Show #164: The Iron Giant

A towering behemoth whose mighty powers can bring destruction or salvation! But enough about Brad Bird already, this one's about The Iron Giant!

Click Here To Download (Right Click, Save As)

Having conquered the realm of prime time cartoon sitcoms the ambitions of Brad Bird turned to bigger things, and challenges don't get much greater than directing an animated feature during a period when such a thing was a hazardous undertaking if your name wasn't Disney. So how did they pull off this now well beloved tale of a boy and his bot? Failure is fomented, tears are shed and visitors from the stars are venerated. It's heavy stuff!

THE SHORT VERSION

Aspirational figures

Very special agents

Sad robots

Show #163: Family Dog (1987/1993)

The Brad Bird bombardment continues as we check the pedigree of animated short and TV spinoff Family Dog!

Click Here To Download (Right Click, Save As)

After a lot of hard graft in the 80s Brad Bird finally broke through and landed a life-changing job working on The Simpsons. Everybody wanted something from television's new golden boy, such that even his past projects were dusted off and ill-advisedly moulded into unwieldy forms with little to no input from their original creator! But does Family Dog the series deserve it's place in the boneyard of prime-time cartoon pretenders? Careers are catalogued, points are missed and yet more pondering is done on our podcast prospects!

THE SHORT VERSION

Good dog

Bad dog

That pencil test for The Spirit really is somethin'.

Show #162: Animalympics

It's the first proper show of the new year with a semi-different format that we're still working out! The obvious starting point for this approach? The TV movie Animalympics of course!

Click Here To Download (Right Click, Save As)

We're always looking to do better here at SOTSM so 2018 seems as good a time as any after putting this out for so long to freshen up our methods a little bit. What we're hoping to try here is to divert our tendency to overthink & tangentialise to the purpose of highlighting those hidden links and pathways lying just under the surface of the animation world. To that end while we figure out where to begin with this we thought we'd look at a more auspicious start in the bright career of cartoon creative Brad Bird, with his first professional credit on this 1980 TV special from the director of Tron, and follow his route from there. What other surprising staff will we discover? Is this format really going to inspire any substantial change? Will Niall's voice hold out until the end of the recording? The answers to these questions may only be found on the almost new, almost improved Secret Of The Sailor Madness!

THE SHORT VERSION

Athletic animals

Spaced-out sports

Formative experiences