Friday, November 4, 2011

The incredibles


  The Incredibles is a 2004 American computer-animated action-comedy superhero film about a family of superheroes who are forced to hide their powers. It was written and directed by Brad Bird, a former director and executive consultant of The Simpsons, and was produced by Pixar and distributed by Walt Disney Pictures. The starring voices are Craig T. Nelson as Bob Parr, Holly Hunter as his wife Helen Parr; Sarah Vowell as their teenage daughter Violet; Spencer Fox as their young son Dash; Jason Lee as the supervillain Syndrome; Samuel L. Jackson as Frozone; and Elizabeth Peña as Syndrome's beautiful assistant, Mirage. Bob's yearning to help people draws the entire Parr family into a battle with the villain and his killer robot.

The film won the 2004 Annie Award for Best Animated Feature, along with two 2004 Academy Awards, including Best Animated Feature and Best Sound Editing. It also received nominations for two other Academy Awards, won a 2005 Hugo Award, and was nominated for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy at the 2004 Golden Globes.

Tom and Jerry


Tom and Jerry is an American series of theatrical animated cartoon films created by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, centering on a never-ending rivalry between a cat (Tom) and a mouse (Jerry) whose chases and battles often involved comic violence. Hanna and Barbera ultimately wrote and directed one hundred and fourteen Tom and Jerry shorts at the MGM cartoon studio in Hollywood between 1940 and 1957, when the animation unit was closed. The original series is notable for having won the Academy Award for Animated Short Film seven times, tying it with Walt Disney's Silly Symphonies as the theatrical animated series with the most Oscars. A longtime television staple, Tom and Jerry has a worldwide audience that consists of children, teenagers and adults, and has also been recognized as one of the most famous and longest-lived rivalries in American cinema. In 2000, TIME named the series one of the greatest television shows of all time.

Beginning in 1960, in addition to the original 114 Hanna-Barbera cartoons, MGM had new shorts produced by Rembrandt Films, led by Gene Deitch in Eastern Europe. Production of Tom and Jerry shorts returned to Hollywood under Chuck Jones's Sib-Tower 12 Productions in 1963; this series lasted until 1967, making it a total of 161 shorts. The cat and mouse stars later resurfaced in television cartoons produced by Hanna-Barbera and Filmation Studios during the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s; a feature film, Tom and Jerry: The Movie, in 1992 (released domestically in 1993); and in 2001, their first made-for TV short, Tom and Jerry: The Mansion Cat for Boomerang. The most recent Tom and Jerry theatrical short, The Karate Guard, was written and co-directed by Barbera and debuted in Los Angeles cinemas on September 27, 2005.

Today, Time Warner (via its Turner Entertainment division) owns the rights to Tom and Jerry (with Warner Bros. handling distribution). Since the merger, Turner has produced the series, Tom and Jerry Tales for The CW's Saturday morning "The CW4Kids" lineup, as well as the recent Tom and Jerry short, The Karate Guard, in 2005 and a string of Tom and Jerry direct-to-video films — all in collaboration with Warner Bros. Animation. In February 2010, the cartoon celebrated its 70th anniversary and a DVD collection of 30 shorts, Tom and Jerry Deluxe Anniversary Collection, was released in late June 2010 to celebrate the animated duo's seventh decade. It then had a rerun on Cartoon Network.

Thursday, November 3, 2011

Garfield


Garfield (stylised as Garfield®) is a comic strip created by Jim Davis. Published since June 19, 1978, it chronicles the life of the title character, the cat Garfield (named after Davis's grandfather); his owner, Jon Arbuckle; and Arbuckle's dog, Odie. As of 2007, it was syndicated in roughly 2,580 newspapers and journals, and held the Guinness World Record for being the world's most widely syndicated comic strip.[1]
Though this is never mentioned in print, Garfield is set in Muncie, Indiana, the home of Jim Davis, according to the television special Garfield Goes Hollywood. Common themes in the strip include Garfield's laziness, obsessive eating, and hatred of Mondays and diets. The strip's focus is mostly on the interactions among Garfield, Jon, and Odie; recurring minor characters appear as well. Originally created with the intentions to "come up with a good, marketable character," Garfield has spawned merchandise earning $750 million to $1 billion annually. In addition to the various merchandise and commercial tie-ins, the strip has spawned several animated television specials, two animated television series, two theatrical feature-length live-action films and three CGI animated direct-to-video movies. Part of the strip's broad appeal is due to its lack of social or political commentary; though this was Davis's original intention, he also admitted that his "grasp of politics isn't strong," remarking that, for many years, he thought "OPEC was a denture adhesive."[2][3]

Contents

Saturday, October 29, 2011

Mickey Mouse

Mickey Mouse is a cartoon character created in 1928 by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks at The Walt Disney Studio.[4] Mickey is an anthropomorphic black mouse and typically wears red shorts, large yellow shoes, and white gloves. Mickey is one of the most recognizable cartoon characters in the world and is the mascot of The Walt Disney Company.
Mickey debuted in November 1928 in the animated cartoon Steamboat Willie, after initially appearing in a test screening earlier that year. He went on to appear in about 120 films including The Band Concert (1935), Brave Little Tailor (1938), and Fantasia (1940). Mickey appeared primarily in short films, but also in a few feature-length and direct-to-video films. Eight of Mickey's cartoons have been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film, one of which won the award, Lend a Paw, in 1942. In 1978, Mickey became the first cartoon character to have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Beginning 1930, Mickey has also been featured extensively as a comic strip character. His self-titled newspaper strip, drawn primarily by Floyd Gottfredson, ran for 25 years. Mickey has also appeared in comic books and in television series such as The Mickey Mouse Club (1955–1996) and others. The character continues to appear regularly as toys, in video games, and as a meetable character at the Disney parks.
Mickey typically appears alongside his girlfriend Minnie Mouse, his pet dog Pluto, his friends Horace Horsecollar, Donald Duck, and Goofy, and his nemesis Pete among others. (see Mickey Mouse universe) Originally characterized as a mischievous anti hero, Mickey's increasing popularity led to his being rebranded as an everyman, usually seen as an ever cheerful, yet shy role model. In 2009, Disney announced that they will begin to rebrand the character again by putting less emphasis on his pleasant, cheerful side and reintroducing the more mischievous and adventurous sides of his personality, starting with the video game Epic Mickey.[5]

Scoby-Doo

Scooby-Doo is an American media franchise based around several animated television series and related works produced from 1969 to the present day. The original series, Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!, was created for Hanna-Barbera Productions by writers Joe Ruby and Ken Spears in 1969. This Saturday morning cartoon series featured a talking Great Dane named Scooby-Doo and four teenagers — Fred Jones, Daphne Blake, Velma Dinkley, and Norville "Shaggy" Rogers — who solve mysteries by exposing seemingly otherworldly ghosts and monsters as non-supernatural criminals.[1]
Hanna-Barbera and its successor Warner Bros. Animation have produced numerous follow-up and spin-off animated series and several related works, including television specials and telefilms, a line of direct-to-video films, and two Warner Bros.-produced feature films. Some versions of Scooby-Doo feature different variations on the show's supernatural theme, and include characters such as Scooby's cousin Scooby-Dum and nephew Scrappy-Doo in addition to or instead of some of the original characters.
File:Scooby-gang-1969.jpgScooby-Doo was originally broadcast on CBS from 1970 to 1976 when it moved to ABC. ABC aired the show until canceling it in 1986, and presented a spin-off featuring the characters as children, A Pup Named Scooby-Doo, from 1988 until 1991. The original series format was revived and updated for The WB Network's Kids' WB programming block as What's New, Scooby-Doo, which ran from 2002 to 2006, when another new series, Shaggy & Scooby-Doo Get a Clue!, began running on the The CW network until 2008. The current Scooby-Doo series, Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated, premiered on Cartoon Network in July 2010.[2] Repeats of the series are broadcasted frequently on Cartoon Network and Boomerang in the United States and other countries.

Thursday, October 27, 2011

The Smurfs

The Smurfs (French: Les Schtroumpfs, Dutch: De Smurfen) is a comic and television franchise centred on a group of small blue fictional creatures called Smurfs, created and first introduced as a series of comic strips by the Belgian cartoonist Peyo (pen name of Pierre Culliford) on October 23, 1958. The original term and the accompanying language came during a meal Peyo was having with his colleague and friend André Franquin at the Belgian Coast. Having momentarily forgotten the word "salt", Peyo asked him (in French) to pass the schtroumpf. Franquin jokingly replied: "Here's the Schtroumpf — when you are done schtroumpfing, schtroumpf it back..." and the two spent the rest of that weekend speaking in "schtroumpf language".[3] The name was later translated into Dutch as Smurf, which was adopted in English.

Thursday, October 13, 2011

Sponge bob


SpongeBob SquarePants is a main fictional character in the animated television series SpongeBob SquarePants. He is voiced by Tom Kenny and first appeared on television in the series' pilot episode "Help Wanted" on May 1, 1999. SpongeBob was created and designed by cartoonist Stephen Hillenburg shortly after the cancellation of Rocko's Modern Life in 1996. Hillenburg intended to create a series about an over-optimistic sponge that annoys other characters. Hillenburg compared the concept to Laurel and Hardy and Pee-wee Herman. As he drew the character, he decided that a "squeaky-clean square" (like a kitchen sponge) fits the concept. His name is derived from "Bob the Sponge", the host of Hillenburg's comic strip The Intertidal Zone that he originally drew in 1989 while studying at the California Institute of Arts. SpongeBob is a naïve and goofy sea sponge who works as a fry cook in the fictional underwater town of Bikini Bottom.
SpongeBob has achieved popularity with both children and adults, though he has been involved in public controversy. The character appeared in a We Are Family Foundation video promoting tolerance, which was criticized by James Dobson of Focus on the Family because of the foundation's link to homosexuality.