Flooby Nooby

April 19, 2011

“Rusty’s Long Journey Home” by Mike Hollingsworth

April 18, 2011

Walk Cycles from Disney's 1973 Feature "Robin Hood"

This movie is the best clinic out there for walks and runs, seriously... can you name another animated film that has more blatant bipedal walk cycles than this one? I think not! I started to study this film when I was in animation college cause I was blown away at how much good reference there was here, I had to play/rewind the old VHS tape over and over to watch and learn from them.

Watching the film again recently compelled me to edit and assemble all these anthropomorphic animal walks and runs into one clip... enjoy!

Review - Hobo with a Shotgun

Directed by Jason Eisener, written by John Davies, and filmed with a crazy palette of super-saturated colors, this down-and-dirty (sure to be one of the top cult movies from 2011) is a non-stop, over-the-top, intentionally ridiculous visual feast of bloodshed and violence that evolves into pure 100% fun... I highly recommend it.

Eisener throws you from laughter into screams, with his newest creation Hobo with a Shotgun which is an excellent follow up to his popular Sundance short Treevenge, which was a hilariously horrific look at Christmas trees (I had showcased the film two years ago here, long before I knew who Eisener was). Cinematographer Karim Hussain, costume designer Sarah Dunsworth and production designer Ewen Dickson collaborate to give the film's Nova Scotia locations a unique look, and the whole thing plays like a tribute to the star himself. Rutger Hauer and films like The Hitcher, Flesh+Blood, Wanted: Dead or Alive, seem to be acclaimed and worshiped through the very making of this movie, and of course Hauer does a fantastic job playing the Hobo who's out to wage this brutal solo war in a city ravaged by crime and depravity.

This film reminded me of such classics as "The Warriors" and "Class of 1984", there's been plenty of filmmakers in recent years that have attempted to capture that style and atmosphere, but few have been able to do it as well as "Hobo with a Shotgun". It has some of that Roger Corman spirit to it, paying a fantastic homage to the grimy drive-in B-flicks of the '70s.

I enjoyed this movie a lot, but I am incredibly biased, since it was shot here in my town of Halifax/Dartmouth. I would see the recognizable Nova Scotia backdrtop in nearly every shot. It has a few familiar Canadian faces like Robb Wells and George Strombolopolous to name a few. But as some of you may know, ALL Canadian films (and television) have a certain"look" about them, a look that many Canadians often shudder to witness - THIS movie has none of that.

As crude and violent as some may think this film to be, this is probably the most fan-friendly movie to ever come out of Canada, and it delivers on its genre promises. This film is certainly the best trash-cinema/drive-in throwback genre movie to ever be made in Canada (to my knowledge). And most likely the best post-apocalyptic/action movie to come out of Nova Scotia since Def Con 4... HA!

I must mention the end credits song; Lisa Lougheed's 1988 "Run With Us". I remember this track playing for the closing credits of each episode of The Raccoons animated series, it's haunting theme stills sends chills up my spine.

The film is available On-Demand in US (http://www.magpictures.com/ondemand)
Make sure to check it out!

Why is the movie so good?
Rutger Hauer's performance (as always) is fantastic, he plays the whole
thing with deadly seriousness.
The music and sound oozes of early 80s slasher films.
The lighting is high contrast and soaked with bright colors.
The production design and location work gives you a
good sense of the post-apocalyptic world we find ourselves in.
The actors are appropriately cast and fit in their roles quite well.
Props and costumes are perfect for the genre.
The FX and the gore are fitting and plentiful.
Story structure and character development are simple but well thought out.
Eisener recreates the 70s/80s exploitation film style with an impressive
attention to detail, and giving us a great grindhouse cinema experience.

Suffice it to say, I'm looking forward to whatever Jason Eisener does next. I still wish I could get my hands on that awesome Hobo poster. Here's an excerpt of an article from our local paper:

With the buzz coming off of Sundance, Eisener has received the inevitable job offer from Hollywood to do a horror remake. "I turned it down," he says. Though he acknowledges the money was good, he doesn't want to spend two years on something where his heart isn't in it. "No amount of money is worth that." Besides, the script for the next movie is already being written and Fichman is on board again to help get it made. "It's going to be a high school martial arts movie," says Eisener, gleefully. Source: The Coast

Bonus: Check out this Fangoria interview with the director.

Voice Actor - Daws Butler

A true legend in the world of cartoon voice acting.
His first voice work came in 1943 at MGM. Tex Avery hired Butler to provide narration work for several of his cartoons. In many cartoons, there was a nameless wolf who spoke in a Southern accent and whistled all the time. Butler provided the voice for this wolf. While at MGM, Avery wanted Butler to try to do the voice of Droopy Dog, a character that Bill Thompson regularly voiced. Butler performed the voice for a few cartoons, but he then told Avery about Don Messick, another voice actor and Butler's life-long friend. Messick quickly became a voice actor.

In 1949, Butler landed a role in a televised puppet show created by former Warner Brothers cartoon director Bob Clampett called Time for Beany. Thirty-three-year-old Butler was teamed up with 23-year-old Stan Freberg, and together they did all the voices of the puppets. Butler voiced Beany Boy and Captain Huffenpuff. Freberg voiced Cecil and Dishonest John. An entire stable of recurring characters were seen. The show's writers were Charles Shows and Lloyd Turner, whose dependably funny dialog was still always at the mercy of Butler's and Freberg's ad libs. Time for Beany ran from 1949 to 1954 and won several Emmy Awards. It was the basis for the cartoon Beany and Cecil.

Butler briefly turned his attention to TV commercials, although he quickly moved to providing the voice to many nameless Walter Lantz characters for theatrical shorts later seen on the Woody Woodpecker program. His notable character was the penguin "Chilly Willy" and his sidekick, the southern-speaking dog Smedley (the same voice used for Tex Avery's laid-back wolf character).
Also in the 1950s, Stan Freberg asked Butler to help him write comedy skits for his Capitol Records albums. Their first collaboration, "St. George and the Dragon-Net" (based on Dragnet), was the first comedy record to sell over one million copies. Freberg was more of a satirist who did song parodies, but the bulk of his "talking" routines were co-written by, and co-starred, Daws Butler.

In 1957, MGM closed their animation division, and producers William Hanna and Joseph Barbera found themselves unemployed. They quickly formed their own company, and Daws Butler and Don Messick were on-hand to provide voices. The first being The Ruff & Reddy Show, which set the formula for the rest of the series of cartoons that the two would helm until the mid 1960s.

Characters voiced by Butler from 1957 to 1978 included:
    •    "Bring 'Em Back Alive" Clive
    •    Aesop's Son (in the "Aesop and Son" segment of The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show)
    •    Fibber Fox and Alfy Gator (of Yakky Doodle)
    •    Ali Gator (in two Lantz theatrical shorts)
    •    Augie Doggie
    •    Baba Looey (from Quick Draw McGraw)
    •    Barney Rubble (from The Flintstones) (Pilot & season 2 - episodes 1, 2, 5, 6, and 9 only)
    •    Big Gruesome
    •    Bingo (of Banana Splits)
    •    Brutus the Lion (of The Roman Holidays)
    •    Cap'n Crunch
    •    Captain Skyhook (of The Space Kidettes)
    •    Chilly Willy
    •    Cogswell
    •    Colonel Pot Shot
    •    Dixie Mouse (of Pixie and Dixie)
    •    Elroy Jetson
    •    Fibber Fox (of Yakky Doodle)
    •    Fred Flintstone (1959; The Flagstones pilot only)
    •    Gabby Gator (of Woody Woodpecker)
    •    Gelationous Giant from The Phantom Tollbooth
    •    Gooney the "Gooney Bird" Albatross
    •    Hair Bear (of Help!... It's the Hair Bear Bunch)
    •    Henry Orbit
    •    Hokey Wolf
    •    Huckleberry Hound
    •    Hustle (of The CB Bears)
    •    Jonathan Wellington "Mudsy" Muddlemore (of The Funky Phantom)
    •    Karlos K. Krinkelbein (from the 1971 animated TV special version of The Cat in the Hat)
    •    Lambsy (of "It's the Wolf" on Cattanooga Cats)
    •    Lippy the Lion
    •    Loopy De Loop
    •    Maxie the Polar Bear
    •    Mr. Jinks (of Pixie and Dixie)
    •    Peter Perfect
    •    Peter Potamus
    •    Quick Draw McGraw
    •    Quisp
    •    Raggedy Andy (in "The Great Santa Claus Caper (1978)")
    •    Red Max
    •    Reddy the dog (from The Ruff & Reddy Show)
    •    Rock Slag
    •    Rufus Ruffcut
    •    Scooby-Dum
    •    Senses Taker from The Phantom Tollbooth
    •    Sgt. Blast
    •    Smedley the dog (from the Chilly Willy cartoons)
    •    Snagglepuss
    •    Super Snooper and Blabber Mouse
    •    Stick and Duke (of Posse Impossible)
    •    Undercover Elephant
    •    Terrible Trivium from The Phantom Tollbooth
    •    Whether Man from The Phantom Tollbooth
    •    Wally Gator
    •    Wimpy (from The All-New Popeye Hour)
    •    Wolf (from the Droopy cartoons)
    •    Yahooey (from Yippee, Yappee and Yahooey)
    •    Yogi Bear

Butler would voice most of these characters for many decades, in both TV shows and in some commercials. The breakfast cereal mascot Cap'n Crunch became an icon of sorts on Saturday morning TV through many commercials produced by Jay Ward. Butler gave voice to the Cap'n from the 1960s to the 1980s. He based the voice on that of character actor Charles Butterworth. In the 1970s he was the voice of "Hair Bear" and a few characters in minor cartoons such as C.B. Bears. On Wacky Races, Butler provided the voices for a number of the racers, notably Rock Slag, Big Gruesome, the Red Max, Sgt. Blast, Peter Perfect, and Rufus Ruffcut. On Laff-a-Lympics, Butler was virtually the entire "Yogi Yahooey" team.

He voiced a penguin and a turtle in the movie Mary Poppins, his only known film work for Disney. Along with Stan Freberg, Paul Frees and June Foray, Butler also provided voices for countless children's records featuring recreations of several successful Disney cartoons and films.
When Mel Blanc was recovering from a motor vehicle accident, Butler stepped in to provide the voice of Barney Rubble (another rather Carney-esque voice) in four episodes of Flintstones.

Butler remained somewhat low-key in the 1970s and 1980s, until a 1985 revival of The Jetsons. In 1975, Butler began an acting workshop that spawned such talents as Nancy Cartwright (The Simpsons), Corey Burton (Old Navy, Disney), and Joe Bevilacqua (NPR).

In the year of his death, The Good, the Bad, and Huckleberry Hound was released, a tour-de-force featuring most of his classic early characters. Butler died from a heart attack on May 18, 1988.

See his huge credit list on Voice Chasers.