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Posted on April 24, 2023 by Felix Vasquez

“My last adventure is about to begin…”

As many know I’m a hardcore Superman fan and “All Star Superman” is one of the better Superman stories that I’ve ever read. The Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely mini series stands among some of the best literature from the character. Quitely’s highly detailed pop art aesthetic perfectly matches up the story of a god who realizes he’s fading away like the sun. The animated adaptation is thankfully about as loyal to the source material as possible, and while I would have loved about twenty more minutes added to the run time, “All Star Superman” is a top notch adaptation.

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The Bootleg Files: Vom Bäumlein, Das Andere Blätter Hat Gewollt

Posted on April 21, 2023 by Phil Hall

BOOTLEG FILES 829: “Vom Bäumlein, Das Andere Blätter Hat Gewollt” (1940 animated short made in Nazi Germany).

LAST SEEN: On the Internet Archive and on YouTube.

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: None.

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: No sane U.S. label is going to put it into home entertainment release.

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Nein.

The filmmakers of Nazi Germany were pathetically jealous of their counterparts in Hollywood. After all, the German cinema suffered a creative brain drain after Hitler’s rise to power in 1933, with the greatest talents leaving for other countries while significantly inferior pro-Nazi talents remained behind.
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Superman Awakens (2023)

Posted on April 18, 2023 by Felix Vasquez

Antonis and Stavros Fylladitis’s short fan film “Superman Awakens” is an absolute accomplishment. It’s only four minutes in length but it conveys a very interesting and intriguing story that is complimented by the massive animation. Rather than attempt a live action film, “Superman Awakens” is animated through CGI, created with Unreal Engine 5 using Lumen technology, and tells the tale of a Superman that has lost it all and is trying to find a reason to keep going.

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Every Bugs Bunny Ever: Bugs Bunny Gets the Boid (1942)

Posted on April 18, 2023 by Felix Vasquez

2023 marks the 85^th Anniversary of Bug Bunny’s first animated appearance in 1938’s “Porky’s Hare Hunt.” Debuting originally as Happy Rabbit, Bugs eventually became one of the most iconic animated characters of all time. In honor of the landmark anniversary, we’re discussing every animated appearance by Bugs Bunny. We’re big fans of Bugsy and we hope that you are, too.

Follow us on this massive journey where we discover and re-discover Every Bugs Bunny Ever.

Bugs Bunny Gets the Boid (1942)
Directed by Bob Clampett
Written by Warren Foster
Music by Carl W. Stalling
Animation by Rob Scribner

“My ma-ma dun told me, bring home something for din-ner!”

The interesting thing about Beaky Buzzard is that despite being a one and done Bugs antagonist, he had considerable shelf life. Much in the vein of Taz, he’d live on in future iterations of Looney Tunes, particularly “Tiny Toon Adventures,” where the legacy character “Concord Condor” would be his protégé, etc. Oddly, Taz would only appear in a few Bugs Bunny shorts, and would live on in popularity for decades. He was especially popular in the nineties, garnering his own animated series and video games. Beaky Buzzard, all things considered, is a pretty good Bugs Bunny antagonist all things considered, as he’s very funny, but pretty darn deadly.

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The Bootleg Files: See Ya Later Gladiator

Posted on April 14, 2023 by Phil Hall

BOOTLEG FILES 828: “See Ya Later Gladiator” (1968 animated short with Daffy Duck and Speedy Gonzalez).

LAST SEEN: On DailyMotion.com.

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: None.

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: It seems to have fallen through the proverbial cracks.

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Not likely at the moment.

Fans of the Looney Tunes animation series will probably wince upon learning which film is in the spotlight in this column. “See Ya La Gladiator” has the sad distinction of being the last (and perhaps the least) of the theatrically produced Looney Tunes animated shorts featuring the classic-era characters – in this case, the severely mismatched pair of Daffy Duck and Speedy Gonzales.
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Every Bugs Bunny Ever: Hold the Lion, Please (1942)

Posted on April 10, 2023 by Felix Vasquez

Follow us on this massive journey where we discover and re-discover Every Bugs Bunny Ever.

Hold the Lion, Please (1942)
Directed by Chuck Jones
Written by Ted Pierce
Music by Carl W. Stalling
Animation by Ken Harris

“Hold the Lion, Please” is one of the many shorts where we’d meet a one and done villain for Bugs Bunny. In 1942 he was still being developed and despite Elmer Fudd, none of the big guns have appeared quite yet. The shorts would shuffle through a lot of potential villains here and there, but it’d be a few years yet until anything solidified. What we do get is Leo the Lion, a pretty fun and funny one and done (though, technically he’d appear in other Looney Tunes films decades later) overall nemesis to Bugs Bunny. “Hold the Lion, Please” writer Ted Pierce does a bang up job playing the soft spoken middle aged lion who is seeking to prove himself once and for all. Continue reading →

Super Mario Bros. – The Great Rescue of Princess Peach! (Super Mario Bros.: Peach-hime Kyūshutsu Dai Sakusen!) (1986)

Posted on April 7, 2023 by Felix Vasquez

By 1986, the world had only gotten so far as “Super Mario Bros.” on the Nintendo/Famicom, so Masami Hata’s “The Great Rescue of Princess Peach!” as a movie stretches as far as it can on very little source material. With the original NES game, they only gave you so much about the lore, and motivations of the villains, so the anime movie itself relies on a bizarre, anemic plot that, I can assume, is not at all canonical.

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