Just something I scribbled up to note the 85th birthday of Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse character (Plane Crazy, Galaping graucho, Steamboat Willie were his first animated cartoon shorts), the 25th annerversary of "Oliver & Company", and "Who Framed Rogger Rabbit", as well as the celebration of the hand-drawn animation medium as a whole! This is anthro Bluecollie as an animator at some animation movie studio somewhere, drawing a cartoon version of himself in the style similar to most pre-Golden age American cartoons, such as the first early batch of Mickey movies. On the top shelves in the picture are a Gertie the Dinosaur figurine and a couple of Mousketter hats. (Gertie the Dinosaur is from Windsor McKay, and the Museketter hats are copyright Disney. Bluecollie is my own creation.)
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While I have loved watch most other forms of moving visual storytelling mediums -- Live action, stop-motion, clay-animatio -- hand drawn animation has to be my favorite. Especailly hand-drawn animation in the form of classic Disney movies, Ub Iwerks, Don Bluth, (the last two being former Disney animators), Warner Brothers/Looney Tunes, I have found drawing aniamtion to be very clever if donw right. Unlike the CGI mega-toons played out in our digital-opsessive culture since "Toy Story", Hand drawn features offer crisp, graphical,and dreamlike imagery to life on our screens large and small. It is fun and exilerating to wath how the character can move and bounce around, in exagerated squatch and streches, and had a sense of life, intellect, personality, weight, proportion and depth despite being drawings. Colors can very awesome and can be used sometimes to fit the thematric visualsations of the art and background.

Ever since I was a little kid, I used to watch plenty of old and new cartoons from Disney as well as WB's Looney Tunes shorts, along with the more primitively, then-current made-for-TV cartoons of the era. I loved movies like "101 Dalmations", "The Jungle Book", and "Robin Hood". It was an absolute treat to see "The Fox and The Hound", But seeing "Oliver and Company" in a theater in 1988 as a teenager (yes, as a teenage boy, seeing a Disney movie,seriously!) was an awesome experince due to the music, the characters' personalities, the great animation, the story. It really driove me down further into the world of high-quality cartoon animation that ever before!

Since that fafeful viewing of that movie, I've seen a lot more high-quality animation over the years since. Some are full-length features, some are short or short series, some were made in my native United States, and others came from other countries. Among my favorites include:

101 Dalmations (Disney)
Lady and the Tramp (Disney)
Wizards (Ralph Bakshi)
The Secret of NIMH (MGM / Don Bluth)
Balto (Unversal / Simon Wells / Steven Speilberg)
Oliver and Company (Disney)
Beauty and the Beast (Disney)
Spirited Away (Studio Ghibli)
Watership Down (Martin Rosen -- This has the be the first dark, super-serious adult animation I have ever watched, ever. This is a mature movie with graphic violence, so be careful with your kids about this if you have or know any kids. )
The Plague Dogs (Martin Rosen Again, very mature! Not quite for children due violence and disturbing images/themes despite being animated. )
Felidae (Sorry that I cannot identify the studio at this time. A German mystery/thriller film, such a shame it did not get into the United states. It just turned 19 years old over in November 3 in its native Germany. This movie is highly too mature for kids due to violence and some sex related themes )
Animalympics (Steve Lisberger, was made for the 1980 real-life Olympics, but ran into some problems due to the U.S. boycott over the Soviet invasion of Afganistan.)
The Fearless Four (again, another German aniamted movie. Based on the Geramn folk tale "The Bremen Town Musicans")
Once Upon A Tine (aka Maria d'Oro und Bello Blue, yet another German movie. A 1973 West German animated movie to be exact)
The Curious Adventures of Mr. Wonderbird (A French movie, very surreal)
Shinbone Alley, or shinebone alley, as arhie would type it (Fine Arts. A part funny, part tragic feature movie made with all the wonders of 1960s-1970s style low-budget animation. Mehitable the cat was a big reason why I went to see this movie on home video and she remains to being one of my favorite animated cartoon characters due to her personality and sexiness.)

I'll perobally update the list as tiem goes on, but enjoy.