Betty Boop
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Betty Boop is an animated cartoon character created by Max Fleischer, with help from animators including Grim Natwick.[1][2][3][4][5][6] She originally appeared in the Talkartoon and Betty Boop film series, which were produced by Fleischer Studios and released by Paramount Pictures. She has also been featured in comic strips and mass merchandising. Despite having been toned down in the mid-1930s to appear more demure, she became one of the most well-known and popular cartoon characters in the world.

Origins
Betty Boop made her first appearance on August 9, 1930, in the cartoon Dizzy Dishes;[5] the sixth installment in Fleischer's Talkartoon series. Although Clara Bow is often given as being the model for Boop,[7] she actually began as a caricature of singer Helen Kane.[8] The character was originally created as an anthropomorphic French poodle.
Max Fleischer finalized Betty Boop as a human character in 1932, in the cartoon Any Rags. Her floppy poodle ears became hoop earrings, and her black poodle nose became a girl's button-like nose. Betty Boop appeared as a supporting character in 10 cartoons as a flapper girl with more heart than brains. In individual cartoons, she was called "Nancy Lee" or "Nan McGrew" – derived from the 1930 Helen Kane film Dangerous Nan McGrew – usually serving as a girlfriend to studio star, Bimbo.
Betty's voice was first performed by Margie Hines, and was later performed by several different voice actresses, including Kate Wright, Bonnie Poe, Ann Rothschild (aka Little Ann Little), and most notably, Mae Questel. Questel, who began voicing Betty Boop in 1931, continued with the role until her death in 1998. Today, Betty is voiced by Tress MacNeille and Tara Strong in commercials. ...READ MORE

Casper the Friendly Ghost

Casper the Friendly Ghost
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Casper the Friendly Ghost is the protagonist of the Famous Studios theatrical animated cartoon series of the same name. As his name indicates, he is a ghost, but is quite personable.[1] According to the 1995 feature film Casper, his family name is McFadden, making his "full" name Casper McFadden.

Nature
Given that Casper is depicted as a ghostly, portly little boy, there is a controversy among fans of the series as to whether or not he is a dead child. Early Casper cartoons seemed to suggest this, as they portrayed him residing beside a gravestone. Specifically, the short "There's Good Boos To-Night" featured Ferdie, a fox befriended by Casper, coming back from the dead as a ghost. Casper's death (as well as the reason why he became friendly) have been disputed since that time.
This somewhat macabre premise was later abandoned in favor of the idea that ghosts were merely a type of supernatural being, similar to ghouls, goblins, etc. He was thereafter portrayed with feet and shown to have ghostly parents and became slightly slimmer. In the 1960s and 1970s, the stock answer provided by Harvey Comics in response to those wondering how Casper died was that he was a ghost simply because his parents were already ghosts when they were married.[2]
The 1995 feature film Casper, however, revived the notion that Casper was a deceased human and provided a brief account of his death. According to the film, Casper was a young adolescent who went sledding all day and died of pneumonia. The first direct-to-video film to follow the feature, Casper: A Spirited Beginning, showed Casper's early days as a ghost, not showing how he died and ignoring the story provided in the previous film, although it does explain how he became friendly. ...READ MORE

Up (2009 film)

Up (2009 film)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Up is a 2009 American computer-animated comedy-adventure film produced by Pixar, distributed by Walt Disney Pictures and presented in Disney Digital 3-D. The film premiered on May 29, 2009 in North America and opened the 2009 Cannes Film Festival, becoming the first animated and 3D film to do so.[3] The film was director Pete Docter's second film, the first being 2001's Monsters, Inc., and features the voices of Edward Asner, Christopher Plummer, Bob Peterson, and Jordan Nagai. It is Pixar's tenth feature film and the studio's first to be presented in Disney Digital 3-D,[4] and is accompanied in theaters and DVD releases by the short film Partly Cloudy.
The film centers on an elderly widower named Carl Fredricksen and an earnest young Wilderness Explorer named Russell who fly to South America by floating in a house. The film has received universal critical acclaim, with a rating of 98% on Rotten Tomatoes (the best reviewed wide-released film of 2009 on the site), and grossed over $731 million worldwide,[2] making it Pixar's third-most commercially successful film, behind Toy Story 3 and Finding Nemo.
Up won Golden Globe Awards for Best Animated Feature Film and Best Original Score from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. The film received five Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, making it the second animated film in history to receive such a nomination, following 1991's Beauty and the Beast.[6] Up was awarded the Academy Awards for Best Animated Feature and Best Original Score in 2010.

Plot
Young Carl Fredricksen is a shy, quiet boy who idolizes renowned explorer Charles F. Muntz. He is saddened to learn, however, that Muntz has been accused of fabricating the skeleton of a giant bird he had claimed to have discovered in Paradise Falls, South America. Muntz vows to return there to capture one alive. One day, Carl befriends an energetic and somewhat eccentric tomboy named Ellie, who is also a Muntz fan. She confides to Carl her desire to move her "clubhouse"—an abandoned house in the neighborhood—to a cliff overlooking Paradise Falls, making him promise to help her. Carl and Ellie eventually get married and grow old together in the restored house, working as a toy balloon vendor and a zookeeper, respectively. Unable to have children, they repeatedly pool their savings for a trip to Paradise Falls, but end up spending it on more pressing needs. An elderly Carl finally arranges for the trip, but Ellie suddenly becomes ill and dies, leaving him alone. ...READ MORE

Toy Story

Toy Story
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Toy Story is a 1995 American computer-animated film released by Walt Disney Pictures. It is Pixar's first feature film as well as the first ever feature film to be made entirely with CGI. The film was directed by John Lasseter and featured the voices of Tom Hanks and Tim Allen. It was written by John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton, Joel Cohen and Alec Sokolow, and featured music by Randy Newman. Its executive producer was Steve Jobs. Toy Story follows a group of anthropomorphic toys who pretend to be lifeless whenever humans are present, and focuses on Woody, a pullstring Cowboy doll (Hanks), and Buzz Lightyear, an astronaut action figure (Allen).
The top-grossing film on its opening weekend,[2] Toy Story went on to earn over $191 million in the United States and Canada during its initial theatrical release and took in more than $361 million worldwide.[1] Reviews were overwhelmingly positive, praising both the technical innovation of the animation and the wit and sophistication of the screenplay,[3][4] and it is now widely considered, by many critics, to be one of the greatest and most revolutionary films in the history of animation.
In addition to DVD and Blu-ray releases, Toy Story-inspired material has run the gamut from toys, video games, theme park attractions, spin-offs, and merchandise. View-Master released a three-reel set in 3D in 1995, prior to release of 3D films. The film was so successful it prompted two sequels; Toy Story 2 (1999) and Toy Story 3 (2010). Both sequels were instant hits and garnered critical acclaim similar to the first; Toy Story 3 is, to date, the highest-grossing film in Pixar's canon. Leading up to the third film's premiere, as part of its promotion, Toy Story and Toy Story 2 were also re-released as a double feature in Disney Digital 3-D on October 2, 2009.[12] The film was selected into the National Film Registry as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" in 2005, its first year of eligibility.

Plot
Woody, a pull-string cowboy doll, is the leader of a group of toys that belong to a boy named Andy Davis and come to life when humans are not in sight. With his family moving to a new home and having a party, both one week before his birthday, the toys stage a reconnaissance mission to discover Andy's new presents. Andy receives a space ranger Buzz Lightyear action figure, whose interesting features threaten Woody's position as Andy's favorite toy. What's worse, Buzz does not realize that he is a toy and thinks that he is a real space ranger—and many of Woody's toy pals also fall for this fantasy. ....READ MORE

Stuart Little (film)

Stuart Little (film)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Stuart Little is a 1999 family film. It is loosely based on the novel of the same name by E. B. White. It combines live-action and computer animation. The screenplay was co-written by M. Night Shyamalan and Greg Brooker, with uncredited script doctoring by David O. Russell and Billy Ray. The plot of the film bears little resemblance to that of the book; only some of the characters and one or two minor plot elements are the same. The film's sequel more closely resembles the original novel.
Michael J. Fox is the voice of Stuart Little. Geena Davis and Hugh Laurie star as Eleanor and Frederick Little, with Jonathan Lipnicki as Stuart's big brother George Little and Nathan Lane as the voice of the family cat Snowbell.
The film was released on December 17, 1999 by Columbia Pictures.
It received an Academy Award nomination for Best Visual Effects. The film spawned a sequel in 2002, Stuart Little 2, the short lived TV show called Stuart Little: The Animated Series in 2003, and another sequel in 2006, Stuart Little 3: Call of the Wild.

Plot
The film opens with Eleanor and Frederick Little (Geena Davis and Hugh Laurie) and their son George (Jonathan Lipnicki) on the day they are intending an adoption. George wants to go to the orphanage with them, but he has to go to school. While he is at school, his parents go to the orphanage where, among all the kids there, they fall in love with a thoughtful, observant mouse named Stuart (voiced by Michael J. Fox), who knows almost everything about the other children, having been there for a long time. Despite the warnings of Mrs. Keeper (the woman in charge), who says that humans should not be adopting mice, they decide to adopt him as their second son.
Immediately after getting home, Stuart meets Snowbell (voiced by Nathan Lane) the family cat, who immediately attempts to eat him. George arrives home and is surprised when his parents introduce Stuart as his new brother. He thinks it is a joke at first, but is shocked when he realizes they are being serious. That night, Snowbell visits Stuart and requests that he keep a low profile, so as to avoid getting seen by the other cats and damaging Snowbell's image (the alley cats would laugh forever if they heard that there was a mouse with a pet cat). ....READ MORE

Lilo & Stitch

Lilo & Stitch
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Lilo & Stitch is a 2002 American animated feature produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released on June 21, 2002. The 42nd animated feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics, it was written and directed by Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois, and features the voices of Sanders, Daveigh Chase, Tia Carrere, David Ogden Stiers, Kevin McDonald, Ving Rhames, Jason Scott Lee, and Kevin Michael Richardson. Lilo & Stitch was the second of three Disney animated features produced primarily at the Walt Disney Feature Animation Florida studio located at Walt Disney World's Disney-MGM Studios in Orlando, Florida. Lilo & Stitch was nominated for the 2002 Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, which ultimately went to Hayao Miyazaki's film, Spirited Away, which was also distributed by Walt Disney Pictures.
A direct-to-video sequel, Stitch! The Movie, was released on August 26, 2003. This was followed by a television series, Lilo & Stitch: The Series, which ran from September 20, 2003 to July 29, 2006. A second direct-to-video sequel, Lilo & Stitch 2: Stitch Has a Glitch, was released on August 30, 2005. A third and final direct-to-video sequel, Leroy & Stitch, was released on June 27, 2006 as the conclusion to the TV series.

Plot
Dr. Jumba Jookiba is put on trial by the galactic governing body for illegal genetic experiments, including his latest creation, Experiment 626: an aggressive and cunning creature that is nearly indestructible. Jumba is imprisoned while Experiment 626 is set to be exiled on a desert asteroid. However, during transport on Captain Gantu's ship, 626 manages to escape to the Planet Earth (despite having guns that are encoded with his DNA and designed to only shoot while pointed at him). The Grand Councilwoman orders Jumba to work with Agent Pleakley to recover 626 discreetly. 626 survives his escape attempt to Earth, landing on the Hawaiian island of Kauai, but is knocked unconscious by a passing truck, and is taken to an animal shelter because he is believed by the truck drivers to be a breed of dog. ...READ MORE

Rio (film)

Rio (film)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Rio, often promoted as Rio: The Movie, is a 2011 American 3D computer-animated musical comedy film produced by Blue Sky Studios and directed by Carlos Saldanha. The title refers to the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro,[4] in which the film is set. The film features the voices of Jesse Eisenberg, Anne Hathaway, will.i.am, Jamie Foxx, George Lopez, Tracy Morgan, Jemaine Clement, Leslie Mann, Rodrigo Santoro and Jake T. Austin.[5] It tells the story of Blu (Eisenberg), a male blue macaw who is taken to Rio de Janeiro to mate with a female. He eventually falls in love with Jewel (Hathaway), a free-spirited macaw, and together they have to escape from being smuggled by Nigel (Clement), a cockatoo. The theme song, "Telling the World" was sung by Taio Cruz.
Saldanha developed his first story concept of Rio in 1995, in which a penguin is washed up in Rio. However, Saldanha learned of the production of the films Happy Feet and Surf's Up, and changed the concept to involve macaws and their environments in Rio. He proposed his idea to Chris Wedge in 2006, and the project was set up at Blue Sky. The main voice actors were approached in 2009. During production, the crew visited Rio de Janeiro and also consulted with an expert on macaws at the Bronx Zoo to study their movements.
20th Century Fox released the film on March 22, 2011 in Brazil and April 15, 2011 in the United States. The film received generally positive reviews from film critics. Observers praised the visuals, voice acting, and music. The film was also a box office success, grossing over $484 million worldwide.

Plot

In Brazil, several types of exotic birds get smuggled to different countries. While driving to Moose Lake, Minnesota, a crate with a male blue macaw hatchling falls into the snow. Linda Gunderson quickly finds the macaw, adopting him as her pet and naming him Blu. However, he is unable to fly, which makes him subject to ridicule by the Canadian Geese that frequent the outside of Linda's bookstore.
One day, ornithologist Túlio Monteiro invites Blu and Linda to vacation in Rio de Janeiro, on the condition that Blu mate with a female macaw before his return to Moose Lake, as he is the last male of his species. Linda takes the offer and the three are flown to Rio, where Blu meets a Red-crested Cardinal named Pedro and his Yellow Canary friend Nico. Blu is taken to Túlio's aviary, and falls in love with Jewel, a fiercely independent blue macaw longing to flee into the wilderness. Blu and Jewel are captured by a boy named Fernando and a Sulphur-crested Cockatoo named Nigel, both of whom work for a group of smugglers led by Marcel. Nigel tells the macaws that he vowed to smuggle exotic birds because of his role being replaced on a television program. Blu and Jewel flee into a jungle. ....READ MORE

Marsupilami

Marsupilami
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Marsupilami is a fictional comic book species created by André Franquin, first published on 31 January 1952 in the magazine Spirou.[1] Since then it appeared regularly in the popular Belgian comic book series Spirou et Fantasio until Franquin stopped working on the series in 1968 and the character dropped out soon afterward. In the late 1980s, the Marsupilami got its own successful spin-off series of comic albums, Marsupilami, written by Greg, Yann and Dugomier and drawn by Batem, launching the publishing house Marsu Productions. Later, two animated shows featuring this character, as well as a Sega Genesis video game and a variety of other merchandise followed. The asteroid 98494 Marsupilami is named in its honour.
The name is a portmanteau of the words marsupial, Pilou-Pilou (the French name for Eugene the Jeep, a character Franquin loved as a kid) and ami, French for friend.
Marsupilami's adventures had been translated to several languages, like Dutch, German, Spanish, Portuguese and several Scandinavian languages. More than three million albums of the Marsupilami series are claimed to have been sold by Marsu Productions.[2]
One album of Spirou and Fantasio featuring Marsupilami, number 15, was translated to English by Fantasy Flight Publishing in 1995, although it is currently out of print. Plans on releasing number 16 ended halfway through the translation process, due to bad sales. In 2007, Egmont's subsidiary Euro Books translated albums number 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 14 for the Indian market.

Appearance
The marsupilami is a black-spotted yellow monkey-like creature.[3] Male marsupilamis have an incredibly long, strong, flexible and prehensile tail which can be used for almost anything. Female marsupilamis have a much shorter tail, but still long compared to real animals. Unlike the males, the females also walk on the tips of their toes. When the animal rebounds, he makes a funny noise: "Boing". Males also have eyes that are not completely separate while females have two separate eyes. Female marsupilamis also have a totally different voice than the males. Males say "houba" most of the time, while females say "houbii", which means the same thing as houba, but sounds more feminine. According to the L'Encyclopédie du Marsupilami, they are monotremes like the platypus and echidna, which explains why they lay eggs while having mammalian features. ...READ MORE

Barney & Friends

Barney & Friends
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Barney and Friends, also referred to by HiT Entertainment as Barney the Friendly Dinosaur, is an independent children's television show produced in the United States, aimed at children from ages 1-8. The series, which first aired in 1992, features the title character Barney, a purple anthropomorphic Tyrannosaurus rex who conveys educational messages through songs and small dance routines with a friendly, optimistic attitude.Since September 18, 2009, the show has been on hiatus.

Origin and development

Barney was created in 1987 by Sheryl Leach of Dallas, Texas.[9] She came up with the idea for the program while considering TV shows that she felt would be educational and appeal to her son. Leach then brought together a team who created a series of home videos, Barney and the Backyard Gang, which also starred actress Sandy Duncan in the first three videos.[10] Later, Barney was joined by the characters Baby Bop, B.J., and Riff.
Although the original videos were only a modest success outside of Texas, Barney became a major success only when the character and format were revamped for the television series and were picked up by the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), debuting as Barney and Friends in 1992.[11] The series was produced by Lyrick Studios (bought by HIT Entertainment) and Connecticut Public Television.[12] For several years, the show was taped at the Color Dynamics Studios facility at Greenville Avenue & Bethany Drive in Allen, after which it moved to The Studios at Las Colinas in Dallas, Texas. Currently, the series is produced in Carrollton, Texas, a suburb of Dallas. The TV series and videos are currently distributed by HiT Entertainment and Lionsgate, while the TV series has been produced by WNET since 2006. Sheryl Leach left the show in 2002 after HiT Entertainment bought Lyrick Studios. ...READ MORE

The Flintstones

The Flintstones
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Flintstones is an animated, prime-time American television sitcom that screened from September 30, 1960 to April 1, 1966, on ABC. Produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions, The Flintstones was about a working class Stone Age man's life with his family and his next-door neighbor and best friend. It has since been re-released on both DVD and VHS. The show celebrated its 50th anniversary on September 30, 2010.
The show's popularity rested heavily on its juxtaposition of modern everyday concerns in the Stone Age setting.[4][5] It has been announced that Seth MacFarlane (creator of Family Guy, American Dad! and The Cleveland Show) will produce a revival of The Flintstones for the Fox network. Development is set to begin in fall 2011 and the first episode is scheduled to air in 2013.

Overview
The show is set in the Stone Age town of Bedrock. (In some of the earlier episodes, it was also referred to as "Rockville"). In this fantasy version of the past, dinosaurs, saber-toothed tigers, woolly mammoths, and other long-extinct animals co-exist with cavemen. Like their mid-20th century peers, these cavemen listen to records, live in split-level homes, and eat out at restaurants, yet their technology is made entirely from pre-industrial materials and largely powered through the use of various animals. For example, the cars are made out of stone, wood, and animal skins, and powered by the passengers' feet (as in the theme song, "Through the courtesy of Fred's two feet").

Technology
Often the "prehistoric" analogue to a modern machine uses an animal.[8] For example, when a character takes photographs with an instant camera, inside of the camera box, a bird carves the picture on a stone tablet with its bill. In a running gag, the animal powering such technology would frequently break the fourth wall, look directly into the camera at the audience and offer a mild complaint about their job. Other commonly seen gadgets in the series include a baby woolly mammoth used as a vacuum cleaner; an adult woolly mammoth acting as a shower by spraying water with its trunk; elevators raised and lowered by ropes around brontosauruses' necks; "automatic" windows powered by monkeys on the outside; birds acting as "car horns," sounded by the driver pulling on their tails or squeezing their bodies; an "electric" razor made from a clam shell, vibrating from a honey-bee inside; a washing machine shown by a pelican with a beakful of soapy water; and a woodpecker whose beak is used to play a gramophone record....READ MORE

ChalkZone

ChalkZone
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

ChalkZone is an American animated television series that aired on Nickelodeon. It was created by Bill Burnett and Larry Huber, and produced by Frederator Studios for the Nickelodeon TV channel (executive producers: Bill Burnett, Larry Huber, Fred Seibert). It is distributed outside the United States by Canadian animation company, Nelvana Limited.




Premise
The main character, an elementary school student named Rudy Tabootie (E.G. Daily), has been gifted with a magically endowed piece of chalk that allows access to the ChalkZone, an alternate dimension where everything and everyone that's ever been drawn in chalk and erased takes form as the living and/or tangible. The show concentrated on the adventures of Rudy, his sidekick Snap (Candi Milo), and classmate Penny Sanchez (Hynden Walch) within the zone.

History/Production
ChalkZone was produced by Frederator Studios for the Nickelodeon cable channel. By some—not its creators—the series can be seen as homage to the 1974 cartoon Simon in the Land of Chalk Drawings. But ChalkZone went much farther, positing a world where everything that had ever been drawn in chalk by anyone came to life in the alternative chalk universe, endowed with the soul and personality its creator had intended for it. Thus ChalkZone took such alternate universe stories as Through the Looking Glass and The Wizard of Oz one step further. Where Alice and Dorothy were merely confronted by creatures and situations they had no control over, ChalkZone's hero, Rudy Tabootie had to confront the fact that there were consequences for what he brought into the world and how they interacted with the creations of others. ...READ MORE