bad banana blog

The End of Westerns

A collection of end title stills from Western films throughout the years. Just a very tiny taste of the design goodness over at the Movie Title Stills Collection. Browse hundreds of title frames by decade, or go to the special collection of Film Noir and Westerns. In many cases, you can see both the beginning title and the end title frames. Fantastic.

Via BB-Blog.

Disney's Biggest Little Hit

It was 75 years ago today that Walt Disney and his team scored one of their biggest hits.
    Three Little Pigs, released May 27, 1933, hit a huge nerve with America and the world. In the middle of the Great Depression, the animated short spawned unprecedented merchandise sales. Sheet music. Pig dolls. Big Bad Wolf dolls. The public simply couldn't get enough of it. Amazingly, the short was even promoted above many of the feature films it was paired with during its long run.
    Today, Three Little Pigs is still amusing to watch, but hardly feels radical. That's because it heavily influenced everything that followed, including all of the famous Disney features. Compared to animated shorts of the time, however, it practically jumped off the screen. The use of color. The catchy music. And, most importantly, the personality of the characters. There was a dimension and roundness and weight to the pigs, especially, that was lacking up to that point.
    Like the pig that took the time to build a house right, Walt Disney and his team took the time to build this simple little animated short as solidly as possible. As a result, an entire empire would be built upon it.

Via TAG Blog.

My Nightmare

I just love Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas. I've seen it countless times.
    But what I really want to do is see it in the new Disney Digital 3-D format (the kind where you wear 3-D glasses). Today, the remastered 3-D version began another limited run in those select theaters equipped with the digital 3-D technology. The states in blue on the above map have said theaters. That big white state in the middle is where I live.
    Oh, well. I guess I can always re-read the original poem Burton wrote while working as an animator at Disney. You did know the movie started out as a poem, right?