Sito Recalls

The President Emeritus sends birthday greetings.

Happy 90th birthday! Feb 20, 1925- Willis O’Brien’s silent movieThe Lost World premiered. Based on Conan-Doyles 1912 novel. The stop motion animation of dinosaurs and exploding volcanoes issued in a new era of special effects films. O'Brien later did King Kong and trained kids like Ray Harryhausen.

Dinosaurs have always enthralled the elementary school set, particularly boys.



The flick directly above was a staple around our house when I was young. Blackhawk Films (now long gone) sold an 8mm print; the Hulett household had an 8mm projector. The result? My younger brother and I sat mesmerized watching the movie over and over again. (This was long before the internet began mesmerizing people.)



The Lost World is really the granddaddy of 3D/CGI features. Everything that came after it, from King Kong (1933) and Mighty Joe Young (1948) to Jurassic Park, Avatar,, the Ray Harryhausen pictures and the latest incarnations of Planet of the Apes owe something to this movie. Because this is where live-action/3D animation hybrids got their actual, big-time, commercial start.



There was nothing much before. There was lots and lots in the nine decades that followed.

At the Network of Cartoons

Cartoon Network had a bunch of announcements about series old and new today. They were as follows ...

We Bare Bears -- Each episode follows three bear siblings' awkward attempts at assimilating into human society, whether they’re looking for food, trying to make human friends, or scheming to become internet famous.



Powerpuff Girls -- Reboot. Adventure Time's Nick Jennings exec produces.



Magic Magiswords -- A brother and sister team of “Warriors for Hire,” on hilarious adventures and crazy quests to collect magical swords.



Long Live the Royals -- The royal family celebrates the yearly Yule Hare Festival (in four rib-tickling episodes).



Steven Universe/Uncle Grandpa -- Crossover Special: “Say Uncle”.



Adventure Time -- Special Miniseries (above and beyond the Regular Show's regular shows).

In addition to the above, Uncle Grandpa has been picked up for additional episodes. (I'm told the number is 13.)



Clarence has gotten picked up for a new season.



The Amazing World of Gumball, out of CN's European branch, will continue, as will Teen Titans, Go! from sister studio Warner Bros. Animation.



Regular Show, Uncle Grandpa and Steven Universe, all in-house series, have also gotten renewals. And Mixels a joint production of Cartoon Network and Lego, is coming back for a second season.



I've been trhough the studio a couple of times over the past week. Clarence, the half-hour created by Skyler Paige, has had a lot of creative personnel changes the last six months, and continues to have changes. Whether it impacts the quality of the show remains to be seen, but CN had enough confidence in the production to give it one more green light.



And why there isn't more coordination and synergy between Warner Bros. Animation and Cartoon Network continues to be a mystery. ...

Falling Wages, Falling Marriage Rates

And now, because this is (occasionally) a labor blog:

The Death of American Unions Is Killing American Marriage



For all the mawkish, maudlin conservative hand-wringing about the state of marriage among the working class—recall Republican Mitt Romney, among others, recently claiming marriage as the solution to poverty—a post-mortem on marriage among the less materially fortunate turns up fascinating results. Poverty itself, it seems, is the chief agent of marital decline among the poor. This is especially true of falling wages among working class men, who have borne the brunt of the right-wing war on labor unions. ...



Washington Post columnist Catherine Rampell pointed it out in the New York Times:



Forty years ago, about nine of 10 American men between the ages of 30 and 50 were married, and the most highly paid men were just slightly more likely to wed than those paid least. Since then, earnings for men in the top tenth of the income distribution have risen and their marriage rates have fallen slightly, from 95 percent in 1970 to 83 percent today. […] [M]en in the bottom quartile of earnings have had a wage cut of 60 percent, and a contemporaneous drop in marriage rates to about 50 percent, from 86 percent.



... [Columnist Nicholas] Kristof cites a study conducted by professors at Harvard and the University of Washington that concludes “the decline of the U.S. labor movement has added as much to men’s wage inequality as has the relative increase in pay for college graduates.” The authors continue:



[U]nions helped shape the allocation of wages not just for their members, but across the labor market. The decline of U.S. labor and the associated increase in wage inequality signaled the deterioration of the labor market as a political institution. Workers became less connected to each other in their organizational lives and less connected in their economic fortunes.



In other words, the decline of labor unions not only reduced workers’ control of their economic destinies by decoupling them from the fates of their fellow workers, but also allowed for rapid wage decreases that put lower-income laborers at a financial distance from more privileged employees within highly unionized industries and outside them. ...

In 1973, about the time I separated from active duty with the U.S. Navy, the American labor movement began its long decline. It's been declining ever since, and as it's lost power, the Republican Party has become more anti-labor. (It's not the party of Teddy Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower anymore, but the willing accomplice of the Big Dogs among us.)



And funny thing. As the percentage of unionized households has cratered, the middle class's share of national income has gone down with it:

Weird, huh? I'm sure it's just a coincidence.



The only thing weirder is how so much of the population chooses to vote against its own economic self-interest, buying into peripheral flap-doodle (Ebola! ISIS! Benghazi! Gay marriage! Kenyan Socialist!) even as it's beaten, robbed and left with little more than a worn pair of sneakers.



But in politics and labor battles (as the cliche goes), there are no permanent victories, or permanent defeats. And I wouldn't hazard a guess as to where the population will be in ten ... fifteen ... thirty years. I only hope it's not some 21st Century version of the Middle Ages.

So What About the Anthem Security Breach?

Mr. Kaplan and I have continued our tour of studios this week. A question keeps coming up: "What about Anthem?! What about the security breach? Are my bank accounts in jeopardy?



Here's what the Motion Picture Industry Health Plan says:

... Anthem states it will be sending letters via US Mail to impacted participants by the end of February. The letters will contain additional information regarding Credit Monitoring services that Anthem will pay for and make available for one (1) year to those who were impacted. Please note, you will NOT be automatically enrolled in these services. Impacted participants MUST enroll for the services upon receipt of the letter.



There have been reports of fraudulent email activity offering credit monitoring services that appear to be from Anthem. Anthem will NOT use e-mail for this correspondence. Notification from Anthem will be via US Mail. ...

We've been telling members that if they're uncomfortable with waiting, if they want to be proactive with credit cards and bank accounts, then they should do that. No reason to wait if it causes you sleepless nights. In the meantime, here's what Anthem says it's doing now ...



From the Anthem website:

Anthem is working with AllClear ID, a leading and trusted identity protection provider, to offer 24 months of identity theft repair and credit monitoring services to current or former members of an affected Anthem plan dating back to 2004.



This includes customers of Anthem, Inc. companies Amerigroup, Anthem and Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield companies, Caremore, and Unicare. Additionally customers of Blue Cross and Blue Shield companies who used their Blue Cross and Blue Shield insurance in one of fourteen states where Anthem, Inc. operates may be impacted and are also eligible: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, Ohio, Virginia, and Wisconsin.



AllClear ID is ready and standing by to assist you if you need identity repair assistance. This service is automatically available to you with no enrollment required. If a problem arises, simply call 877-263-7995 and a dedicated investigator will do the work to recover financial losses, restore your credit, and make sure your identity is returned to its proper condition. ...

A crappy situation all around, but it can be dealt with. Just take a few minutes and read the Anthem site.

Niceness ... and Not

Sayeth Ms. Pascal:

"We all live in this weird thing called Hollywood. If we all actually were nice, it wouldn't work."

I don't know if Amy Pascal's quote is candor ... or rationalization.



What I do know is that when you're one of the troops toiling in the trenches, you'll get the fake patina of "nice," but it's only there as thin sugar-coating covering the excrement. You learn ... sometimes slowly ... that top executives talk one way among themselves (with brutal candor), and another way to everyone else.



A former TAG officer told me how he found himself in a creative meeting with one of the Top Dogs of production. A supervisor complained (mildly) about the attitude of a veteran artist on the show. The exec shrugged and said "Fire him!" There was no empathy or weighing of pros and cons, just a quick solution to the supe's off-hand complaint. But this is because with top executives

Niceness is an impediment to efficiency, and anyway, no one [up in the Golden Circle] believes it. Sometimes profanity and meanness come with the candor, but to those on the inside, it's never shocking. It's actually a dog whistle to signal membership in a common culture of wealth, fame and narcissism. ...

I joke to artists laboring in various studios: "If the suits come downstairs to tell you that everything is fine, that nobody has to worry about losing their jobs, start looking for other work, because the layoffs will start soon."



Because everybody not in the Winners Club gets covered with thick, rich manure that the executives tell the rabble is really fine, rich chocolate. Lies to underlings are considered to be a necessary part of running the business, so lies are often plentiful. A couple of years ago, the management of a large studio told staff that everybody's work week would be boosted from forty to forty-five hours, "but nobody's wages are being cut."



When asked about it, I pointed out that everybody's pay was being cut because people were working more hours for the same money as before.



And everybody got it. They were (again) being lied to.



But of course, none of this will come as a surprise to anybody who's been in the biz for ... oh ... six months. If you're one of the worker bees, misinformation is the coin of the realm. And b.s. is the chief nutrient in the studio soil.



Veteran artists and tech directors understand this ... and practice what an Army Air Corps navigator learned in a long-ago war:

"I want someone to tell me," Lieutenant Scheisskopf beseeched them all prayerfully. "If any of it is my fault, I want to be told."



"He wants someone to tell him," Clevinger said.



"He wants everyone to keep still, idiot," Yossarian answered.



"Didn't you hear him," Clevinger argued.



"I heard him," Yossarian replied. "I heard him say very loudly and very distinctly that he wants every one of us to keep our mouths shut if we know what's good for us."



"I won't punish you," Lieutenant Scheisskopf swore.



"He says he won't punish me," said Clevinger.



"He'll castrate you," said Yossarian.



-- Joseph Heller, Catch 22

Unsurprisingly, Amy Pascal is now the former head of Sony Pictures. But it was fun while it lasted.

From Live Action to Animation

... Instead of the other way around. But some oversensitive types refuse to see the value in it.

... In June we reported that the BBC was planning to reboot Teletubbies with computer-generated animation, so that it could be more relevant to the computer-generated children of today. Now, the co-creator of Teletubbies — Anne Wood — has spoken up about the new version of her colorful little baby people, and she is “fucking pissed.” ...



Wood says that the idea to remake old shows instead of creating new ones is all about trends in TV production: “People feel safer remaking hits of the past rather than investing in something new.” ... She won’t be watching the remake. “How could I watch it?” she said, “All my programs are like my children. It’s like seeing a child remade in somebody else’s image. So good luck to them.” ...

What Ms. Wood doesn't understand is that she should be honored. And grateful. Usually it's animated properties that get plundered for newer live-action versions. The fact that Teletubbies is a property going in the opposite direction means that Ms. Wood is a trend setter.



Annie should look on the bright side. At least nobody is saying the new version of TT is "gay."

Hero Follow-Up

Penn Zero, PTH, which premiered over the weekend, enjoyed solid results for its initial outing.

Premiering with a Disney Channel and Disney XD simulcast, the new animated comedy series "Penn Zero: Part-Time Hero" (Friday, February 13, 9:45 p.m., ET/PT) delivered solid ratings in Total Viewers (2.9 million), Kids 2-11 (1.7 million/4.4 rating), Kids 6-11 (1.4 million/5.9 rating) and Tweens 9-14 (965,000/4.0 rating) across the two platforms.



Three additional new episodes aired on Disney XD on Saturday, February 14 (9:00 p.m., ET/PT), Sunday, February 15 (9:00 p.m., ET/PT) and Monday, February 16 (9:15 p.m., ET/PT). ...

After three decades, Disney TVA has become a well-oiled machine.



Gone are the days of hit or miss franchises, where for every Gummi Bears that hit big, there was a Wuzzles that didn't.



In the 21st Century, Television Animation game-plans for multiple seasons of every show it put on the air. Because two or three or four seasons are easier to market than a single order of shows that went nowhere.