The Cat Piano

Narrated by Nick Cave, a dark tale of a piano, MADE FROM KITTY CATS!!! I'm scared, and slightly amused.

The Cat Piano from PRA on Vimeo.

quoted from Motionographer.com

Fleischer Brothers give chase to rain

From the weather outside my window, I believe we can all agree (at least in Portland) it's a cartoon kind a day. Here are two rarely seen Fleischer Brothers' films from the thirties

The first is about a hick couple at the World's fair from 1938

and the second is entitled "Dancing on the Moon" 1935, which features lots of. you guessed it, dancing on lunar surfaces:

One cool thing to take note of here is Fleischer's innovated use of the "stereoptic effects" used to achieve the highly realistic looking backgrounds. The studio would build models of the background and photograph them moving along with the actions of the cell animated critters. Pretty amazing effects, especially considering it was all done in the 1930's!

What not to watch at work

My very first blog contribution is from my friend Andy J. who told me to check out the adult swim show:

"Xavier: Renegade Angel" a computer animated cartoon featuring "a Native American-influenced faun-like wanderer/seeker with a snake hand, backwards knees, a beak, heterochromic eyes, and six nipples" from the people who brought you Wonder ShowZen.

In this episode Xavier wakes up from sleeping on his dream catcher only to have conversations with mother earth and stop a cookie factory that's gone too far! Told in a non sequitur-style humor like many adult swim cartoons, it's a wacky ride through absurd country on a pig drawn peanut brittle sleigh...
You can watch them here:

http://www.adultswim.com/video/?episodeID=8a25c39216cdd4f10116d02893ee0109

They're rated MA, so probably not the best thing to watch at work, but hey, I ain't your boss. Enjoy, and thanks, Andy