Over on The Simpsons, an artist told me that earlier this week, one of the longtime leads on the show was informed the current season will be their last. Nothing new with that. A lot of people have been shown the door in Fox's and Gracie Films' unending quest to hammer down budgets.

"He was a good guy, has been with the show for a lot of years. We're guessing that people on the other side of the hill decided he was too expensive, and pushed him overboard ..."

Maybe the boys and girls on Pico are doing it because the show is in its final glide path and they're squeezing out the last few drops of fuel. Or maybe it's because they are settling in for a longer flight:

... John Ortved, author of a new oral history of the show, "The Simpsons: An Uncensored, Unauthorized History" ... [says] "As a vehicle [for licensing], the show is worth having ... Without the show, I think the property is in serious decline."

... Hollywood economics also argue for keeping the show on the air. As producer Bill Lawrence, who agreed to bring "Scrubs" back this season, told The New York Times, "In this economic landscape, if you have the chance to continue a project, you don't just say: 'No big deal. I'll go work somewhere else.' " ...

So who knows? The buzz around Starz-FR is one or two more seasons of The Simpsons, and it's adios. Then again, if the company can get the voice actors to sign on one more time at reasonable rates, maybe the sky's the limit. (You gotta keep that franchise rolling. And new episodes are a fine way to do it.)

We'll revisit this topic five years hence, when The Simpsons enters its twenty-fifth season.

Add On: I got to know Roy pretty well after Eisner replaced Ron Miller at Disney. He was involved in animation up to his elbows, sitting in on story-reel screenings, and pitching in ideas about how sequences should go.

He was always easy-going and approachable. When he got into his corporate wrestling match with Michael Eisner a few years back, he began showing up at union Christmas parties and mingling with members, and he was warmly welcomed.

A shame that Roy has now passed on.

-- Steve Hulett

Add On Too: I was having lunch today with a Disney Feature Animation veteran and we reminisced about Roy. And we agreed that, if not for Mr. Disney, the whole "Second Golden Age" of animation thing might not have happened, because it was Roy who pushed to keep Disney Animation open when the new live-action guys (Mr. Eisner and Mr. Katzenberg) came in from Paramount and wanted to close the department.

In fact, you could make a compelling case that there might not be Pixar, and there certainly wouldn't be DreamWorks Animation if Roy Disney were missing from the equation. For without a Disney feature animation division in 1984, the gent that founded DreamWorks Animation a decade later wouldn't have owned the hot hand of Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and Lion King on which to float it, nor would he have had the interest.

It's kind of the whole "It's a Wonderful Life" scenario. If Roy Disney hadn't been there to lobby on behalf of Disney Animation in 1984, then ... dot dot dot.

-- Steve Hulett

Details from the Los Angeles Times website.

And the very same night, there was the American Dad Christmas show.

The episode starts out with the “American dad,” Stan, waiting for his wife, Francine, so they can go to church on Christmas morning. He yells for her to hurry up saying “God pays twice as much attention on Sunday, like the media when a white chick goes missing.” Francine comes down the stairs in her new dress, asking Stan how it looks. His response, “I can’t take you to church in that, I can see your calves!” ....

Before they leave, the alien who lives with them, Roger, (I’m not making this up) gives his opinion of Christianity saying “it’s like Harry Potter, but it causes genocide and bad folk music.” ...

Fox, in its wisdom, is most likely counter-programming William O'Reilly. Which is its right as a fine American-Australian corporation.

Personally, I thought both episodes were a trifle over the top, but since the apple of my eye was sprawled on the couch howling with laughter, I could be wrong in my assessment. The kid is, after all, the the middle of Fox-News Corp.'s target demographic. And when all is said and done, it is about the crisp folding money, isn't it?

When I was a story person back at the Dawn of Time, the Motion Picture Industry and Health Plan was generous with the medical bennies.

* You didn't have co-pays for prescription drugs. Any kind of prescription drugs.

* Emergency Room visits were free of charge.

* Doctor visits were (almost) fully paid for.

* Minimal amounts were paid for hospital stays and surgeries.

But that was then and this is now.

In 2008, the Motion Picture Industry Health Plan was staring at a 528ドル million deficit over the next contract cycle (three years) and had to take action. Our Mother International negotiated higher contributions from the producers, but was also forced to "redesign" the Plan.

I won't beat around the bush. "Redesign" is a euphemism for "cutting expenses and shifting costs." The Motion Picture Industry Health Plan is going through the same doubling of costs every nine or ten years that all health plans now endure, so coverage ain't what it used to be. (Big surprise.)

Okay, there's your explanation about why health coverage is eroding, but what's the remedy to this problem? Below I give a few thumbnail solutions. (Feel free to click to the Health Plan's website for more detailed information.)

Prescription Drugs

Co-pays have gone up, so to maximize savings you need to go to the mail-order Pharmacy MedCo for all or most of your prescription drug needs. The Plan now pays most generously for generic versions of drugs, so that is the way to go for the most bang for your buck. (It's 25ドル for a three-month supply of popular generics. I've had zero problems with getting my drugs by mail. For long-term prescriptions, it's the way you will have to go, because the Plan will only pay for two prescriptions at your neighborhood pharmacy.)

Doctor Care and Services

There are three choices in this area:

Health Plan/Blue Shield: This is the choice most used by participants, and the default option. I call it the PPO-HMO Flexible Plan, because you have two choices inside it.

Choice One: Choose your own doctor and you'll pay 35ドル+ per office visit. Go to a Blue Shield hospital, and you'll pay a maximum 1000ドル for surgical services and hospital stay (up from 700ドル).

Choice Two: Go to one of the Motion Picture and Television Fund Clinics (Glendale, Burbank, Woodland Hills, Mission Hills, Valencia, Westside) and pay a 5ドル fee. (Elective health checkups are also 5ドル, not covered elsewhere.)

Emergency Room visits: 100ドル. (Waived if participants is admitted to hospital.)

Health Net: This HMO option has more extensive fertility coverage than the other two plans. 15ドル for most doctor visits. (35ドル for Emergency Room visits.)

Kaiser-Permanente: The oldest HMO in the nation runs its own network of hospitals an clinics. 15ドル for most doctor visits.

Unless you're dripping with money, there is no ideal health plan. There is better and there is worse, but there is no perfect. What we've tried to do in new-member tutorials that Kevin and I give 45 weeks a year is provide advice about how to get the most bang for your health care dollar.

The reality is, it's still possible to save money if you know the right moves to make. But you've got to bone up on the different options available to you, and plan accordingly. Knowledge is power.

© 1961 by the Estate Of Ralph Hulett. Click on the thumbnail to see a full-sized image.

See Ralph Hulett Christmas card designs at TAG's art gallery, open weekdays 8:30 am-5 pm.

Here are more Ralph Hulett Christmas cards.

Nobody has to go out on a limb to predict Avatar will have a big opening. But Avatar cost a gazillion dollars, and so will have to make a gazillion and a half to get into profits.

Three dee animated features, on the other hand, can cost a whole lot less. Coraline came in at 70ドル million, and Dawn of the Dinosaurs was a mere 90ドル million. And it seems to pay off.

Disney/Pixar's "Up" ... has grossed a worldwide total of 683ドル million. ... "Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs" ... cumed a ... worldwide total of 883ドル.7 million ...

Etcetera.

By 2019, how many features won't be 3-D?. Not many.

"The last bits of How To Train Your Dragon's animation will be done in early January. But that's from the stragglers. Almost all of Shrek IV's animation will be done by the end of January. These two pictures were sort of hop-scotching and racing each other the last year, but their animation is close to being done at almost the same time. Dragon comes out first, in March, so it's gotta be finished."

And I talked to different folks who've worked for both DreamWorks Animation and Disney Features (aka "Walt Disney Animation Studio") over the last few years, and the consensus is in: Morale is higher at DWA than the House of Mouse.

Let's stipulate that much of the above is semi-silly. The fact is, any blockbuster of the last several years has generous dollops of animation embedded in it. Stunt work, crowds of extras, all the effects and whole environments are animated. Secondary characters are animated.

But it's more radical than that. Go to your standard-issue live-action programmer and hang around for the ten minutes of back-end credits. You'll see two or three effects studios listed, with squads of animators and digital matte artists and effects specialists. And half the time you sit there and think: "What? Did I miss something? Why are they using all those effects people? What did they do, exactly?"

The cold reality today is that almost every big picture has animation in it, more often than not lots of animation. If they were making Wizard of Oz in 2009 the feature would be overflowing with animated work ("Flying monkeys? We can give you thousands!") If Gone With the Wind was on somebody's production slate they would be dialing ILM to animate the burning of Atlanta.

So yeah. James Cameron is an animation director. Isn't everybody?

Coming in No. 5 at the international B.O. was Luc Besson's French toon "Arthur and the Revenge of Maltazard." Film is a sequel to "Arthur and the Invisibles." "Maltazard" grossed a boffo 14ドル.1 million in its debut in 15 territories, led by 11ドル.3 million at the French box office, where it is being distribbed by Europa. ...

"Planet 51," placed No. 7 overall for the sesh at the international B.O., grossing 8ドル.1 million from 20 territories.

In Japan, "Up" scored the second-best opening for a Disney/Pixar toon after "Finding Nemo," which finished with 124ドル million in 2003 ...

The first Arthur, if you're keeping score, was a huge winner in Europe and a monumntal bust for the Weinstein Co. here in the U.S.

The Weinstein brothers just can't seem to catch a break. Like other indies, the company appears to be in trouble financially. Arthur Uno did nothing for them in the U.S., and what's going to happen to their Hoodwinked sequel? Will they get around to releasing it, or do they even have the money to do that? (We hear the feature is completed, and has tested well.)

But outside of the unfortunate Weinstein Co., the animated feature business is hopping and bopping worldwide.

But "carefully crafted" or not, to date most animated features created on foreign shores haven't set American turnstiles ablaze.

After earning 108ドル million worldwide ..."Arthur and the Invisibles" [made] just 15ドル million in the U.S. ... Despite their big budgets, "Planet 51," has earned 30ドル million since Nov. 20, while "Astro Boy" has earned just 19ドル million domestically since its release Oct. 23 ...

... Previous films like "Valiant" or "Igor" didn't attract audiences because they were considered too "European" or "fell short in production values," says "Planet 51" producer Perez Dolset. Others attribute their disappointing performances to the size of their marketing efforts in the U.S. ...

Frankly, I couldn't tell you with precision why the majority of overseas animated features go bust in the U.S. of A. Some are clearly clunky, or have under-powered story and character development, or simply don't gel with American tastes.

But others? I remember seeing trailers for Happy Feet years ago and thinking, "Jeeze, another penguin movie?! How well can that do?" yet the epic took off.

This past weekend I saw the second trailer for Despicable Me and laughed out loud. It doesn't look like most American animated features, not even close, but they seem to be larding it up with a lot of Warners-style gags, so who knows? It could be a hit for Universal and cement Chris Meledandri's reputation as Master of the Feature cartoon in the same way that Jeffrey Katzenberg is a master. (DM, if you don't know, was produced in France.)

Foreign animation flaming out in the American market isn't a new phenomenon. It's been happening since Once Upon a Forest in 1990, and further back than that if you consider the Soviet-produced Snow Princess going nowhere in the States back in 1960.

It must be maddening for overseas cartoon studios to see American animation sail to the top of their own box office charts, while their efforts seldom break through stateside. Also crappy and "unfair," but the way -- by and large -- it seems to be.

One of R. Hulett's "character cards," seasoned with a smidge of the Disney house style. They encompassed mice, jesters, friars, and of course St. Nick.

© 1955 by the Estate Of Ralph Hulett. Click on the thumbnail to see a full-sized image. See Ralph Hulett Christmas card designs at TAG's art gallery, open weekdays 8:30 am-5 pm. Here are more Ralph Hulett Christmas cards.

Progress, no?

Someday animation will be considered an actual mainstream form of movie entertainment, worthy of mainstream Oscars like Best Picture.

But when that day happens, I'll have been dead a couple of thousand years, and the sun will be near its red star phase.

In the live-action department, Sandy Bullock's The Blind Side (#2) has now sewn up 139ドル.5 million as it comes in 2nd, Clint Eastwood Invictus debuts at #3, and the vampire sage Twilight (#4) has now grossed 261ドル.7 million and a whole lot more overseas ...

Add On: At the wire, The Princess and the Frog comes in first, with 25ドル million and 7,280ドル per screen. (By way of comparison, Ron and John's Aladdin opened wide on November 25, 1992 with a 19ドル million total take, but on a third as many screens with a 17,000ドル/screen average.)

Kindly note that the maligned Christmas Carol had the smallest drop (-11.5%) of any Top Ten entry, so somebody must be liking the picture. It certainly keeps on performing. It's now grossed 124ドル.5 million.

I'm thinking the feature comes in higher, but I could be viewing reality through a rosy prism. (We'll find out soon enough.) ...

Add On: Entertainment Weekly sees Frog as a winner, but at a lower total.

1. The Princess and the Frog: 24ドル million

Two years ago Alvin and the Chipmunks opened in mid-December to an astounding 44ドル million — marking a high-point in box-office history for animated movies in December. It’s unlikely Princess and the Frog will nab such a large debut considering the word “Princess” is guaranteed to turn off half the kid movie-going population and the film is opening a little too early to win those families on opening weekend ...

Add On Too: As a commenter references, the Nikkster rolls out Friday numbers:

1. Princess And The Frog (Disney) Fri 7ドル.5M [3,434 runs] Est Wkd 27ドルM

2. The Blind Side (Warner Bros) Fri 4ドル.5M [3,388] Est Wkd 14ドル.5M

3. Invictus (Warner Bros) Fri 3ドルM [2,125 runs] Est Wkd 10ドルM

4. New Moon (Summit) Fri 2ドル.5M [3,635 runs] Est Wkd 7ドル.7M

5. A Christmas Carol (Disney) Fri 1ドル.6M [2,402 runs] Est Wkd 6ドル.5M

You will note that Christmas Carol continues to hang in (which most likely ends when Avatar takes over all the stereo screens.) But that pulls it up to the 125ドル million range.

Add On #3: The Nikkster summarizes Froggie's first wide weekend:

... [A]dd Friday's take of 7ドル.1M and Saturday's of 10ドル.6M for a 25ドルM weekend -- about expected for hand-drawn 2-D animation these days with an A via CinemaScore. Disney said it was the biggest opening for an animated film released in December. Princess has two weeks before Fox’s Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel opens on Christmas Day.

I'm sure Dis Co. would have liked higher grosses on Weekend #1. Although the holiday weekend was higher than the blockbuster 2-D openings of the early nineties (Aladdin, for instance, went wide on November 25, 1992 with 19ドル.3 million, but on a lot less screens.) I think that the Mouse will pursue a two-track production policy with animation from its Southern California studio: Lower budgeted hand-drawn offerings, higher budget CGI features. My prediction, anyway.

"Half of Rapunzel's story has been approved and we don't have a problem with stockpiling footage anymore. Ninety-one feet has been animated, mainly teaser stuff going onto The Princess and the Frog's DVD, and most of the animators for the show have been hired. We're going to be pushing the pedal to the metal for the next nine months ..."

I talked to a sampling of Rapunzel's animators and they told me overtime on the feature has been going on for a few weeks now:

"We've been working Saturdays, and working ten-hour days Monday through Friday. Probably by February we'll be doing seven-day weeks. There's a lot of work to do ..."

According to one staffer, the picture is in good shape, the story kinks worked out: "Now we're tweaking things, like an action sequence that has to be plussed, with all the characters given stuff to do, things like that ..."

At the same time, Winnie the Pooh is rolling along, with animation soon to start. In case you haven't consulted your calendar, Rapunzel comes out next November, and Pooh next Spring.

And of course we'll know how Frog is doing at the nation's box offices in a matter of hours, won't we?

© 1961 by the Estate Of Ralph Hulett. Click on the thumbnail to see a full-sized image.

See Ralph Hulett Christmas card designs at TAG's art gallery, open weekdays 8:30 am-5 pm.

Here are more Ralph Hulett Christmas cards.

I haven't been overwhelmed by the Avatar trailer, and Sherlock Holmes has been garnering more interest in recent tracking polls. And now the Associated Press says:

Effects Wow But Story Limps ...

James Cameron's 3-D "Avatar" has all the smack of a Film Not To Miss — a movie whose effects are clearly revolutionary, a spectacle that millions will find adventure in. But it nevertheless feels unsatisfying and somehow lacks the pulse of a truly alive film ...

So is Avatar going to swallow TP&TF whole? I tend to think not.

One of the Top Dogs on The Princess and the Frog told me he thought Avatar was going to squeeze Disney's hand-drawn epic a week after its wide opening, but I'm not so sure. J. Cameron might put a ding in the Princess's tiara, but Alvin (as in Alvin and the Chipmunks, the Squeakuel) might take a sizable chunk out of the crown.

Me, I'm thinking TP&TF has a 30ドル-40 million opening weekend, and goes on to an "opening weekend times 4.3" total when all domestic moolah is raked in by the Big Mouse.

As always, my calculations could be off. Psychic, I am not.

Enrique May, who over the years has been the de facto official photographer of the TAG holiday parties, has favored us with almost six hundred shots of the big bash. Along with Steve Hulett's relatively modest stash, you can view them at the following Photobucket links:

• Enrique May photos, part 1 (512 shots)
• Enrique May photos, part 2 (67 shots)
• Steve Hulett photos (35 shots)

These pics have been uploaded without any editing -- some are out of focus, misframed, or need rotating. And of course there are no identifying labels. (There are, after all, only so many hours in the day.) But they're all high-def and downloadable.

Thanks to Steve and especially Enrique for their Herculean efforts to chronicle our social events. And now, journey through the blue links and relive the magical moments that were the 2009 Animation Guild Christmas Party.

But this Tiger Woods brouhaha has been a godsend for some on-line animation studios ... and the L.A. Times takes us behind the scenes of one of the creators of speedy animation:

... [T]here have been few events that really drive home the point of just how fast technology and its users are. The Tiger Woods affair was a hole-in-one for the Internet's quick turnaround time.

A good example of that is Break Media's Tiger Hunting online game. The fairly simple distraction has players guide a cartoon Tiger Woods in his Escalade, with a supposed mistress seated beside him, down a street. Meanwhile, a character portraying his crazed wife chases them on foot, golf club in hand. Players must swerve to avoid various obstacles, including trees, trophies and babies.

Concept art and planning were drawn up over the Weekend of Tiger (Nov. 27- 29) as news media buzzed and shot at every angle, be it police statements or gossip.

On Monday, Nov. 30, Break's director of games Chris Pasley began programming the game in Flash. By Tuesday night, Tiger Hunting was online and being promoted on Holy Taco, a Break-owned men's humor blog.

Irish animators have climbed the wall surrounding Robert Redford's little film party.

This week saw the selection of two Irish animation short films, ‘Old Fangs' - directed by Adrien Merigeau and ‘Please Say Something' - directed by David O'Reilly, to screen at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival.

Selection for the Sundance Festival is considered a major coup for emerging filmmakers given its reputation for showcasing the work of leading and rising independents ...

We pause now to celebrate Popeye's father.

Today is the birthday of Popeye creator E.C. Segar, born 115 years ago.

Segar was a newspaper cartoonist, and Popeye was first seen in Segar’s comic strip “Thimble Theater,” starring the sailor, his rail-thin girlfriend Olive Oyl, her brother Castor Oyl, and, eventually, their hamburger-munching pal Wimpy, and Popeye’s rival for Olive, the hulking Bluto.

It's good to remember that the Fleischer version of Popeye made the sailor-man the most popular cartoon character in America during the 1930s. The Mouse named Mickey was #2.

Ron Clements and John Musker are interviewed about their new movie by the Wall Street Journal:

A couple years ago, hand-drawn animation was out of favor and you two got laid off from Disney.

Musker: We did, yeah.

Walk me through your feelings when that happened, what you felt about the art form and your future.

Clements: Certainly for us it was kind of a little disapointing to see what was happening. Not just for us personally, because we do love the medium. As a director there are other opportunities—directing a digital film is not that different than directing a hand-drawn film. But for the art form itself it was really sad, to see it go for so many peole. The skills involved [in hand-drawn animation] take a long time to learn—they are skills that could be lost. Certainly the way that Disney does animated films is very unique, and there’s a sort of a mentor-student relationship, everyone learns from the veterans. We learned what we know from the Nine Old Men who worked with Walt Disney. It just felt short-sighted for the studio to just kind of abandon it…it was too valuable a thing to let it go that quickly ...

To end, we have the Times of Los Angeles talking to the film-makers of five animated films:

... [F]or Shane Acker to expand his award-winning short "9" into a feature-length film, he had no problem inventing a rich back story for the characters who inhabit his darkly imagined post-apocalyptic landscape.

"I just vomited all these ideas out," Acker said of his first meeting with screenwriter Pamela Pettler, whose credits include the animated outings "Corpse Bride" and "Monster House." "I'd never done long form before, I didn't really know narrative structure. She was great at figuring out how we could start to put these different narrative threads through the whole." ...

You've gotten past hump day, it's all an easy coast downslope from here.