricature in for Bugs Bunny to use as a source of utter humiliation. When Cartoon Network was a big name in the animation medium, the network would hold annual weekend long marathons of Bugs Bunny shorts titled “June Bugs.”

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Bedroom People (2022) [Film Maudit 2.0]

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The new standard for horror entertainment has become the lo-fi, filmed on VCR fodder that had lent something of a realism to even the more outlandish premises. The aesthetic has been used in a lot of facets of horror in the last eight years, including horror movies. The classic ARG aesthetic just works and it works well for the short from skilled animator and concept artist Vivien Forsans entitled “Bedroom People.”

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Inside Out 2 (2024)

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Now Exclusively in Theaters.

2015’s “Inside Out” felt like such a genuine and sincere attempt to figure out not just emotions but the importance that both negative and positive emotions can have. It simplified itself through normal subconscious cues like colors and characters, but through it all “Inside Out” was touching and a complex look at dealing with our feelings and learning to accept them. “Inside Out 2” is a perfectly okay follow up that has a lot to live up to. Its predecessor set the bar high and the sequel never quite hits that bar. “Inside Out 2” is stuck in the middle of trying to figure out what it’s trying to say and hitting that bottom line of introducing new characters for the sake of merchandise sales.

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Txotxongiloa (2022) [Film Maudit 2.0]

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Director and Writer Sonia Estévez’s short stop motion film is a beautiful depiction of the life span of the normal woman and how she perceives their existence as a whole. The idea of the normal woman being depicted as some one living on strings is a fascinating bit of symbolism. Over the course of ten minutes, the animation depicts her as someone being held up by strings who seeks independence almost immediately.

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Every Bugs Bunny Ever: Frigid Hare (1949)

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Frigid Hare (1949)
Directed by Chuck Jones
Written by Michael Maltese
Animation by Phil Monroe
Music by Carl Stalling

I think “Frigid Hare” is the point in Bugs Bunny’s career when he stopped being a mere foil or protagonist and started being something of a hero. When he finally steps up to defend a small penguin named “Playboy,” who–a very small cute penguin… from the wrath of an inuit. That’s the exact time Bugs started becoming something of a hero for the little guy. All of the other scenarios of Bugs giving in to his baser urges to be egomaniacal, or just plain antagonistic are a bar he’s just toppled. With “Frigid Hare” the animators and writers set a high bar with a short where we’d see him defending and fighting for other smaller animals in the near future.

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