The aim of the Internet Animation Database is to become the largest and most accurate compendium of animation information, screenshots and facts. But we need your help!
When I first envisioned this project, I saw it as a social project much in the style of The Internet Movie Database. There’s just too much information out there to be entered and collated for one person. Right now, there are three ways that you can help:
1: Become a researcher!
We’re always looking for people who are either knowledgeable about animation or have access to studio records to help us find information. This can be as simple as having video copies where credits can be found. We’re trying to make our entries as complete as possible, so there’s a lot of work to be done. Right now, I’m also interested in fans who can submit synopsis for individual works. If you’re interested, please drop me a line and let’s talk.
2: Submit screenshots!
One of my major goals is to have screenshots for as many works as possible. You don’t have to edit the pics, we’ll do that here. But we would like large video captures to work with at at least DVD quality. We know that existing copies of many early works are of differing qualities, so we’re reasonable about letting things like that slide a bit. If this sounds like something you’d like to get involved with, please let me know.
3: Submit comments!
When I first started The Encyclopedia of Disney Animated Shorts, Mike Barrier commented that one of the things that set it apart was that it wasn’t just dry data, but included comments from viewers about each short. This is pretty much standard operating procedure for any website nowadays, so let’s continue the trend at the IAD. Let us know what you think about your favorite shorts – what you like, what you don’t like, why it’s important – anything you might bring to the table.
As always, if you have any ideas or questions, please let me know. We want to turn this into the premiere source for animation on the web!
I’ve wished in the past there was an annotated book for Warner Brothers cartoons. I fear someday that everyone who can explain the jokes will have passed without an explanation being written down.
There sorta is, but it’s not fully annotated. Still, it gives the basic info – when released, who directed, wrote, animated, etc., basic plot. It doesn’t explain and point out the jokes, though.
Of course, this is what the internet cartoon database wants to add to and expand upon.
Maybe this wiki, unlike the other one, won’t delete my carefully-researched comments about dirty jokes in the WB cartoons. (That was the final straw - the self-appointed gold star gatekeeper couldn’t even give me a coherent reason for deleting my contributions. He just didn’t like “his” entries updated by someone else.)
Years ago back in the internet stone age, I had a page that had links to virtually every cartoon page that existed on the net at the time. It was my most popular website. I had descriptions of the linked pages but very few images. The images I did have were hotlinked( it was common back in the day,now I know better) because Netcom did not allow uploads at the time. I even had a Riddlet coin appear on the page,for those who remember the old Riddler.com site.
I wish I would have kept that page,it’s one of the few I could have made some money on. If only I knew then what I know now.
I’d be interested in contributing to this. The idea of explaining the jokes is definitely a worthwhile one, as we’re fast losing the meaning of lots of jokes and even references. Growing up in the cultural fallout of WWII, a lot of these lines are opart of my cultural background, even though I didn’t understand the contaxt until recently (and in some cases, still don’t).
In “I Love to Singa”, for instance, the Owel Professor makes a reference to (apparently) Chrysler. Why would he refer to a car company. It wasn’t until I read about violinist Fritz Kriesler and the way he wrote pastiches of works by famous composers as a way of getting enough solo violin pieces to play that I realized who was really being referred to. (A rotten way for the guy to be remembered, too – he was apparently a really impressive composer and performer)
(Fritz Kreisler - Wikipedia)
Audiences in the 1930s would catch on immediately – Kriesler was pop culture back then.
No. In a nutshell, I reviewed “The Wabbit Who Came to Dinner” because of the short “Bugs flashes his wang” sequence - which is worthy of an entry by itself - and bolstered the case that it’s a deliberate joke by the animators by pointing, for example, famous nude paintings on the walls that appear in one shot but not the next. Frame by frame, it’s a hilariously filthy joke on the audience, and from 1942.
