I have to say, watching "Banjo the Woodpile Cat" after having watched each and every Don Bluth film in order (hit the "Don Bluth Month" tab below if you missed that series) is quite the experience. Originally conceived as a feature film, and later as a Christmas Special, "Banjo" is an approximately twenty minute long short animated film made by the independent Don Bluth studio in it's larval stage. Many of the animators still worked at Disney while making "Banjo" on the side. And -according to animation mythology and, if true, then it gives this cute little special a punk rock touch- "Banjo" was produced entirely in a garage.
As for the film itself, "Banjo" is sweet and cute and charming. It's also interesting to see all the similarities it has with later, better-known Bluth productions. We've got a cute little character who is separated from his family, gets into adventures in a big city, and makes some new friends who help him find his way home -- just like in "An American Tail". The overall look of the film, however, is more similar to "All Dogs Go To Heaven". The characters sometimes look very odd, and there is a similar montage of characters getting into mischief in the city. The film is also visually consistent with the Disney films Bluth and company had worked on.
Overall, "Banjo" is a fun little short with terrific animation and a simple, sweet story.
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Happy Holidays to everyone! I will likely start posting again the second week in January (I may be going on an adventure for New Year's). Have a great Solstice Holiday of Choice and a very happy New Year!
First off, I found this on Best Week Ever, and they could only describe it as "A Kazaam wish come true!"
I will also share with you the traditional Christmas music of my people.
And finally, Comics Alliance has an annotated preview of the comic "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians" in it's entirety. It is much, much better than it sounds.
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Art of the Day!
Here's a Christmas commission I had recently. I was simply told, "Make us an album cover with cats on it". This is what they got. Fortunately, they got it right away and loved it. (Plus you can't have enough Christmas Cats.)
Once again, YouTube is proof that God loves 80's children and wants us to be happy:
Here it is: Ralph Bakshi's Christmas special for Nickelodeon, "Christmas Comes to Tattertown". Let me repeat that, because the full implications didn't hit me until a while later either: Ralph BAKSHI (long pause) CHRISTMAS special (another long pause) for NICKELODEON.
It turns out that it is way weirder than I remembered. It's a little obvious at times that this is a one-off special cribbed from a rejected series, but it's still a lot of fun. Look for all the references to 1930's cartoons (was that Oswald the Lucky Rabbit and Flip the Frog?)
Compared to that, "The Glow Friends Save Christmas" is going to seem a little... conventional. I don't have much to add to this except that Bashful Bug is even more useless here than she is in the Glow Friends cartoon, that whoever animated this has never even seen a deer, and that I only saw this once and kept confusing it with the more (in)famous "Christmas Comes to Pac-Land" in my foggy 80's kid memory.
Hey, speaking of "Christmas Comes to Pac-Land"! Here it is, with thanks to The Retroist blog. This can't be the first time you've ever seen this can it?
Here's another "I Saw It Once and Keep Confusing it in My Memory with a Different Thing I Saw Once" Christmas Special. This is "The Christmas Raccoons". I love how every Christmas special from Canada I see tries to be more crazy than the last one I saw. I still have no idea what the hell Cyril Sneer is, and I kept confusing this with "The Raccoons and the Lost Star".
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Festive Thing of the Day!
Yeah, technically both of the two most recent posts should count, but if this isn't enough crazy Christmas specials for you, Comics Alliance has reviews of three "Most Awesomely Bizarre" holiday specials and Platypus Comix has the Island of Misfit Christmas Specials. That we live in a world where they made a Pac-Man Christmas Special makes me happy every day.
And if that STILL isn't enough, the great Everything is Terrible has a lovely collection of weird direct-to-video holiday joy for all ages.
Sketch of the Day! My cousin and his family held this year's family Christmas party. It was also the first time their dogs had seen more than ten people in the house...
As I stated on Thanksgiving, I found a YouTube Channel that had a bunch of Christmas specials I never thought I'd see again. Among them is "George and the Christmas Star", a strange and oddly melancholy little special from our Canadian friends:
I remember seeing this in New Hampshire a very long time ago, and all I remembered was Ralph the Robot's song. All the songs are by Paul Anka and... you can tell.
The aforementioned YouTuber was also kind enough to share "Raggedy Anne and Andy and the Great Santa Claus Caper":
When we think of Chuck Jones Christmas Specials, we probably immediately think of "How the Grinch Stole Christmas!" But that's not the only one. "Santa Claus Caper" is an oddity from the late 1970's and the world has seemed to forget it entirely even though it's cute and really quite good.
Fun things to notice: I don't think Chuck could ever let Wile E. Coyote go. June Foray should be in every Christmas special ever. The message of the special comes across as "Don't leave your toys mint in the box because that is bad and wrong," which is... an odd point of contention to have indeed.
Chances are you'd see commercials like these during these specials:
I love the montage of all the "Celebrate the Season with Kraft" ads that ran during the first-ever broadcast of "The Christmas Toy". They made all that cheesy goop look *so* appealing!
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Obliquely Festive Thing of the Day! It is, in Any Case, Timely!
So, there's this movie adaptation of "Yogi Bear" out now. It looks like pretty much the Worst Thing. However, every cloud has a silver lining, and io9 writer Cyriaque Lamar has watched the film for our sins. Cyriaque then wrote this amazing review, which is a must-read, because it gets downright philosophical about Yogi and his fellow Hannah-Barbera animal characters:
"If chipmunks, beagles, and platyhelminthes suddenly begin yammering at us about shamanistic folk remedies, humanity's entire philosophical, religious, and legal edifices will be blasted to smithereens... the Jellystone bears are creatures that should make SETI sh*t its pants, but they're greeted with apathy."
So there is a show called "Terra Nova" coming to Fox sometime next year. You love dinosaurs, I love dinosaurs, we all love dinosaurs, so you might have heard of it. We know exactly this much about it:
1) It involves Steven Spielberg.
2) There's at least one dinosaur in it.
2.5) But don't call it "'Lost' with dinosaurs".
3) The plot has something to do with some humans from the future traveling through time to live in the Mesozoic era. Apparently the Earth is dying in the future and so people go back to the past to set right what once went wrong.
Now, call me cynical but it occurs to me that the plan to send humans back to pre-human times in a bid to fix the ecological catastrophes humans have caused in the future is... flawed. What if it just gives us another seventy-million years to eff things up?
(Light-bulb goes *ping!*)
Oh my God -- here's my bet on how this series will end. The humans settle in about a thousand years or so from the end of the Cretaceous, and it turns out that (wait for it) Natalie Portman was a swan the whole time! Also, that time-traveling humans contributed to the K-T extinction.
Also, I will wager you that whatever the plot actually is, the dinosaurs will still look like they did in the "Jurassic Park" movies. I am ready to say I will wear a frilly tutu or something equally silly all day long, with all the inconveniences that implies, if we see just one feather.
Sketch of The Day, right in the middle of the post!
Yeah. But never mind "Terra Nova" for now. Are there any shows on TV involving dinosaurs we could watch right now? Well, yes there are.
The first series is the one I have the least to say about, for ill and for good. It's called "Dino Dan" and it airs on Nick Jr. It is - and this is the intriguing part - made with the cooperation of the venerable Royal Tyrell Museum. You can bet your hindquarters the dinosaurs on the show are going to be as accurate as possible given the production date.
And the limitations of the animation budget. The dinosaurs are CGI creations (we will be seeing a lot of this) and the animation can get a little wonky. It's nice that the Compsognathus has feathers, but it also looks like he stuck his toe in an electrical socket. .
The premise behind the show is that Dan Henderson (awesome) is a kid who loves animals and knows an awful lot about them. And he sees dinosaurs where others don't. Aside from teaching the audience about Ornithodirans of all kinds, the show informs it's young audience that everyone loves small children who are insufferable know-it-alls total nerds. Interesting.
"Dino Dan" is at least far better than our second dinosaur-involving children's show. Then again, most things are. Currently airing in an early-morning death slot on The Hub, "DinoSapien" is a British/Canadian co-production. And it is *weird*. And I don't mean the fun kind of weird.
The plot: A girl goes to a dinosaur-themed summer camp in the woods and meets the titular creature, named Eno. Eno looks like what would have happened if E.T. had an illicit affair with Dougal Dixon's Dinosauroid (seen at the 2:00 mark). He is, all told, an odd-looking protagonist for a kid's show. On the one hand, I like that they aren't afraid to let Eno enter the uncanny valley (I can't help but think we'd have a horrific instinctual reaction to an actual flesh-and-blood anthropomorphic animal-person; I base this theory on the comments under those Orangina ads), but a part of me wishes he'd been allowed to be a little cuter.
He's supposed to be a kind of Dromeosaur, and he sports a few feathers but is otherwise naked. And he has really strange hands. He at least is a little more believable than the Diggers, which are another kind of dinosaur lurking around the campground. I have no idea what's going on with them.
The show itself is very reminiscent -for ill and for good- of the live-action sci-fi series from Nickelodeon in the early '90s. You're going to see a lot of bad animation and annoying children. I was beginning to feel very distraught over this project...
But then...
Oh, but then...
Let us now watch "Dinosaur Train". Indeed, let us watch "Dinosaur Train: every day. Because it might be the greatest and best kids' animated series with dinosaurs in it and should maybe even have a spot on my DVR in-between "My Little Pony" and "The Walking Dead" (someday, my prince will come ). But I am getting ahead of myself.
Initially, when this series was announced, people were skeptical. It was hard not to be when all we had was a title. Muses Ryan Roe of the great Muppet fan site "Tough Pigs", "they (must have) arrived at the idea of Dinosaur Train after rejecting Space Bulldozers, Kittens Eating at McDonald’s, Cupcakes Playing Drums, and Dead Bugs with Moustaches." And then... the show premiered.
I am not going to get to wordy here. People, there is an episode with Therizinosaurs doing Tai-chi. There are Therizinosaurs and they are in a cartoon for kids AND THEY ARE DOING MARTIAL ARTS AND THIS IS AWESOME!!! Also, they have feathers. Matter of fact, minor theropod characters are more likely to have them then to prance around naked. Nerd glee!
Addendum: More, and far more detailed, reasons you need to let your kids watch "Dinosaur Train" over at DinoGoss
Speaking of Muppets, those of you in the New York City area (specifically, Brooklyn) can attend the Muppet Vault Christmas event this coming Sunday! Nobody made Christmas specials like the Muppets, and the Tough Pigs gang will be showing some of their favorite lost classics. Perhaps they will include this crazy thing?
And if you are in North Conway, New Hampshire, you can do what my cousin and I did this July and visit the Christmas Loft. Granted, visiting this place during Christmas isn't going to have the same impact, but even so it... it is something to see, I can promise you that.
Right now, beavers are headed into their dens for a perceived night that will last for weeks and weeks. Snapping turtles are settling down in the bottom of the lake, and there they will sleep without taking a breath of fresh air for up to five months. All the Monarch butterflies from the entire east coast of the United States are dormant in a single mountain forest that is *just* the right temperature for their liking. Some animals have slowed their bodies down to a point where they are barely alive, while others are preparing to brisk about in life, day and night, at temperatures that would make a human cry.
Among these animals is the tiny Golden-Crowned Kinglet, a hummingbird-sized snow-fairy of the Arctic woods. Your Field Guide probably spends a grand total of one paragraph on Kinglets. I'd only seen them in the wild once or twice, and thought they were cute. I did not know that they were also incredibly bad-ass.
That is the way of all winter creatures, and their stories are told in Bernd Heinrich's Winter World: The Ingenuity of Animal Survival. It's a terrific book and I am struggling to finish it on this, it's date due back to the library. I don't want to get too off-topic, but I don't know what happened to me. I feel like I devoured long nonfiction books in high school and now it's like I lost the patience for them. I haven't got the slightest idea why this is so; I love learning and Heinrich's books always leave me astonished at the biological wonders I did not know.
Bernd even throws his hat into the long-running argument over how birds evolved flight feathers. Body feathers are a remarkable insulation -- when they are dry. Getting them wet would be lethal. Wing feathers, therefore, may have initially appeared as built-in umbrellas.
As for the Kinglet, this theory is pretty sound. Bernd illustrates the book with his own sensitive pencil illustrations, and one such illustration (page 112) is of a Kinglet underneath all the feathers. Turns out body feathers add even more perceived bulk than I ever suspected. That the plucked songbird looks astonishingly like an old drawing of a small theropod does not go unnoticed by the author.
Paul McCartney's "Wonderful Christmastime" is this year's Jolly Christmas Song That Won't Leave Me Alone. And I will admit that I was among those who thought it was stupid and annoying... until I saw the video for it.
The video is trippy as hell and at least ten kinds of distinctively late 1970's music video awesome:
Best parts include the giant constellation-God-thing that sprinkles Dust all over Paul's piano, the choir in space, giant flying disco balls, a giant irradiated horse in the sky, Paul and friends watching... themselves on TV, two glowing figures in space who seem just about to make out but don't, and that huge exploding gift at the end. Holy Christmas.
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Sketch of the Day!
I am not even going to make an attempt to top that:
Disney has produced many behind-the-scenes documentaries before. They are often very informative, but fluffy pieces packed with smiling talking heads and footage of animators happily working and maybe a segment showing early concept art or rough animation or something. Granted, I am not saying they are bad; they are often fascinating. "The Making of 'Beauty and the Beast'", which ran on the Disney Channel years and years ago, is fairly typical:
When I watched such specials as a child, I thought it must be great fun to work at Disney. Animators like Glen Keane and Andreas Deja were the stars of the movie just as much as -if not more so than- Robbie Benson and Page O'Hara. Plus, they had a studio right in Disney World! How awesome would it be to make Disney animated features right in Disney World?Well. If you grew up with the Bronze Age of the Disney Animated Canon and want to know what happened *behind* behind the scenes, you owe it to yourself to watch "Waking Sleeping Beauty". The best way to learn what was really happening at Disney Feature Animation during the Bronze Age is straight from the mouths of the animators who worked there. Produced by Don Hahn, "Waking" is a fascinating and incredibly poignant look at the ten years between 1984, when the animation studio was just about to go belly-up, and 1994, right before the record-setting release of "The Lion King".I'm stating the time-span this movie covers right away to forewarn you: This movie is amazing and you should watch it, but overall it feels like the prologue to a much longer and equally incredible story. "Waking" ends before Michael Eisner left (or, depending on who you believe, was kicked out), before Jeffrey Katzenberg kissed off for DreamWorks, and before the full impact of Frank Wells' tragic death became really clear. Walt's poor nephew Roy E. Disney must have felt that he was left alone to arrange the deck chairs on the Titanic before John Lasseter pulled Disney animation out of it's long, long Dork Age. Part of me really, REALLY wants to hear that story (really, just what thought-process leads to something like "Home on the Range" or "Chicken Little" or all those dang-blasted DTV sequels?) I suppose I can wait.Remember how I said that it is a genuine miracle that "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" even exists, and an even greater miracle that everyone working on that movie, which had so many things that could go wrong, just knocked it out of the park? Turns out that's pretty much the case with each and every Bronze Age Disney Animated Canon movie. "Part of Your World" was nearly cut from "The Little Mermaid" (as an aside, one of the most moving scenes in the DVD special features is archival footage of Jodi Benson and Howard Ashman singing the song together -- and then she nails it in the first recording). Both "Beauty and the Beast" and "Aladdin" had to be scrapped and rebooted entirely because they had such awful pacing problems in their first iterations. And the film -way too briefly- covers one of my favorite ever surprising pieces of Disney trivia: After "Beauty and the Beast" won the Golden Globe for Best Musical/Comedy Film, and received a surprise nomination for Best Picture at the Academy Awards, the highest-ups at Disney demanded more serious Oscar-baiting films. Thereafter, "Pocahontas" became the movie *everyone* wanted to work on -- but they let the other animation team finish their silly little movie about animals singing Elton John songs. Which went on to be the highest-grossing animated Disney film of all time.One of the coolest things about "Waking Sleeping Beauty" is the format. It's not people sitting down and giving interviews; though we do get lots and lots of narration from all the animators. Instead, we see all the archival footage like home movies and photographs and caricatures and other fun stuff we've never had a chance to see before because Disney squirreled it away in the Vault. This alone is worth watching the movie for, though it's odd to recall that Warner Bros. has been making animation documentaries like this for years and years. The aforementioned special features on the DVD are also fascinating (I was especially geeking out over the uncut Studio Tour home movies), and add a great deal more to the story.Now, how likely is it we'll ever see "The Sweatbox"?----Festive Thing of the Day!Speaking of Disney, it doesn't really feel like winter until I see Donald and the three nephews' impossibly awesome snow forts.----Sketch of the Day!It's hard out here for an artist.
I know next to nothing about early mammals. There, I was honest. I can lecture you into oblivion when it comes to the natural history of birds (thank you, Gregory S. Paul and your beautifully illustrated doorstopper), but when it comes to our furry little titty-sucking (record-scratch sound effect)
Concerned Parent: "OH MY GOD SHE DIDN'T JUST SAY THAT CHILDREN COVER YOUR EYES WAAAARRRGAAAARBLLLLZ!!!!!"
Yes I did just say that. Because we are going to be talking about mammals. And I know this is going to blow your mind if you are the kind of person who thinks the split-second sight of a breast is going to corrupt your children (even after they spent the better portion of their babyhood attached to one), but the one defining characteristic of mammals, the one thing that separates us from all other animals, it isn't the hair, it isn't the live-bearing of our young, it is the mammary glands. Deal with it.
Aaaaa-nyway, when it comes to our furry, titty-sucking forebears, I am totally clueless. This is not entirely for lack of trying: There are hardly any good books at all about "proto-mammals" (which I know is an old term, but a lot of people grew up with seeing it when this subject was ever brought up, so I'm only using it so more people will know WTF I'm talking about). Most people have only ever heard of Dimetrodon and the majority of them think that thing is a dinosaur anyway, because if your skeleton is on display at Harvard Museum of Natural History, you're a dinosaur, right? (No, really. I have overheard as much.)
Enter our old friend John C. McLoughlin, he of the unique and often very nice pen and ink illustrations and, err, equally unique ideas about the anatomy and behavior of prehistoric creatures. Published in 1980 by Viking, in the wake of the far, far better-known The Archosauria, The Synapsida is an attempt to tell the complete story of mammals. Turns out it's a very interesting story, though unfortunately I am unable to call B.S. or not on some of McLoughlin's claims (though it turns out that the "Walking With Whatever" writers weren't the first to come up with venomous synapsids).
But what we're really here for are the illustrations. And McLoughlin's draftsmanship is phenomenal, even when the animals he is drawing aren't the prettiest things:
Venyucovia here might give us a hint as to why you don't see scads of kid's books, stuffed animals, big Hollywood movies, and cartoons of questionable educational content about Synapsids. By now, we know how to make dinosaurs "cute", what the heck do you do with this thing?
Undaunted, McLoughlin introduces us to all the strange creatures at the base of our family tree. I mean it when I say ALL of them. His history of mammals starts with early Chordates and doesn't stop until we hit humans. And humans, by the way, are bastards.
Really, that's the strangest thing in the book. McLoughlin wears his politics right on his sleeve, and seems almost ashamed that the majestic beasts he chronicles in the book gave rise to us. Here's an example of how jarring this can get:
Subtlety is not one of McLoughlin's strong suites. There's another odd moment where he describes the fascinating story of the Pelycosaur, Cotylorhynchus, the world's first very large herbivorous four-legged animal. It was able to survive in a colder climate than any of the animals that could have preyed on it. The animal in question is a big, monstrously fat critter with a disproportionately tiny head and nothing at all to worry about. McLoughlin invites America to look at the horrors of our inevitably morbidly obese future when viewing his illustration of the unsuspecting beast.
Um... so, Dimetrodon!
Aww, look how ugly-cute he is! Here with Edaphosaurus who, it turns out, isn't a close relative at all (though they are both Pelycosaurs)! See, I never knew that because my childhood books couldn't be bothered to spend more than two pages on these guys.
Speaking of ugly-cute, here is a confusingly-named Dromosaur (not to be confused with those more famous guys with the fluffy feathers and the large talons). McLoughlin informs us that this little fellow has been discovered preserved in a sleeping position with his tail wrapped around his body. Given that McLoughlin was one of the first paleoartists to illustrate theropods with feathers, I'm honestly surprised he didn't give this guy a coat of fur.
Fact is, fur doesn't appear at all until late in the book. Even then, all we get are a few whiskers at first:
Again, I don't know very much about these animals. I have no idea if there have been any skin impressions found from them. I can't begin to guess where hair would have first appeared on mammal-like creatures in the fossil record. It seems this Thrinaxodon would be a good candidate for being furry, so it's very strange to see McLoughlin restore him naked.
Or... maybe that's just how McLoughlin renders fur; through stippling? Take a look at this... animal... we'll call him Generic Cenozoic Critter:
Yeah.
All in all, The Synapsida is not the strange ride that is The Archosauria, but it is definitely a worthwhile read. You will, at the very least, learn about some very fascinating animals you may have otherwise never heard of.
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Feederwatch Friday! I forgot to do this last week, but I've been sick:
I sat down at the computer after setting up the TREE, covered in sap and bruises and scratches, when what to my wandering eye should appear but a Bad Santa Gallery! Numbers 7, 24, and 25 are my favorites. (Some NSFW ads.)
Here are doodles I drew while watching the Quincy Christmas Parade. And being violently sick (my sinuses are still painfully dry, but I am otherwise feeling much better).
John C. McLoughlin's epic popular biological science book, The Tree of Animal Life: A Tale of Changing Forms and Fortunes! Published in 1981 by Dodd, Mead, and Company. And it is indeed epic. In this book, McLoughlin is going to do no less than tell us the entire history of animal life on Earth.
Now, I'll admit I don't know enough about animals in general to call B. S. on some of McLoughlin's claims here. Then again, nothing stands out as particularly weird. As the title graphic implies, the book is heavy on the concept of Convergent Evolution. We also have a McLoughlin Butthead-ceratops right on the title page. There's another a little later on in the book:
A little different from the iconic Archosauria image, but still pretty weird.
Right off the bat, I like how McLoughlin writes out my Linneus Rant so I don't have to:
McLoughlin's own pointillism ink drawings are back. As in Archosauria, they are quite lovely, like this rather sprightly Rhamphorhynchus:
Certainly, McLoughlin spends a lot of time in the Mesozoic era. But he does take a while in ancient times as well. Here are some rather odd-looking Opabinas. (Read that again: Odd-looking Opabinas. For those who do not know what an Opabina is, it's essentially a real-life Starfish Alien. From Earth. They looked very weird, but a little different from this illustration.)
In Archosauria, I was unspeakably happy to see that nearly every small-ish theropod in the book was drawn with a fine coat of feathers. Strangely, even though this book is relatively more recent, McLoughlin ditches this trend entirely. And he gets Deinonychus and Deinocheirus confused:
You may need to click for big, but yes, he refers to the dromeosaurs in this drawing as Deinocheirus. To be fair, there was an odd time in the 80's where any dinosaur with large talons would be lumped in with the dromeosaurs. That's why your old copy of the used-to-be-seminal Simon and Schuster Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Creatures (I will eventually get to that one) has Baryonyx in among the 'raptors.
And that's... that's not a Quetzalcoatlus. (But again, to be fair, there wasn't much good evidence of Azhdarchids back then. Some reconstructions could get... weird.)
Since McLoughlin was an early champion of feathered theropods, you may wonder what his take on Archaeopteryx would look like. Well, it looks like this:
With crazy hands and a bonus Syntarsus. I love blog posts where I come up with five or six other possible posting subjects while writing. The strange history of the critter called Syntarsus in paleoart might be one.
McLoughlin ends the book with the appearance of humans on the animal life playing field. And... it turns out he is an illustrator like myself who may do well to avoid drawing people altogether:
Then again, the look on the guy on the right. It's on the very border of hilarious and horrifying.
Last year, I did a brief post on forgotten Christmas specials and lamented that there was very little evidence online that Ralph Bakshi's "Christmas in Tattertown" ever existed. This year, a Google search turned up... slightly more information. I'm still hunting around for the complete special, but at least I can point to the clips in this montage of odd Christmas moments from specials (with possibly the greatest musical accompaniment imaginable) and say I wasn't making it up:
---- I have no idea if this is for real or not, but here is more evidence that George Lucas needs someone to tell him, "No." EDIT: And bullet dodged. Thank goodness there are lines he will not cross. (Now a really nice Christmas present would be some assurance that Robert Zemekes will not be allowed on the same continent as wherever "Who Discovered Roger Rabbit" is being made and that his motion capture remake of "Yellow Submarine" has sunk...) ----
Sketch of the Day! This kinda has to do with the content of this book:
It's the Holiday Season!So loopity-loo and dickery-dock!And don't forget to hang up your sock!
(Ahem.) In practice, this means that the Sketch/Art/Whatever of the Day will be accompanied by the Festive Holiday Thing of the Day.
Having survived two Christmas Fairs (one of which ruled and one of which was a big disappointment -- but I've got lots of stuff for family and friend gifts and for ebay now) within a few days of each other, it's time to think of things that have almost nothing to do with Christmas! Prehistoric life in general and dinosaurs specifically will rule the first half of December here at the Blog. (Then again, it's not totally off-topic. After all, conifers are overtaking the flower shop, and Christmas does involve turkeys and cardinals and peacocks and doves and partridges in pear trees...)
If you're joining us after meeting me at one of the aforementioned craft fairs, welcome! I'll be sharing one of my artworks (a sketch, painting, or something else) at the end of every post, and writing about things that are related to my art, things that influenced my art, and other fun stuff. There's some cool stuff in the archives. Please enjoy the ride and stand clear of the doors / Por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas.
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So today, I'm reviewing a newer version of an old children's album. When my sister and I were little, we had ourselves a cassette tape collection that... probably wasn't as big as I remember. And I say that because the handful of tapes we had, we pretty much loved to death.
Thank goodness for iTunes then, eh? A quick search uncovers the staples of our childhood record collection: scads of crazy 80's Disney records... and "Dinosaur Rock".
We picked this little gem up in the Museum of Science gift shop and promptly wore it down. I also have vague memories of a live play in the Cahners' Theater that involved giant dinosaur puppets. (Unimpressed modern children: this was in a pre-"Walking With Dinosaurs" world.)
So I recently listened to the album partially out of nostalgia and partially to see if it still holds up. It turns out the creators of "Dinosaur Rock" are still around, and the album available on iTunes is the anniversary remastered edition. "Remastered" actually means "completely re-recorded but with very little altered content". What you'll be listening to is very similar to what I heard way back in 1984-ish, just the voices are different.
"Dinosaur Rock" is a rock opera about dinosaurs. Your mileage may vary on whether or not "Dinosaur Rock" is as awesome as a dinosaur rock opera should be, but the variety of songs is pretty darn impressive for a handful of musicians. The plot: two kids are hanging out on the beach when they hear "The Dinosaur Song" on the radio. Selected hilarious lyrics:
"Oh, Dinosaurs were strong and scary! / Big animals who are not very hairy!!! They run through the land eating leaves off the trees! / Frightening the animals, birds, and bees!"
Yeah.
The song is certainly a magical song, because it summons Professor Jones. Half paleontologist, half wizard, he claims in his nominal song that fossil-finding "is what I used to do". "Used to", probably because he claims that upon finding the remains of long-dead animals, he would kiss them, dance a jig, yodel, and bring drawings of talking dinosaurs to life. The children are naturally skeptical about this last thing, so the good Professor Dumblejones draws Dinah Diplodocus and summons her spirit forth. She sings a song about fossilization.
Oh, the questions this raises. Prof. Jones explains that Dinah's bone was magic, and that he was compelled to draw her in the sand even though, "I'd never drawn before!" So... would he have drawn Dinah with dorsal spines? Because look at paleoart of Diplodocus from the 80's (the one below is from Pamela Carroll in Seymore Simon's The Largest Dinosaurs) and compare it to this modern reconstruction by T-PEKC:
The old version of the record used vocal effects on Dinah's dialogue (not, oddly, her singing parts) to make her sound huge, and the effect seems more in line with the doofy, rubber-necked tail-dragger seen immediately above. Still, this is thought-provoking.
Anyway, the only other appreciable change between my childhood tape and this CD is that Professor Jones pronounced Diplodocus correctly. It used to be, for some damn and easily-imitated-by-children reason, "Dip-low-DOCK-us". Also, the cover art is considerably less badass. It was originally some crazy-awesome William Stout-looking visual madness; Google image search has failed me, so you'll have to take my word for it.
Important Update: I have found my original copy of this album! Here's the actually crazier than I remember original cover art. Enjoy. For whatever reason, Dinah can't explain to the children what life was like in the Jurassic Period, so they must summon Stella Stegosaurus. Dinah sings a cute song about how Stella met her untimely end after saying "'Hi,' to a mean Allosaurus" (ah, Carnivore Confusion). Stella sings of the "Sauropod Swing", which sounds like so much fun that the kids start to wish they were born in the Jurassic period. Man, you think the kids today who think we had it better in the 80's are crazy with nostalgia...
Stella and Dinah think these kids are crazy too, as apparently, in-between swing dances, the Jurassic was a time when everything was trying to kill you. Stella helpfully explains that Allosaurus was "like Tyrannosaurus but smaller". Man, poor Allosaurus. He just wasn't appreciated before he got his own movie. Here, he's just a segway to the AWESOME "Tyrannosaurus Rex" song. It needs to be on your iPod. It's one of the best songs off a children's album since this sadly forgotten "Sesame Street" gem.
A discussion of dinosaur eggs and babies prompts the song, "Tiny Little Babies - and the Great, Big Momma", which has since been spun off into it's own play. Dinah mentions that hadrosaurs love babies, so the kids and Professor Jones head to the museum to see a concert by the Hadrosaurus from Hackensack. (My guess is that this whole album takes place on the New Jersey shore.) His song is a lot of fun, though it mentions his crest and webbed feet which is odd (since New Jersey's hadrosaurus lacked a big resonating crest) and badly in need of an update (webbed feet) respectively.
The gang rides a flock of friendly Pteronodons back to the beach (their song is pretty awesome too). Once there, the animals explain that they must leave with the incoming tide, and sing "Where Did Everybody Go?" Definitely the cheeriest song ever about mass extinction. It also dedicates a whole verse to the "eggs eaten by mammals" theory:
"They say that mammals liked the taste of omelets, so they would try to get a great big batch! The nests of dinosaurs were filled with eggs galore, and so the eggs were snatched before they hatched!"
Naturally, the kids are sad to see their dinosaur friends leave, so they return to the beach later with a crocodile tailbone the professor gave them, and manage to summon the crocodile on their own. He sings "We All Came From the Sea", which is a nice and oddly poignant song about evolution that... does not say the "E"-word even once. Hrmm.
"Dinosaur Rock", the musical, is still touring mostly in the northeast (the show is based in Washington, D.C. and was commissioned by the Smithsonian), and has spawned many many sequels. And one of them practically demands to be our very first...
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Festive Thingie of the Day!
A show about dinosaurs and holiday celebrations from around the world. This might just be the Best Thing:
"People all around the world celebrate with lights and ceremonies to warm their souls through the cold winter months... In Egypt and the rest of the Moslem world there’s Ramadan which ends with a Lantern Festival. Sarah the Saharan Suchomimus represents this holiday in our holiday offering. Leboha Lesothosaurus comes from Africa. African Americans invented Kwanza as a tribute to their agrarian ancestors. It stands as the only non religious winter holiday in our show. Shao Shao the Microraptor comes from the Liainong Province of China. Chinese New Year also ends with a lantern festival. Crash Boom Bam Sam the Triceratops demonstrates how the Maccabees overcame their Greek overlords and we bring on the menorah which stands for the miracle of Hannukah."
I hate it when I can't think of anything to blog about. But then I love it when something incredibly mention-on-my-blog-worthy falls into my lap when I can't think of anything to write about. (I only wish it would happen more often before Noon instead of after Midnight.)
So sometime last week, the very good and bookmark-worthy real science and science fiction news site io9 ran an article about Dougal Dixon's saddest speculative creatures. (Yes, our old friend the Slobber is among them. Can't believe they didn't mention the Wyrms, but read on.) The article is a slideshow of images, so there are some good scans from Dixon's books. I believe most if not all of the art is by Diz Wallace.
They make up for not mentioning the Wyrms by having creatures from Man After Man take up nearly half of the list. (Yes, I did find Sivatherium's scan of the book, no I still don't want to revisit it. I will, however, share this intriguing page from The Alien Life of Wayne Barlowe, for those who dare to read Sivatherium's scans. It is... thought-provoking to say the least.) I'll warn you, the slideshow is bookended by the most disturbing of the images from the book. You'll see in an instant as to why this book freaked me the f*** out when I was a child.
Now, nostalgia for Dougal Dixon's books is definitely high in certain circles, but the books are so obscure that they rarely get any mention at all in websites with any popularity. So if there's anything I can't pass up, it's a discussion thread under any and all articles mentioning Dixon's speculative biology books. This one is pretty lively (other people remember the "Future Zoo" exhibit!) and the posters shared quite a few Dixon projects that I was not aware of.
In the introduction to The New Dinosaurs, Desmond Morris wrote that he hoped that Dixon's next work of speculative fiction would take place on an entirely different planet. An alien ecosystem "where a parallel evolutionary process has taken place, guided by the special environmental conditions that exist there. In Dixon’s safe hands, what a wonderful safari that could be." (So how disappointed do you think he was with Man After Man?) It turns out that Dougal Dixon actually did write a book about an alien world called Greenworld. It's a somewhat satirical look at what happens when humans colonize the unsuspecting titular planet. The illustrations have a definite whimsical feeling reminiscent of the classic Spec-Bio book, Snouters, and many of them can be viewed in this blog post. And this book is... only available in Japan. Wah.
Speaking of Japan, apparently Dougal Dixon's creatures have a very intense cult following there. I do remember hearing something about a theme park(?!?) based off "The Future is Wild" over there. Check out this brief Anime musical number featuring the animals from from After Man. I have no idea whatsoever what this is about. There are many times when I wish I had any chance of successfully learning another language as quickly as possible and you'll see why this is one of them:
There was also a whole After Man documentary series that ran only in Japan. This is the first I've ever heard of it so I know literally nothing about it. YouTube user Manafterman has kindly uploaded the whole thing in parts.
I'm going to embed this highlight reel which shows off what we all came to see: the creatures (including an oddly hypnotic scene of Parashrews doing their wonderfully unlikely namesake thing). Note the combination of eerie puppets and funky, Harryhausen-esque stop motion.
There is also a very weird sequence near the end where Dixon shows us his take on the good old Dinosauroid concept (for those who are new to speculative biology, this is a very old concept that refuses to die and maybe deserves a post in the future, although Tetrapod Zoology has already done an excellent job covering it.) It's especially odd as there is no mention of any creatures of humanlike intelligence in After Man -- except in the very, very end, where Dixon speculates that if humanlike intelligence were to ever be seen on Earth again, it would be in either the insectivores, the corvids, or the parrots. Seems he liked the parrot option best. Now, I'm glad Dixon's Dinosauroid isn't too anthropomorphic (glares at Dale Russell). And I'm happy that he looks very very different from other Dinosauroids out there. But boy howdy this creature design is going to haunt our post-Thanksgiving dreams. Also, leg/arm:
Speaking of offbeat and only vaguely anthropomorphic speculative creatures of humanlike intelligence (whew), another wonderful Dixon gem was shared by poster Hypnosifl. It seems that long before Man After Man, Dougal Dixon did a feature on what humans might possibly look like in the future for the November 1982 issue of Omni. It was less nightmare fuel-y and more...
I am going to use the very scientific term Balls-Out Insane to describe them. Hypnosifl was happy to share scans of the article with us and...
😱
Wow.
WOW.
Here's the text portion: Part One, Part Two, and Part Three. And here are the full page illustrations: Future Human, More Future Humans (NSFW warning: there's one part on the floating brain guys that hasn't atrophied... ), and Future Birds (including a Future!Wyrm). On that last note, I enjoy the idea that birds will get another fun experience of being post-apocalyptic survivors. This find was so crazy that io9 did a follow-up post about it.
I have another craft fair this weekend! That means I might not be able to update until Tuesday, but I think I may have found something interesting from another offbeat natural history author I've previously reviewed...
I'm participating in a craft fair tonight! I wanted to do something different this year, so I decided to experiment with hand-painted ornaments.
Here are some cheap glass bulbs, fresh from Big Lots. I got some Creamcolor craft paint, metallic markers, and ribbons from Michaels. I was a little intimidated, because I've heard that glass is a very unforgiving surface to paint on. Turns out this isn't necessarily the case.
I'm starting in on a Cardinal ornament. There are times when you want to have a detailed sketch down before you make any mark in color, but in this case, I just went for it. Painted in the basic shapes layer by layer. It worked out very well.
Here's the Cardinal about halfway done...
And here's the finished set of bird ornaments.
Not knowing what to do with the metallic ornaments, I went with a fantasy theme. The hard thing is not knowing what will sell best.
The craft fair is tonight and I figure whatever doesn't sell there will get sold on ebay eventually. Wish me luck!
