RIP Lefty Rosenthal
Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal, the inspiration for DeNiro’s “Ace” Rothstein character in CASINO passed away this week. Lefty was a professional handicapper from Chicago who ran four hugely successful casinos during the golden era of Las Vegas in the 70’s. He claimed to never having any ties to the mob and became head of four casinos by simply filling out an application. Lefty’s name ended up being in Las Vegas’ damning “Black Book” along with Al Capone and Anthony Spilotro (Casino’s Nicky Santoro).
October 17th, 2008 - Posted in Uncategorized | | 0 Comments
Balloonland
Balloonland, a 1935 Comicolor Cartoon by Ub Iwerks.
October 9th, 2008 - Posted in Uncategorized | | 0 Comments
John K.
A few posts ago we put up a Ren and Stimpy episode directed by one of the truly great animators, John Kricfalusi, or John K., a guy who really understands the potential of cartoons. Kricfalusi’s career has been strange and bumpy. His rep is that he doesn’t like to surrender control and can’t meet deadlines. So it’s a shame that he hasn’t produced more stuff. His first big project was the animation for the Rolling Stone’s video “Harlem Shuffle” featured below.
Ralph Bakshi then put him to work on The New Adventures of Mighty Mouse, a cartoon that was as weird as it was basically not about Mighty Mouse. There’s a great episode that features a character called Bat-Bat, a Batman spoof who is half bat/half bat that rolls with his sidekick The Bug Wonder: a dollop of sludge that sticks to his shoulder. But that’s not out there on YouTube, so we’re putting up “Mighty’s Benefit Plan,” an episode that skewers Alvin and the Chipmunks… The New Adventures of MM suffered some sort of scandal when an episode featured Mighty Mouse, all tuckered out, sniffing a flower. After the sniff, Mighty’s enthusiasm comes back to him tenfold while parents all over the nation complained that he had obviously snorted cocaine. ”Mighty’s Benefit Plan” is featured below.
Kricfalusi also helped to design some of the characters on another Kid America Club favorite, “Galaxy High”. Soon after, he moved on to Ren and Stimpy, a show which he created and was aired on Nickelodeon. Nick was obviously not the best home for Kricfalusi’s sense of humor and he was fired after directing the only good episodes of the show. 6 of them. One of the great injustices.
John K. is the founder of the animation studio Spümcø International, which produced the first Flash Animated Series, The Goddamn George Liquor Program. George Liquor had appeared on Ren and Stimpy as George American.
Kricfalusi went on to do a show called “The Ripping Friends”. Then he did some short cartoons for Hanna Barbera: John K. renditions of The Jetsons (he had originally animated for their 80’s comeback) and Yogi Bear. The Yogi Bear cartoons featured the voice of Ren as the voice of BooBoo. ”Boo Boo and the Man” is featured below.
Boo Boo and the Man
Harlem Shuffle Music Video - The Rolling Stones
October 9th, 2008 - Posted in Uncategorized | | 0 Comments
Sherlock Squirrel & Flapper Duck from The Magic Garden
October 9th, 2008 - Posted in Uncategorized | | 0 Comments
