those 500 new Peanuts shorts

The 500 new short Peanuts animations being created by Normaal in France have been getting some attention of late. There are at least a couple of examples out there, floating around in the wild; I’m not going to link to them here because they appear to be unauthorized. But this French TV report will give you at least some sense of them:

I like that the visuals seem to be trying more to be Schulz than to be Melendez (although not without that influence). Not that there’s anything wrong with how Melendez brought the material to the screen! But that doesn’t mean that it’s the only right way to interpret the strip for animation. There are some moments where the mechanicalness of computer-aided animation comes through in arm swings and the like, but all in all, quite reasonable.

They may be only 90 seconds long, but with 500 of them, that makes 12.5 hours. That’s like a season-and-a-half of a sitcom. It’ll be a lot of material to watch!

Animated Peanuts
RIP Willie Mays

Willie Mays has died. The baseball great lived until the age of 1993. “Why is that relevant to a Peanuts blog?” I hear of a few of you cry (though many of you know better.) Before Lee Mendelson had any connection to Peanuts, he made a documentary about Mays… and …

Animated Peanuts
New Peanuts feature film on the way

Apple, who have been producing Peanuts series and specials in plentitude, have announced that they, Wildbrain, and Peanuts Worldwide are working together on a new Peanuts feature-length film, the Hollywood Reporter notes. If you liked the last feature film, then this should be very good news. They’re using a story …

Animated Peanuts
Beagle Scout missions

Those of you who have never been to the San Diego Comic-Con (or who haven’t been in a the past couple decades) may not realize that the event goes well beyond the convention center. For blocks around, there are pop-up shops in unused storefronts, studios creating fan “experiences” in parking …