animation

Little Nemo is a 1911 silent animated short film by American cartoonist Winsor McCay. One of the earliest animated films, it was McCay's first, and featured characters from McCay's comic strip Little Nemo in Slumberland. Its expressive character animation distinguished the film from the experiments of earlier animators. Inspired by flip books his son brought home, McCay came to see the potential of the animated film medium. He claimed to be the first to make such films, though James Stuart Blackton and Émile Cohl were among those who preceded him. The short's four thousand drawings on rice paper were shot at Vitagraph Studios under Blackton's supervision. Most of the film's running time is made up of a live-action sequence in which McCay bets his colleagues that he can make drawings that move. He wins the bet with four minutes of animation in which the Little Nemo characters perform, interact, and metamorphose to McCay's whim. Little Nemo debuted in movie theaters on April 8, 1911, and four days later McCay began using it as part of his vaudeville act. Its good reception motivated him to hand-color each of the animated frames of the originally black-and-white film. The film's success led McCay to devote more time to animation. He followed up Little Nemo with How a Mosquito Operates in 1912 and his best-known film, Gertie the Dinosaur, in 1914.

• ... that the live-action comedy series Community had a stop motion animated Christmas special?
• ... that "Arnold's Christmas", now considered one of the most memorable episodes from the animated series Hey Arnold!, was almost rejected by network executives because it depicted the Vietnam War?
• ... that the stylized animation of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem was inspired by rough sketches in school notebooks?
• ... that the Tuca & Bertie episode "The Jelly Lakes" employs a paper-cutout animation that helps to depict abuse in a way that centers the victim's story?
• ... that the Long Sault Parkway connects eleven islands created by the flooding of the Long Sault rapids during the construction of the St. Lawrence Seaway in the late 1950s?
• ... that, for the animated film Us Again, director and writer Zach Parrish considered a video of an elderly couple dancing to be visceral and ideal inspiration?

Matthew Abram "Matt" Groening (born February 15, 1954) is an American cartoonist, screenwriter and producer. He is the creator of the comic strip Life in Hell as well as two successful television series, The Simpsons and Futurama. Groening made his first professional cartoon sale of Life in Hell to the avant-garde Wet magazine in 1978. Life in Hell caught the attention of James L. Brooks. In 1985, Brooks contacted Groening with the proposition of working in animation for the Fox variety show The Tracey Ullman Show. The shorts would be spun off into their own series: The Simpsons, which has since aired 765 episodes. In 1997, Groening, along with former Simpsons writer David X. Cohen, developed Futurama, an animated series about life in the year 3000, which premiered in 1999. After four years on the air, the show was canceled by Fox in 2003, but Comedy Central commissioned 16 new episodes from four direct-to-DVD movies in 2008. In 2002, he won the National Cartoonist Society Reuben Award for his work on Life in Hell.

The accolades received by WALL-E, the 2008 American animation film, include Best Picture from the Boston Society of Film Critics, the Chicago Film Critics Association, the Online Film Critics Society, and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, where WALL-E became the first animated feature to win that award. The film was nominated for seven Annie Awards, six Academy Awards, and two Golden Globe Awards. It won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature (pictured) at the 81st Academy Awards. Walt Disney Pictures pushed for an Academy Award for Best Picture nomination, but it was not nominated, provoking controversy about the Academy deliberately restricting WALL-E to the Best Animated Feature category. The character of WALL-E was listed at number 63 on Empire's 2008 online poll of the 100 greatest movie characters. Time listed WALL-E number one in its top 10 movies of 2008 and, in early 2010, number one in "Best Movies of the Decade."

• ...that Cliff Friend co-wrote "The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down", the theme tune of the Looney Tunes cartoon series?
• ...that Sozin's Comet: The Final Battle, the two-hour finale for Avatar: The Last Airbender, was the most-watched cable television broadcast in the week of its transmission?
• ...that Paul McCartney's condition for guest starring in The Simpsons episode "Lisa the Vegetarian" was that Lisa, who becomes a vegetarian in the episode, remain one for the rest of the series?

Films released

• 1930 - An Old Flame (United States)
• 1936 - The Blow Out (United States)
• 1965 - Assault and Peppered (United States)
• 1999 – You're Under Arrest THE MOVIE (Japan)

Television series and specials

• 1962 - The Huckleberry Hound Show, an American animated television series finishes airing on ABC
• 1999 - Cowboy Bebop, a Japanese anime television series finishes airing on TV Tokyo
• 2009 - Iron Man: Armored Adventures, an American animated television series based on the Marvel Comics character Iron Man begins airing on the Nicktoons Network