Hey folks, Harry here... You ever have a morning, where you're deep in sleep... having a dream so mundane that you're just kinda putting off waking up just out of a general sense of Sunday laziness... when suddenly whilst dancing in your ID, you feel the real world shift and the most wonderful face in the world is staring you right in the eyes, and in that 1/10th of a second between surprise and an out-pouring of love, you kiss and cuddle the morning to noon.

Then, you get up, take that morning shower and the water feels so good, you begin singing goofy songs in the shower and you're just happy as could be. Ya dress in bright colors because you just feel that good. You grab your favorite Yoplait Yogurt out of the fridge (cherry) because you feel so good about losing about 7 inches and it just feels like the most perfect way to start the day, and then you sign online and you get this email...

I’m just curious if you guys have seen the events of late…

Disney buys Pixar!!!

John Lasseter named Chief Creative for Pixar/Disney and Imagineering and then cleans house!!!

Toy Story 3 shuttered!!!

Walt’s stolen cartoon traded for a sports broadcaster!!!

2D RETURNS TO DISNEY!!!???!!!

It’s like the early 90’s there is hope for feature animation once again. Disney could quite possibly mean quality again in the not to distant future.

I’m just so giddy I want to shout from the rooftops, so there it is.

J.

Now sure... Most of this is old news... and that latest story is something that I think we were all suspecting as being a possiblity. I mean, there is no greater lover of diverse animation on the planet than John Lasseter. How much do I love Disney 2D Animation? Well, I recently bought an original pencil of Ariel from THE LITTLE MERMAID for my sweetheart for Valentine's Day. I know, I'm ruining the surprise, well... she had a really bad day a couple of days ago and I showed her a tiny image of it. It is at the frame shop right now being matted and framed gloriously for her. It's from the "KISS THE GIRL" sequence and is just... it's just perfect. The lines and the elegance... you can just see the hopeful emotion in her face... lips parted so slightly... those big wonderful eyes... and you can hear the Caribbean beat and Sebastian's singing, "There you see herrrr..." It's awesome. Ariel is her favorite character in the history of Disney animation - and the look on her face when she saw what I got her was everything that I had hoped for.

Animation is a transcendent blissful medium of such beauty and emotional resonance when driven by artists and story-tellers. When hijacked by executives and similar mooks, it loses all heart, soul and resonance. Shockingly - when this began to happen at Disney... they managed to destroy the name of DISNEY animation and all of us that love that "seal of quality" looked to PIXAR, the only place on Earth that was giving us THAT feeling. Then there was THE IRON GIANT, a 2D miracle... and LILO & STITCH - which just turned up to be a fantastic aberration in the House of Mouse... one the execs never fully understood. It's success was marginalized and made to seem small in comparison to the awesome might of PIXAR. Obviously it was the medium, not the stories. It was a trend, not the veracity of the animation to tell honest and real fantastic tales.

I had heard a rumor a while back that Brad Bird was talking to Lasseter about Pixar producing a classic 2D animated film that he directed. God willing this is going to happen. I have to say, I imagine we will only see in theaters the results of Iger's genius in letting Pixar essentially take over Disney Animation and it's Imagineering in 2-5 years. But I'm betting that the work that is in the pipeline right now is going to end up with a polish and post-production fine tune unlike anything we've seen from the "Mouse House" in a very long time.

There's a part of me that wants John Lasseter to personally oversee the a new MICKEY MOUSE club... where he became the FACE of Walt Disney Studios... where he taught kids about animation, the magic of the park, the magic and the dream of Disney. Where he opened up the animation schools and instilled in future artists the dream of 2D animation! Plus, they're bringing OSWALD THE LUCKY RABBIT back to Disney!!! WOO HOO!!!