The Friday Linkfest

The end-of-the-week linkage festival, beginning with the 54th anniversary of the opening of Disneyland (the amusement park, not the teevee show.)

I was there that day. I was like, five years old and squirmy in the heat. I remember the cameras and fat cables running everywhere. I also remember the crowds.

My mother dragged my brother and I all over the park, to not much effect. There were only a frew rides to clamber on. We got on the train, and we got on the Mark Twain. For the rest, it was all adult legs and much crowding ....

General Electric's leap into feature c.g. animation starts with a trailer for the upcoming Despicable Me.

... A villain named Gru (voiced by Carell) plans to steal the moon ... and a trio of orphan girls named Margo, Edith and Agnes cause him to reconsider his plan ...

The New York Times discusses Disney knick knacks and the impact on same by the soon-to-open Disney Museum in San Francisco:

The international market for Disney collectibles, relatively quiet for a decade, is likely to be given a boost when the Walt Disney Family Museum opens in San Francisco on Oct. 1.

The new museum, housed in three buildings in the Presidio at the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, was designed by the New York architect David Rockwell, noted for his imaginative sets for “Hairspray” and restaurant interiors like Nobu and Monkey Bar. The 77,000-square-foot exhibition space will feature 200 video monitors, early Disney film clips, family movies, original animation art and vintage artifacts, including a 1950s Autopia bumper car from Disneyland ...

It seems that more and more cable networks are waking up to the cost-efficiencies and marketability of animated series:

FX is making a rare foray into animation with a new comedy series from Adam Reed, the cable network's first cartoon in 10 years.

Tentatively titled "Archer," the series, which has received a six-episode order for a launch in the fall, is set at ISIS, an international spy agency whose highly trained employees constantly confuse, undermine and betray one another.

ComingSoon.net profiles Imagi's west coast studio ... and the upcoming Astro Boy:

Imagi Animation Studios' Los Angeles outpost (tucked as discretely away in an unlikely location inside a Sherman Oaks shopping mall as Astro's backside blasters are) where work was nearing an end on the long-anticipated feature film based on Osamu Tezuka's enduringly beloved manga comic dating back to 1952 ...

Imagi's become what they like to call a 24-hour studio: The "front-end" work on the Astro Boy film – story and script development, character design, set design, etc. – was handled by a Los Angeles team of about 80-120 staffers who would teleconference or Skype about large and little details with 400 animation staffer in Hong Kong before handing over the reigns to the Chinese office to work through the US night (The studio is ambitiously aiming to soon produce at least one film per year, with Gatchaman up next) ...

Have yourself a splendiforous weekend. Go do something cool and refreshing.