Like Larry Page and Sergey Brin’s web empire Google, Craig McCracken’s path to world domination began as a school project. While the TV series and the internet search giant launched within weeks of eachother, it was 1992 when McCracken first brought Blossom, Bubbles and Buttercup to life in a student short titled Whoopass Stew! A Sticky Situation, initially introducing the threesome as The Whoopass Girls. The Google gang may preach their altruistic “don’t be evil” mantra, but The Powerpuff Girls immediately “dedicated their lives to fighting crime and the forces of evil.” Let’s watch a few scenes from this original short:

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McCracken’s crime-fighting cuties wowed the execs at Hanna-Barbera, in particular Fred Seibert, who navigated Craig’s work into What A Cartoon! Show (initially dubbed World Premiere Toons), the seminal shorts program that spawned a string of animated hits like Dexter’s Laboratory, Johnny Bravo and Courage the Cowardly Dog. After producing four in-house shorts (only one was completed), the show was given a greenlight by the network for a 1998 premiere (all of this development material is available on the DVD that releases next Tuesday – The Powerpuff Girls: The Complete Series – 10th Anniversary Collection). McCracken’s college roommate Genndy Tartakovsky was already a rising star at Cartoon Network, having created Dexter’s Lab, when the two teamed up to produce the first season of PPG. On November 18, 1998, the series enjoyed the highest rated premiere in Cartoon Network’s history, setting the stage for a six season run.
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In the past, we’ve featured a number of shorts from Dublin’s Boulder Media, but not Beauty Now. Directed by Paul O’Flanagan, the short is a cautionary lesson warning against the temptations of cosmetic surgery – all produced in the style of an informational film from the 50’s.

O’Flanagan also manages find time every week to publish a new strip for his online cartoon Big Bank ltd. This week’s is all to appropriate for this banking meltdown we’re all surely enjoying.

This past Friday, my wife and I attended the 35th Annual Annie Awards, which were held on the UCLA campus for the first time. As you may have read here a few months back, it was a proud night for Flash animation.

The big winner at Royce Hall was undeniably Pixar’s feature film Ratatouille – which wrapped up 10 awards. On the TV side, two series took home a pair of trophies – Robot Chicken and Nickelodeon’s Flash-animated series El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera. The show, which was created by Jorge Gutierrez and his wife Sandra Equihua, walked away with awards for Best Animated Television Production for Children and Character Design in an Animated Television Production, a category Gutierrez was nominated for two years ago. Congrats to Dave Thomas, Tim Yoon, Gabe Swarr, Roman Laney and the crews at Boulder Media and Six Point Harness. [read Cold Hard Flash interviews with Gutierrez and Yoon]

El Tigre was also nominated in two other categories:

• Monica Kennedy for Character Animation in a Television Production
• Shawn Patterson for Music in an Animated Television Production

Below is one of the El Tigre clips Patterson submitted for the awards. Its from episode 9, titled Yellow Pantera.

Sadly, it looks like this award-winning show will be ending this year, but it will surely go out on a high-note. Nickelodeon hasn’t picked up the second season, and as Patterson put it on his MySpace page “all great things come to an end.”In the Best Animated Television Commercial category, Acme Filmworks’ Powershares spot, titled Escape Average, took top honors. This weekend, I asked Dave Wasson, the director of the commercial, about the ceremony and production experience:

When Patrick Warburton announced that our Powershares spot had won I was completely caught off guard. At past Annie Awards, I’d been nominated quite a few times, but had ever won. So I had sort of given up on the idea of taking home a trophy. I tried to get Ron Diamond and Gwynn Adik to join me on stage but they wouldn’t budge (they’d decide to give me “my moment in the sun”). I hadn’t written anything down so I gave a short, rambling thank you speech and staggered off stage.

The schedule on this spot was crazy; three weeks total from the time I got the outline from the agency until the day we delivered the finished spot. That said, of all of the projects I’ve directed, it was actually one of the most fun. I really clicked with the agency creatives right from the start, and they were completely open to me taking their idea and running with it (incidentally, in case any agency executives are reading this, this is the best recipe for good commercials – I’m just sayin’). Dave Knott and I completed the storyboard in two days. The following day I made the animatic. Using Flash I was able to create the character designs and backgrounds in record time.

Even though our crew was small, they were super talented, which made it all the more enjoyable. I contacted Brendan Burch at Six Point Harness Studios and he hooked us up with a couple of his best guys. Saharat Tantivaranyoo did a beautiful job with the character layouts, and James Krenske’s animation is kick ass! Back at Acme Filmworks, I worked with Nic Mermet on After Effects to composite all the elements together and add all of the multi-plane parallax. All in all, it was really a great experience.

[Watch Wasson's Powershares commercial here at Cold Hard Flash]

Back at the Annie Awards, Flash animation continued to echo throughout the night. The creators of Flash, Jonathan Gay, Gary Grossman and Robert Tatsumi, were honored with the Ub Iwerks Award, which highlights excellence in technical achievement. I won’t go into much more detail on this, as a we’ll be posting a lengthy interview with all three guys tomorrow.

But in the meantime, here’s a clip that played just prior to their award. It’s a collage of various Flash-animated projects from the last 10 years. Antran Manoogian, the president of ASIFA-Hollywood, asked me to assemble the clip, and I was happy to oblige. It’s simply a hint at all of the great Flash animation out there – we surely left out some incredible projects. Thanks to Antran for the invitation, and to Les Perkins for helping me put this together.

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Alongside John Canemaker and Glen Keane, John Kricfalusi accepted his Winsor McCay Award, which honors “career contributions to the art of animation.” John K’s The Ren and Stimpy Show was credited with “reinvigorated television animation,” but he was also noted for his pioneering work on the internet’s first cartoon series – The Goddamn George Liquor Program, which was animated entirely in Flash.

There were also a handful of nominees on Friday representing Flash-animated projects:

BEST ANIMATED SHORT SUBJECT
Chip Wass’ short Mascot Prep – part of Disney’s Shorty McShorts’ Shorts project – animated at Boulder Media

ANIMATION PRODUCTION ARTIST
Natasha Liberman – Growing Up Creepie – Discovery Kids

BEST ANIMATED TELEVISION COMMERCIAL
Esurance Homeowners spot – W!LDBRAIN

BEST ANIMATED TELEVISION PRODUCTION FOR CHILDREN
Little Einsteins – Disney Channel
Peep and the Big Wide World – Discovery Kids

Lastly, I’d like to congratulate my cousin, Elizabeth Harvatine, for her nomination in the Character Animation in a Television Production category. She was honored for her stop-motion animation on Adult Swim’s Morel Orel, and her pal Eric Towner took home the trophy for his work on another stop-motion project – Robot Chicken. (inset photo credit – Tennessee Reid Norton)

For as good as they are, I don’t think the Boulder Media gang brags enough about their work. So I’m going to have to do it for them. This Dublin-based animation studio not only provides service work for Flash series like Foster’s Home For Imaginary Friends and El Tigre, but they also make time for creative exploration. The following three shorts all lean on their soundtracks for the majority of the audio experience, a refreshing departure from the often talky world of animated shorty. A tip of the hat to Robert Cullen, the creative director at Boulder Media, for helping pull this post together and for providing an environment where this type of work can flourish.

Carte de Visite is a melancholy story about carnival folks and the artists performing in a “freak show.” Directed by Paul O’Flanagan, the film is dialog-free, and driven by a beautiful score composed by Tom Lawrence. Dave O’Sullivan handled the art direction here, and I found myself lost in the lush exteriors and chilled by the bleak interiors. Paul and his team employed not just Flash, but also some 3D elements that are composited seamlessly.

Barbershop is a musically-driven short written and directed by Mick O’Sullivan, and co-directed by Catherine McIntyre. Crafty 1950’s character design, slick backgrounds (again by Dave O’Sullivan) and bouncy animation make this snappy short a highly entertaining watch. Animation direction was provided by Paul O’Flannagan and the animation crew included Gillian Comerford, Richard Kelly, Tim Dowling, Mark Flood, Adam Kelly, Peter Slattery and Monica Kennedy, who is up for an Annie Award this year for her work on El Tigre.

The Big Rock Candy Mountains, makes wonderful use of a 1905 Harry McClintock song, creating an inventive world that compliments the imaginative lyrics. The short was directed by Ian Kenny and animated by Tim Dowling and Roger Grogan. The gorgeous backgrounds were designed by Tom Galvin.

Robert Etchingham, a Flash animator hailing from Dublin, Ireland, has worked on several projects discussed here – Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends, El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera and Carter & Son. When he’s not at work at Boulder Media, Etchingham is creating his own projects, which include Speakeasy, a mobster, film noir cartoon starring Jack Knife, an Irish/American hoodlum. Robert has cut together a trailer for the project, which is below.

Etchingham will soon be setting out for his new home in Vancouver. There he’ll continue to watch gangster films, including Jimmy Cagney flicks which he lists amongst his favorites. Good luck with the big move, Robert!