Silly Companion

The ultimate companion book to Walt Disney's Silly Symphonies series is here:

A lavishly illustrated history of the Silly Symphonies in one volume
"Merritt and Kaufman's Silly Symphonies is a must-have reference for everyone, from Disney aficionados to aspiring animators, anyone interested in animation history. . . .The book is a necessity, a first class piece of research." —Jerry Beck of http://www.cartoonbrew.com
Launched by Walt Disney in 1929 as a "musical novelty" series to complement his recent success with Mickey Mouse, the Silly Symphonies soon became much more. This line of delightful, innovative animated cartoons ran for ten years and produced such classics as Three Little Pigs, The Tortoise and the Hare, Music Land, and The Old Mill. Silly Symphonies won every Academy Award given to animation shorts throughout the 1930s.

From the authors of the prize-winning Walt in Wonderland: The Silent Films of Walt Disney, this richly-illustrated volume is a complete history of the Silly Symphonies including detailed individual entries for all the Symphonies along with a lengthy critical analysis and production history of the series.

Own Disney Art

Want to know an authentic piece of Disney concept or production art, such as this beautiful concept drawing for Sleeping Beauty by Eyvind Earle. Look no further than Van Eaton Galleries.

Ward on War

An animated protest film by Ward Kimble, one of the best known of Walt's old men.

JG is a Beatles nerd

JG sez: "I am perhaps one of the few Beatle geeks that CH knows. I have been a fan since I was 10! My vinyl collection contains over 100 pieces of the fab four. I own 3 copies of the OG SPLHCB. I have a vinyl recording of JL's last live show. I even have the White album in white vinyl from 1977 Capitol release. To my point, this sounds like a cool book that I will buy and if you like equipment like I do check out one of my favourite guitar sites- www.guitargeek.com! Check out Jonny Greenwoods set-up!"

Wright at Disney

This is an oldie...but a goodie...Disney History blog has the transcript of a speech given by Frank Lloyd Wright to the animators at the Disney Studios.

Here's part one. Here's part two.

Recording the Beatles

For all you Beatles nerds, the nerdiest thing you can possibly spend your $100 bucks on. An exhaustive coffee table crusher about how their music was recorded. In their words...

Never before has there been such an absolutely thorough and definitive look at how the Beatles' albums were recorded. Years of research and extensive interviews with the group's former engineers and technicians shed new light on those classic sessions. With a detailed look at every piece of studio gear used, full explanations of effects and recording processes, and an inside look at how specific songs were recorded, Recording The Beatles is a must-have for any Beatles fan or recording engineer.

Thanks Boing Boing!

"How You Killed Your Brand"

Awesome! Its a song about Sony fucked up PS3 to the tune of "How to Save a Life". Must watch!



Thanks, Boing Boing!

JG on coffee

I posted a while back on Consumer Reports claims that Mickey D's has a better cup 'o joe than Starbucks. JG weighs in:

"almost, even their espresso drinks are disgusting and further proof that most people settle for mediocrity. But mostly, Starbucks is so successful because it's so accessible. The only truly good drink they have is a frappucino but at 2000 calories and 20g of fat I have not had one in years!! But there are people that get them everyday! Especially in the midwest where you can drive up to the window and order from your SUV.

Best coffee ever - Caffe Roma in North Beach and Soma on Folsom in SF. They were responsible for giving the SF air that roasted coffee bean smell especially in north beach because they roasted beans twice a day in equipment they imported from Firenze.

I also heard about McD's coffee and i can believve it, hell I know people who thought the old McD's coffee was great! I am afraid to try because I will walk out with a McGriddle!!!!!!!!"

JG agrees on Edwards

Here's what he had to say:

"I completely AGREE with you on this. John E is doing more damage to the democrats than he realizes. The way he handled Iraq, Barack and his apology was completely lame. Anyone who supports him thinks he is an honest man by admitting his mistake in voting for the war resolution but what it shows if you watched meet the press is what a true fuckng politian he is. He actually said, that all was going going well until after the election when the dems won and they realised that the war was not popular and so after the election he jumped on the "wrong decision" bandwagon. I could go on and on but I just wanted to say that I have confronted several people about JE after this interview and you are the only person CH that feels like I do.

I feel as though his explanation and apology on the show was basically him saying, yes the war was a popular issue, we had facts that were confidential and we sent your sons and daughters into Iraq to die. However, after the election I think we made a mistake, lets pull out, sorry so many soldiers and innocent Iraqis died.

John Edwards is truly weak!

and P.S.

what was that shit about raising taxes for healthcare? Two of the major reasons our healthcare system is so corrupt is because of the drug companies, malpractice insurance costs and privatization of hospitals. J Edwards proposes to raise taxes to cover these costs. So the drug companies, private clinics and insurance companies rob you blind and can still make more money and the government through JE can rob you blind so they can also pay these crooks.

Ahh, the whole thing tastes of Gefilte fish!"

A true Blu-Ray killer?

As we all know, the next gen DVD wars continue to wage on with consumers mostly sitting out. Despite a record number of flat panel HD TVs selling this X-Mas, consumers are not buying HD players to go with them. The Blu-Ray caucus glibly pronounced victory at CES despite shipping a paltry number of players. And PS3, the Blu-Ray camp's White Knight, has fallen off its horse.

Now, two major makers of DVD replication machines have announced support for 3x DVD, which basically allows EXISTING DVD discs to hold 9.4GB of data and existing cheap as shit red laser DVD players can read them with a little firmware upgrade. As Scooby Doo says "Ru-roh!"

So you mean we don't need those pricey blue laser players? And we can still get glorious HD? On sub-$100 players? On discs that cost the same as today?

If the movie industry were smart (which it often is not) it would embrace this. They make their money, not on expensive hardware, but on software. And the best way to sell more software is ubiquitous and cheap hardware. No one likes to admit it in the entertainment biz, but they owe a lot more to APEX and Cyberhome than to Sony and Panasonic because those guys made DVD players cheap at your local Wal-Mart and that in turn created the miracle of the DVD cornacopia. So if HD quality content could be played on DVD players of roughly the same costs as today's you would INSTANTLY see massive penetration of these players and a huge new market for next gen DVD.

The other path of high cost hardware is a non-starter. By the time the hardware gets to penetration price points, we will all be downloading our content.

The Disney Mountains

The Disney History Blog links to a new book coming in September 2007 called "The Disney Mountains: Imagineering At Its Peak" which looks like its all about Expedition Everest. I'm currently reading the very thin, but informative "Expedition Everest: Legend of the Forbidden Mountain, The Journey Begins" by Disney Editions. Its a nice appetizer but definitely has me wanting more.

The real Chinese Pirates of the Carribean

Kung Hai Fat Choi! Happy Year of the Pig!

AP has neat little story about the real pirates of China. Turns out the Lantau Island, the modern day site of HK Disneyland, was the site of a major battle between the Imperial Chinese Navy and real Chinese pirates. This makes HKDL the only Disney park built on the site of an actual pirate battle!

However, HKDL has no Pirates ride today. I hope they add one soon, as well as Pirates Island. And when they do, I hope they base it on Sao Feng, the Chow Yun-fat character from POTC3, rather than the traditional story line we all know and love here in the USA.

According to Wikipedia, Sao Feng is based on a real Chinese pirate of the HK area named Cheung Po Tsai.

Walt Disney's How Nazis are Made

Readers of this blog know that I am fascinated by Disney in the WWII era, when the Studio was basically drafted to make propaganda films. Here's one telling about how Nazis are made.
Disney Nazi Cartoon

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Cars Die Cast

Check out Mattel's 2007 line of Cars die cast!!! Its a collectors dream! They have the Cars from the Toy Story and Monsters Inc. parodies during the credits as well as more tertiary characters from the movie.

The name game

Disney announced two major name changes last week. Buena Vista Games will become Disney Interactive Studios. And Touchstone TV will become ABC TV Studios. According to Mediaweek, the names of Buena Vista TV will change as well, though it doesn't say what to. This all part of a drive to clean up the company's brand image and de-fragment the brand. Only Disney, ABC, ESPN and Miramax are said to continue.

But what of all the other non-core brands:

Hyperion Publishing -> ABC Publishing? Disney Publishing?

Starwave, Living Media -> ABC Mobile?

Touchstone -> ABC Movie Studio???

Pixar at War

Pixar artists Scott Morse, Lou Ramano, Don Shank, and Nate Wragg have published a book called The Ancient Book Of Myth And War. Here's the description from Amazon...

The Ancient Book of Myth and War presents to you a time capsule, a glimpse into a strange and wondrous world, where myths and legends still roam freely and wars rage in the hearts and minds of the noble and the feeble alike. Experiments in color, shape, line and composition enrich each and every page, accompanied by text that will enlighten the audience with atmospheric facts concerning origins, eras and even media used in the production of the art itself. The Ancient Book of Myth and War is a fine art hardcover collection of images produced by some of the most highly sophisticated animation designers in the industry.

The truth tastes so sweet

Rumor is that Ben and Jerry's is putting out a Stephen Colbert ice cream called "Stephen Colbert's Americone Dream". B&J's spokesman Rob Michalak tells Salon.com, "I can neither confirm nor deny it. But I can say there's been a lot of experimentation with red, white and blue."

Vintage Disney Calendars

A-HAA has posted a bunch of Disney X-Mas cards and calendars. Since X-Mas is over, I'm focused on the calendars. They are beautiful work. My favorites are below.

And it gets even more interesting...

Steve Jobs just posted an open letter on Apple.com called "Thoughts on Music" in which he says that DRM for music is ineffective at stopping piracy and always will be and that the music labels should stop requiring them to use DRM.

"So if the music companies are selling over 90 percent of their music DRM-free, what benefits do they get from selling the remaining small percentage of their music encumbered with a DRM system? There appear to be none. If anything, the technical expertise and overhead required to create, operate and update a DRM system has limited the number of participants selling DRM protected music. If such requirements were removed, the music industry might experience an influx of new companies willing to invest in innovative new stores and players. This can only be seen as a positive by the music companies."

Now it gets interesting

Wal-Mart announced a movie & TV download site today with all 6 major studios. As a reminder, Apple only has Disney and late window content from Paramount. More interesting is that Wal-Mart will price movies from $12.88 for catalog to $19.88 for new releases. Remember that iTunes is at $14.99 for new releases and $9.99 for catalog. So iTunes is still cheaper. That's not because Apple is getting favorable terms. They're not. They are getting the same terms as Wal-Mart. But Wal-Mart is choosing not to price that low. Why? They don't want to cannibalize DVD sales. So this really doesn't end the impasse over iTunes pricing and distribution. It prolongs it. It will be interesting now to see if any other studios jump on board Apple or if they continue to hold out.

As for Wal-Mart's chances, I can't say I'm optimistic. The MS media player world is a mess right now. Zune doesn't support PlaysForSure, so Wal-Mart.com won't work with that. The only players that really support the store are from Creative. And the user experience is still going to be much harder than iTunes. Wal-Mart really needs to take the next step and integrate the store with MS Media Player a la URGE. That would improve the user experience a lot. Otherwise, I don't see this really making much of difference, just as Wal-Mart has made no dent in the universe on music.

Mickey D's has good coffee - Consumer Reports

According to Consumer Reports, Mickey D's has better coffee than Starbucks.

The said McDonald's coffee was "decent and moderately strong," but Starbucks' was "strong, but burnt and bitter enough to make your eyes water."

I don't drink coffee any more and I haven't tried Mickey D's new coffee, but I agree on Starbucks. Its undrinkable swill except when used in a latte.

Nifty little app

Here's a nifty little app for you. A little menu bar calendar. And its FREE!

Thanks, TUAW!

John Edwards is wasting his (and our) time

I saw John Edwards on Meet The Press today. What a bust up! There is no way this guy can win the Presidency.

First, he spends a quarter of the program talking why he was wrong on Iraq. Russert popped up a quote from Barack from before the war started where he called Iraq a "dumb war" and said he felt Saddam was contained. Edwards had to admit Barack was right. Edwards has a Kerry problem. He was for the war before he was against it. The reality, and we all know this, is that Edwards was for the war, not because of what he was told by the Bush Administration, but because he was running for President and he didn't want to appear weak on defense. I'm not saying he's being totally disingenuous. I'm sure he talked himself into it and I'm sure he's being honest when he says he thinks he was wrong. He was wrong.

Then he goes on to talk about all the ways he's going to raise taxes. The more this guy talked, the more I afraid I got that we are seeing the second coming of the old school Democratic party that never met a social program or a tax cut it doesn't like.

The truth is that Barack has stolen Edwards position as the new, hot, charismatic leader in the Democratic party, but without all the baggage. Edwards doesn't have any more experience than Barack. And Barack is a lot slicker. I just don't think he brings anything to the party. He's tracking well in some states, but I think all that is going to melt away.

He's just hobbled from Day 1, but even more so, as Joe Biden recently said "I don't thing he know what the heck he's talking about."

Doctor Who USB Hub

Thanks Boing Boing!

Muppet Mobile Lab

Jim Hill scoops on the Muppet Mobile Lab, an alleged new free-moving animatronic show. I can neither confirm nor deny.

You Don't Scare Me English Pig Dog!

Funny. The Doctor Who episode "Dalek" with the Dalek's lines replaced with lines from Monty Python and The Holy Grail.