When Ratatouille received an Oscar nomination for best animated picture this morning, we remembered an interesting yet unconfirmed rumor embedded very deep in our brains. We heard that when the Pixar animators needed inspiration for the film's legendary food critic Anton Ego, they looked to none other than legendary graphic designer Milton Glaser. Laugh if you must, but contrast how Ego (voiced by Peter O'Toole) talks cooking, above, with how Glaser talks about designing, below (in the Hillman Curtis film). Wikipedia says Ego's likeness was modeled on French actor Louis Jouvet, but note Ego's distinctive cadence, that ever-present scarf, and those large, graceful hands. Hmmm...

Although we're still bummed out by the absence of Duff at our local Kwik-E-Mart, we're still pretty psyched to see the Simpsons Movie. Turns out someone we know already did:

I went to a special private screening of the long awaited Simpsons movie. As Homer says, "Why would anyone come to something we give away free on TV?"

The answer is, it's fun. It's also great to see all those wonderful camera perspectives that you can only see on the silver screen.

And you thought Saul Bass only made film titles. Here's a clip of the 1968 Oscar-winning short film Why Man Creates, directed by Bass and his wife Elaine. Apparently the entire 29-minute film is available, but very expensive to procure.

Update: Our friend Christopher Simmons writes to remind us of this: "Saul Bass often gets credit full credit for Why Man Creates, though it was written by Mayo Simon."

Interesting story by way of Tropist about how Gregg Spiridellis, one of the founders of JibJab about creating a viable content providing brand. It's a great, lengthy pieced from Blog Critics, a transcription from his appearance at the Branff World Television Festival, wherein Spiridellis talks about the ups and downs of creating the popular site, from their pre-dot-com-bust foundations to their rebirth and overnight success in 2004. Even if you don't particularly care for the particular content they're slinging, it's a terrific bit of information about the workings of an online venture that, thus far, has made a real go of this whole internet hooplah. Here's some :

Working in Los Angeles, the brothers are confronted by the reality of a system of agents, managers, executives, and lawyers that was designed long before anyone thought of the Internet, never mind creating video content for it.

"It's so hard to get anything done," Spiridellis complains. "The whole system was created to produce a small number of really big investment productions, but with the web you've got to be able to produce a very big number of small productions."

"One of the problems we're trying to solve is how do we scale our production, because I can't make a production for a few thousand bucks if it's going to cost me five thousand to deal with the lawyers and everybody else."

If you've had a bad week, or even if you've had a good week, be sure to watch this video for The Whitest Boy Alive before you pack it up. Your feet will be tapping well into the weekend. Geoff McFetridge creates a surreal and somber universe of skateboarding, suburbia, and a little bit of Where the Wild Things Are with nothing more than a few strokes of his pencil. Magic.

File this under Awesome: An intrepid reporter points us to two street team promoters arrested for plastering Boston with Adult Swim animated series "Aqua Teen Hunger Force" ads. The problem? The ads were illuminated lightboards and deemed "bomblike" by authorities.

Huh? Yeah, that's what we said, too. We think we'll go with the opinion of the Parsons student interviewed in the piece who said they looked as harmless as Lite Brites. Also, even though they've been placed in cities across the country for 2-3 weeks, no one else has complained. And don't you think it's a pretty obvious riff on these little buggers?

Anyway, the ridiculousness of the whole thing makes this exchange between the suspects and reporters all the more appropriate:

When a reporter accused them of not taking the situation seriously, Stevens responded, "We're taking it very seriously." Asked another question about the case, Stevens reiterated they were answering questions only about hair and accused the reporter of not taking him and Berdovsky seriously.

Reporters did not relent and as they continued, Berdovsky disregarded their queries, saying, "That's not a hair question. I'm sorry."

Wow, it's been difficult finding things to write about today. Every site, every single dang site he regularly visits, including our own, had to talk about this stupid phone. Sure, this writer looked, saw it, said, "Neat, a new phone, ipod thing" but then promptly moved on. But maybe that's just because he's a little afraid of the cult. Regardless, thank heavens for 30gms who had yet to post anything starting with a lowercase "i" and instead had up something far more pertinent to everyone's lives: the Thundercats' new look. Here's some:

I see that the new look Liono (main character) has adopted a more skewed look and a bit younger may I add. The basic colour scheme is about the same (red hair, blue suit) but the costume has changed which to be honest with you I understand (it's kind of tough to look at a hero in his underwear in this day and age) it's amazing how times and tastes have changed - as its out with the 1980's muscle middle age and in with the teen,slim Pokemon version. I dont mind the new interpretation of Liono.

We knew our subscription to AutoWeek would eventually pay off, and this week we were blessed with what feels like an entire issue devoted to the upcoming movie "Cars." You can spend a good hour familiarizing yourself with the car-aracters, including an interview with Lightning McQueen (or is it Owen Wilson?), but the issue's highlight is a story about the five animators at Pixar who steered their love for the rumble seat all the way to the drive-in. Or a theater near you. But wouldn't it be awesome to see this movie at a drive-in? Someone better be on that.

Via Core77's Monday Must Read, which definitely is.

Here's an interesting piece of fun from Design Interact: a story about National Television and Ground Zero, the production company and ad agency, respectively, that put together a viral series for Virgin called "Exercise Your Music Muscle." It's a really terrific look into the whole creative process of building something quick and animated and, hopefully, will get talked about. There's a bit about chosing the style, then the process of having the ad agency work with the production in order to help keep the design cohesive between print and motion, and then all those interesting creative decisions that people spend weeks and weeks on and then you only see sixty seconds worth of stuff. So, if anything, for the sake of people who do that kind of thing for a living, you owe it to them to spend a couple of minutes reading about how they did it. If you do, we'll try to get them to return the favor by reading the latest entry in your muffin baking blog.

Drawn! is a new group blog "devoted to illustration, art, cartooning and drawing. It's purpose is to inspire creativity by sharing links and resources."

They have an impressive list of contributors and it's a great page to simply scan - the writing is interesting and all, but: look at all the pretty pictures, err, drawings, uh, illustrations? cartoons? It's all there, and it's good.

via The Ward-O-Matic