The non profit organization Animazing Spotlight has two events happening this year with related VIP events and special collectable gifts, all four events are found at www.animazspo.com.  AniMazSpot 2011 has a weekend full of fascinating animation programs and screenings and awards, in mid-September.  From animation techniques for Avatar, to award winning shorts from India, to Magoo Makes News, and “OMG it’s Godfrey”, a tribute to the unorthodox British humor of the great Bob Godfrey (his short “Great” won the first British Oscar for animated shorts). Next up, Mr. Magoo headlines a gala event at the historic Alex theater in Glendale, which will screen all new 35mm prints of the complete 15 UPA shorts that won Oscar nominations, three of them won the gold guy, plus five additional Mr. Magoo favorites.  Sign up early before tickets are sole out.  And, finally, many of you have been asking when we’re going to add more of our 160+ interviews to the site, and all we can say is that it’s on our hot “to do” list, so soon, hopefully very soon, thanks for you patience.

Apologies for neglecting our Toon in website, but help is on it’s way.  We hope to be able to start adding more interviews before the end of the year.  In the meantime, we had our first public presentation of a program created from 3 dozen of our Toon in interviews.  It was called “I Did it My Way”, ran about an hour, and it was shown on Sunday, September 5th, at AniMazing Spotlight’s 2nd Annual Weekend of Animated Shorts Festival, at Woodbury University, in Burbank.  You can find out more about it at www.animazspot.com.  We are all involved in both projects.

The AniMazing Spotlight website is full of information on this year’s festival, coming up in just 3 weeks, September 4 & 5, at Woodbury University, in Burbank. Visit their web site at www.animazspot.com, then click the big white panel at the top of the Home page, with Lou Romano’s Juggler, which he designed exclusively for the festival. Clicking this panel takes you to their Festival page.  If you scroll down you see all the festival events, one of which we’ll talk about next, screenings of all the shorts nominated in various categoies, advertising opportunities, collectables to purchase, awards presentations, eateries near by, and more.

But, the highlight for us is the very first “Toon in to the World of Animation” event, outside of this podcast.  We are hosting an event on Sunday, from 12:30 to 1:30, in Section 3, called “I Did it My Way“, which features about two dozen of our Toon In interviews, talking about how they got interested in getting into animation. It’s quite fascinating to hear, and see, them talk about the same question, and it gives you a chance to see the people you could only listen to on this podcast.  If you decide to attend please come up and say hello.  I’ve enjoyed doing these interviews so much, I’d love to meet some of you listeners.

Also, before I sign off, we want to mention once again, that we will soon be getting back to putting up more interviews, after the AniMazing Spotlight Festival, of course.  So, look for some new interviews, hopefully well before the end of the year.  Needless to say, we’ve been extremely busy, thanks for your patience, your host, Tee Bosustow