Long Live the King

Come on, we all thought of this, right?

Hello, Hawaii (Garfield)

It's summer!

T-Rex Go-Motion - Jurassic Park

Before committing to CGI, Steven Spielberg commissioned stop-motion test animation from Phil Tippett (or rather, the "go-motion" process Tippett pioneered). Here is Tippett's rendition of the T-Rex paddock attack.


Jurassic Park opened 20 years ago today.

Simpsons Couch Gag by Robot Chicken

Micro Mayhem!

Excellent car chase sequence, shot on the micro level, by the Stoodio that brings you "Robot Chicken."

Maker vs Marker

An artist's hand squares off against its creation in a "Mortal Kombat" style fight. And it's really cool!

The Flying House

Two Chips

If you're going to get drunk and tell your husband a lame joke, make sure he's not an animator...

BONUS! The Robot Chicken Team's Simpsons Couch Gag

Airing on Sunday, May 19 at 8/7c on Fox, the animated comedy has commissioned Seth Green's Stoopid Buddy Stoodios, which produces the cult favorite stop-motion series Robot Chicken, to create a special stop-motion couch gag for the episode. "The Simpsons have been opening that up to a bunch of different artists and a bunch of different content creators to put their spin on The Simpsons couch gag," Green says.

Click through to see VIDEO!
via TV Guide

Omelette

A Boy And His Atom: The World's Smallest Movie

And you thought Dot was small...

The folks at IBM created this movie by moving around individual atoms!


Here's a little about how the movie was made:

Krazy Kat - Rodeo Dough

25 Ways to Quit Smoking & How to Kiss

Today is Bill Plympton's birthday. Here are a couple of Plymptoons to celebrate!

Earth Day, 2035

Korn - Freak On a Leash

This music video from Korn was directed by comics legend Todd McFarlane.

Good Morning, Mickey

The Disney Channel launched 30 years ago today, at 7 AM eastern time. And for the people who were watching, this is what they saw...

Oedipus

Li'l Abner - Kickapoo Juice

"Li'l Abner" was a newspaper comic strip created by Al Capp, reputed for being the foundation of most of the world's perception of the American South.

This short from 1944 doesn't feature much of Abner himself, but demonstrates the caricature of the South that the strip traded in.

Gorillaz - 19-2000

The design and animation for this "virtual group" is by "Tank Girl" creator Jamie Hewlett.

Serj Orders a Coffee

The Cat Piano

Smooth visual flair in a bizarre, dark story. Narrated by Nick Cave.

Little Nemo

On this day in 1911, Winsor McCay debuted his "moving comic," "Little Nemo."

BONUS! SpongeBob voice actors dub classic movies

Really Clever Girl

Guess what I'm seeing tonight!

Wild and Woolly Hare

Regular Show - Free Cake

My Name Is David

Today is Autism Awareness Day. This is a speech delivered by a 14-year-old with autism, rendered in stop-motion by a "Robot Chicken" animator.

I'm Here

Tomorrow is Autism Awareness Day. This short represents the loneliness often experienced by those on the autism spectrum.

Foster's Home - Mac Daddy

Craig McCracken's birthday is this Sunday. Let's celebrate with Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends episode "Mac Daddy," which introduces the character of Cheese.


FHIF - 2x07 - Mac Daddy P1 by kingofcommons

Tom & Jerry - Hic-cup Pup

Scientifically-Accurate Spider-Man

Not for the children in your life...

The Epiplectic Bicycle

An adaptation of the 1969 book by Edward Gorey.

Fresh Hare (1942)

I watched this one dozens of times growing up. Turns out there's a racist tag at the end that I didn't understand when I was a kid.

Out of Nowhere

Calvin and Hobbes

Professional animator Adam Brown whipped up this loving tribute to Bill Watterson's beloved comic strip.

Ha Ha Ha

Predating "Duck Amuck" by almost 20 years, this Betty Boop cartoon depicts Betty interacting with her creator, "Uncle Max" Fleischer.

Some of the material in this short is a recycling of Koko the Clown's "The Cure," which similarly showed characters interacting with their creators nearly three decades before "Duck Amuck!"

Koko the Clown, The Cure

Predating "Duck Amuck" by nearly three decades, this is an early experiment with cartoon characters interacting with their creators.

Pigeon: Impossible

Stanley Kubrick: a Filmography

An animated homage to the work of Stanley Kubrick.

Paperman, cont.

Thanks to the folks over at College Humor, we now know what happens immediately after Disney's Oscar-winning short "Paperman" ends.

NOTE: Not for your children.

Gary

You won't need the dialogue to understand. Enjoy.

Johnny Depp in Burtonland

Adam and Dog

This richly-colored animated short is nominated for an Oscar. Tune into the Academy Awards tonight to find out who wins!

Click here for more award-worthy shorts to keep an eye out for.

The Longest Daycare

This short from "The Simpsons" is nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Short. Tune into the Oscars tomorrow to see who wins!

Click here for more award-worthy shorts to keep an eye out for.

Fresh Guacamole

This movie is nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Short this year. Tune into the Oscars this Sunday to see who wins.

Click here for more award-worthy shorts to keep an eye out for.

Paperman

An Academy Award nominee for Best Animated Short. Tune into the Oscars this Sunday to see if it wins.

Click here for more award-worthy shorts to keep an eye out for.

Head Over Heels

One of the excellent Best Animated Shorts nominees for this year's Academy Awards. Tune in this Sunday to see who wins!

Click here for more award-worthy shorts to keep an eye out for.

Flea & Fly in "City Trouble"

Definitely got the throwback style down, with some modern wrong-ness thrown in.

The End of the World

In honor of the recent Russian meteor, I'm reaching back to a decade-old web video that I still love. Ladies and gentlemen, the end of the world...

History of Greed

A treatise on the evolution of learning. Or just a light joke to send you into the weekend.

Moon Rock

A stream-of-dream-consciousness trip from George Dunning, following his work on The Beatles' Yellow Submarine.

The Lollipop Tree

An amusing bit of randomness that reminds me of yesterday's Tootsie Pop commercial.

How many licks does it take to get to the center?

The world may never know.

This Tootsie Pop commercial was an institution for several generations, but I believe has faded away over the last couple decades.

Moonrise Kindgom Tribute

A Flash-animated tribute to Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom.

Dick Figures: Kung Fu Winners

This cartoon is nominated for an Annie Award in individual achievement: Directing in an Animated Television or other Broadcast Venue Production. In this case, the venue would be web video.

Annie Awards winners will be announced Saturday, February 2. Check here to see who won.

Defective Detective

This is an Annie Award nominee for Best Student Film.

Origin

This is an Annie Award nominee for Best Student Film.

Can't We Be Happy Now

This is an Annie Award nominee for Best Student Film.

Eyes On the Stars

This Annie Award nominee for Best Animated Short is based on a true story from the life of astronaut Ronald McNair, who died in the Challenger shuttle explosion which happened 27 years ago today. This story from McNair's childhood is told by his brother Carl.

BONUS! Animated Shorts to keep an eye out for

Many of the Annie Awards nominees that Animation of the Day would like to share are not available online. Here's a rundown of some of the best. Keep them on your radar. If you ever find yourself with an opportunity to see them, we strongly encourage you to take the time to do so.

• "Kali the Little Vampire"

A lonely young vampire seeks to live a normal life and play with other children. This short has a strong, unique visual style.

• "I Am Tom Moody"

A compelling look into the conflicted mind of a creative individual. This short makes smart use of the stop-motion medium to represent the internal fragmentation caused by fear and creative stifling.

• "Ladies Knight"

A colorful, musical, irreverent, classic-Warner Bros.-esque take on the knight-saves-princess-from-a-dragon fairy tale.

• "Tule Lake"

Based on a true event, this beautifully-animated short follows a Japanese-American internee at the Tule Lake segregation camp during World War II as she tries to bring a bit of joy to her family in the midst of grim circumstances. Conceived and directed by a descendent of the movie's subject.

Ballad of Poisonberry Pete

This is an Annie Award nominee for Best Student Film.

Bill Plympton Couch Gag from "Beware My Cheating Bart"

This "Simpsons" couch gag, by animation hero Bill Plympton, is a 2013 Annie Award nominee for Best Animated Short.

Head Over Heels

From now through the night of the ceremony, Animation of the Day will post nothing but Annie Award-nominated shorts. Check back each weekday to see one of this year's nominees.

Kicking things off is this gem of a movie. Unfortunately, the full version is currently unavailable online. But this is such a great one that, in order to spread awareness, just the preview will be posted here. If you ever have the opportunity to watch the full short, take advantage; you'll be happy you did.

Drinking Out of Cups

Stream-of-consciousness randomness from Dan Deacon, animated by Liam Lynch.

NOTE: If you're sensitive to language, you'll probably want to skip this one.


If you need a bit more of an explanation, click here.

Dumb Ways to Die

A catchy song to start off your week. Excellently-executed sight gags.

Pangea

Wrapping up Tree Week with some beautifully-rendered environments. And dinosaurs!

We sing the forest electric

Ted Bear

Tree Week continues, with a contribution from the guys over at Cyanide and Happiness!

I Live in the Woods

My self-declared "Tree Week" continues with this crazy little number. This short has its flaws, but they pale in comparison to its anarchic energy and indelible imagery. Absolutely insane and -- WARNING TO SENSITIVE VIEWERS -- gory, this stream-of-consciousness piece is completely unpredictable. Filmmaker Max Winston went on to have a hand in many of the stop-motion shows you've seen in the last few years.

Out of a Forest

I found a bunch of forest-related cartoons, so I'm declaring this TREE WEEK! Kicking things off is a nice little stop-motion animation about rabbits.

The Tortoise and the Hare (1934)

Alma

This is a magical yet creepy award-winning short from a former Pixar animator.

The Room

No, not the Tommy Wiseau movie. Love the design of this short. A little Portal-y, and little Cube. A good watch.

Slimtime

This little bit of light sci-fi is fun and imaginative, seemingly drawing some inspiration from Wall-E and other sci-fi tales.

Music Land (1935)

The Man Who Could Sit Anywhere

From the folks at "Cyanide & Happiness." If you're not already reading that comic, you're missing some of the funniest stuff on the web. Check it out!

Little Old Slappy from Pasadena

The Big Snit

Christmas Shoes by Patton Oswalt

Christmas has come and gone, but Patton Oswalt has something to say about the song "Christmas Shoes," set to animation by John Kuramoto.

White Christmas by Joshua Held

Christmastime for the Jews

"Holly Jolly Christmas"

Snowman Week concludes with everybody's favorite frozen narrator, Sam, singing the closing number from Rankin/Bass's "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer."

Frosty the Snowman (UPA)

This version of "Frosty the Snowman" was created in 1954 by United Productions of America. Popular mainly throughout the midwest, it's a mainstay of Chicago's WGN-TV.

San Andreas Snowman

The Snowman - Walking In The Air

Here's a snippet from Raymond Briggs' "The Snowman," the 1982 adaptation of his 1978 book.


Watch the full-length special by clicking here.

Frosty The Snowman

This week is Snowman Week on Animation of the Day. And to kick it off, one of the most recognized, beloved snowmen off all time, Frosty!

Produced by Rankin/Bass five years after their holiday mega-hit "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer," "Frosty the Snowman" marks the first time the company used traditional cel animation in a holiday special (rather than stop-motion) in an effort to create a greeting card look. Notice the use of washed out, warm pastels and jagged, overlapping sketch lines in the backgrounds.

Now, everybody sing along...

BONUS! It's a SpongeBob SquarePants Stop-Motion

A behind-the-scenes look at the SpongeBob stop-motion special, as told by Primetime Love.

Watch More News Videos at ABC | 2012 Presidential Election | Entertainment & Celebrity News

Robot Chicken: Gandalf Game Show

The new addition to Peter Jackson's Middle Earth cycle -- The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey -- opens in theaters today. To celebrate, here's a "Robot Chicken" sketch featuring Gandalf (as voiced by Bryan Cranston) facing off with a puppet modeled after me!

The Spirit of Christmas

This is where it all began for Trey Parker and Matt Stone.

As film students in 1992, they created the first "Spirit of Christmas" short using construction paper and an old 8mm camera.


A copy of this short somehow made its way to an executive at Fox, who then commissioned Parker and Stone to make a new "Spirit of Christmas" short which he distributed to some 80 friends as a "video Christmas card" in 1995.


It was so popular amongst its recipients that it became a must-have bootleg throughout the industry. It wasn't long before the TV networks started calling, and in 1997 "South Park" debuted on Comedy Central.

"Rudolph, The Red-Nosed Reindeer" by The California Raisins

Back in 1987, CBS first aired "A Claymation Christmas Celebration," featuring the titular stop-motion methods pioneered by Will Vinton and made popular by the California Raisins ad campaign (among other works). Here are the California Raisins performing the special's climactic piece, "Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer."

"The Very First Christmas to Me"

Christmas Vacation intro

The bright, colorful, squishy, excellently-animated opening credits sequence to the modern classic National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation deserves it's own showcase. So here it is.

Here comes Christmas...

Buckle in! Christmas cartoons start tomorrow here at Animation of the Day.

BONUS! Voice actor Rob Paulsen on playing Pinky, Yakko Warner, and two mutant ninja turtles

Voice actor Rob Paulsen on playing Pinky, Yakko Warner, and two mutant ninja turtles



Welcome to Random Roles, wherein we talk to actors about the characters who defined their careers. The catch: They don’t know beforehand what roles we’ll ask them to talk about.

The actor: Rob Paulsen began his acting career in front of the camera, yet in spite of (or perhaps because of) featured roles in Body Double and Stewardess School, he took advantage of the opportunity to shift gears and pursued a career in voice acting instead. This decision was fortuitous: Paulsen has become one of the most recognizable and popular figures in his field, voicing characters in some of the most famous cartoons of the past few decades, including Animaniacs, Pinky And The Brain, The Tick, and, perhaps most impressively, two different heroes on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: first Raphael, and now, in Nickelodeon’s new incarnation of the series, Donatello. He also frequently discusses voicework with other ...

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Animaniacs - The Universe Song

The Story of Pines

Visit the director's website for fascinating links behind-the-scenes.

Click here.

In Your Arms - Kina Grannis (Official Music Video)

Lavatory - Lovestory

This Russian cartoon by Konstantin Bronzit was nominated for a Best Animated Short Oscar in 2009.

"Don't Download This Song" by "Weird Al" Yankovic

Weird Al's response to music piracy, with animation by Bill Plympton.

BONUS! Animatic vs. Animation

Our friends at "Robot Chicken" offer this educational look at the decisions that go into changing a final animated shot from what was planned in the storyboard stage.  Enjoy!


A Closer Look at Hemlock Gin & Juice

There are a lot of variables that can necessitate changes between animatic and animation, as you’ll see in this post.

Check out these stills from this week’s “wet t-shirt contest” sketch. Here is the opening shot, first as it appears in the animatic, and then as it appeared on TV:

Animatic

Animation

Besides the angle being a little wider, everything looks pretty similar, right? Check out the next shot.

Animatic

Animation

While the board calls for the camera to pan over to the man shouting, we opted to do a digital punch in. The camera angle didn’t change, we just zoomed in a bit. Why? Because in TV production, time rules all. Our show (and all other shows) are on an extremely tight deadline. A physical camera movie takes a lot of time, but a digital punch-in only takes a few seconds.

Animatic

Animation

The original boards cut to a new wall, but we chose to frame our first shot with the wall already in frame. If had done what the boards asked, we would have had to re-frame our camera and put up a new set! Our final angle is also nice because it doesn’t require the characters to move around as much, which saves time and improves the pacing of the sketch.

Animatic

Animation

We have to make decisions like this for every sketch! Spending less time on some sketches allows us to spend more time on others. In the end, the joke is king. We won’t cut corners if it makes the punchline fall flat. It’s a careful balancing act, but after six seasons we’ve gotten pretty good at it!

Click here to read more from the "Robot Chicken" folks.