Today I present the first animated special of the holiday season, B.C.: A Special Christmas.
This is the second animated TV special based on Johnny Hart's caveman comic strip, but with different creators than the first special from 1973, B.C.: The First Thanksgiving. This special features classic comedy duo Bob Elliot and Ray Goulding as comic strip characters Peter and Wiley, who invent a new holiday, Xmas, to make money off of the other cave folks. By the end of the special, as with most Christmas specials, they learn the true meaning of Xmas, er, Christmas.
This week's Tuesday's Overlooked TV is the 1980 television special The Fantastic Funnies.
Airing on May 15, 1980 on CBS, this hour-long special showcased the most popular newspaper comic strips of the 20th century up to that time, many of them in animated form, some for the first time. The special was hosted by Loni Anderson with a special guest appearance by her WKRP in Cincinati co-star Howard Hessman in character as Dr. Johnny Fever.
I was going to write more at length about this special, but another blogger has already done so, and better than I could have done it (what a shock). Charles Brubaker of the animation blog Cartoon Research wrote a great article about the special, and you can read it here. Great stuff!
I will, however, provide the entire special right here, courtesy of the online Museum of Classic Chicago Television. I remember seeing this special live when it first aired, as I loved both cartoons and comic strips. Enjoy!
When it comes to posting holiday TV specials, I prefer to stick to more obscure ones that people may have forgotten or didn't even know existed, but today I'm going the other direction and posting a tried and true one.
Here is A Garfield Christmas Special. First airing on December 21, 1987, it was an instant favorite of mine, if for nothing else than the goofy image of Jon and his family "oohing" over their Christmas tree that you see above. My brother and I cracked up for several minutes over how silly they looked! And don't forget Jon's awesome grandma!
I just realized the special celebrates its 30th anniversary next Thursday. Wow!
I've had both my semiannual dental cleaning and oral surgery within the past couple of weeks, and I go back to my dentist this weekend for more work. Needless to say, my teeth have been on my mind a lot lately. Your teeth will be on your mind too after you see today's findings.
Here are two educational short films for children's dental health produced by the same people that created the Peanuts TV specials. In the first, Charlie Brown learns how to properly brush his teeth, and then he learns to floss in the second. Snoopy provides hilarity along the way, as he usually does.
As a huge Peanuts fan, I love finding Peanuts-related material I didn't know about, and these films certainly fit the bill.
Next Tuesday, January 20th at 3pm Eastern time, Marvel Comics is going to make a major announcement about this year's upcoming Secret Wars event, which, unlike every other event from the major comics publishers, is actually supposed to change the Marvel Universe forever for real. Bookmark this link to follow along with the announcement and see what all the hubbub is about! The link won't be live until the actual event, so proceed with caution.
Long before TGI Fridays became the default place for potato skins and Jack Daniels riblets, it's first location was quite the swanky place. Learn this and more about the restaurant chain's surprisingly colorful past here!
Finally, I've professed my love for Adventure Time before, but for a twist on the popular animated series, check out this--let's not call it a rip-off, let's just say it's apparently inspired by AT. From a young group of independent animators in China comes "Legend of Lucky Pie." It's weird, it's trippy, it's mathematical!
Have a great weekend! If you're serving your community this Monday, thank you!
I love the comic strip Peanuts. You know it, I know it, your grandma knows it, and if you don't know it, you know it now. You also know I'm doing a Back to School theme this week, so without further comment, here are several fun Back to School-related Peanuts images I've amassed over time.
No one knows the stress and anxiety school can generate for kids better than Good Ol' Charlie Brown and the gang, so who better to share our grief with? Enjoy!
I haven't done a List O' Links post in a long time, so it's time to rectify that. Here are a few links to keep you from getting work done this fine Friday!
For those looking forward to the holiday season, especially holiday music, SiriusXM satellite radio has announced their holiday channel lineup for 2012.
Chevy Chase has made quite a spectacle of himself with his frequent public battles with his bosses on the NBC comedy Community. However, he's had a very long track record of being, well, an a-hole.
Finally, with the new James Bond flick drawing everyone to the multiplexes in the US this weekend, here is what fans have long needed--a scientific chart of his sexual exploits.
The fifth and final day of Virtual Comic Con is here! We close out the event by talking to Tony Trov and Johnny Zito, creators of comic and movie production studio South Fellini. Tony and Johnny discuss their various comic series, their new movie, and baby mammas.
Brian: You've published five comic series with various
publishers such as Red 5 and Image, and also published directly via
Comixology. Do you approach publishers differently from one another, and
have you learned different things about publishing from dealing with
multiple companies?
Tony: Each project is unique so it kind of gets started in its
own way. But in the end we look to get the comics into as many
platforms as possible. We want to be on-line, in phones, floppy issues
and graphic novels.
Johnny: The only thing we know for certain about comic book
distribution is that everyone reads comics differently. We want to get
our stories into as many people's hands as possible.
Brian: With Moon
Girl, you took an obscure public domain character created by Gardner
Fox/Sheldon Moldoff and managed to both keep her true to her roots in
the 50s, yet also modernized her well for today's audience. What were
the challenges in doing that?
Johnny: We wanted to work on something super hero based because of
Rahzzah, the illustrator of Moon Girl. His very realistic, painterly
style lent itself to making incredible seem credible in a cinematic way.
So we started looking for something in the public domain, something
that had roots in the shared past of super hero comics.
Tony: Moon Girl took a lot of inspiration from books like Marvels and New
Frontier. Super heroes seem to function best when they're
recontextualized to that 1950's setting. So when we stumbled onto Moon
Girl these ideas all came together at once.
Johnny: The comic is about social unrest in America in a time after a
great war. There are some parallels to the world we live in today.
Everyone is looking inside themselves, flush with possibility, trying
to decide the kind of future they're going to build together.
Tony: All five issues will be collected into a graphic novel this year.
Brian: Carnivale de Robotique is the only all ages comic South Fellini has
done. Did the story itself dictate that direction, or did you decide
first that you wanted to try an all ages series and go from there?
Tony: We self-published Robotique for Indie Comic Day or Skip
Week, some special event where all the big publishers were not going to
have any new releases. So a lot of us independent folks put out books on
our own. We called comic shops and solicited the comic ourselves. And
we got lucky, the stores were very supportive of the event.
Johnny: It's a four-part comic about Wendy the nanny droid, who runs
away to join the robot circus. And she kind of finds her way in the
world by persuing her dreams. We tried to tell a fairy tale from the
future and Mark Fionda brought some gorgeous water colors to the mix. I
think the comic is still very adult but the images hide the subtext.
Brian: DOGS of Mars has often been compared to Alien for obvious
reasons, but takes a unique approach with its art, in suggesting rather
than explicitly showing the creatures and most of the violence they
cause, and also in the color scheme (only black, white, and shades of
red). Was that your idea or did the artist conceive of that approach?
Johnny: We met Paul Maybury, the artist on DOGS of Mars, at San Diego
Comic Con in 2010. All three of us had shuffled through DC Comics
digital imprint and come out the other side looking to work together on
something genre. We talked a lot about Japanese gore core, war movies
and real world robots. Paul came up with the red color scheme based on
the submarine lighting and the traditional tones of Mars.
Tony: DOGS isn't really about the monster. It's about the people the
monster is trying to kill. There are obvious allusions to Aliens but
the Lord of the Flies-style breakdown in society is what's really
terrifying. Friends are turning on one another and rivals are the only
people you have left. Trapped at the edge, these people have to give up
their humanity if they want to survive.
Brian: Your latest project is the live action film Alpha Girls, about a
satanic sorority. Judging by the trailer, there is a definite 1970s
grindhouse influence. What is it about the horror films of that era that
resonate so strongly with audiences today?
Johnny: I think we were really inspired by Suspiria, Heathers,
and Evil Dead. These movies served as the visual vocabulary between
people creatively involved in the project. These are the films that get
you excited to make something of your own. There’s an energy and
excitement on screen that translates so well because the people making
it love what they do.
Tony: Alpha Girls was going to be a comic book originally. We got
really into the sorority/coven idea ourselves and after a few weeks it
was like, hey… I think we can make this. There's a universal appeal to
the horror genre because it's about revealing a hidden world that we all
secretly believe could be true. How did all those people get rich and
famous? The devil did it.
Brian: All of your work, up to and including Alpha Girls, features women
characters guiding almost all of the story, yet South Fellini consists
of two guys from South Philly. Why has featuring women characters in the
forefront of your projects been so crucial creatively?
Johnny: They told us to write what we know.
Tony: We love our bad-ass mothers very much.
Brian: If Alpha Girls is a success (and I hope it is for you), will movies be
the main creation of South Fellini going forward, or will comics still
be a creative outlet in the future?
Johnny: We wanna make all our comics into movies and all of our movies into comics.
Tony: For all of the Baby Mamas, Baby momma momma’s and Baby momma’s mommas of the world.
Thanks Tony and Johnny!
Alpha Girls will be screening at the Trocadero in Philadelphia next Wednesday, October 3rd, and in Washington, DC at the E Street Theater next Saturday, October 6th. For full details, click here.
Here's a glimpse of what you can expect from Alpha Girls (NSFW). And yes, that is who you think it is as the priest!
And with that, we wrap up my first-ever Virtual Comic Con! I want to thank all of my guests who have made this a great event: Jeff Parker, Shawn Aldridge, Joe Rybandt, and Tony Trov and Johnny Zito. I couldn't have done it without you!
Most of all, I want to thank you, the reader, for taking part. I hope you enjoyed my version of a comic con. Please let me know your thoughts in the comments sections or at phillyradiogeek@gmail.com. I definitely want to do this again next year--perhaps more than once.
It's only fitting that I close out the con with news of a horror film, because it makes a perfect segue to my next blog event--the Countdown to Halloween! It's a mere three days away. I have tons of great stuff to share with you, so please stay tuned. It all starts Monday, October 1st. See you there!
