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Chad's Random Stuff

@cjo246

A blog that can be about anything, really.
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ohmercymimi

Interview: John R. Dilworth, Creator of "Courage the Cowardly Dog" and Founder of Stretch Films

Yes, you read that right!  Today, we’re incredibly honored to share with you some words of wisdom straight from the mad genius of animation – John R. Dilworth!

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John R. Dilworth was the creator, producer, director, and co-writer of “Courage the Cowardly Dog”, one of Cartoon Network’s top-rated series, which aired for four seasons.  The show is about a farm dog named Courage who constantly struggles to save his owners from supernatural/paranormal villains, and was developed from Dilworth’s Academy Award-nominated short film, “The Chicken from Outer Space”.

Dilworth has earned many awards in film festivals all over the world for his work as producer and director of 13 independent and sponsored short films, including “The Dirdy Birdy”, “Smart Talk with Raisin”, “Life in Transition” and “Rinky Dink”, as well as awards for his commercial achievements.  In addition to Cartoon Network, Dilworth’s work has appeared on CBS, Showtime, HBO, FOX, Nickelodeon, MTV, Canal +, and Arte.  His films have been shown in exhibitions in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Guggenheim Museum in New York City.  He is the founder and president of Stretch Films, Inc., a prominent animation design and production studio in NYC.

Dilworth also shares his animation/film-making expertise by giving animation lectures at college and universities, serving on film festival committees and juries, writing and editing for animation magazines and newspapers, and serving as a longtime Executive Board Member of ASIFA-East International Film Organization.

Dilworth is currently pushing to put “Courage the Cowardly Dog” back into production on Cartoon Network, but he needs support from his fans—so please, if you love CCD, don’t hesitate to write to Cartoon Network and tell them to bring Courage back!  (Follow the link, make a Cartoon Network user account –it’s quick–and then you can follow the pop-up menus to get to the feedback form).

Please join us for this interview, in which Dilworth dishes some tantalizing behind-the scene tidbits on Courage and his other past (and future) works!

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Hi John!  Thanks so much for the interview! It’s such an honor–you’ve been one of my favorite animators in the business ever since I first saw your work in “Psyched For Snuppa”.  How did you come up with “Psyched For Snuppa”?

John Dilworth:  PFS was the creation of Michael Pearlstein, a comix book artist discovered by Linda Simensky at Nickelodeon during the early Nineties. I was brought on to translate the comix material into an animated pilot. I worked closely with the Michael in re-designing his characters for animation. I was the director and supervised every aspect of the production for the production studio, Jumbo Pictures. It was a heck of a challenge and not one I wanted to continue. Would you ever consider using those characters again?

Nickelodeon attempted to make a re-work called Sniz & Fondu, with another team, but I don’t think it succeeded. One of my favorite things about your work is how dramatically your drawing style changes depending the cartoon you are doing, as opposed to how most animators seem to stick to one style that they’re recognized for.  For example, your drawings in “The Limited Bird” look totally different from how they look in “Rinky Dink”.   How do you go about developing how you want your cartoons to look?

Each film occupies a specific location in my life. The design of my work is in part a desired outcome. For LB, I wanted to teach myself how to draw human faces. I made the film ( it’s really an unfinished film, more an animatic ), in realistic drawings. With RD, I was in Barcelona and wanted to learn how to work in Flash and work with the indigenous stop motion culture there. The Chicken From Outer Space" is what got “Courage the Cowardly Dog” into the public eye for the first time, so I’d like to ask, where and when exactly did you come up with the idea for that short in particular?

Who could say definitively? I am aware that there was a nexus of a need to make something that reflected a more simple lifestyle meeting the horrors of modern progress. I was keen on the family farm myth and the atomic age madness. Personal life ingredients also factor in… my love of dogs, for instance, and of horror/sci-fi. Were you aiming for it to become your big hit and to be developed into a series, or would you rather have had one of your other creations made into a series?

I was pitching DB to Fred Seibert’s H&B shorts program. They passed on it for what I believe is un-airable behavior by the bird. I needed to find funding to start my next short, TCFOS and I pitched the storyboard to Ellen Cockrill who championed the short. The whole business from indie short to Oscar nom to TV series was an unexpected and dramatic event like an asteroid crashing through the kitchen ceiling while eating your morning muffin. One of my favorite things in Courage is that Muriel is a master of the sitar.  Where did you get such an amazing idea?

In honor of Linda Simensky,  ( who was the champion of Courage at Cartoon Network ), I had Muriel play the sitar. Linda plays the sitar. It is Linda’s playing the sitar we hear whenever Muriel is playing. Do you play a musical instrument yourself?

Sadly, no. The “Freaky Fred” episode is one of those things that will be ingrained in my brain for all eternity.  Where did you get the idea for that episode?

I was speaking with my Head Writer, David Steven Cohen about how much I wanted to make an episode that rhymed like Dr. Seuss. And David has had much experience at this kind of verse, so our team developed Freaky Fred, penned by David. Was it your idea to have that disturbingly amazing “La La Laaa La La La La” music for Fred himself?

No, that was the affects of my madness on the composers Jody Grey and Andy Ezrin. Di Lung and his famous catchphrase “Watch where you’re going, ya fool!” and his amazing laugh is again something that will be imprinted on my mind for the rest of forever, and the fact that he is Chinese royalty makes him so much more funny.   What’s the story behind his creation?

I had a design director on Courage, Tim Chi Ly who was quite a naturally funny man. One day I asked if he would like to voice a character. He wasn’t a trained voice actor, but it did not matter. What I wanted was his natural way of speaking. Di Lung is among my top three favorite characters, mostly because Tim was such a natural. He could make any line sound fantastic! What was the most interesting thing that happened to you while you were working on Courage?

I had an emotional breakdown. My brother passed away. I dissolved a long relationship. The twin towers changed the world… many many interesting things happen making an animated series, if we are lucky. Which episode of Courage is your personal favorite and why?

“King Rameses’ Curse”. 1. The music. 2. My brother, Jim Dilworth designed the creepy low end CG Ramses. Is there anything about Courage that you would change if you had the chance?

Perhaps the color… it felt right at the time, but may not be a general marketplace color. What is your favorite animation you’ve done in your whole career and why?

My early animation on Michael Sporn’s adaptation of “Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile”. It was my first substantial and lengthy sequence of song. It allowed me to exercise my empathetic drawing skills. Also, Michael has passed away, those wonder years have passed away, and I am of a naturally nostalgic bent. “Life in Transition” is one of my favorite animated shorts, period.  The whole thing is simply beautiful!  What inspired you to make that, and what was the production process like?

LIFE was in part a reaction to the human horrors experienced at the time, both personal and public. The film was completed over a three year period and predominately hand painted in Photoshop by Andrew Covalt, who was also the head BG colorist on Courage. What are some of your biggest influences and inspirations?

The “Golden Age” Hollywood cartoons, silent comedy, Cezanne’s apples, modern dance, Joseph Campbell, Nedd Willard… What recent animated shows do you enjoy?

I’m too old to watch cartoons… I’ve heard that you consider music to be very important in your life and that you have a quite eclectic taste in music.  Do you consciously use music in your creative process while you work?

Rarely. How do you go about choosing music for your films?

Emotionally. If you could collaborate with anyone (living or dead) on any project, who would it be, and what would you choose to work on?

Dali! And anything he wanted. LIFE was my small contribution of prose to a language very Dali. You’ve said that one of your greatest joys is making people laugh.  But what kinds of things do you find hilarious?  Can you think of a instance in particular where you couldn’t stop laughing, and what caused it?

My long time collaborator and co-producer on Bunny Bashing, William Hohauser and I were editing hand held alien puppet head performances and the absurd language the aliens were speak made us cry laughing. We laughed so long and so hard we could not breathe, and I thought we would die from a heart attack. That lasted two days. To this day, years later, if we think about that edit, we immediately begin to laugh. Are there any animators or artists who you’d like to see do a rendition of any of your characters?

Why? I presume they have their own characters to animate. Are there any future projects you’d like to tell us about?

Yes! As you know we are awaiting CN decision to reboot Courage. This is imminent. Or not. Who knows. By the end of July we shall have a final cut of The Dirdy Birdy Redux. In celebration of the film’s 20 year Anniversary, I restored the original cut by adding one minute of never seen footage, a flash back to how Purdy learned to express his particular way of affection. The Redux will have it’s premiere at the Woodstock Film Festival in NY. Later this year we are planning a crowd funding initiative for a sequel to The Dirdy Birdy, titled “A Night at Club Sheik”. The short tells the story of Furgerina and Purdy going on a date to a dance club in the spirit of Tex Avery’s Wolfy cartoon romances. What advice would you give young animators trying to make it in the business today?

The business is apparently computers and computer software, but using these new tools still require emotional resonance and skills of a storyteller. Are there any other final thoughts that you’d like to share or anything else you’d like to say in closing?

We have posted a new clip from our Courage special FOG OF COURAGE. It is due to air on CN Halloween 2014. Or not. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKYb8m1JCbQ&feature=youtu.be

If fans want to write CN to convince them to make more CCD:  https://cartoonnetwork.com/feedback

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We’d like to thank John again for this great, great honor!  And guess what?  You can watch all of his films on the Stretch Films official website (link below)!  Also, be sure to keep up with John’s work by following him and Stretch Films on their official Facebook pages!  And remember, if you’re a Courage fan, show your support and write a letter to Cartoon Network asking for more “Courage the Cowardly Dog”! 

Stretch Films Website: www.stretchfilms.com

You can also join other CCD fans in the FB communities “Return Courage the Cowardly Dog” and “Return of Courage the Cowardly Dog” for updates and information.

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revretch

Out of date now, but there’s a lot of stuff I never knew here! Like Jim :/

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Until 1995, The Westerly Sun printed its Sunday edition in the evening, the only paper in the country to do so at the time. Because of that the Sun was the first paper to announce the attack on Pearl Harbor without having to run a special edition. 

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cjo246

Westerly native

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bluegingham

That’s odd… these don’t taste like goats.

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cjo246

“Cut! Cut! The line is oats, Wuggles! Oats! Not goats!”

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Fate/kaleid liner Prisma☆Illya Movie: Licht - Namae no Nai Shoujo - New goods with new illustration (Roomwear) for Comic Market 102.

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Episode 25, Part 2: Doug's Dental Disaster

This episode begins in a Smash Adams movie.

After inspecting the statues around a fireplace, Smash Adams finds the hidden door to the secret part of whatever mansion he’s in. Then he immediately walks over to that screen and pushes the call button to announce his presence to the villain, Dr. Decay. This is worse than some of Doug’s fantasies. This is action movie logic, and Doug recognizes that it is bullshit. Anyway, Doug and Skeeter are apparently seeing this movie for the seventh time when…

Doug gets a sudden pain in his tooth. He runs to the bathroom with a concerned Skeeter following.

After the title screen, we enter Doug’s fantasy where he is playing Smash Adams. It parallels the movie, except after he finds the secret doorway in the fireplace, he comes out the other side to find several bad guys to fight off. He loses the fight and the fantasy fades out when one of the bad guys touches his cheek, putting pressure on his bad tooth.

And now we’re at the Honkerburger, and Bluffington’s future head astronaut is taking a look with a straw and a spoon to give his professional opinion on the matter.

The first thing he says is, “wow! Did you know one of your teeth looks just like my Aunt Mable?” Connie and Patti are extremely interested in this.

They agree. The tooth does look like Skeeter’s Aunt Mable.

Anyway, Skeeter finally says that he sees a cavity on the problem tooth. Connie immediately brushes it off, because she’s the only one in this episode that realizes getting a cavity fixed is no big deal. Patti agrees with her at first, but Doug asks if she’s ever had a cavity. She says she hasn’t, but if she did she’d be freaking out and scared to go to the dentist. Of course, Captain Rickets overhears and has to put his two cents in.

He does the usual. Try to scare Doug, make up bullshit about whatever’s going on (he claims dentists get paid by how many teeth they pull), eavesdrop on private conversations looking for any excuse to talk to Doug, etc. He laughs and walks away.

At home, Doug and Porkchop are brushing their teeth before bed.

There’s not much to say here. I just included it because Porkchop is brushing his teeth. Oh, and apparently he was the one that squeezed toothpaste on both toothbrushes. Crazy.

Before bed, Doug has another fantasy where he’s playing Smash Adams. In this one, Dr. Decay has Smash Doug strapped in a chair, and responding to “you’ll never make me talk,” he laughs and says, “Oh, I don’t want you to talk, Mr. Adams. I want you to suffer!” This is how Doug sees dentists right now. Psychotic, torturous villains. They do what they do because they are evil.

Anyway, there’s a moment in this fantasy I have to share because it’s Doug’s idea of how x-ray machines work. Dr. Decay walks behind one that’s on in his office, possibly explaining his evil, maniacal behavior. With an x-ray machine constantly on, and the frequency he needs to walk behind it to get tools, things are bound to happen. Can’t be good for you. Anyway, this is what happens when he walks behind it.

You can see his skeleton just fine. You can also see his boxers, which are blue with white circles. The lead that is apparently in his underpants might also explain his evil, maniacal behavior.

The next day, Doug is sitting on the porch, complaining, when Porkchop brings him an ice pack.

Is there anything this dog can’t do? Doug doesn’t even use the ice pack. You have wasted your thumbs, dog-servant. Doug decides to ignore the pain until it goes away.

And then he starts talking to Mr. Dink, who can tell right away that Doug has a toothache. Mr. Dink says he used to have them too, but he just ignored them until they went away for good, aka

Doug imagines having Mr. Dink’s teeth.

The teeth also make him sound like Dink and laugh like Dink.

So Doug finally decides to go to the dentist. The dentist’s office has a really awesome version of Killer Tofu playing. It’s the easy listening version, I guess. He’s the only one in the waiting room when a woman calls out for Doug Furrie. He starts to follow her to his waiting room where Dr. Kay will work on him, but he sees a vent and has one more Smash Adams fantasy. In this one, he kicks Dr. Decay in the chest…

And then he busts through a vent that leads straight outside. Luckily the exit is right above his convertible, so he lands in it, and drives away.

The fantasy ends with the dentist’s assistant putting her hand on Doug’s shoulder to wake him from whatever has him paused in the hallway.

So, right before seeing his dentist, Dr. Kay, Doug imagined kicking a villain named Dr. Decay in the chest and escaping. Things are not looking good for this dentist. Doug is sitting in the chair waiting, he’s hearing screams from other rooms, and he’s getting more and more nervous about it when finally Dr. Kay enters.

He is surprised and immediately relieved of all anxiety. Take that, men and women! First, Doug is completely surprised that a woman is a dentist. So he’s sexist. Next, he’s completely relieved because clearly a woman would be a better dentist than a man. So he’s sexist.

Hmmm.

Anyway, Dr. Kay finishes up and remarks on how well Doug behaved. They hear another scream from the next room and she points out that some people hate going to the dentist, and the screaming guy is just there for a cleaning. Guess who it is…

Of course.

At the end of the episode, as Doug is finishing up his journal entry, he hears Mr. Dink outside. He’s lost his teeth apparently.

Just looking where he took them out to show Doug, because you know…if you take out your teeth to show them to someone, you might just drop them on the ground without realizing it and then go about your day. That, or a fucking dog stole them while you weren’t watching.

Because he had to incorporate them into his dance routine…

Again, this episode displays Doug’s parents’ complete lack of involvement in his life. He has a toothache, so his friend inspects it, his weird elderly neighbor gives him shitty advice, and he books his own appointment with the dentist. And goes alone. His parents are never brought into the equation. Poor Doug. Too busy at the department store taking pictures, dad? Too busy doing absolutely nothing at all, mom? Maybe talk to your son every now and then so he doesn’t go overboard with the weird delusions of grandeur and persecutory delusions and all the other weird fantasies that aren’t easy to classify. Maybe they’d see that he needs help.

The closest thing to a parental figure in this episode is Porkchop. Porkchop gets Doug to brush his teeth. Porkchop brings Doug an icepack. Porkchop steals Mr. Dink’s dentures to use them as a prop…well, 2 out of 3 isn’t too bad. It certainly beats the nothing that his parents did.

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Please make a post about the story of the RMS Carpathia, because it's something that's almost beyond belief and more people should know about it.

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Carpathia received Titanic’s distress signal at 12:20am, April 15th, 1912. She was 58 miles away, a distance that absolutely could not be covered in less than four hours.

(Californian’s exact position at the time is…controversial. She was close enough to have helped. By all accounts she was close enough to see Titanic’s distress rockets. It’s uncertain to this day why her crew did not respond, or how many might not have been lost if she had been there. This is not the place for what-ifs. This is about what was done.)

Carpathia’s Captain Rostron had, yes, rolled out of bed instantly when woken by his radio operator, ordered his ship to Titanic’s aid and confirmed the signal before he was fully dressed. The man had never in his life responded to an emergency call. His goal tonight was to make sure nobody who heard that fact would ever believe it.

All of Carpathia’s lifeboats were swung out ready for deployment. Oil was set up to be poured off the side of the ship in case the sea turned choppy; oil would coat and calm the water near Carpathia if that happened, making it safer for lifeboats to draw up alongside her. He ordered lights to be rigged along the side of the ship so survivors could see it better, and had nets and ladders rigged along her sides ready to be dropped when they arrived, in order to let as many survivors as possible climb aboard at once.

I don’t know if his making provisions for there still being survivors in the water was optimism or not. I think he knew they were never going to get there in time for that. I think he did it anyway because, god, you have to hope.

Carpathia had three dining rooms, which were immediately converted into triage and first aid stations. Each had a doctor assigned to it. Hot soup, coffee, and tea were prepared in bulk in each dining room, and blankets and warm clothes were collected to be ready to hand out. By this time, many of the passengers were awake–prepping a ship for disaster relief isn’t quiet–and all of them stepped up to help, many donating their own clothes and blankets.

And then he did something I tend to refer to as diverting all power from life support.

Here’s the thing about steamships: They run on steam. Shocking, I know; but that steam powers everything on the ship, and right now, Carpathia needed power. So Rostron turned off hot water and central heating, which bled valuable steam power, to everywhere but the dining rooms–which, of course, were being used to make hot drinks and receive survivors. He woke up all the engineers, all the stokers and firemen, diverted all that steam back into the engines, and asked his ship to go as fast as she possibly could. And when she’d done that, he asked her to go faster.

I need you to understand that you simply can’t push a ship very far past its top speed. Pushing that much sheer tonnage through the water becomes harder with each extra knot past the speed it was designed for. Pushing a ship past its rated speed is not only reckless–it’s difficult to maneuver–but it puts an incredible amount of strain on the engines. Ships are not designed to exceed their top speed by even one knot. They can’t do it. It can’t be done.

Carpathia’s absolute do-or-die, the-engines-can’t-take-this-forever top speed was fourteen knots. Dodging icebergs, in the dark and the cold, surrounded by mist, she sustained a speed of almost seventeen and a half.

No one would have asked this of them. It wasn’t expected. They were almost sixty miles away, with icebergs in their path. They had a responsibility to respond; they did not have a responsibility to do the impossible and do it well. No one would have faulted them for taking more time to confirm the severity of the issue. No one would have blamed them for a slow and cautious approach. No one but themselves.

They damn near broke the laws of physics, galloping north headlong into the dark in the desperate hope that if they could shave an hour, half an hour, five minutes off their arrival time, maybe for one more person those five minutes would make the difference. I say: three people had died by the time they were lifted from the lifeboats. For all we know, in another hour it might have been more. I say they made all the difference in the world.

This ship and her crew received a message from a location they could not hope to reach in under four hours. Just barely over three hours later, they arrived at Titanic’s last known coordinates. Half an hour after that, at 4am, they would finally find the first of the lifeboats. it would take until 8:30 in the morning for the last survivor to be brought onboard. Passengers from Carpathia universally gave up their berths, staterooms, and clothing to the survivors, assisting the crew at every turn and sitting with the sobbing rescuees to offer whatever comfort they could.

In total, 705 people of Titanic’s original 2208 were brought onto Carpathia alive. No other ship would find survivors.

At 12:20am April 15th, 1912, there was a miracle on the North Atlantic. And it happened because a group of humans, some of them strangers, many of them only passengers on a small and unimpressive steam liner, looked at each other and decided: I cannot live with myself if I do anything less.

I think the least we can do is remember them for it.

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On April 14th, 1912, the RMS Titanic hit an iceberg at 11:40 pm, popping open many rivets and allowing water to gush into the ship. 2 hours and 40 minutes later, she sunk at 2:20 am, taking 1500 people with her. 705 people were able to escape the sinking ship, and were picked up by the RMS Carpathia a few hours after the Titanic sank.

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cjo246

I love the film even with its numerous glaring historical inaccuracies

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On April 14th, 1912, the RMS Titanic hit an iceberg at 11:40 pm, popping open many rivets and allowing water to gush into the ship. 2 hours and 40 minutes later, she sunk at 2:20 am, taking 1500 people with her. 705 people were able to escape the sinking ship, and were picked up by the RMS Carpathia a few hours after the Titanic sank.

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