Keith Palmer's Multi-Purpose Journal

In keeping up with the “Cartoon Brew” web site, I noticed reports of two “Looney Tunes movies” that had been made only to become entangled in the run-down state of their studio. Coyote vs. Acme became a cause celebre, or at least one recent example of “people want what they cannot have.” Amid rumours of other companies trying to acquire the rights to it, though, the other movie did get to the point of being picked up. With the impression it was connected to “new Looney Tunes” shorts I’d heard about but never quite got around to tracking down, I did start thinking it might be interesting to see The Day the Earth Blew Up.
( More than a few surprises )

Warnings about the impending disintegration of the Warner Brothers studio under uncaring management have been cropping up for a while. I suppose I’ve noticed them with bemused detachment, but also with the thought that fulminating about big companies is both quite noticeable these days yet something that might only depress other people who run into it. The news that Warner Brothers was shutting down the computer animation studio Rooster Teeth, who make RWBY, did jolt me all the same. I’d been willing to hope the series was moving towards its conclusion even after having pretty much dodged it for its latest block of episodes, but now there seems the possibility there might never be a conclusion.
( Getting towards, if not to, the ultimate recourse )

Several of the animated-in-Japan shorts bundled together as “Star Wars Visions” left me thinking I could watch them again; I haven’t found the time for even that much, though. It still got my attention again anyway when I saw announcements animation studios now from around the world would be contributing shorts to a new Visions series. The thought “man cannot live by anime alone” creeps back to me every so often, in between watching yet more anime anyway. I was conscious again of “animation” remaining what’ll get me to take in even a little bit of the “post-sale stuff” I’ve otherwise checked out on altogether. It took a while for me to get around to it, however. Even if the shorts might not be “canonical,” I was aware some of the previous ones had just happened to reiterate odds and sods tossed into the “Disney Space Movies.”
( The further Visions )

Running across not just a report the latest “Simpsons Halloween special” would have a segment “in anime style” but a clip of the animation was enough to turn my thoughts in a direction they hadn’t pointed in for quite a while. It’s been almost ten years since a report of “a quick sight gag of anime costumes” in a previous Halloween special reminded me how long it had been since I’d stopped watching The Simpsons and how I wasn’t bothered by that. This latest report, though, did get me thinking it had come in advance of the special. I went so far as to look in the TV guide that comes with my Saturday newspaper, note The Simpsons wasn’t being “simulcast” on a Canadian channel any more, and figure out where to tune into the American airing. (A few unfortunate thoughts about “the commercials being the really scary part” did come to mind along the way.)
( Into the vault of fear )

Novelty alone might have got my attention when Netflix began streaming a movie based on a manga but animated in France. A “live-action adaptation” would have been familiar enough. (A few years ago, I happened to see reports of a French movie based on a “localized” version of City Hunter from quite a while before.) So too would have been an “anime-esque cartoon”; the manga being adapted seemed rather different than the Western fan-creator “impressions of anime” I’m aware of (for all that I’m not opposed to them in principle). In being distinct from either of those possibilities, though, the movie did get me thinking again of the hand-wringing among English-speaking anime fans about animators in Japan being stretched to snapping. (I’ve seen interviews with European animators enlisted for the final ordeal of Wonder Egg Priority, although I do wonder if the writing was more of the ultimate issue with that series, and whether the three-month delay before the last episode was three months some people could still feel positive towards the show...) The notices for the movie seemed good even so, so I was willing to make The Summit of the Gods the latest thing eking my Netflix subscription along. I happened to watch it in the evening with wind audibly blowing outside, which might have added something to a movie about mountain climbing.
( Ever upward )

Not quite two years ago, as I wrote up another “quarterly review” of anime watched I mentioned how I’d managed in the space of three months to see at least a bit of anime made in each of the decades from the 1960s to the current day. The next year, I just happened to be able to stop by those decades again and then add one more to them, if only by calendar digits. Three months later, I topped myself again by contriving to watch the first full colour feature-length animated film made in Japan at the end of the 1950s.

However, even if I’ve noticed enough muttering about “other fans who won’t watch anything but the newest anime when these classics are better in every way that counts” to think ranging through time the way I manage is a little unusual, I’ve also seen a certain number of warnings “not to let something so narrow and trivial as your light entertainment tastes define you,” and I kept pushing back uneasy thoughts my whirlwind tours were just tiny almost-boasts. With Hakujaden watched I did suppose I was about finished anyway; to go further back again seemed to mean getting to “World War II and its lead-up,” and my first thought there was of a black-and-white feature-length animated film potential “propaganda strangeness” just seemed spread out over too great a length to interest me, and a society drifting into something it might take more care than I can muster to further describe without raising its own trouble.

Then, though, I did pick up on some pieces of animation from Japan as far back at the late 1920s. “Almost a century” was something, but even as I started toying with new thoughts I discovered I wouldn’t have to make do with that particular qualifier. A panel from a “streaming convention” pointed me to bits of animation that had survived the 1923 Tokyo earthquake and fire all the way to the point of official online availability. Encompassing “more than a century” would top myself once and for all, although I then happened to think I could also get around to some short American animations of comparable vintage too.
( 1917-1959 )

Describing how I’d found and bought a copy of Leonard Maltin’s Of Mice and Magic, I wound up mentioning some particular old cartoons I was now more interested in watching, including Tex Avery’s work for MGM. Then, not all that long after that, I happened on a notice some of those shorts would be released on a Blu-Ray. While I did implicate myself to the point of ordering the disc from Amazon rather than seeking out some other, less overwhelming source, I was ready to start watching it.

This new interest hadn’t sprung just from Maltin’s enthusiastic descriptions. In my cartoon-consuming childhood, the Tom and Jerry block I watched on the TVs at my grandparents sometimes included shorts without the cat and mouse. After a while (and with previous trips through a library copy of Maltin’s book back then), I sorted out MGM hadn’t just employed William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, but also a director who’d worked at Warner Brothers before now downplaying recurring characters and pushing the classical gag formulas to their utmost.
( Leading off and results )

The time commitment to “watch a movie” wouldn’t seem to be excessive, but what with one thing and another it’s not easy for me to block out two hours or more. Perhaps this really is “just what others do, not what ‘has’ to be done,” but I can wonder about “a badly abraded attention span,” too. On the weekend, though, I did manage to open up at last my Blu-Ray of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse, which I’d seen at the movies on noticing the enthusiasm of others for its animation and liked enough then.
( Aided by cultural osmosis )

It took “the anime convention I actually visited in person” launching its own online substitute to get me tuning back into live streams, but as I watched some panels from Anime North I was thinking one weekend ahead to another online convention I’d become aware of. Otakon has registered on me before, and now of course it being associated with somewhere further away doesn’t matter. Noticing there would be six simultaneous streams, though, was just a little intimidating for all that I could suppose having to pick and choose was no more and no less than anyone ever had to do in person.
( The suspicious solution )

So far as “fan events at anime conventions” go I was at least aware of davemerrill’s “Anime Hell,” but despite some curiosity going to see one of them didn’t mesh with my “early to bed, early to rise” schedule. Recent announcements of an online-streaming version did get my attention; as better as it would be for everyone for that not to be necessary, I could see it as a welcome-enough diversion. It also turned out I could resort to a backup browser and watch the video from a Facebook address without a Facebook account.

The eclectic mix of clips and commercials keyed into my interest in Mystery Science Theater 3000 and animation in general (and I found brief distraction from an old “Women of Robotech” toy commercial by spotting the keyboard of an original Macintosh in it); saying something about there being no particular emphasis on pieces of animation made in Japan might, I suppose, produce an “that’s exactly the point” response. A selection from Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! did have a welcome “it’s not all nostalgia” feeling to it (for all that it had featured nostalgia for an older series to begin with and led into a bit from that show). I am a bit aware that viewing this with a crowd able to share out-loud laughter would have increased the humour, but this might be one case where having missed out on the unadulterated experience before didn’t hurt me.