Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer: Original 1948 Animation

The story of Rudolph was originally written as a promotional device for a department store. In 1948, Max Fleischer directed this animated version for the Montgomery Ward department store. It has the song and everything. It's a totally different experience than the stop-motion version of the mid-1960s and is actually quite good. In fact, most of our modern imagery for Santa Clause and his North Pole operations were created by American department stores as merchandising gimmicks. It's actually one of America's best contributions to the world of holidays.




Remember that if you click the video to visit the YouTube site, there may be material there that is unsuitable for young viewers.

This blog entry comes from CandlelightStories.com

Christmas Comes But Once a Year: 1936 Animation

A 1936 cartoon from Fleischer Studios features the character of Grampy from the Betty Boop cartoons. When he comes upon an orphanage full of sad children he makes a Christmas far better than what they could have hoped for.




Remember that if you click the video to visit the YouTube site, there may be material there that is unsuitable for young viewers.

This blog entry comes from CandlelightStories.com

Santa's Workshop: 1932 Disney Christmas Cartoon

From 1932 comes Santa's Workshop, a Silly Symphonies cartoon from Walt Disney. It's super-colorful and has just that right old-time Christmas touch. Enjoy!




Remember that if you click the video to visit the YouTube site, there may be material there that is unsuitable for young viewers.

This blog entry comes from CandlelightStories.com

Original 'Winnie the Pooh' Illustrations

The BibliOdyssey blog has posted original Ernest H. Shepard Winnie the Pooh illustrations. These are the illustrations that were originally published with the Pooh books. They are vastly superior to the Disney art and animations which make their usual mistake of being far too professional. If you want to nap, watch Disney's Pooh. If you want to laugh, read the original books.

This blog entry comes from CandlelightStories.com

Sleigh Ride: A Christmas Animation

Here's a music video for Christmas. It was animated by Funnypages Productions for a band called Relient K.




Remember that if you click the video to visit the Vimeo site, there may be material there that is unsuitable for young viewers.

This blog entry comes from CandlelightStories.com

NASA Animation of Return to Moon

Here is an excellent NASA computer animation of their current plan for mankind's return to the moon. It covers the mission from launch to splashdown. Without any voice over, it explains the entire mission in simple visual terms.




Remember that if you click the video to visit the YouTube site, there may be material there that is unsuitable for young viewers.

This blog entry comes from CandlelightStories.com

County Ghost: A Cartoon Series for Halloween

Happy Halloween everybody! Here's a perfect treat for you. County Ghost is a lovely cartoon series by Mike Geiger. It's about a happy homeowner who finds himself doing battle with a ghost. He tries everything to protect his little home. Will anything work?

Episode 1: Not My Moonshine


Episode 2: The Big Suck


Remember that if you click the video to visit the YouTube site, there may be material there that is unsuitable for young viewers.

This blog entry comes from CandlelightStories.com

The Graveyard Book: Neil Gaiman Reads the Entire Book Aloud

Coming just in time for Halloween, author Neil Gaiman has posted videos of his public readings of his latest novel, The Graveyard Book. You can hear the entire book which is about a child who is raised by the ghosts and werewolves who inhabit a haunted graveyard. He's a good reader and this story is perfect for a nice haunted listening session. The book is aimed at middle readers.

Watch all Chapters of The Graveyard Book Reading

This blog entry comes from CandlelightStories.com

There Will Come Soft Rains: Russian Animation

Here is a science fiction animation from the former Soviet Union. It is based on a Ray Bradbury short story about a robot caretaker that keeps functioning even after some sort of nuclear annihilation. This is one of those wonderful Russian films that makes you think and creates an unforgettable atmosphere.




Remember that if you click the video to visit the YouTube site, there may be material there that is unsuitable for young viewers.

This blog entry comes from CandlelightStories.com

Presto: Animated Short from Pixar

Here's a very nice little animation from the Pixar group at Disney. I like it. It looks good, it moves quickly, it's funny, and it's short. It concerns a magician's rabbit who is hungry for a carrot just before a magic show. He wants that carrot pretty badly and will stop at nothing to get it.




This blog entry comes from CandlelightStories.com

How to Hook Up Your Home Theater: A Goofy Cartoon From Disney

Here's a new cartoon from Disney starring Goofy. It's about all the excitement of going out and buying a brand new television and setting it all up to perfection as only Goofy can. It's also the first Goofy theatrical cartoon since 1961. The film was made entirely without paper as an experiment by Disney to see if they could make a film with the look of a 1940s animation, but using computer drawing tablets. I think the experiment turned out well for them and perhaps it will give the company a welcome alternative to the Pixar computer animation they have been so inexplicably attached to.



Remember that if you click the video to visit the YouTube site, there may be material there that is unsuitable for young viewers.


This blog entry comes from CandlelightStories.com

Star Trek Comics for Free Online

Star Trek comic books from the 60s and 70s are available for free viewing on the Wowio.com site. The Planet of No Return was published in 1967, during the original run of the TV series. It is about an encounter with intelligent and hostile plant life forms.

The series was originally published by Gold Key Comics.

Have a sci-fi blast!

Star Trek Comic: The Planet of No Return

This blog entry comes from CandlelightStories.com

Oktapodi: Animated CG Short

Oktapodi is a French student animated short from the Gobelins school. It was directed by Julien Bocabeille, FX Chanioux, Olivier Delabarre, Thierry Marchand, Quentin Marmier and Emud Mokhberi. It moves very quickly and has a gorgeous seaside town with winding streets for the action to happen in.

It won Best Animation at the Imagina Awards 2008. At the Annecy festival it won a Family Award for Best Graduation Film. There's a web site for the film here.

Remember that if you head to other sites there may be content there that is not suitable for young viewers.

Watch Oktapodi (60 meg Quicktime movie)

This blog entry comes from CandlelightStories.com

The Danish Poet - Animated Short On YouTube

YouTube is showing The Danish Poet in their brand new Screening Room which is a showcase for independent films. This film won the 2007 Academy Award for best animated short. Torill Kove directed it and Liv Ullman provided the narration. It is beautifully animated with a flat cartoony style that is more complicated than it looks. The story is a gently moving one and I highly recommend this.

Remember that if you head over to YouTube there may be content there that is not suitable for young viewers.

Watch The Danish Poet

This blog entry comes from CandlelightStories.com

The Mole and the Music - Czech Animation

Here's a 1974 Czech animation about a mole and a mouse who go looking for some good music. It was made by Zdenek Miler.



Remember that if you click the video to visit the YouTube site, there may be material there that is unsuitable for young viewers.


This blog entry comes from CandlelightStories.com

Phoenix Lander Finds Water on Mars

NASA announced today that it has found water ice on Mars! The Phoenix Lander scooped up some martian dirt and took some photos of the hole. In one shot you can see some chunks in the lower left corner of the hole. In the next shot they are gone. That means that the clumps melted and evaporated. Because of the temperature at that location scientists know that it can only be frozen water.

This is a great discovery and takes us a long way in our search for the building blocks of life on other planets.


Nasa's Official Announcement of Water on Mars

This blog entry comes from CandlelightStories.com

Barack Obama Clinches Presidential Nomination

Today, June 3, 2008 is one of the great days in United States history. Barack Obama has clinched the democratic party nomination by winning more than 2,118 delegates to the Democratic Convention. This day must rank with the ending of the Civil War, the end of World War II and landing on the moon for importance in our national history. An African American has just become a candidate for President. This has been long overdue and it is a very welcome development. I hope all parents are allowing their children, no matter how young, to watch these events unfold. I can think of few things that would be so inspiring to children. It is incredible to watch Barack Obama achieve something so important to the entire nation. Congratulations to him and to our country.

This blog entry comes from CandlelightStories.com

Cyclone in Myanmar (Burma)

Sources are reporting that the terrible cyclone in Myanmar may have killed 200,000 people and that up to 500,000 may die due to sickness and starvation. There is very little that can be done since the country is ruled by one of those horrendous military dictatorships that don't care who lives or dies. You can donate to major aid organizations that will try to deliver essential supplies and medicine to the survivors of the storm.


View Larger Map

This blog entry comes from CandlelightStories.com

All Girl Star Squad: Games and Cartoons

The All Girl Star Squad is a group of superhero girls who battle an alien queen in webisodes on the new gaming site, allgirlarcade.com. The site offers colorful games, videos, and a shopping area. The animation is good and the limited selection of games turns out to be a lot of fun.

This blog entry comes from CandlelightStories.com

The Idiotic Adventures of Philippe and Pierre

This is part of a series of cartoons about a body trying to re-attach its severed head. They are very funny and somehow manage to make a headless body cute and lovable.




Remember that if you click the video to visit the YouTube site, there may be material there that is unsuitable for young viewers.

A Short Love Story in Stop Motion

It's not done yet, but Carlos Lascano's new animation looks really good. It seems to be about a girl who daydreams about falling in love with a boy in her classroom. It uses a lovely mix of techniques.




Remember that if you click the video to visit the Vimeo site, there may be material there that is unsuitable for young viewers.

Clone Wars Trailer

The titles of the six worst movies in film history all have 'Star Wars' in them. They are just fantastically bad movies with the worst acting I have ever seen in my entire life (and, yes, that includes Sir Alec Guinness). But now I see that they should have been animations all along! This trailer looks amazing and probably contains more convincing characters than all of the films combined. I can't wait to see this movie.



Remember that if you click the video to visit the YouTube site, there may be material there that is unsuitable for young viewers.

The Street Magician: Student Animation

Andrew Ferguson, a student at Sheridan College made this beautiful, funny cartoon. It has an old-fashioned style that really works, excellent background drawings, and its movement is fun to watch.




Remember that if you click the video to visit the YouTube site, there may be material there that is unsuitable for young viewers.


This blog entry comes from CandlelightStories.com

ABC3D: Pop-Up Alphabet

Here's a movie of the complete pop-up alphabet in a book by French designer, Marion Bataille. The book comes out in October 2008. Meanwhile, the little movie below is a great alphabet in its own right. I found this via the Drawn! blog at drawn.ca.




Remember that if you click the video to visit the YouTube site, there may be material there that is unsuitable for young viewers.


This blog entry comes from CandlelightStories.com

Animated Short: Gagarin

This film was made by Alexei Kharitidi in 1995. It won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival that year. It is about a caterpillar who wants to fly. The hand-drawn animation is excellent. I found this film via Coldhardflash.com.




Remember that if you click the video to visit the YouTube site, there may be material there that is unsuitable for young viewers.


This blog entry comes from CandlelightStories.com

YouTube Short Film Winner: My Name is Lisa

This is the winner of the short film competition at YouTube. It was directed by Ben Shelton and written by Ben and Josh Shelton. It is very simply produced with a hand-held camera. It is also a very good film. How nice to see a good film actually making it to the top of the heap as a result of viewer votes, and how unusual.

This film is not intended for very young viewers and has one instance of language that may require adult supervision before viewing.



Remember that if you click the video to visit the YouTube site, there may be material there that is unsuitable for young viewers.


This blog entry comes from CandlelightStories.com

Disney Scanning Fingertips of Children

It has come to my attention that the Walt Disney Company is scanning the fingertips of children and adults at Disney World. Doing this to anyone at any kind of business is shocking and completely unnecessary. Any system that takes an image of a fingertip and identifies someone by measuring its features is typically called a 'fingerprint.' Doing such a thing to children at an amusement park, no matter what Disney's excuse may be, forces Candlelight Stories to recommend that children be kept away from all Disney parks until the company can prove that all of these machines and the databases behind them have been removed and completely erased.


This blog entry comes from CandlelightStories.com

Goobies: Animated Candies Fight Epic Battle

Goobies is an animation by four students at the Texas A&M Viz Lab. It's about the land of candy inside a vending machine where terrible battles are fought between different candies. It's well-animated and fun to watch.

Go watch Goobies

This blog entry comes from CandlelightStories.com

Persepolis - The Making of the Animated Movie

Persepolis is a graphic novel by Marjane Satrapi which, over the course of its two volumes, chronicles the life of a girl as she grows up in Iran and then moves into Western Europe. The novel is fascinating and has wonderful black & white art which tells the story in a completely unique way. The author is also co-director, along with Vincent Paronnaud, of the Oscar-Nominated animated film. There is an online movie about the making of the Persepolis film which is narrated by Satrapi and Paronnaud. I give the graphic novel and its beautiful film adaptation the highest of recommendations. This work is far beyond the level we are used to because when you find something like Persepolis you have found an actual artist with something to communicate.


You can buy the graphic novel of Persepolis here

This blog entry comes from CandlelightStories.com

Pirate Jack Novel at Amazon and Barnes & Noble

This is a really fun post to write because my book, Pirate Jack, has just been made available for purchase at Amazon.com and the Barnes & Noble web site. I wrote the book back in 2000 and offered it online as a series of email chapters that readers could subscribe to for free. Then I turned it into an audio podcast that listeners really seemed to enjoy. Recently, I decided to set it up as a paperback book with a reasonable price.

So now, if you want to read this crazy adventure, you can head over to Amazon or Barnes & Noble to do so! If you buy it, have a great time reading it and let me know what you think right here.

Go buy Pirate Jack from Amazon.com

Go buy Pirate Jack from Barnes & Noble

This blog entry comes from CandlelightStories.com