Animators, animation writers and executives, for the most part, live a life of obscurity. While often working and living in the same Hollywood bubble as their live-action counterparts, animation folk don’t show up in US Magazine, get invited to sit down with Letterman, or end up disgraced on TMZ.com. There’s a few exceptions to this rule, however – Matt Stone and Trey Parker (South Park, Book of Mormon), Seth Green (Robot Chicken, Family Guy) and the other Seth – Seth MacFarlane (Family Guy, American Dad, The Cleveland Show). There’s other ‘big names’ in the animation game (Groening, Lasseter, Judge, Burton, Miyazaki), but the public isn’t terribly interested in what they look like when they jog or eat dinner. This isn’t a wonderful gauge of success or happiness, but I’m pointing it out because today we have a prime example of how bright Seth MacFarlane’s star is burning. Today he’s on the cover of the insider mag The Hollywood Reporter, and his jet-owning, club-going lifestyle has indeed landed him on TMZ more than once.

In this behind-the-scenes video of his cover shoot, you’ll see MacFarlane shoulder-to-shoulder with Groening and Judge, perhaps ‘accepting the torch.’ He is standing on the shoulders of these two animation greats, but he’s also redefining the reach of an animation icon, establishing that animation is but a part of his interests. In the cover article (Seth MacFarlane: The Restless Mind of a Complicated Cartoonist), we learn that MacFarlane “thinks that Family Guy should have already ended,” but let’s not forget that in 2003, it did, only to be resuscitated for 8 more seasons. There’s also interesting details on the reboot of The Flintstones, and his surprising goal of “infusing more scientific accuracy into entertainment programming.”

In the run-up to the October 30th premiere of their new animated series, Allen Gregory, FOX has released some character profile videos that examine what makes the show tick. I can’t quite tell yet why this was animated, and not shot live-action. It seems pretty ‘sit-commy’ and doesn’t appear to challenge the bounds of reality too much.

Allen Gregory character profile

Next Sunday, October 9th at 10pm, Comedy Central will air an all-new documentary that focuses on Matt Parker, Trey Stone and their wildly successful series South Park. Directed by Arthur Bradford, Six Days to Air: The Making of South Park uncovers the hidden secrets of the “unapologetically disrespectful” series. Here’s a trailer:

You may have caught Sunday’s 60 Minutes story on South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker, but I found the 5-minute online-only assembly more interesting than the TV segment. We get closer to the work in this cut below, and while there’s no revelations from the team behind The Book of Mormon, it should get your pulse racing as Matt and Trey whip through the production of another episode in 6 days.

To help promote Cars 2, the Disney/Pixar team recently released a 25-minute piece titled A Day In The Life of John Lasseter. The first section of the video is essentially Pixar: Cribs – with Lasseter walking us through his Hawaiian shirt collection, his trains, Oscars, wine cellar and movie theater. Then at the 6-minute mark, Lasseter leaves his Sonoma Valley mansion and heads to work. And this father of 5 could almost be mistaken for Lots-O-Huggin Bear – the man likes to hug it out!

Director Chris Randall, by way of his shop Second Home Studios, handled the intricate stop-motion production of this new spot for the Czech beer Pilsner Urquell. The ad is titled The Day Pilsen Struck Gold:

… and here’s a behind the scenes segment, where you’ll see how Randall and his team pulled off that tricky raindrop sequence.
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Remember Alejandro, the Planters Almonds Super Bowl spot? It was the stop-motion ad directed by Ringan Ledwidge, who we meet in this behind-the-scenes piece that was just released. We also are introduced to the supervising animation director from LAIKA/house, Mark Gustafson.