I thought that was a dream.

So this challenge has inspired me, so to speak. After watching some of my old Disney movies and checking out some old Disney shorts, I realized that I should get the Walt Disney Treasures line of Mickey, Donald, Pluto, and Goofy (and maybe Oswald). Obviously since they're out of print it will be harder (and more expensive) for me to get them all, but I really think my collection suffers not having these classics of animation. As of now I am waiting for or have already received Mickey Mouse In Black And White Volumes 1 & 2, Mickey Mouse In Living Color Volumes 1 & 2, and The Complete Pluto Volume 1. That's a pretty big dent in the ones I need and leaves me with only 6 left, so slowly, but surely, I'll get them all.

^ out of all those you mentioned I've only watched half of the Oswald short films... and I own all the animated WDT discs - wish there more days in August.

My wife and I re-watched The Princess and the Frog tonight, and I have to say that for my money, it's easily the best thing Disney has done since The Lion King. The animation is gorgeous, the story is interesting and the soundtrack is top notch. One thing I really appreciated was that in the fantasy sequences, the animation is more stylized and distinct from the rest of the film. I thought that was a nice touch.

Jut finished a Star Wars Marathon. Glad Mister Peepers specified that those counted in his original post. I was very glad to watch them again as it's been some time since I last saw them. I watched the Theatrical Cuts from the 2006 2-Disc release, not the best quality around, but better than seeing Greedo shoot first, lol.

I'm nearing completion of the checklist and expect to be done today or tomorrow. It' been a lot of fun.

I'm actually going to go see Avatar for the first time later today. My friend wants to go see the Special Edition Theatrical Re-Release and is more or less dragging me along. I had no interest in seeing it during the initial run, but figure I might as well check it out the second time around and since it will apply to my animation running total I can justify seeing it.

Wow! I just started realizing how many DVDs we have that include animated shorts as bonus features. I knew about the Looney Tunes spoof "Carrotblanca" on the Casablanca 2-disc SE & Blu-ray release, but I had forgotten that another Merrie Melodies short, "8 Ball Bunny," was included with March of the Penguins or that the 1933 animated version of "The Wizard of Oz" was included with the last couple releases of the live action classic. And I had no idea until about 15 minutes ago that Men in Black II includes a short called "The Chub Chubbs." (It's on Disc 1 in the "Frank's Favorites" sub-menu.)

Also, the Bill & Ted box set includes the first episode of the animated series, and there are two episodes of the animated Ghostbusters included on the Ghostbusters II disc in the Ghostbusters 1 & 2 collection. Tomorrow I am definitely sitting down with all three of those episodes for an 80s flashback!

^ The Chub Chubbs Christmas' short is on the 'Surf's Up' dvd/bluray

We don't have that in our library, but it's good to know. Thanks!

I must admit initially Princess and the Frog didn't wow me, but then seeing it again on bluray made me appreciate it more - I thought the only major flaw was the villian, he was a bit lame and one dimensional ( ). All in all though, I hope Disney continues to make traditional 2D cel animated movies.

I wouldn't put Fancier on the level of, say, Scar...but his motivation was clear and he had a great look to him. He reminded me of a cross between Ursula from The Little Mermaid and Baron Samedi from Live and Let Die.

I couldn't really get into Princess and the Frog. It looked good, but I was bored by the story and voice acting, it was no better than DTV sequels imo. But I'll give it another try in a future August. I'll admit that I've been a little off and have a very short attention span lately.

I'm sticking to 30 minute shows until I snap out of this.

So I just watched Banjo The Woodpile Cat for the first time. For those that don't know, it was the first thing Don Bluth & Co. did by themselves during/after they left Disney to branch out on their own. It's a charming little picture and it really let's you see where they got their start and how they developed some of their stylistic techniques.

I enjoyed watching it so much, and because it was Bluth's first non-Disney product, I decided I'd watch it again with Commentary. The Commentary Track is a lot of fun, hearing Don Bluth, Gary Goldman, and John Pomeroy discussing how they got the idea, some of the techniques they had to use, what they could have done better, who animated what, etc.

One of my favourite parts was listening to them talk about how little money they had at this time and how they were all just sort of scrimping together whatever they could to make this short film. One part when they are talking about animating rainfall and snowfall is particularly funny; they say how they found the rain and snow animation cels in the garbage at Disney and took them to use on this short. They also talked about how they had to mix all the paints themselves, how they worked out of apartments, picked people up and drove them to the recording studio, etc.

Watching this short film and listening to them talking about the process really made me appreciate what a chance they were taking going out on their own like this. It took them 4 years to animate this 26-minute film, and you can tell they care a lot about it; hearing them poke fun at some of the things they did to cut costs, criticizing what they could have done better, the pride they have in certain animation achievements, and just reminiscing in general was a lot of fun.

If you're a fan of Don Bluth, I highly recommend heading over to Amazon and buying it on there from Don Bluth Films Inc. They're "burned" discs, but they aren't the cheaper purple underside discs, but rather the higher quality silver underside discs. $14.99 plus shipping (which is fast) and the quality of the video is pretty good for the age of the short.

One of the funniest parts of the commentary is what they say about the final scene...



I got a decent laugh about that. I like that they didn't try to make this out to be some masterpiece, but instead just called it a pretty good first effort.

I decided to rent a few Hayao Miyazaki movies since I had never seen any, and I always hear good things about them. I was expecting to at least enjoy them, but not much more then that, since I've just never been into the anime style.. but wow.. of the few I've seen I'm loving them, going to continue renting them next month to see them all.

Glad to hear you've enjoyed them. He really is a master animator and I think even people that don't enjoy anime in general can enjoy his movies. Which ones have you watched thus far?

Yesterday afternoon, my wife came home from work sick and we flaked out with the animated episodes of Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventures and The Real Ghostbusters that were included as extras with the live action movie releases. Later, we watched Flushed Away, which I hadn't seen but she had. I liked it quite a bit, actually, though the humor was too pun-heavy.

Then I watched G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero - The Revenge of Cobra, the second 5-part mini-series. It actually holds up fairly well, I think--though of course I'm biased as a lifelong fan. I browsed my library and then found that the live-action Undercover Brother DVD includes the original flash animated web series. How do I count that? Are they short films or TV content? They're presented in a contiguous 20:46 minute segment.

If all of the flash episodes total 20 minutes and 46 seconds, I'd just count that as 1/4 of an entry (like a regular television episode) and if it's a series, I'd probably say they were television content, even though they were shown online and the individual episodes aren't the length of a normal television show.

Sounds good to me.

I watched Blood Tea & Red String by Christiane Cegavske today. I borrowed it from the library, but intend to get the DVD. I hadn't heard of it, but noticed it while browsing and decided to watch it because of the challenge. It is a wonderful stop-motion fairy tale. There is no intelligible dialogue and no narration, so it's not necessarily for everyone, and while it isn't as easily accessible as Henry Selick's films, it is much easier to understand and follow than most of Jan Svankmajer's films.

That's the kind of stuff I like to read about. Someone finding something new either because of a challenge. I don't normally watch animation but I did find a couple things I really liked that I normally never would have known about.

speakingof Don Bluth, I had rented a 1960's animated film 'Journey Back to Oz' and he was part of the layout artists that contributed to the film. The film on the whole was quite interesting, in that it starred the voice talents of Liza Minnelli (as Dorothy) Margaret Hamilton (as Aunt Em) Mickey Rooney, Paul Lynde, Danny Thomas and Mel Blanc doing ancilary side characters - talk about a rouster of names - the story is interesting and I'm curious to hear the disc's commentary track.

finished Delgo and while everyone was saying that it mirrored Avatar - I have to say I didn't think that at all (Battle for Terra is the more obvious and blatant comparison). There are some visual motifs but the story, characters were way off the mark - and unfortunately the end film is rather weak, the story is very pedestrian, the characters completely unengaging (the lead princess seemed alot like Princess Fiona from the Shrek movies) - all in all I movie I must admit I could have passed on it.

I think perhaps the best commentary I've watched this month has been the one by a "film historian" trio on Pinocchio. Very engaging with a wealth of information from multiple sources. I forgot to enable PiP, so missed out on storyboards and other visual aids, so may listen to it a 2nd time tonight.

^ oh you're in for a visual treat for the 'Cine-explore' Pinocchio bluray feature - I watched that yesterday, and since it's by far my favorite Disney... er scratch that, favorite movie of all time - all those storyboards, pencil animation etc. was icing on the cake.

in my opinion the best commentary track on a Disney video release is .... 'The Jungle Book' followed by 'Lilo & Stitch', followed by the Moose commentary on 'Brother Bear' (which actually is an absolute riot)