SpongeBob SquarePants.

This image has been my screensaver at work for a few months now. It is from the short "Chocolate With Nuts." In a chocolate bar themed episode, Patrick and SpongeBob get frightened by a would-be stalker, and then we cut to Patrick's shorts as a Hershey kiss drops out the bottom. I can't think of too many children's animated shows that would get away with this.

Palm Desert.

We had a nice weekend planned. A condo in beautiful Coronado with some good friends and a trip to Sea World with the kids. The condo was owned by our friend's family, so we'd be saving a little cash on the trip. When those plans came crashing down, we fell back to Plan B - staying at another condo owned by the same family in Palm Desert. After loading up the car on Friday, my wife left Santa Clarita at 2:30, picked me up at work at 3:30, and we arrived, thanks to Los Angeles's well-oiled transportation byways, at 8:30. When we arrived, we found a beautiful condo in a gated community on a golf course... with a barely-functioning air conditioner. With the temperature outside still in the high 90's/low 100's, we immediately changed clothes and headed over to the pool. The pool, under the blazing sun all day, was as warm as a hot tub - nice in the winter, not so much at 100 degrees. After a night of sleeping in pools of our own sweat, we hoped a day with the air left on in the condo would leave things cool for the next evening's sleep. So we headed off for the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway in the 126 degree heat. The weather at the top of the mountain was nice. Breezy, warm but cool - the way summer should be. That only lasted a couple hours, as we had to return to the condo for the kids' naps. We returned to find the condo had gotten even hotter. We tried swimming again and, although we were determined to stay in the pool longer this time, the water was no cooler than the night before. With no relief in sight, we all agreed to cut our weekend away short and evacuate Palm Desert. We were relieved when we arrived home that night at midnight in a Santa Clarita that was only a cool, refreshing 99 degrees.

Metrolink Mother.

I can't tell you how many times I've encountered this person while taking the train to and from work.

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/49603

One Got Fat. Again.

In an incredibly odd coincidence, the subject of this film came up again. In the middle of a random conversation with the Animation Guild's Business Rep, Steve Hulett, he noticed a screen cap from "One Got Fat" taped above my nameplate on my cubicle. He remarked that HIS FATHER and a couple associates MADE this film in 1963. His brother played one of the monkeys in the film (the one that wasn't brutally maimed) and his mother and her best friend played two women knocked into a tree by one of the monkeys. After physically assaulting Steve, I crawled under my desk and spent the next four hours in the fetal position.

One Got Fat.

Years ago, Monlux Elementary School would gather all the students for "assemblies" in the auditorium where they would screen educational films on the movie projector. When I was in second or third grade, they showed us a film on bicycle safety that brought me years and years of horrifying nightmares. I remember not being able to sleep well for weeks, and for years after would periodically get a flashback of a scene or two. When I tried to describe this film to friends years later ("monkeys on bikes" was the best description I could muster), no one I knew had ever heard of it and thought it was a figment of my imagination. Well, a few weeks ago at the ripe age of 35 I got another of those aforementioned flashbacks and decided to Google "monkeys on bikes." To my surprise I found the film - called "One Got Fat." With a creepy voiceover by "Fractured Fairytales" Edward Everett Horton, it is the terrifying story of a bunch of half monkey/half teenage kids not obeying bicycle safety laws and meeting horrible fates. Since rediscovering this film, I've periodically watched it as a sort of therapy for the second grader inside me. Its still weird.

http://www.archive.org/details/OneGotFa1963

First Post.

Candy Cane Ave. is the name of a project I've been developing for... well, far too long. It serves as my imaginary escape hatch from the restrictions of a career in the animation industry.