Flash-animation pioneer John Kricfalusi has decided that this year Christmas will fall on April 10th.

The Cold Hard Flash Store just received a shipment of John K t-shirts, all screen-printed on high-quality t-shirt blanks (that’s how they say it in the t-shirt industry – *ahem*) like American Apparel brushed-cotton tees. Don’t believe us – have a look at this Flash-animated promo short.

Get the Flash Player to see the wordTube Media Player.

We enlisted the help of Mike Pataki, the voice-acting legend who plays George Liquor, to ensure that our shirts don’t cause muscle decay. As you can see from this photo, Mike’s muscles are alive and well, and ready to join John K in future George Liquor voice record sessions.

If you order a shirt, rest assured that a professional fulfillment company will be handling your order. At one point, I did have the shirts strewn around my living room, but they’re now safely stored in an Texas warehouse, awaiting your credit card confirmation.

Which one’s your favorite?

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.

Get the Flash Player to see the wordTube Media Player.

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)

The 35th Annual Annie Awards will likely be a big night for Ratatouille, Surf’s Up and Persepolis, but February 8th, 2008 will also be a night to celebrate Flash animation. The Annie Awards, for those unfamiliar, are what some Americans consider the “Oscars” of animation, and the nominees were announced today.

El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera, a Flash-animated show that airs on Nickelodeon, leads all TV series with 4 nominations, including a nod for Best Animated Television Production and an individual nomination for Jorge R. Gutierrez, the co-creator of the series. It should also be noted that 2 of the other 4 nominees in the Best Production category are also Flash-produced – Peep and the Big Wide World and Little Einsteins (which also utilizes After Effects).

Next, John Kricfalusi, a true pioneer in online Flash animation, will be receiving a Windsor McCay Award for his series The Ren & Stimpy Show and “use of artist-driven Flash animation.”

Lastly, Jonathan Gay, Gary Grossman and Robert Tatsumi, the creators of Flash, will receive the Ub Iwerks technical achievement award.

I’ve already marked my calendar – and can’t wait to trumpet Flash at stateside animation’s biggest night.

Unrelated to Flash news – my cousin, Elizabeth Harvatine, was nominated in the Character Animation category for her stop-motion work on Moral Orel. Go Liz!

As some of you may have spotted, a few new t-shirts are in the works for the CHF Store. I’ve teamed up with Flash animation pioneer, John Kricfalusi (the creator of The Ren & Stimpy Show and The Goddamn George Liquor Program), and we’re nearly ready to start printing.

But before we make our orders, we want to do one last check with our faithful readers. If you have a second, take a look at the shirts below, and “vote” for your favorites. This will make sure we order the right amounts (or don’t order some of them).

(You Can Choose More Than One)

Several folks in the Flash community have been making headlines in the last month or so.

Joel Trussell, the brilliant designer and artist from Tennessee was featured in the Metro Pulse, the Knoxville weekly. They discuss his recent short for Yo Gabba Gabba!, his rise to web fame with War Photographer, and his fear of Flash games. Click here to read.

Tom Neely, who was featured here in 2005 for his Muffs music video, has been having one helluva year. His graphic novel The Blot has found a great deal of critical success, then the Black Maria Gallery in Glendale put on a one-man show, titled Self Indulgent Werewolf, of his painting and sculptures. Even in his still work, Neely can’t help but animate. Click here to read his interview at the LAist.

Gene Fowler, the top dog at Fatkat, won BDC’s (Business Development Bank) Young Entrepreneur Award for New Brunswick. The press release features a brief interview with Fowler. Click here to read.

There’s also been some echoes of a Flash-related dust-up that started over at Cartoon Brew.

Pete Emslie continues to berate Flash as the cause of bad animation.

And John Kricfalusi posted a thoughtful reply to Emslie and claims that if it’s Overseas vs. Domestic Flash – he’ll take Flash any day.