July 4th Linkorama!

Happy fireworks; now enjoy a shorter linkfest to get the holiday sparking.

Consequences of Sound examines the splendors of Beavis and Butthead Do American Original Motion Picture Soundtrack Album:

... [W]hile [the animated film] cost about five million to make (pocket change nowadays), …Do America grossed over $60 million dollars for its domestic box office run, a feat attributed to timing as the height of Beavis and Butt-head’s popularity only dwindled shortly thereafter ...

... [T]his album is essentially the love child of late ’90s alternative and Beavis and Butt-head-approved metal, only with a little comic relief for good measure — a perfect mix for such a confused yet brilliant decade. The on-screen duo get the ’70s buddy cop treatment with the late Issac Hayes turning their TV show theme song into the “Theme From Shaft”’s evil twin, and it’s all aptly titled, “Two Cool Dudes” ...

Bruce Kirkland at the Toronto Sun overviews some of the newer and older animation now out on those little silver disks:

... Animation is about 117 years old, depending on what you count as the earliest example ...

The 1960s [cartoon] collection [from Warner Bros.] includes good stuff like Top Cat, Quick Draw McGraw, The Flintstones and Porky Pig. There is also marginal work such as Precious Pupp and Peter Potamus. The 1970s set includes bits of Batman and Tarzan from their Adventure Hour, as well as Scooby-Doo, Yogi's Gang and other Hanna-Barbera animations.

In the three-dimensional world of animation, the Diz Co. has dropped three million new dollars into the Florida Magic Kingdom's Hall of Presidents..

After an eight-month rehab and a total script rewrite, Walt Disney World on Friday reopened the Hall of Presidents with an animatronic Barack Obama...

Nicknamed "Robobama" by the artisans who created him under tight secrecy in a Los Angeles warehouse, Disney's presidential replica is more realistic than predecessors thanks to new technology such as a more flexible silicone skin.

His mouth wraps around more sounds like "oh" than just jawing up and down. The muscles in the chin and cheeks flex as he talks ....

Examiner.com takes a short tour -- photographic and written -- of the Disney archives.

The archives ... contain shelves and shelves of books, cases of rare antique Mickey Mouse watches, drawers of rare animation cels and artwork, vintage Disney-licensed toys, and almost anything else Disney-related you might imagine ...

The archives are contained in the Frank G. Wells building on the studio lot, and inside the lobby were many more historical exhibits ... on display was one of Walt Disney's three multiplane cameras, which were used to create three-dimensional pans in Walt's early animated films. A set-up from "Pinocchio" was on display, demonstrating how the cameras would hold the cels spaced apart, allowing the camera to focus on various layers giving the viewers the illusion of depth ...

On the European front, The Hollywood Reporter informs us that the live-action icon Lassie is morphing into a 3-D cartoon:

... The series, to be a 26 x 26 min series, will be a U.K.-Ireland-France-Germany-India co-production.

"What we are announcing now is a co-development agreement. But it is very well understood that we will go ahead and co-produce this as a multi-million Euro series, with us as the lead producer," said Tapaas Chakravarti, DQ's CEO. "The script will primarily be written in Europe with the intention of delivering the series at the end of 2010 or early 2011."

If you're in the right age group, black-and-white memories of Lassie are vivid, since the series, beginning in the early fifties, ran for almost twenty years.

Lastly, Tech Radar offers five animated shorts from various times and places for you to pick over ... as you pick the cob corn out of your teeth. (Here's one):

Happy Fourth. Watch out for those Piccolo Petes.