Thursday, June 30, 2011

"Animaniacs": The Goodfeathers

The Goodfeathers:  Pesto, Bobby and Squit.


The actors who provide the voices for Pesto, Bobby and Squit.  


Chick Vennera (Pesto), John Mariano (Bobby) and Maurice LaMarche (Squit). 

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

"Tiny Toon Adventures" at the Pasadena Rose Parade

Back in the early 90's, Baskin-Robbins sponsored a "Tiny Toon Adventures" float for a couple of years at the annual Pasadena Tournament of Roses Parade on New Year's Day.  The photo below is from the first year of Tiny Toon's participation -- I think it was January 1, 1993.   (Baskin-Robbins also sold a line of Tiny Toon ice cream products for a number of years.)
    

Monday, June 20, 2011

Yakko on the Warner Bros. Studio Water Tower -- 1993

To announce the premier of "Animaniacs" in September 1993, it was decided to place an inflated-balloon replica of Yakko Warner atop the water tower at the Warner Bros. studio lot in Burbank.  This seemed like a great idea at the time.  Unfortunately, no one clued in Bob Daly, who ran the studio.  When Bob pulled up in his car that day and saw the balloon-creature sitting on top of the tower, he thought his studio was under attack by some sort of mutant Mickey Mouse.  


The balloon figure of Yakko sat on the tower for less than 12 hours.  Paul Rugg snapped this photo, which may be the only documentation of this strange day in studio history. 


Saturday, June 18, 2011

The Warner Bros. Store -- 5th Avenue, New York City, 1995 -- Part 2

A couple of additional photos of the flagship Warner Bros. Studio Store in NYC back in mid-1995, when they featured "Animaniacs," specifically Yakko, Wakko, and Dot, in their window displays.  


Sunday, June 5, 2011

Adventures in Advertising

Before I landed a job in animation, I lived in the New York area and pursued a career in advertising...for about six months.   After that didn't pan out, I moved to Los Angeles where Bill Hanna gave me a job as an assistant animator at Hanna-Barbera.  Thank you, Bill! 

During my brief time in pursuit of advertising, I took a test at McCann-Ericson -- a large ad agency at the time -- to get into their apprentice program.  Below is one of the pieces that I submitted for that test.  The client was Puerto Rican White Rum.   In retrospect, I guess the magazine ad I came up with would please neither the rum company executives nor their customers.   But I went with what I liked:  talking animals.  

I didn't get the job, which turned out to be a good thing.  After the advertising world passed, I was able to pursue my true goal...animation.