the buzz log

Doomsday thrills may be gripping moviegoers, but the stealth hit may come from the animated limited release "Fantastic Mr. Fox," a "rascally" caper about a fox who settles down but can't reform his thieving ways.

"Fox" is catching praise and Web attention for its throwback stop-motion artistry and its pedigree. The voice cast features George Clooney and Meryl Streep, and director Wes Anderson ("The Royal Tenenbaums") based his first animated film on a book by the late children's author Roald Dahl.

The match-up of Anderson's surreal quirk and Dahl's dark-flavored impishness has restored the director's cred. Unlike the disappointment felt by many fans of "Where the Wild Things Are," book lovers are pleased with adaptation's "existential heft."  Critics are talking Oscar about the sly "Fox" doing well in a "record" year for animation: Colorful competition includes Pixar's "Up" and "Disney's A Christmas Carol."

But the online love's all for Dahl: Web fans have pushed his searches on Yahoo! up 89%. And the man, who died in 1990, deserves the attention.

Bullied Child, Adventurous Adult
Among the many books Dahl wrote, one was an autobiography that told of his troubled childhood and adventurous youth. His father died when Dahl was three, leaving his mother to raise six kids. Beatings and bullying were common at his school. Maybe eager to leave home far behind, Doahl worked for Shell Oil in an African jungle before becoming a fighter pilot during World War II. He almost died after being mistakenly directed into a no-man's land.

Big Screen Books
No surprise that kind of living lent a dark undertone to his writings, whether for kids or adults. The new movie's triggering sentimental queries for "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" (+26%) and "Matilda," both adapted into cinematic favorites (even if Dahl distanced himself from the film "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory"). Other works that got the celluloid treatment: "James and the Giant Peach, "James and the Giant Peach, "Danny the Champion of the World," "The Witches," and the adult short-story, "The Smoker" (snagged by Quentin Tarantino for the ill-received "Four Rooms").

The Bond Connection
If children's books, housewife-crime tales and freaky ghost stories weren't enough, Dahl didn't do badly with screenplay adaptions either, including "You Only Live Twice" and "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang."

Still Giving
His fearless nature didn't end during the war: He helped create the Dahl-Wade-Till valve, which drained fluid from the brain and let people, like his son Theo, live without being hooked up to a machine. The altruism came from personal tragedies, including his own blood disorder, his first wife's triple strokes while pregnant, and his son's brain-damage from an accident.

In addition to a museum, playful websites, and awards, his name also lives on in a nonprofit foundation that offers assistance to "young people with brain and blood problems." Classic Dahl.

Filed under: Movies, Authors, Animation, Books

I'm just a bill. Yes, I'm only a bill, and I sit here on Capitol Hill.

If those words have triggered an incessant yet pleasurable hum in your brain, you belong to a generation exposed to Atari video games, Shaun Cassidy, jelly sneakers (when they appeared the first time around), and "Schoolhouse Rock."

Musical cartoon shorts or "educational interstitials," the '70s-era "Schoolhouse Rock" comprised enlightened breaks between Scooby Doo adventures and Bugs Bunny reruns, and put topics like multiplication, grammar, and history to a jazzy uptempo or moody folk beat. Culling from that vast repertoire, Disney (which now owns the cartoons) has repackaged an election special DVD this week, to help a new generation get in tune during a presidential year and induce random lyrical outbreaks among older folks.

Oh, we were suffering until suffrage.
Not a woman here could vote no matter what age,
until the 19th Amendment struck down that restrictive rule.
Oh yeah!

As with all seemingly good acts, ABC's motives to air "Schoolhouse" weren't entirely pure: Consumer activists rebelled against the inordinate advertising time on Saturday mornings targeting kids, and the FCC decreed children's programming had to have an educational component (a ruling lifted during the Reagan years).

Oh, elbow room, elbow room,
Got to, got to get us some elbow room.
It's the west or bust, in God we trust,
there's a new land out there...

After a long absence, rock versions of the songs were released, Disney bought the franchise, and attempts at a musical have been made. While the math and grammar lessons still hold up, Time magazine's TV blog Tuned In took Tuesday's DVD release to muse about these segments as a post-Watergate "kind of socio-political time capsule," and how they couldn't perhaps be made today.

We're gonna elect a president! (No more kings)
He's gonna do what the people want! (No more kings)
We're gonna run things our way! (No more kings)
Nobody's gonna tell us what to do!

All the more reason to brainwash a new generation, although serious reviews suggest getting the comprehensive 30th Anniversary edition, released in 2002. After all, in any good election year, you also got to know some choice interjections.

Hallelujah. Yea.

Filed under: TV, Politics, Videos, Animation, Cartoons, Kids, Animated Characters, Elections

"South Park" recently aired a two-part episode making clear its disdain for Fox's "Family Guy." South Park resident Eric Cartman called out the "Family Guy" writing staff and their inability to craft jokes which are in any way relevant to the plot of the show.

Whether or not you agree with Eric's assessment, you must give "South Park" credit for taking on a tough target. It's not like they're going after some lame sitcom nobody watches. In fact, "Family Guy" is among the Buzz's most searched-on shows.

We're born instigators, so we felt it was our duty to stoke the flames of this fire a bit more. "South Park" may be the sophisticate's choice (relatively speaking), but does it garner more buzz than a fat idiot, his patient wife, and their talking dog? This one's too close to call...

Filed under: TV, South Park, Family Guy, Animation