Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Authors@Google: Jerry Beck (On Selecting the 100 Greatest Looney Tunes of All Time)

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I LOVE Looney Tune cartoons, so I had to share this talk about the selection process for the 100 best Tunes of all time.
In a world of rascally rabbits, megalomaniacal ducks, and stuttering pigs, what defines greatness? This question was posed to thousands of cartoon fans, historians, and animators to create The 100 Greatest Looney Tunes Cartoons, the definitive Looney Tunes collection. Evaluated on their comedic brilliance, innovative animation, historical significance, and creative merit, cartoon historian Jerry Beck and the Cartoon Brew team of animation experts (http://www.cartoonbrew.com) reveal the amusing anecdotes and secret origins behind such classics as "What's Opera, Doc?," "One Froggy Evening," and "Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century." Featuring more than 300 pieces of original art from private collectors and the Warner Bros. archives, The 100 Greatest Looney Tunes Cartoons settles the debate on the best of the best, and poses a new question: Is your favorite one of the greatest?

Jerry Beck is an animation historian and cartoon producer. His over fifteen books on the subject include The Animated Movie Guide, Looney Tunes: The Ultimate Visual Guide and The 50 Greatest Cartoons. He is also co-founder/co-writer of the popular animation blog, Cartoon Brew.

Beck is a former studio exec with Nickelodeon and Disney, and is currently a consulting producer to Warner Bros., Universal and Disney for their classic animation dvd compilations. Beck has programmed retrospectives for the Annecy and Ottawa Animation Festivals, The Museum of Modern Art and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. He has taught animation history at NYU, SVA, the AFI and UCLA. He is the host/producer of the annual "Worst Cartoons Ever" screening at the Comic-Con International: San Diego.

Beck started his career in film distribution, working at MGM/UA, Orion Classics, Cannon Films and Expanded Entertainment (Tournee of Animation), before starting his own company, Streamline Pictures in 1989, the first U.S. distributor to import anime features such as Otomo's Akira and Miyazaki's Laputa: Castle In The Sky. Beck was instrumental in launching Animation Magazine, and has written for The Hollywood Reporter and Variety. Beck was also the West Coast Bureau Chief for Kidscreen magazine in 2000. He has also created, written and produced animated films for various clients. His latest animation project, Hornswiggle, recently aired on the Nicktoons Network.

To learn more, visit http://www.cartoonbrew.com




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