If it's October, it must be time for some civic-minded celebs to remind us to vote in a few weeks. (Or not to vote? Whatever you say, Leonardo DiCaprio.) But Rock the Vote is really thinking outside the box this year, recruiting all kinds of famous people to urge viewers to register to vote... in an online "election" in which the only candidates on the ballot are characters from Charles M. Schulz's Peanuts. Um, sure? Educating kids about the electoral process is always a noble goal, as long as this does not lead to an epidemic of write-in votes for, like, Woodstock and the Red Baron in the real election this November.
Anyway, I'm enjoying the mock PSAs they've put together for this campaign. America's Best Dance Crew's Shane Sparks plans to pull the lever for Charlie Brown! Robert Morse from Mad Men (favorite show of elementary-schoolers everywhere) is voting for Linus! My personal favorite clip comes from The Daily Show's John Oliver (below), who semi-endorses Snoopy but mostly just passive-aggressively insults the American people. Also, JoJo refuses to say who she's supporting, but honestly, does anybody care about JoJo's voting preferences, even for cartoons?
So here's your chance to weigh in. Whose side are you on? Remember, folks, voting for lovably sarcastic cartoon characters with abnormally large heads is your duty as citizens. I read it in the Constitution.
Trick question! Gorillaz are the fake cartoon band created by musician Damon Albarn and visual artist Jamie Hewlett for two awesome albums (so far, fingers crossed) in '01 and '05 — "Clint Eastwood,""Feel Good Inc.," all that. Monkey: Journey to the West is the title of an innovative opera that Albarn, Hewlett, and director Chen Shi-Zheng created last year based on a 16th-century Chinese epic saga, as well as a soundtrack CD they released this week. Oh, and Albarn and Hewlett also created a cool related animation for the BBC's Olympics coverage this summer.
Confused yet? Have I mentioned that the lyrics to Monkey are all in Mandarin, at Albarn's insistence? But wait! At a recent informal press conference I attended with about a dozen
other reporters, Albarn said it was pure "coincidence" that Gorillaz and Monkey share such similar names. I'll leave it up to
you to debate that point. But the Monkey album is definitely worth checking out for Gorillaz fans — whether or not you had a chance to see the opera during its runs in the U.K., France, and South Carolina. (They're still figuring out whether it'll be possible to bring the stage performance in some form or another to more locations in the U.S.) And don't be turned off by the opera thing if you're not into that. Said Albarn at the press
conference: "The music in the show had to be slightly different from
how I envisaged it, because of the nature of opera houses — the
acoustics, and the respect for those amazing spaces that are more
comfortable with Verdi and Mozart. So a lot of my electronics and my
drum machines, I tried to keep them less apparent; on the record it's
much more my style of production." Sure enough, it's fascinating to hear how his sonic trademarks from Gorillaz and elsewhere show up on Monkey, only they've been developed into extended instrumental suites instead of three-minute pop tunes.
You can check out a preview clip below to get an idea of how that works. I know I'm digging it, but I'm a huge fan of practically everything Albarn's worked on in the past decade and a half. So what do you say, Gorillaz appreciators — have you heard any of the Monkey music? What do you make of it?
Disney just can't get enough of Johnny Depp. At yesterday's Walt Disney Studios Showcase, an all-day extravaganza of film previews and casting announcements, Disney revealed not one, not two, but three new projects for Depp. Dick Cook, the studio's chairman and the event's emcee, labeled the roles the "Depp trifecta." Might as well call it the "Depp monopoly."
First up is Tim Burton's live-action/CG adaptation of Alice in Wonderland, in which Depp has been tapped to play the part of the Mad Hatter. The movie is scheduled to be released in 2010.
Then, as the USC Trojans marching band played the finale of the William Tell Overture, Depp appeared on the Kodak Theatre stage dressed in his Jack Sparrow outfit and holding the Lone Ranger's mask. With just a few words of explanation, Cook confirmed it: Depp will star in a fourth Pirates of the Caribbean installment, as well as a Lone Ranger movie in which the actor will play the title character's sidekick, Tonto.
But the day wasn't all about Depp. Also stopping by to support their upcoming projects were Jim Carrey, Nicolas Cage, Robin Williams, John Travolta, Sandra Bullock, Dwayne Johnson, Tim Allen, Miley Cyrus, and the cast of High School Musical 3. Plus, there was a major casting announcement involving Oprah Winfrey. All of the juicy details are after the jump.
Bill Melendez, who's best known for bringing the Peanuts characters to life on TV and in the movies, was an astonishingly prolific animator whose 70-year career ended with his death at 91 on Tuesday. His vocation began in 1938 at Disney, where he worked on such classics as Pinocchio and Fantasia (and famously helped unionize Disney's animation shop). He also worked on classic Looney Tunes shorts, animating such classic Warner Bros' characters Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig, and Daffy Duck, and he worked at UPA, where he toiled on the Oscar-winning cartoon short "Gerald McBoing-Boing." He made more than 1,000 commercials, including a 1959 Ford ad that featured Charles Schulz's Peanuts kids. Six years later, he gave Charlie Brown & Co. their first primetime TV special, the indispensable A Charlie Brown Christmas, which earned him his first Emmy. (He won six altogether, out of 28 nominations.) Melendez himself provided the voice of Snoopy, who (being a dog) never spoke but made all kinds of funny, guttural cackling noises.
Melendez would go on to animate countless Charlie Brown TV specials and movies over the next four decades. In later years, he also brought Garfield and Cathy out of the funny pages and onto the small screen, and he helped revive such venerable characters as Frosty the Snowman and Betty Boop. You can get a good eye for his whimsical style in the "Portfolio" section of his website. Or you can just watch this classic Snoopy clip and marvel at how much Melendez could accomplish with minimal movement and dialogue.
Shouts out to my boy Harold, who seems to have used his Purple Crayon to direct Common's video for his new single "Announcement" (below)! J/k, it was actually directed by the talented Lil' X. But the clip's a lot of fun anyway. In addition to the whole 2-D look, I'm particularly enjoying the sidelong triple-take entrance of Pharrell, who produced "Announcement," at roughly 1:25-1:31. And the song's a winner for sure. There's a cool new laid-back party vibe emerging for Com's new album, next month's Invincible Autumn Summer... though it's always possible that "Announcement" would sound different if I weren't bumping it on the very same super-headphones that the dude in the video is rocking at the beginning. You'll just have to tell me: Does this video look and sound as great to all of you?
I don't know how I missed this in the midst of all our Comic-Con coverage (hey, did you notice we covered Comic-Con?), but one of my favorite websites, Garfield Minus Garfield, scored a book deal! Every day, the site's creator, Dan Walsh, simply removes Garfield from the comic strip. That's it. But it's enough -- alongside the fat cat, Jon Arbuckle used to be just a boring guy; now he's like some sort of existential antihero. If the image at left hasn't moved you to tears and made you question life, love, and why you wore that janky top this morning, you're probably not looking hard enough. I love the part where Jon widens his eyes. It is so powerful.
Anyway, Garfield creator Jim Davis approves of the project and the upcoming book. "I want to thank Dan for enabling me to see another side of Garfield," he says.
"Some of the strips he chose were slappers: 'Oh, I could have left that
out.' It would have been funnier." Yeah, that's probably the understatement of the century. That, or "Sometimes Tyra likes to talk about herself." You make the call.
As soon as Marvin the Martian popped up during Sunday night's re-airing of South Park's epic "Imaginationland" trilogy, I thought to myself, man, someone get that lil' guy his own movie! Not really. But it's happening! Warner Bros. and Alcon Entertainment have announced a Marvin the Martin flick that'll combine animation and CGI. Say WHAT? Is that truly necessary? This makes me very angsty, very angsty indeed. In the movie, which Alcon's comparing to Racing Stripes and My Dog Skip (oh, crap), Marvin wants to destroy the planet during Christmas, but gets wrapped up in a gift box instead. I hope he gets a decent love interest. Hey, "Eve-uhhhhhhhh" -- you busy? Below, a sampling of Marvin's, um... worldview. You know he's gotta be right, 'cause he's a lefty.
The first official (and short) (and not very telling) trailer for The Princess and the Frog is online. This'll be the first Disney movie to feature a black princess, "Tiana." She was originally supposed to be called "Maddy," but Disney changed her name and occupation (chambermaid) after apparently feelin' the heat from parties concerned that the character was playing to African-American stereotypes. Huh? The story's set in 1920s New Orleans, but "Tiana" sounds awfully 2008, no? I'd also kind of like to squash that jive-talkin' firefly, but this movie has old-school Disney potential: It's being directed by John Musker and Ron Clements (who did The Little Mermaid and Aladdin), and it's the first 2-D Disney movie since 2004's Home on the Range (which I know did not exist). Get psyched -- only 17 more months to go!
There is a thing, in case you didn't know it, called slash fiction. It's where fans take beloved characters of pop culture, usually sci-fi, and imagine romances between them. And these romances are usually homosexual in nature, more often than not involving Captain James T. Kirk and his trusty Vulcan bonhomme, Mr. Spock. Don't bother Googling — it invariably sucks, with the rarest of exceptions.
Donald Duck made his first appearance on June 9, 1934, in the cartoon "The Wise Little Hen." So today, we pause to celebrate him — and to ask who, other than the Swedes, actually prefers him to Mickey Mouse. (Apparently, when Donald's Christmas special airs in Sweden on Christmas Eve afternoon, the whole country shuts down.)
The new animated movie Kung Fu Panda, in theaters tomorrow, has a pretty goofy name. But directors Mark Osborne and John Stevenson took the project very seriously. Well, very half-seriously. “The big concept was, ‘What if Akira Kurosawa shot a Jerry Lewis movie?’” explains Osborne. In the film a tubby panda named Po, voiced by Jack Black, is trained in martial arts so that he can battle Tai Lung, Ian McShane’s villainous snow leopard. The film’s other voice artists include Dustin Hoffman, Angelina Jolie, Seth Rogen, David Cross and real-life martial arts legend Jackie Chan.
Osborne and Stevenson talked with EW.com about how a kung fu instructor -- and a strangled hooker -- helped them create a movie that would not besmirch the Chan name. ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: How important was it that the kung fu in the movie be realistic? JOHN STEVENSON: It was very important and one of the movie’s biggest challenges. You can’t make a film called Kung Fu Panda unless you have kung fu. And if you’re gonna have kung fu, you should have good kung fu. MARK OSBORNE: We wanted to make the kung fu more realistic than "real" kung fu. Because, in "real" kung fu, you get to see amazing stuff happen, but you’re always conscious of the wire work and the stunts. We had the opportunity to have a real grounding with our kung-fu. STEVENSON: The title of the movie has big comic premise. Kung fu: very hardcore. Pandas: soft and cuddly. But there was a very conscious decision not to make a parody.
You yourselves were trained in kung fu for a day? STEVENSON: Well, "trained" is a very kind word. I think "abused and humiliated" is actually what we requested. We had this terrific kung fu instructor called Eric Chen and we actually took all our crew [with us]. We said, okay, don’t take it easy on us, because we want to get a sense of what it would be like for someone that doesn’t know anything about kung fu to be really thrown into it. So don’t give us the cushy beginner class. Give us a serious kung-fu class. OSBORNE: We wanted to get as much of the experience [as possible] that Po was going to get in the movie; of being forced to do things that we couldn’t do. It was a five-hour workshop that was very intense. We were pretty sore afterwards. There were two or three days of moaning and groaning around the crew. STEVENSON: That kung fu stuff is hard! Really unbelievably hard! And the last thing [Eric] made us do was knuckle push-ups on a concrete floor.
You may not know Ollie Johnston's name or face, but you've seen his acting — it's been all but imprinted in your DNA since childhood. Johnston, who died Monday at 95, was the last of the "Nine Old Men," the animators responsible for the classic Disney cartoon features made from the 1930s to the 1970s. They invented the model for how animated features should be made, and each of them took on specific characters in the movie and acted the roles through their drawings. Johnston, in particular, was revered among animators for his emotional directness, from the scene of Bambi's mother's death in Bambi to the plight of the kidnapped orphan Penny in The Rescuers. (That film's Rufus, a wise old cat, was the closest Johnston came to self-portraiture.) The accomplishments of Johnston and his co-worker and lifelong pal Frank Thomas (who died in 2004) were celebrated in the 1995 documentary Frank and Ollie; the pair's website remains a good entry point to their achievements. Even in the age of computer animation, Johnston's work remains enormously influential; Brad Bird paid him homage by giving him voice roles in The Iron Giant and The Incredibles. You can read some good remembrances here and here — or just watch Baloo and Mowgli, strolling hand in hand through The Jungle Book, for the best tribute to Frank and Ollie's friendship.
Happy Leap Year Day's Eve! All I have to say is that if tomorrow's your birthday, I'm so sorry that you were two when I was eight. That must have sucked, blowing out your candles wishing that you didn’t have to wait 1461 days until your next birthday party. Luckily, a pizza chain wants to make it up to you, by feeding you for a day, for free!
And in honor of the big day, here's something for everyone: "Leaping Beauty," a vintage Fractured Fairytale from the Rocky and Bullwinkle series. Enjoy!
Last night's Oscar telecast was a most enjoyable affair. The acceptance speeches were short and heartfelt (I don't think I heard a single interminable list of names!), the clips packages were nifty, and host Jon Stewart was both funny and classy (recalling Markéta Irglová to the stage for her acceptance speech was the kind of unexpected treat that makes a three-and-a-half hour telecast entirely bearable).
On the other hand, the evening's low point had to be yet another shameless plug for Jerry Seinfeld's Bee Movie. Oh, how I hoped a giant flyswatter would come thwacking down when that overhyped black-and-yellow beast took his spot atop the Oscar podium. I mean, Bee Movie wasn't among the nominees for Best Animated Feature, so why didn't the Academy give eventual winner Ratatouille the "animated presenter" spot instead? Or even one of those surfing penguins? When I can't get a chuckle from reliving Matthew Broderick's painful Electionsting, then something is definitely rotten on the Oscar stage.
So who's going to join me in signing the PopWatch petition to stop the deadly swarm of promotion that Seinfeld is likely planning to prepare for March 11 DVD release? If you need some encouragement, then I've got three words for you: Bee. Movie. Juniors. Oh yeah, I went there!
Those Charmin bears have been the bane of my existence for ages, wiping their backsides with abandon in plain view of the cameras, shaking their tailfeathers against trees like exotic dancers working the pole of a low-rent strip club. To make matters worse, Charmin has taken to using a deeply disturbing visual -- the "sullied hand" graphic -- to show their bathroom tissue is stronger and more absorbent than its leading competitors. "Best for bear bottoms?" Heinous!
Not to be outdone, competitor Cottonelle is running a new ad where a puppy roams the streets commenting on the dubious conditions of various human hind ends, while a voiceover declares "the world can be tough on bottoms." (Seriously?) The clip ends with said canine finding sweet relief on a beanbag, while a Cottonelle package appears on the right of the screen, showing the pooch's pooper swathed in Cottonelle’s comforting T.P.
I know none of you are going to try to tell me you love these ads, so the better question is, which do you loathe more? Vote now!
So earlier this morning, I'm chugging Diet Dr. Pepper and scouring People.com, and I come across a homepage headline that sets my heart aflutter: "Jerry & Tom Pal Around." Whoa! Everybody's favorite cartoon cat-and-mouse combo are back in business? And the little rodent is finally getting top billing? Sweet!
But alas, no. It's just a story about Seinfeld and Cruise having dinner together in New York City. I tell you, it's enough to drive a stressed-out blogger to launch into a tirade like this:
Hey, kids! Do you like animation? How about T-shirts, you love those, right? Well, then, take a look at this: a commercial for what looks like a sandwich shoppe (without that extra "pe" it's just a deli) using nothing but 150 t-shirts and a dude willing to stand there for 9 hours.
What's the stupidest pop culture-related fight you've ever had? I don't mean over something subjective — like, was Wings a good show? — I mean something factual (like, when my sister left me an inebriated message a few years back asking me to please settle an argument that she was having over the name of Suzanne Sugarbaker's pig, Noel). Here's why I'm asking this question now: Earlier this week, Annie Barrett and I were telling EW's Jason Adams that we were going to catch a preview performance of Broadway's The Little Mermaid.
Somehow, the two of them ended up debating whether Sebastian was a crab (Annie's vote) or a lobster (Jason's). After Annie hurled a somewhat poorly-planned insult ("You're a lobster"), they made me do a Google search. Now, this is where things got really stupid. As Annie approached my desk to look at my computer screen, Jason, who'd gone to the same basketball camp as Annie as a child, boxed her out. Annie then announced that she was doing a "reverse pivot," and worked her way past Jason just in time to see me pull up an official Disney FAQ confirming that she was correct. (Jason accepted his defeat, but noted that Sebastian is a professional actor, so for all we know, he's actually a lobster playing a crab.)
Yes, that fight ranks right up there with the time that I watched EW's resident Journey expert Missy Schwartz school Adam Markovitz after she heard him (falsely) claim that Steve Perry's speaking voice was as high as Nicolas Cage's in Peggy Sue Got Married. (Missy knew exactly which vintage interview clip on YouTube would prove that Perry's voice is, in fact, "perfectly virile.")
Your turn. Confess your stupidest arguments — and to what lengths you went to resolve them...
A court in Naples, Italy summoned Donald Duck, along with his girlfriend Daisy, Mickey Mouse, and Tweety Bird to appear as damaged parties in the criminal trial of a Chinese man accused of counterfeiting products of Disney and Warner Bros. Lawyers think it was a clerical error. Yeah, right!
"Unfortunately they cannot show up, as they are residents of Disneyland," joked a Disney Company Italia VP. Oh, the hilarity! The real reason Donald in particular can't show up is that he never leaves the house anymore unless it's Fleet Week. Plus, he's been having trouble sleeping:
Don't you wanna want a Fanta sprinkle tiny Tylenol PM capsules into his waking nightmares?
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Trick question! 
Disney just can't get enough of Johnny Depp. At yesterday's Walt Disney Studios Showcase, an all-day extravaganza of film previews and casting announcements, Disney revealed not one, not two, but three new projects for Depp. Dick Cook, the studio's chairman and the event's emcee, labeled the roles the "Depp trifecta." Might as well call it the "Depp monopoly."
The new animated movie Kung Fu Panda, in theaters tomorrow, has a pretty goofy name. But directors Mark Osborne and John Stevenson took the project very seriously. Well, very half-seriously. “The big concept was, ‘What if Akira Kurosawa shot a Jerry Lewis movie?’” explains Osborne. In the film a tubby panda named Po, voiced by Jack Black, is trained in martial arts so that he can battle Tai Lung, Ian McShane’s villainous snow leopard. The film’s other voice artists include Dustin Hoffman, Angelina Jolie, Seth Rogen, David Cross and real-life martial arts legend Jackie Chan. 
You may not know Ollie Johnston's name or face, but you've seen his acting — it's been all but imprinted in your DNA since childhood. Johnston, who 
Last night's Oscar telecast was a most enjoyable affair. The acceptance speeches were short and heartfelt (I don't think I heard a single interminable list of names!), the clips packages were nifty, and host Jon Stewart was both funny and classy (
What's the stupidest pop culture-related fight you've ever had? I don't mean over something subjective — like, was Wings a good show? — I mean something factual (like, when my sister left me an inebriated message a few years back asking me to please settle an argument that she was having over the name of Suzanne Sugarbaker's pig, Noel). Here's why I'm asking this question now: Earlier this week, Annie Barrett and I were telling EW's Jason Adams that we were going to catch a preview performance of Broadway's The Little Mermaid. 
