Charles M. Schulz – Page 21 – Prattling Before the Pratfall

Motion Picture Funnies

Rotoscoping is an animation technique that’s been around since 1914, when it was patented by Max Fleischer. It’s done differently today, of course, but the underlying idea — taking live action footage and making it look like a drawing — remains the same.

I can’t think of an instance where the Disney studio used it while Walt was alive (the integration of live action and animation doesn’t count), although film was often used as an animation guide by Disney artists. Disney was wise to stay away from rotoscoping, because, like anything, it can be overdone and/or misapplied as was the case with Ralph Bakshi’s mostly awful version of Lord of the Rings.

The distinctions between comics and cartoons and live action movies with digital effects are now so blurry as to be indistinguishable. In the future will still picture comics even exist as anything other than a niche, and for movie storyboards?

The Peanuts Motion Comics I talked about a couple of posts ago were done in Flash animation that obviously required no live action for reference. (They’re fun, by the way, and were based on 1964 comic strips that were some of the best material Sparky Schulz ever wrote.) Marvel Motion Comics are done in a similar way, but they’re much more detailed, of course, and they display the darker tone that everybody now associates with Marvel Comics.

[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/2009/MAR/MarvelMotionComics.flv 480 360]

The first serious full-length movie to go all-out with Flash animation is Waltz with Bashir, which is brilliantly realized, but was obviously based upon live action source material, despite claims to the contrary that I’ve read. I’d also suggest taking a look at the clip from “Men in Black” (not the Will Smith movie) that I posted a couple of years ago.

[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/2009/MAR/WaltzwithBashir.flv 480 270]

As I said, rotoscoping and its variants can be overdone. The ad agency that produced the new series of Charles Schwab commercials seems to have jumped on the Flash animation bandwagon, but it’s a misuse of the tool. This creepy image is supposed to make nervous investors feel more confident in a brokerage firm? Yuck!

[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/2009/MAR/CharlesSchwab.flv 480 270]

Good Grief! More Roku

Back in November, I expressed an interest in the Peanuts Motion Comics, done in Flash animation (like South Park and Spongebob), and available on iTunes. I don’t have iTunes, but today, Roku added Amazon Video on Demand to its streaming digital player, and for $8.99 I bought all ten of the Peanuts Motion Comics. I’ve taken my first step — well, my second — into a larger world of streaming video, on TV, free of the computer.

[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/2009/MAR/MotionComics.flv 320 212]

BTW, I have my WiFi glitch with the Roku all fixed. It was a DHCP problem with the FiOS/Actiontec router. I tried adjusting the lease period, etc., but ultimately the solution was to use the WiFi access point of a spare router — a D-Link DI-624 — and it’s now working AOK.

The ‘Peanuts bird’ before Woodstock

As many fans of the Peanuts comic strip know, fifty years ago Charlie Brown and company first appeared in ads and commercials for Ford cars. Courtesy of Denro, here is a brochure for the 1961 Ford Falcon.

The affordable Falcon was very popular, but the name conjures an image of a powerful bird of prey, while the Falcon was actually a rather underpowered, compact economy car. Our family owned a 1965 base model 2-door Falcon that I remember fondly, mostly because it was the first car I drove when I got my driver’s license.

Cartoon Brew has an animated Peanuts TV commercial for the ’61 Falcon. Somebody put it on YouTube, but the shape of the image is wrong, so I fixed it here. The narrator’s voice should be familiar if you’re over 40.

[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/2009/FEB/FordPeanuts.flv 400 380]

And here’s another gem. Color videotape from 1961, with Lucy introducing Tennessee Ernie Ford, sponsored by Ford.

[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/2009/FEB/PeanutsFordIntro.flv 400 300]

Happy Birthday, Monte Schulz!

Happy birthday to (paraphrase Stephen Colbert) friend of the blog, Monte Schulz. Has it been a year already? Aaugh!

On July 7, 2001, Monte accepted, on behalf of his late father, the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian honor bestowed by Congress. This picture shows Monte at the ceremony, with J. Dennis Hastert, then the Speaker of the House. Monte’s stepmother, Jean, is holding the medal.

This, of course, is Monte’s father, Charles M. Schulz…

… and this is the Peanuts comic strip that was published the day Monte turned twelve. The inscription seems to read, “For the Coroles.”

$Peanuts, Feb 1 \'64$ $Peanuts, Feb 1 \'64$

Charlie Brown’s All-Stars

When I was a kid I really enjoyed playing baseball, despite the fact I wasn’t very good at it. I lost the love of the game in my teens, but I still love “Charlie Brown’s All-Stars.”

Christmas, forty years later…

This is the 40th anniversary of my parents moving us to Massachusetts. Christmas of ’68 is indelibly associated in my mind with $1 Peanuts books and the Beatles record called “The Beatles”.

I don’t listen to the White Album every Christmas, but I’m glad that Fantagraphics made it possible to revive the Charlie Brown tradition by publishing The Complete Peanuts. I posted a picture of last year’s books, and I’ll start a new tradition by showing you this year’s books. One of them has a serious printing defect, but all of the pages are there so I don’t mind.

$Complete Peanuts, \'67-\'70$