My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic group shot. Courtesy of The Hub.

The Transformers may be raking in the box office gold and G.I. Joe battled COBRA in the multiplexes, but while those once-upon-the-eighties Hasbro cartoon shows made the leap from TV cartoon to big screen live action, the diminutive equines collectively known as My Little Pony have returned in a new animated series that has surprised a lot of people.

To put it simply, The Hub Channel’s My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is one hip show.

MLP:FiM is the creation of Lauren Faust, an animation veteran whose career began as an animator on 1990’s features like Cats Don’t Dance and Quest for Camelot. After directing a stack of Powerpuff Girls episodes, Faust hit her stride as Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends’ head writer and supervising producer. (And in all likelihood, the visual inspiration for Frankie, the show’s red-haired teenage problem-solver.)

Ren & Stimpy board 2

One by one, the folding chairs set up in New York City’s Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art are being occupied. It’s the first evening of a three-night course in storyboarding – part of MoCCA’s ongoing educational program – and the dozen or so folks filling those chairs are here to learn from Stephen DeStefano.  Stephen’s MoCCA students are looking for a leg up in the craft, or are simply curious about the nuts and bolts of an animation fundamental. CGI animators, comic book artists and even a handful of School of Visual Arts instructors (not to mention one AWN writer) have come to try their hand at boarding.

Ted Soward's After Today Live.

Disney’s 1995 backup animated feature A Goofy Movie – and one of its songs in particular – struck a chord with a generation of school kids who are now in college. Fan videos and mash-ups are nothing new, but one student took it a step – or two – further…

After the emotional depth of Kung Fu Panda, the lazy humor of Monsters vs. Aliens was a major disappointment, and as a result I wasn’t holding out much hope for DreamWorks’ new How to Train Your Dragon. Guess what? I was wrong.

The canceled Comedy Central series’ feature length finale is a low-budget direct-to-video effort designed to provide its fans with, as the cliché goes, “closure” and to say farewell once and for all to its cast of animated archetypes… maybe. “Buying the DVD is a vote for the show” returning, its producers say. “Besides, there’s a part of the movie you can’t download that will change your life.”

Road Runner and Coyote in 3-D.

Animating classic, nay legendary cartoon characters is a daunting challenge. Theatrical shorts are no longer part of a four-hour day at the movies, along with a double feature, newsreel, shorts and coming attractions – they’re now a prestige item occasionally accompanying a suitably themed fantasy/family film. And as befits our modern truncated attention spans, they’re more often than not faster-paced and briefer in running time than their illustrious predecessors.

When Warner Bros. asked Matt O’Callaghan to return their yin-and-yang, would-be predator and hoped-for prey pair Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner, to the big screen – only in CGI-shape and 3D-depth, O’Callaghan took a deep breath and delivered the goods – and fortunately for all involved with the production, without once resorting to Acme technology…

Bugs Bunny & Daffy - The Looney Tunes Show

A free breakfast buffet (lox wrapped around a pretzel – whose idea was that?), a 2-gig flash drive and a flashy live/multi-media stage show: not bad for an April Wednesday morning in New York City: it’s your typical ‘up front’ presentation, wherein the networks showcase their new shows in full razzly-dazzly mode – and on this particular morning Cartoon Network has plenty to razzle-dazzle.

Legend of the Guardians.  (C) 2010 GOG PRODUCTIONS PTY LTD. Courtesy of Warner Bros. Picture.

You’ve probably heard about the Uncanny Valley: not a geographical location, but the precipitous drop in peoples’ comfort level when they come across something that’s almost human… but not quite (like the replicants in Zemeckis’ mocap movies). Well, in Zack Snyder’s Legend of the Guardians you’ve got owls – dozens and hundreds of owls who look almost like real life owls… but not quite. It’s that quest for the absolutely perfect replication of wind rippling the tiniest hairs in their feathers or the way light glints and reflects off their wide eyes: Guardians achieves it – at the expense of the audience they’ve just tossed into the Valley.

Maybe I was in a bad mood when Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs came out. Maybe I just resented the idea of taking one of my kids’ favorite picture books and pumping it up into a full-length feature, so I passed on it in the theaters.  Meatballs was true to the book’s title, its idea of food falling from the sky – and not much else. Not that there was much else to ditch, admittedly, but at the very least I would’ve liked to have seen at least one visual nod along the way to Ron Barrett’s meticulously cross-hatched original illustrations that gave the book’s outlandish premise a real-world solidity.

Conservation, inpainting and preservation to production cels and background from Walt Disney’s 1948 feature film Melody Time. Art gifted from Walt Disney to Hardie Gramatky, ex-Disney employee and author of the children’s book: Little Toot. Collection of Kendall & Linda Gramatky. Image courtesy of the Archive of Ron Barbagallo, Animation Art Conservation. Melody Time - © Disney Enterprises, Inc.

Once upon a time animation art wasn't worth the celluloid it was painted on. Art that would now be worth tens of thousands of dollars was washed or thrown away – and what was saved often handled thoughtlessly or just forgotten about. Things have changed since then, changed a lot. People now realize that animation art is exactly that - a thing of beauty in its own right, and a cultural heritage to be cherished and preserved. (The fact that original cels, concept art and similar items are high-valued collectibles that are transitioning to museum art hasn't hurt either.)

Preservation is where Ron Barbagallo comes into the picture. Even the most carefully preserved original art cannot escape the inevitable decay of the materials that went into its creation, and clients on the order of the Walt Disney Co., Warner Bros., Hanna-Barbera and even individuals like Roy E. Disney have turned to Ron's Animation Art Conservation practice for rescue and restoration projects that often border on the miraculous.

Ron's been at it for nearly 25 years. While his work has focused on the preservation of hand-painted cels and backgrounds, his work also includes physical objects like Mary GrandPré's Harry Potter pastel art book covers, Batman's suits from the Tim Burton and Christopher Nolan movies and a four-year preservation effort for the long-term care of Burton's Nightmare Before Christmas, Corpse Bride and James and the Giant Peach puppets. Ron's skills have even led him to the shattered remnants of the World Trade Center.