I'm not sure how much longer these things will be free, but iTunes has been offering a lot of free TV episodes this summer. There's an assortment of Kids' Shows that includes some animated fare and another collection of free anime episodes here. I didn't see anything really mandatory in any of it, but everyone's taste is different. Plus, I wouldn't know a "good" anime if it came with a label. For all I know, it's the giveaway of the century.

I plan to focus on "real" animation for the majority of the month, but I have to admit that the CGI/VFX option does provide some nice breathing room in case I feel like a change-of-pace. I think it's a fun-sounding challenge either way, but personally I feel that a broader category is better. Those who want to restrict themselves to a certain type of animation can certainly still do so, while others can sample a wider array of films. Just my two cents.

So I'm guessing (and I just popped it in) that Sky Captain and The World of Tomorrow counts and also does a bang-up job of bridging the SF and Animation challenges....

And if that counts, doesn't the second Star Wars trilogy also count?

^^^^They count.

Start as of a few minutes ago.

Pulling a second straight near all-nighter to finish off the Sci-Fi Challenge checklist, and was able to make most of this morning's selections work in this Challenge as well.

This is a nice sort of sub-Challenge in itself, making max scoring combos. Unfortunately, I think Criterion is Animation-less, so no way to do this next month.

As soon as Mad Monster Party? finishes I'm sleeping for 12 hours.

Isn't there some floating brain with eyes movie, Equinox and Robocop, as they used models for some of ED-209's scenes?

Thanks, but what do those have to do with Animation?



Actually, for Sci-Fi checklist purchases I needed Star Wars and The Matrix, finished both after midnight, so hypocrite me will be listing those as the first two entries in my Animation list.

Just watched Robocop yesterday, and Equinox four times this year, but perhaps I'll find some other Criterions with extensive effect work for August 31st nighttime.

This is Trevor's personal checklist

Well, I am assuming The Neverending Story counts since it is one of the prizes. I'll probably watch that some time this month. I hope if I win something it isn't that one. I got some UK DVDs that I've been meaning to watch on my region free player that I'll probably be going through (already started some on Inhumanoids).

I didn't think of it when I started watching 101 Dalmatians to satisfy the "First item alphabetically in your collection," but I assume that it qualifies even though it's a number title? I went with it since it shows up first on my Google Docs List and DVDAficionado. Anyone think it shouldn't count?

Definitely should count. Titles beginning with a number are listed at the top of my collection as well (DVD Profiler).

It counts depending on where you file it.

I spell out my numbers, so 101 Dalmatians is in the Os for me.

Thanks for the input guys. I'll count it as the first animated title alphabetically, since according to both of my lists it is. Also, I was more in a mood for 101 Dalmatians than Aladdin anyway.

What happened to the checklist? It looks like the one from the unwatched movie pile thread.

It's always been that here. I'm adding at least the decades and format options to mine.

Well, what I meant is "why is the checklist like that?"

There were a whole bunch of good ideas in the past few weeks that I guess I just assumed were going to be put on the checklist (I never looked until this morning.) I guess I'm a little confused why the checklist wouldn't look similar to all the other challenges.

Definitely a weird checklist for this challenge.

I've just been really busy and there was some argument for a more general checklist, feel free to add on decades and other ideas. At the very minimum, try to do the more general one which shouldn't be that hard.

eh, ignore the last post. If nobody minds I'll expand upon the checklist some and have it up today.

How does this look? I'm not sure how easy the earlier decades will be and I'm also drugged up from medicine since I caught a 24 hour bug.

--- Title from your favorite genre(out of what's in your collection)
--- Title from your least favorite genre(out of what's in your collection)
--- Title with a favorite character - length doesn't matter
--- Title with a loathed character - length doesn't matter
--- Special feature
--- Commentary track
--- Title from the hardest to reach part of your collection - length doesn't matter
--- Title starting with ABC
--- Title starting with DEF
--- Title starting with GHI
--- Title starting with JKLM
--- Title starting with NOP
--- Title starting with QRS
--- Title starting with TUV
--- Title starting with WXYZ
--- First item alphabetically in your collection - length doesn't matter
--- Last item alphabetically in your collection - length doesn't matter
--- Oldest title(as in year made) - length doesn't matter
--- Oldest qualifying title you've bought. If you have old VHS tapes, don't forget to look there too. Format doesn't matter. - length doesn't matter
--- Newest title(as in year made) - length doesn't matter
--- Newest title you've bought - length doesn't matter
--- Finish a season or volume of a series - length doesn't matter
--- Pick an item at random. Make sure those crappy ones get an equal chance to get picked
--- Have a friend/spouse/child/dog/fish pick an item for you. No helping - length doesn't matter

Watch one item from every decade, starting with the 1900s.
--- 1900 (optional)-
--- 1910 (optional) -
--- 1920 (optional) -
--- 1930 -
--- 1940 -
--- 1950 -
--- 1960 -
--- 1970 -
--- 1980 -
--- 1990 -
--- 2000 -
--- 2010 -

Watch films in at least two languages other than English.
--- First language -
--- Second language -

Watch a film for each rating (optional):
--- G -
--- PG -
--- PG-13 -
--- R -
--- NC-17 -
--- X -
--- Unrated -

--- Watch and anime movie or series -
--- Watch a US kid's show that originally aired on Sat mornings -
--- Puppet show -
--- Mostly or all CGI -
--- Watch 90+ minutes worth of shorts (i.e Tom and Jerry, Bugs Bunny) -
--- Cartoon based on a newspaper comic strip -

These genres:
--- Superhero cartoon -
--- Comedy -
--- Adventure -
--- Fantasy -
--- SF -

Watch a movie/show made by:
--- Walt Disney -
--- Chuck Jones -
--- Ub Iwerks -
--- Ralph Bakshi -
--- Fleischer Brothers -
--- Paul Dini -
--- Tex Avery -
--- Hayao Miyazaki -

There's only one category in the checklist I have a problem with: the Ratings.

I'm not going outside of my collection for this, and the great majority of my animation either predates the MPAA ratings system or comes from outside the U.S. and was never submitted to the MPAA. Sure, NINJA SCROLL would be R-rated if it was ever submitted to the MPAA, but it wasn't. And some of the anime titles I have would be rated NC-17, but they've never been submitted. There have been X-rated animated films, like FRITZ THE CAT and a parody of Tarzan called SHAME OF THE JUNGLE, but I don't have access to either one of those and I'm not going to go look for them and waste time needed to watch stuff that I actually have. And "X" was a very specific category covering a set period of time. Very few animated films were released during that time that were rated X. So including this in the checklist is a burden, esp. for those of use who don't download or look for movies on bootleg websites or YouTube.

So I would respectfully ask you to remove the Ratings category from the checklist.

Ratings is set to optional. I just marked it at the top instead of at every rating.

The checklist is optional by default and some of the categories in any challenge are not easy to check off. So I don't know why we would start, now, making some portions of the checklist optional, and some not.

If there are some categories where there are only a handful of titles that qualify, then maybe those should be revisited, but why change how we've been doing it for one particular challenge?

I agree with this. I have no intention of watching an X-rated movie but I will just use one of my three wild cards for this.

I do think it would be a good idea to remove any categories that will be difficult to find. This would address some concerns without changing the way this has been done in the past.

Sorry, I didn't see the "(optional)."


Now, I have a question about this part of the checklist:

How do "oldest title" and "newest title" differ from "oldest qualifying title you've bought" and "newest title you've bought"? As someone who's relying entirely on my collection (as I'm sure many of us are), I'm a little confused by this.

Thank you.