When Lynch Met Lucas

In the late 1970s, George Lucas’ success with the first two Star Wars films prompted him to not only expand the third film’s budget, but also look for a new director for “Return of the Jedi”. Apparently David Lynch (director of Eraser Head, Twin Peaks, Mulholland Drive) was tapped by Lucas to direct, but was turned down. Years later, David Lynch tells the story of his meeting with Lucas in an interview. Animator Sascha Ciezata created a short which features audio from the interview along with crudely animated stop-motion characters created from pictures he took with his iPhone! read more

Cartoon Network Minus Cartoons: Everything Has an End

2003 seemed like a lifetime ago now, but I remember it well. Cartoon Network, the bastion of animation goodness, relaunched their venerable Cartoon Cartoon Fridays block into Cartoon Network Fridays, a weekly show hosted by live-action hosts and musical guests. I remember talking to my friend about how Fridays was just the beginning of the end of an all-animation Cartoon Network. He laughed it off thinking I was being a little paranoid, and I felt a little at ease. We all went along our merry ways.

But then, as the years progressed, my seemingly paranoid allusions proved to be not only accurate, but also worrisome, almost to the point that I actually have fears that cartoons are going to become an afterthought at the toon house that Ted and Betty built, replaced in the hearts of the executives with lame sitcoms and ripoffs of Discovery and Sci-Fi reality shows. read more