The funniest phone number ever

Call the Nestle Crunch Hotline at 1-800-295-0051... when you are asked if you want to continue in English or Spanish, just wait quietly (use the mute button so it doesn't pickup sound) for about 10 seconds and you will smile. PROMISE! Keep going and press 4. Listen to the options...then press 7.

=================

I was dying laughing! I think the cootie explanation went on a little too long, but they had me in stitches for awhile, especially listening to the funner options before that.

I also tried the Pig Latin, Knock knock, and Backyard Catch options... not as funny.

Bubble wrap (3), Noogie (5), and Boy Expressing Affection (6) are also worth listening to. But first place goes to Cooties and second place goes to the Noogie. =^)

- TAE

Animation Tips - how to learn the basics of animation

So this lesson is going to involve some videos of a new animator who's improving like crazy. First, he picked up a copy of Animation Studio (I also recommend Toon Boom and Flash for 2D work). If you're learning 3D, use Blender (cuz it's free), and all these lessons still apply.

So this is all work from HitAnimation, so check him out here:

http://www.youtube.com/user/hitmanimation

First, he started with a test on mouth and eye movement in Toon Boom (you could even do this with Paint and Movie Maker):



Then he continued to experiment with the mouth, but he also added in walk and some arm movement for this Terminator spoof (he switched to Anime Studio for this):



Donkey walk test and some arm movement (you see that he has more to learn). One thing to point out is the character designs are far along (his farthest yet). The character designs look like those on a cartoon you might see on TV:



Then he jumped to multiple characters. All the characters and moving arms and legs is great practice. Animating to a funny song is always entertaining:



This next piece was an experiment in lip syncing. It also served a personal use... a gift. He got lip syncing advice from another animator who was further along (ngstalagmite), and learned a lot from it. This was 2 months ago:



And for this ninja test... more walking and arm movement, and he's playing with the camera (some of the camera movement is getting quite good):



Then a fun little walk test:



Then an Arny walk and arm test on January 19 (I'm listing the dates because he's moving very fast now):



And a lip sync test on January 21:



And a rapper test (mouth and arms) on January 24:



And then on February 8, he finished the full Arnold 2:43 animation spoof (Warning - language):



That's when I came in with more advice he's already heard. My advice...

Praise: This starts to get funny at the end. The potential is huge.

Advice... a lot of floaty arm movements (and slow walking). All movement is much faster and deliberate.

So I only gave a little advice, but he took it. He said, "I took everything on board what you said last time and I scrutnised every apect of the animation."


Next up he took a scene from Pulp Fiction (Warning - language) on 2/17/10:



And here is my advice (lesson) for him and you...

Hahahahaha! Wow, this is awesome! Praise... I love where you're going with the character designs with this. The eyes are really done well (this increases with each vid you make). Keep that up. You also animated the eyelids very well. You even made Samuel Jackson's farther eye smaller... nice.

You also increased the speed of your movements... this is a HUGE improvement. Plus the timing is great (using movie audio makes it easier to have good timing). I also see a little bit of a bounce on his hands as he puts them down. That's awesome! Keep thinking about that.

Advice... so people aren't constantly moving. The next thing I recommend that you work on is trying to make your movements more "deliberate." What that means is that hand movements are great, but the hand jets out there, bounces a bit, sits out there with almost no movement and then later jets back (that's what I mean by "deliberate"-- the movement is motivated).

More advice... I think the guy in the chair looked skittish but not quite as freaked out as he could have. Maybe a little shaking (rather than the rocking motion you used) and eyes that go from small to super wide while he's shaking, kind of like that kid on South Park who drinks coffee. =^)

Also, the ending was a bit too abrupt. The white guy should have still been shaking a little after the dialogue, while Sam leans forward and closes in on a solid stare. =^)

So although I got a ton of advice for you, this is your best effort, it's hilarious, and I hope it does well. You're improving at an incredibly fast rate (crazy fast), so keep it up!

Also, what makes this work well is that you have high quality voice acting (you cut corners by using voice from actors in a great movie), so keep that in mind. Find real voice actors.

Make the audio as good as the video. Music and sound effects help, but the voice acting makes it or breaks it.

Thanks for reading!

- TAE

Over 50 girls in the US got salmonella poisoning after kissing frogs

After watching Princess and the Frog...



In January 2010, it emerged that over 50 children in the US - mostly girls under the age of 10- had been taken to hospital with salmonella poisoning after copying Tiana and kissing frogs. Both the American Veterinary Medical Association and the Association of Reptilian and Amphibian Veterinarians issued statements warning parents of the dangers of allowing their children to handle and kiss frogs.

(From Wikipedia)

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Ouch! This is funny, but I can't help but think about those poor kids! This is bad parenting! Parents, if you take your kids to see a movie (and they're under 10), you've got to tell your kids that it's only make believe and make sure they understand that. And, on top of that, you need to make sure that if the point of the movie is a romance movie about a woman kissing a frog to become a princess... then you also need to tell your children that you don't actually kiss frogs!

Come on parents!

- TAE

The Sun Sings

Check out our new animation, animated by NGstalagmite:



The Narrator asks the Sun to sing. One problem... The sun seems to be a few rays short of a full set. Know what I mean? KNOW WHAT I MEAN??? (me neither.)

Thanks for watching!

- TAE

THE GOLDEN TOUCH 1935

This was a Silly Symphony.

I see early influence of Pinnochio (the Blue Fairy) and Snow White (the magic mirror and the leprechaun Goldie looks like Dopey). The cat reminds me more of earlier Disney animations made before this, though.

This one was directed by Walt himself. He wanted to direct it to show how direction was to be done, but it ended up not being as good of a performer as many of the other shorts, and so Walt gave up directing these shorts and became irritated by this failure ever since (bringing it up made him angry).

Personally, I think the world is bonkers. I loved this short as a kid (must have seen it on the World of Disney), and I still love it today. I think it would have done better with more humor and with a few songs for the characters to sing (basically the two elements that made Three Little Pigs do so well). But what's great about it is that Walt was telling a full story, which was great practice for his feature films.


Poor kitty!

Enjoy!

- TAE

DISNEY - We're Following The Pied Piper (1933)

Here is the 1933 Silly Symphony The Pied Piper cut shorter and set to the tune of The Piper by ABBA from the album Super Trouper.

And here's the original/full animation:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4xE8wwigWM

Enjoy!

- TAE

Our posts are now wider

Wider posts on this blog so that you don't have to scroll as much. It took some HTML tweaking. That is all.

- TAE

Aubrey Plaza blog - check it out

This is just a friendly reminder that we've got a sweet Aubrey Plaza blog going. She plays April on Parks and Recreation. She was also Seth Rogen's love interest in Funny People.

Go here for the Aubrey Plaza blog:

http://aubrey-plaza.blogspot.com


Check out this Web vid she did recently...



Aubrey breaks up with... two people? Hahahahaha. I love the hold at the end. That guy's hilarious!

Enjoy!

New Toy Story 3 trailer

It looks awesome! Can't wait!

- TAE

The female chipmunk from Chip N Dale

So I was at Disneyland last week and saw their Celebration parade/show, and there was a female chipmunk! I figured they might feature her because the female chipmunks in the second Alvin movie are popular right now. So my wife did some research...

From Wikipedia:
Two Chips and a Miss
Although Chip 'n Dale are almost always united in a common goal, this was one of their only shorts to see them working against each other, for the affections of Clarice, a performer at the Acorn Club. After much battling between the two, she chooses neither one.

Here is Two Chips and a Miss:



Here is Clarice at a Disney park, spotted on Easter last year:



About the video above:
Two rare Walt Disney World character sightings in one spot - Both Easter Bunny and Clarice (good friend to Chip and Dale) greeting guests at Disney's Polynesian Resort on Easter Sunday morning 2009. Music is Bach Minuet in G, bonus cut on Willie Nelson's Red Headed Stranger.

Here's a Disney Easter Bunny cartoon from 1934:



- TAE

70's Mickey Mouse Club EP4 (1977) P1

And now contrast our last post (the 60s intro) with this one from 1977. The intro here is shorter, and the music is now disco (pretty sweet). But the animation is all the same; they just have it in color now. They also seemed to have updated Donald banging the gong to make a recurring gag (similar to what Simpsons started doing in their intro a decade later).

Enjoy!

- TAE

THE MICKEY MOUSE CLUB 1960's INTRO

The original Mickey Mouse Club intro from 1960. Man was it long for a TV intro.

Wow, Disney pulled out all the stops in using his most popular characters. Jiminy Cricket riding Dumbo... Doesn't get more extreme than this. Enjoy!

- TAE

To A Land Far Away (argentina) by dtru to estefania alba

This is a heartbreaking tale from my bud Dtru out to his wife.

Take care.

- TAE

Disney sees big bucks in Marvel unknowns

I'm going to weigh in on this first. Basically, I agree that Disney could turn any one of the heroes into a hit movie. They just need to make sure they concentrate on the story, characters, and the "bang effect." If they do all three of those, much like Iron Man did, then I think they could turn most of the heroes into hit films.

- TAE


Article:

Are second-string superheroes worth the $4.2 billion price tag?

Nova:


LOS ANGELES - Moviegoers have shown a willingness to be entangled by Spider-Man's web over and over again. Now, as Disney prepares to buy the comic-book powerhouse Marvel, it faces the question of whether fans will also get attached to characters as obscure as Ant-Man and Iron Fist.

The Walt Disney Co. is making a $4.2 billion bet that they will as it completed its acquisition of Marvel Entertainment Inc. in December. The cash-and-stock deal brings those characters and thousands of others to an entertainment empire that already includes Mickey Mouse, Kermit the Frog, and Hannah Montana.

Disney's biggest challenge will be to get enough people enthused about second-string superheroes to justify the price — about $1.2 billion, or 40 percent, more than what Marvel's stock was worth when the deal was announced Aug. 31.

The high price means Disney will have to find new ways to earn revenue from Marvel — perhaps by bringing Marvel-licensed toys to more store shelves around the world, and by digging deep into its comic vault for potential new blockbusters.

Although Disney is constrained by the fact that big-name Marvel superheroes such as Spider-Man are already locked up in long-term deals with rival movie studios, Disney has had a history of successfully turning unknown talent such as Miley Cyrus, the actress behind "Hannah Montana," into multibillion-dollar enterprises.

"With Marvel, it's not just about `Iron Man' and `Hulk,'" Caris & Co. analyst David Miller said. "It's all about the other 5,000 characters that you and I don't even know about yet."

Disney shares are already being helped, having risen more than 20 percent since the deal was announced, partly on the hope for new character development and better use of Marvel heroes in movies, stores, and theme parks.

The deal has already spawned a bout of speculation in the comic book world about who will be the next big Thing.

Possibilities include classics such as Ant-Man, the alter-ego of mad scientist Dr. Henry Pym, and Dr. Strange, the mystical go-to guy whenever there's an extradimensional threat. Both are connected to The Avengers line of characters that Marvel had started developing for the big screen long before Disney made the deal; Iron Man and the Hulk are among the Avengers that Marvel already has tapped.

Walt Disney Cartoon - Hitler's Children Education For Death

Hahahaha. So here's Disney's anti-nazi propaganda. It tells the story of Sleeping Beauty a couple of decades before Walt made Sleeping Beauty. The witch is awesome, like from Snow White (and not like Maleficent at all). It makes me want to see this version of Sleeping Beauty... until it ends up an Opera singer and Hitler. =^)


- TAE

Banned Cartoons (includes Disney stuff)

Lots of good stuff here. It includes the Academy Award winning Donald Duck short and the 7 Dwarves peddling war bonds.

I am not racist against anyone, culture, religion, or race. I just thought that people would like to see ways that animators used to use types of propaganda and stereotypes in their cartoons during a time when it was accepted and "normal."

Enjoy!

- TAE

Fantasia - The Pastoral Symphony - UNCUT

Disney Centaurs! The party is ruined by Zeus and Hermes? Why couldn't the Disney Hercules movie have more of the charm of this short?

- TAE

Disney Channel: Miley Cyrus' last season of Hannah Montana

Miley's leaving the Disney Channel.

Why? She was in Bolt and has a few more movies coming up. So? No offense, but Hilary Duff left Disney too soon and she lost her status. Miley, don't make the same mistake. Play it safe. Give back to Disney for making you a star. We're not even sure if you can act yet.



Article:

LOS ANGELES - Miley Cyrus is saying goodbye to her Disney Channel show, “Hannah Montana,” a source has confirmed to Access Hollywood.

In news first reported by The New York Post, a source confirmed to Access that the show would start shooting its fourth and final season on Jan. 18. The source said the network does not know how many episodes it will shoot or when it would wrap, but noted there are enough new episodes to air through 2011.

“You never know in this business . . . but right now we’re scheduled to wrap [forever] after shooting this new batch of episodes,” Disney Channel Worldwide’s Adam Bonnett, senior VP of Programming, told the Post.

From:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34769819/ns/entertainment-access_hollywood/
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Miley should transition a little better away from Disney.

That's the mistake that Hilary Duff made, and now it's Hilary who? While Lindsay Lohan tried to hold onto the Disney deals as long as she could, she also tried to grow up to fast. And she better redefine herself or she'll disappear.

Same with Miley. She might be sick of Disney, but like you said, Disney made her, and more importantly, she's not an actress yet. She can't rush into it or she'll fail before she has a chance to succeed.

- TAE