You can't get much more of a blessing from a book's author than this, can you, Spike?


Honestly, whatever reservations I had about this film have been torn asunder. Can't wait. - Jeremiah

Strange and mesmerizing for toddlers, just plain funny for us. A bizarre introduction to a wonderful song. [Via BoingBoing]



Who knows, maybe your child will learn to do this:



- Jeremiah

The National Film Board of Canada put it nicely:

Georges Schwizgebel has created a frantic race ending in inertia, a metaphor for modern life’s nonstop hustle and bustle. A series of shapes tricks the senses again and again as they swirl and twist in a playful dance. All the world is a stage and everyone a player, including the filmmaker himself, in this chaotic universe where men play ball and musicians play the scherzo from Prokofiev’s Second Piano Concerto. Jeu is an exercise in virtuality at breakneck speed. This circular and cyclical race dazzles with changes in scale orchestrated by a virtuoso of animation.

- Jeremiah

As part of a promotion for some car company or another, some goofy designers decided to make a font you had to drive to write. It must take forever to say anything!

Actually, they made a nice little font using a nice little car and some software. This video offers a lot of connections for older kids wondering just how far outside the box a designer can think, and has fun driving and letter identification for the younger set.



Via [Drawn] - Jeremiah

Disney made a big impression with their Alice in Wonderland film adaptation of Lewis Carrol's classic back in 1951, but Tim Burton is very good at forgetting what he's seen to create something truly original. Here's the first trailer out on Burton's Alice in Wonderland, which is slated for release in March 2010. We're flagging this as an "over 8" post - what do you think? To intense for the kiddos?



[Found via ClassyMommy] - Jeremiah

Warning: Despite the Disneyesque look to the beginning of Michael Gagne's short animated film "A Touch of Deceit," this is probably not something for your toddler. Any five-year-old with a taste for gothic action, however, will think it rocks.


The amusingly dark but ultimately harmless film is by Michel Gagne, a Canadian animator who resurfaced on our radar today when we discovered the most artistic and exciting take on the drive-a-spaceship-through-hazards genre in a long time. Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet is based largely on Gagne's animated shorts for Nickelodeon run under the series title Insanely Twisted Shadow Puppets, which I found disturbing enough not to embed here, lest your easily-frightened children come across it while reading Punnybop over your shoulder. (That's what this blog is designed for, by the way.) As for Shadow Planet, combination of the detailed silhouette outlines, the judicious use of color, and the imaginative world-making that is part organic, part machine, is an exciting thing to see in a side-scrolling, arcade-style game. Just look at it - it's beautiful.


Rumor has it Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet will be an XBox Live offering as well as a PC game, but the whole point of this "trailer" is for Gagne and his partners to get some investors to help bring this game to the marketplace. You can find out more, and see some of those Puppet videos, on Gagne's website. - Jeremiah