The San Francisco Examiner from San Francisco, California • 222

Arw.iATiorj YiTITTTTThu TITTffOTfr A mm I llMlill ody on soap operas and middle-class suburban life with the use of miniature sets and 11-inch dolls in the Barbie style. A couple are blessed (or messed?) when the Stork Delivery Service leaves a baby on their doorstop but it's an infant six times bigger thin they are. From his Los Angeles studio, Quakenbush, 36, recently said that "Big Baby" was designed "to call attention to the silly things that people get involved with in a society where we instantly order things up without any concern of the ramifications." "Big Baby" originally was commissioned by producer Kevin S. Bright as a piece for the NBC workshop series "TV or Not TV." He went on to make other "Smaller World" pieces for the Fox Network's "Haywire," as well as segments about a clay animation character named Ricardo. "The Tale of Nippolest Nip-pleby" is another outstanding work within the festival It was made by DNA Productions, an animation house that does commercial and corporate work.

During the company's down time, partners Keith Alcorn and John Davis produce short pieces. "Nippleby" is what Alcorn (at work in his Dallas studios) calls "a twisted fairy tale" in which "a character who is ridiculed turns Continued From Page 29 ich's "Pr-Hyterieal Daz" and Paul de Nooijer's "RRRINGGI" Thoren picked Schnall for the project, Schnall says from his animation studio in East Orange, N. "because there's something about my films that's as twisted as Avery's. I like to have characters that I peel the skin from, layer by layer. I like to get under the surface of things." The animator, 31, admits that he actually knew very little about Avery when Thoren asked him to participate in the project "All I knew was what I'd seen in a public-TV documentary about Avery, and I'd already done my storyboards when Terry sent me some Avery cartoons to study.

I was startled at how many elements I'd already latched onto before seeing those cartoons. Avery's work has a lot of racism and sexism in it, and I thought it would be interesting to switch the clicM of the male wolf whistling at a beautiful female by having the woman eagerly on the make for the wolf." Avery loved to exaggerate his figures, and Schnall "found it fun to let go completely. Avery was the first to offer a major alternative to the sweetness of the Disney cartoons and actually experimented and took a lot of chances. He had Animator Corky Quakenbush an experimental, daring souL" In "RRRINGG!" de Nooijer of The Netherlands mixes live action, animation, still photographs and pixilation to pay homage to Avery, and in "Pre-Hysterical Daze" Gna-tovich uses frenzied action between cavemen and dinosaurs to capture the Avery zaniness. Another unusual aspect of this year's "Animation Celebration" is a collection of 10 short pieces that were winners in an MTV story-board competition, in which each entry had to serve as a public service spot on a relevant issue such as AIDS, the environment, voting or drug abuse.

Among the 1992 individual winners is Corky Quakenbush's "A Smaller World: Big Baby," a par Jft JH. KONOCTI IIARBOB RESORT SPA 707-279-4281 June 29 I T't SEALS Lf If 1 Superolu ml IUJ tJ3 1 GENEROUS REDUCTIONS OFF Already Low Prices On Manufacturer Direct Brand Name Merchandise SUMMER SIDEWALK SALE At participating stores FRI-MON, JULY 3-6 0 I78 Little River Bandl mmiM 721 Lou Rawls 86 Peter Frampton 813 Tommy Chong 3 4 Dayt-3 Night Midweek Getaway Avail abl Siutday-ThnrsaaT 1 -800-862-4930 taV AT NUT TREE 1-80 at Nut Tree Road, Vacaville Mon-Sat 10-8, Sun 10-6 (707) 447-5755 Major Credit Cards Welcome nTmw' asm si.