It is the natal anniversary of many luminaries we at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog love. First and foremost, celebrating his 65th today is one of this blogger's all-time favorite standup comedians, the great and original Stephen Wright.
As Stephen's standup comedy has, the films of Nick Park and Aardman Animations remain responsible for innumerable laughs over the past 30+ years.
First recall seeing an Aardman Animations film on the big screen in one of the late Prescott Wright's terrific International Tournee Of Animation programs (and shortly thereafter in a Spike & Mike's Festival Of Animation). That was Creature Comforts (1989) and it made quite the impression then. Still does!
The gang at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog could be considered Wallace and Gromit fanboys, but strictly on the proviso that we have some cracking good Wensleydale cheese to enjoy with our movies!
Arguably, our #1 choice of all the superb films by Nick and the gang at Aardman Animations would be Wallace & Gromit in The Wrong Trousers.
There are several greats from the world of music who have birthdays on December 6th. One would be ace lyricist from the Broadway stage and Hollywood movies Ira Gershwin, born on December 6, 1896 and responsible for countless standards as part of the best brother team short of the Coen brothers, the Heath brothers, The Brothers Johnson, Dizzy & Daffy Dean, Tommy & Dickie Smothers, The Brothers Karamazov and Tom & Dick Van Arsdale.
Ira Gershwin also contributed his signature witty, inventive and literate lyrics to superb songs by Harold Arlen, Kurt Weill, Harry Warren and Jerome Kern.
It is also the birthday of jazz and progressive rock bassist Miroslav Vitouš, noted as a member of the first version of Weather Report, a mighty multi-genre musical juggernaut.
Along with Stephen and Miroslav, Chris Stamey, intrepid rocker, Man Of A Thousand Tunes and frequent collaborator of Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog favorite Alex Chilton, celebrates a birthday today.
Of the many talented actors and comedians who sequed between sitcoms, radio, stage, recordings and cartoon voice work, it's tough to top Wally Cox, born on December 6, 1924.
Wally's yodeling on the following song is priceless.
We respectfully raise our eggnog glasses and toast all the December 6th birthdays!
Completing a trifecta that has thus far spotlighted Jay Ward Productions, Bert & Harry Piels ads voiced by Bob & Ray, Tom Terrific, Nudnik, Q.T. Hush and Roger Ramjet, today's tip of a top hat worn by either Jay Ward or Bill Scott goes to (drum roll). . . Aardman Animations!
While this writer often finds current CGI animation - with the exception of those features made by Pixar - a bit too snarky and dialogue-heavy (and lacking the saving grace of Jay Ward Productions/Stan Freberg style witty repartee), the films of Aardman, from their first music videos and short subjects to the latest efforts, delight this lifelong animation fan. That certain indefinable but welcome element of genuine whimsy - a quality not seen at all in the overwhelming majority of American movies and TV shows - delivered with intelligence and nuance, permeates the Aardman films and has since the very beginning.
Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog does not cover much along the lines of 21st century pop culture, but shall make an exception here, given how much we like the Shaun The Sheep movie.
And also the splendid 21st century Aardman Animations features that preceded Shaun The Sheep: Chicken Run and Wallace And Gromit: The Curse Of The Were-Rabbit (note: have not seen the 2006 Aardman CGI feature Flushed Away).
A Grand Day Out, the first Wallace & Gromit adventure, originated as a student film.
Indeed, the very British world of Wallace & Gromit possesses a knack for hitting this animation buff's sweet spot every time. We at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog are not alone in this assessment, as Wallace & Gromit have their own YouTube channel.
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Aardman Animations was founded in the 1970's, made their reputation as creators of wonderful short subjects and commercials in the 1980's. Many of us first encountered the model animation of Aardman in the 1986 Peter Gabriel music video Sledgehammer.
Not long afterwards, in such touring feature-length compilations as The Tournee Of Animation and Spike And Mike's Festival Of Animation, the Aardman Animations short subjects would premiere on the big screen in America. Audiences went nuts over the good humor, invention and, most importantly, the whimsy in such Aardman productions as Creature Comforts.
Subsequently, the first Wallace & Gromit adventures would be on the Tournee and Spike & Mike programs - and frequently were the runaway hits.
Ranking high on the short list of this writer's all-time favorite films is Wallace & Gromit in The Wrong Trousers.
The followup, A Close Shave, would introduce another Aardman Animations stalwart, Shaun The Sheep.
The three short subjects, A Grand Day Out (1989), The Wrong Trousers (1993) and A Close Shave (1995), were followed by a TV series, Cracking Contraptions, the Curse Of The Were-Rabbit feature, the featurette A Matter Of Loaf & Death and the Wallace & Gromit's World Of Invention TV series.
The studio has survived much hardship, including a fire in the Aardman Animations warehouse, to re-emerge, most recently with the Shaun the Sheep movie. After the October 10, 2005 fire, the hope was that the company would eventually be able to return from the damage. The blaze wiped out just about all the original sets for the Wallace and Gromit films and panels of original storyboards.
The studio made it back from this adversity, rebuilt and would launch the Shaun The Sheep TV series, as well as the children's show Timmy Time.
Wallace & Gromit returned to the big screen with the half-hour short subject, A Matter Of Loaf & Death (2008).
These would be followed by Wallace & Gromit amusement park rides, video games, an association with The National Trust and TV commercials.
We close with behind-the-scenes clips direct from Aardman Animations - and, last but not least, a cracking good concert from The Royal Albert Hall paying tribute to our heroes.
To paraphrase Wallace, "cracking good cheese - Gromit!"
From the sublime to the pastoral to the ridiculous to (DISCLAIMER, dear readers) the politically incorrect, always with imagination to spare - classic animated ads.
Your Blogmeister finds the jaunty stop-motion animation of George Pal's stylish mini-musicals for Horlicks Malted Milk and Philips astounding and weirdly beautiful.
The Philips ads pre-date the elaborate musicals the stop-motion specialists would later produce in the 1940's George Pal Puppetoon series for Paramount.
As the underlying theme is the "music 'round the world" content of programs to be heard in the 1930's via cutting edge Philips radios, in 2014 this means frequent lapses into stereotype. The view from Holland of American culture, and especially black music - gospel, jazz and blues - can be both awestruck and grotesque.
With Pal, these at times cringe-worthy moments in his Dutch and American puppet animation films are the direct byproduct of both his love of music and genuine fascination with masks, carvings, costumes, totem poles and tiki motifs from Asia, the South Seas and Africa; snobs referred to it as "primitive art" - just "art" sounds more like it.
It's apparent, even in the earliest of George Pal's puppet animation short subjects for Philips, that he had an aesthetic goal of bringing the world to stop-motion.
This content notwithstanding, the brilliant visual presentation and invention of George Pal and his hard-working animators shines through.
Pal's studio would go on to produce dozens of imaginative puppetoons and innovative special effects for such feature films as Destination Moon and War Of The Worlds.
Again, from the sublime to the ridiculous, here's some stop motion fun in lower budget yet memorable commercials from the 1950s.
The following animated cigarette ads, although very well executed, are hardly an original idea. The legendary painter and filmmaking innovator Oskar Fischinger produced an incredibly imaginative and elaborate theatrical commercial for Muratti Cigarettes (alas, not available online or on DVD) in 1934.
Still, Your Blogmeister, as ever easily amused, enjoys the square dancin' smokes in the following Lucky Strikes ad.
When watching these ads, the (much later) stop-motion work of Henry Selick and Aardman Animations and classic George Pal cartoons, the thought arises, "eat your heart out, CGI!"
