mondojohnson

From the “better-late-than-never” files:

Roy Edward Disney, nephew of Walt, died December 16, 2009 at the age of 79. He is rightly credited with bringing back the hand-crafted artistic legacy of Disney, and also with bucking the greedy grotesqueries of the Michael Eisner years. It was his vision that brought us the beautiful, classically-animated Princess and the Frog (for instance).

But I think Roy Disney’s greatest gift was resurrection of the 1945 collaboration between Disney artist John Hench and Salvador Dali, Destino. Dali and Hench got eight months into the project before the financial strains of World War II put an end to the ambitious venture. In 1999, Roy Disney decided to have Destino finished, handing the priceless storyboards over to French animator Dominique Monfrey, who along with an army of animators completed the short. It is mostly hand-drawn, with a bit of computer animation. There are eighteen seconds of the original — the bit with the two tortoises.

Here it is, enjoy:

[Source: Wikipedia]

This evening Brittany Murphy is being laid to rest after her untimely death due to cardiac arrest.

I have always found her affable and talented in her screen roles, but her best and most lasting gig, in my opinion, was voicing the lovably ditzy Luanne Platter in King of the Hill. [Fun fact: according to my friend from Lubbock, Texas, Luanne got her name from a dish served in a Texas diner: the "Lu Ann Platter".]

This is all terribly sad, but let’s just think of Luanne jumping on a trampoline with Buckley’s Angel for eternity.

Life is so good on some days

The Venture Brothers Season 4 trailer has come out, and the new season promises the return of David Bowie and a frazzled Rusty Venture from the future, among many other great things. Can’t wait til November…

CORRECTION: Season 4 premieres this weekend! (October 18)!!

The Buzz Log has compiled a funny list of commonly misspelled search strings. The top standouts:

• Swan Flu (for Swine Flu)
• Susan Boil (for “Britain’s Got Talent” contender Susan Boyle)
• Brack Obama (for U.S. President Barack Obama)

My personal favorite, of course, is “Brack Obama” … it gave me a delirious nanosecond of picturing President BRAK.

Fanboy.com continues its unending, ass-kicking parade of delights today with photos of a “Popeye Shipwreck Game” , unearthed from the depths of the Great Depression in 1933. The blogger, Michael Pinto, snapped some lovely shots of the well-preserved game, which he spotted in a shop window in NYC.

See the rest of the pix here.