No Smoking in the Skull Cave: 2007

Monday, December 31, 2007

Happy New Year!

And my New Years Eve gift to you is this very fun yet crazy video of Dita Von Teese dishing out some good old fashioned corporal punishment to a George W. Bush-a-like. There's another a-like cameo at the end of the video...poor Tony Blair.

Overlooked Movie: The Reluctant Dragon

"I'd rather entertain and hope that people learn, than teach and hope that people are entertained." ~Walt Disney

Humorist Robert Benchley visits the Disney Studios to sell Walt on the idea of animating the story of The Reluctant Dragon. While evading an officious young studio guide, Benchley stumbles into various studio activities and departments, including an art class, a sound effects session, the multiplane camera studio (at which point he notices the film has switched to Technicolor), the paint lab, a storyboard session for the "Baby Weems" segment, a movieola screening of the Goofy cartoon "How to Ride a Horse", and finally catches up with Walt in a screening room just as he's previewing the studio's latest film... The Reluctant Dragon!

Fun Trivia:
The film's live action star Robert Benchley was the grandfather of Jaws author Peter Benchley.

The film features the first of the Goofy "How-to" cartoons; "How to Ride a Horse". John McLeish was brought in to record the narration, and asked to read it in a very straightforward manner, as if for a serious documentary about horse riding. He was shocked when he was told that the narration he recorded would be used in a Goofy cartoon.

How to Ride a Horse was the first of several How to films made in which Goofy doesn't speak. These were made during a period when Goofy's voice artist Pinto Colvig was temporarily unavailable.

Maquettes in the model department include Jiminy Cricket and the drunk cuckoo clock from Pinochio, characters from Fantasia including a black centaurette which Robert Benchley takes with him, and the Knight from The Reluctant Dragon. Maquettes of early versions of Peter Pan, Captain Hook and Tinker Bell as well as Lady and the Tramp can be seen. Both movies were more than 10 years away from completion.

In the sound effects department the workers are creating sound effects for a piece of film with the train Casey Junior. Casey would pop up in Dinsney's next film Dumbo. Likewise in the art department the animators are making sketches for Dumbo. Bambi also makes a minor appearance in The Reluctant Dragon, a year before Bambi was released.

The Donald Duck parodies of Old Master paintings were originally made for an unproduced cartoon in which Donald is a guard at a museum.

The Mickey Avenue/Dopey Drive signpost was built specifically for the movie, and was supposed to be removed afterward. It wasn't, and it still stands at the Disney studio.

In a scene Benchley visits a voice recording session featuring Clarence Nash, the voice of Donald Duck, and Florence Gill, the voice of Clara Cluck.

Portions of the animated segment The Reluctant Dragon had to be redone because of objections by the Hays Office. The dragon was originally drawn with a navel which had to removed before the film could be passed. That's so fucking ridiculous.

This is the first full-length feature for Disney where the voices are credited.

The film was released in the middle of the Disney animators' strike of 1941. Strikers picketed the film's premiere with signs that attacked Disney for unfair business practices, low pay, lack of recognition, and favoritism. Critics and audiences were put off by the fact that the film was not a new Disney animated feature in the vein of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs or Pinocchio, but essentially a collection of four short cartoons and various live-action vignettes. The Reluctant Dragon cost $600,000 to make, but only returned $400,000 from the box office. It wasn't seen again in it's entirety til last year when it was released on DVD.

Robert Benchley proposed the following epitaph for his tombstone though ultimately it was not used: "This is all above my head.".

Fun Quotes:
Narrator from How to Ride a Horse: Yes, the horse, the servant of mankind, the aristocrat of the animal kingdom. Noble, faithful, obedient, and kind, most magnificent of all dumb animals.

Robert Benchley: Very good. I like the way you handle that fowl language.
Clarence Nash: [as Donald Duck] Foul language? Why the very idea!

As a bonus click here to watch the Goofy cartoon How to Ride a Horse:

This is really no suprise to me.

He's actually my favorite Beatle anyways! Take this quiz here.

Yes 75%
No 23%

Lets101 Quizzes - Blog Quizzes

47%

The truth has been changed to protect the identity of my lies...

SamuraiFrog has charged me to tell you seven facts about me that are not true. Unless they are.

1. When I was 7 I saved the world from an alien invasion. It wasn't too difficult I just led a trail of Reeses Pieces into a near by incinerator. Like I was going to pay the long distance charges to let him "phone home" bah.

2. I know how many licks it takes to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Roll, Tootsie pop...but I'm not telling...

3. I once had an affair with Godzilla, he was sweet but no where near the lover King Kong was.

4. My name is not really Becca. My name is Hans and I'm a 62 year old German man with diabetes.

5. I had a dream, I had an awesome dream. People in the park were playing games in the dark and what they played was a masquerade and from behind of walls of doubt a voice was crying out...YATZEE!

6. If I eat after midnight I turn into a Gremlin. Then I destroy World War two airplanes! Hooray! (If you get this I love you!)

7. I've read Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus so many times I know the book by heart. John Gray is my homey.

I now get to encourage other folks to lie to me and the rest of the world: Scurvy, Ben, Captain Incredible Lee and Swinebread

Sunday, December 30, 2007

It's an anniversary arrrgh!

Good friend of the blog Cap'n Scurvy has just passed his one year blogging anniversary! Congrats to the good Cap'n! The drinks and the wench are on me!

The Advertising Slogan Generator

Yep that's this blog in a nutshell.

Snap! Crackle! Boobs!

Generated by the Advertising Slogan Generator, for all your slogan needs. Get more boobs slogans.

The Nauga Monster

Meet Nauga the 60's monster-like mascot for naugahyde. The ad campaign asserted that naugahyde was obtained from the skin of an animal known as a "Nauga" and emphasized that, unlike other animals, which must typically be slaughtered to obtain their hides, Naugas can shed their skin without harm to themselves.

They make Nauga toys too...if you are lucky enough to find them.

Saturday, December 29, 2007

The Amazing Sophie Howard

I love Sophie!

And click here to watch Sophie Howard in action!

Friday, December 28, 2007

Don't Be a Sap!

These 1944 WWII Calendar Pages are great!

Thursday, December 27, 2007

A New Banner!

Christmas has come and gone so it's time for some redecorating!

Mistress Mena and her Wicked Knives

Pictures by me!

Monday, December 24, 2007

Action Figure Nativity

Merry Christmas from The Skullcave!

Dita Says Sexy Christmas to All!

And to all a sexy night!

Atomic Christmas Pin-ups!

Sunday, December 23, 2007

The Lovely Miss Evangeline at Christmas!

Pictures by me!

Secret Santa Strikes Again!

This post is part of the Secret Santa Project and I have drawn Freida Bee!I've only been over to Freida's blog once or twice before now but it was a lot of fun to get to know her a little better as I tried to choose the perfect secret santa gifts.

Freida seems like a very down to earth gal so I chose some pretty down to earth presents...

Some swanky new brown boots (vegan since I wasn't sure if you wore leather or not).

A new sketch pad and pencil set for drawing those amazingly wonderful Froodles.

An IPod shuffle (I hope orange was okay!)

And a $100,000 gift card to fill it with all the music you want!

Oh and since you seem to be a pretty big Annie Sprinkle fan I got you the Annie Sprinkle Page-a-Day calendar! (Damn I wish this one was actually real)

Of course I would have loved to give you the impeachment of George W. Bush but it would have taken a lot more than the 1 trillion dollar spending limit to buy off enough Washington insiders to make that happen :(

I hope you enjoy your gifts and Merry Christmas!!!