Gopher Broke | |
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Directed by | Jeff Fowler |
Written by | Jeff Fowler |
Produced by | Al Shier |
Starring | Greg Berg [1] |
Music by |
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Production company | |
Distributed by | The Weinstein Company |
Release date |
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Running time | 4 minutes |
Country | United States |
Gopher Broke is a 2004 animated short film written and directed by Jeff Fowler and executive produced by Tim Miller at Blur Studio. [2] The film is about a hungry gopher who hatches a clever plan to get a quick snack, but discovers that even the best laid plans can go awry. The short film was also released in theaters with Doogal .
A gopher finds himself on a road where trucks are hauling produce to market. He hits on the idea of shaking some of the produce loose for himself, but other animals always beat him to the punch. That is, until a truck comes along with a cow.
Gopher Broke is the fourth short film produced by Blur Studio. [3] The short was in production for five months with a team of 25 people. Tools included 3D Studio Max, Brazil R/S, Digital Fusion, and 100 IBM IntelliStation Z workstations. [4] After directing two of the company's last three shorts, executive producer Tim Miller gave up the director's chair to Jeff Fowler. Miller admitted that slapstick comedy was not one of his own strengths. [4] The short was pitched to Nickelodeon, but Fowler told the network the studio had no feature plans for it when asked. [3]
The film was nominated for the 2004 Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film. [5] [6] [7] It is the fourth Blur film shortlisted for an Oscar in three years and the first to be nominated. [3] [4]
Frederick Bean "Tex" Avery was an American animator, cartoonist, director, and voice actor. He was known for directing and producing animated cartoons during the golden age of American animation. His most significant work was for the Warner Bros. and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios, where he was crucial in the creation and evolution of famous animated characters such as Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Elmer Fudd, Droopy, Screwy Squirrel, The Wolf, Red Hot Riding Hood, and George and Junior.
Isadore "Friz" Freleng, credited as I. Freleng early in his career, was an American animator, cartoonist, director, producer, and composer known for his work at Warner Bros. Cartoons on the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of cartoons from the 1930s to the early 1960s. In total he created more than 300 cartoons.
Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising were an American animation team and company known for founding the Warner Bros. and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer animation studios. In 1929, the studio was founded under the name Harman-Ising Productions, producing Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies for Leon Schlesinger from 1930 to 1933. From 1934 to 1938, Harman-Ising produced the Happy Harmonies series, with William Hanna as their employee.
William Gale Vinton was an American animator and filmmaker. Vinton was best known for his Claymation work, alongside creating iconic characters such as The California Raisins. He won an Oscar for his work alongside several Emmy Awards and Clio Awards for his studio's work.
The Goofy Gophers are animated cartoon characters in Warner Bros.' Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of cartoons. The gophers are small and brown with tan bellies and buck teeth. They both have British accents. Unnamed in the theatrical cartoons, they were given the names Mac and Tosh in the 1960s TV show The Bugs Bunny Show. The names are a pun on the surname "Macintosh". They are characterized by an abnormally high level of politeness.
Walt Disney Animation Studios (WDAS), sometimes shortened to Disney Animation, is an American animation studio that creates animated features and short films for The Walt Disney Company. The studio's current production logo features a scene from its first synchronized sound cartoon, Steamboat Willie (1928). Founded on October 16, 1923, by brothers Walt Disney and Roy O. Disney after the closure of Laugh-O-Gram Studio, it is the oldest-running animation studio in the world. It is currently organized as a division of Walt Disney Studios and is headquartered at the Roy E. Disney Animation Building at the Walt Disney Studios lot in Burbank, California. Since its foundation, the studio has produced 62 feature films, from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) to Wish (2023), and hundreds of short films.
Lorenzo is an American animated short film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation about a cat, Lorenzo, who is "dismayed to discover that his tail has developed a personality of its own". The short was directed by Mike Gabriel and produced by Baker Bloodworth. It premiered at the Florida Film Festival on March 6, 2004, and later appeared as a feature before the film Raising Helen, but it did not appear on the DVD release of the film. It is based on an original idea by Joe Grant, who started working on the film in 1949, but it was eventually shelved. It was later found along with Destino. The short was intended to be one of the segments for the proposed but ultimately abandoned Fantasia 2006. It was included on the Walt Disney Animation Studios Short Films Collection Blu-ray/DVD set released on August 18, 2015.
Sony Pictures Animation Inc. is an American animation studio owned by Sony Entertainment's Sony Pictures Entertainment through their Motion Picture Group division and founded on May 9, 2002. The studio is based in Culver City, California. Most of the studio's films are distributed worldwide by Sony Pictures Releasing under their Columbia Pictures label, while direct-to-video releases are released by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.
John Christian Wedge is an American filmmaker, animator, and voice actor. He is best known for directing the films Ice Age (2002), Robots (2005), Epic (2013), and Monster Trucks (2016), the former of which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. He also wrote and directed the short film Bunny (1998), where he won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film. Wedge co-founded the now-defunct animation studio Blue Sky Studios and has voiced the character Scrat in the Ice Age franchise since the year of 2002.
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Michael Victor Sporn was an American animator who founded his New York City-based company, Michael Sporn Animation in 1980, and produced and directed numerous animated TV specials and short spots.
Gopher Broke is a 1958 Warner Bros. Looney Tunes cartoon short directed by Robert McKimson. The cartoon was released on November 15, 1958, and features the Goofy Gophers and the Barnyard Dawg. The voices are performed by Mel Blanc and Stan Freberg. The title is a pun on the phrase "go for broke".
Blur Studio Inc. is an American production company which specialises in CGI visual effects, CGI animation and CGI design. Located in Culver City, California, the studio has produced CGI-animated films, teasers and ad spots for television, as well as video-game CGI cinematics.
Paperman is an American black-and-white computer-cel animated romantic comedy short film produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios. Directed by John Kahrs, it blends traditional and computer animation, and features the voices of Kahrs and Kari Wahlgren in the leading roles.
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Jeff Fowler is an American filmmaker and animator. He is best known for directing the live-action film adaptations Sonic the Hedgehog (2020) and its sequels Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (2022) and the upcoming Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (2024). He also wrote and directed the short film Gopher Broke (2004), which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film.
TVPaint Animation is a 2D paint and digital animation software package developed by TVPaint Developpement SARL based in Lorraine, France. Originally released for Amiga in 1991, version 3.0 (1994) introduced support for other platforms. In 1999, the last Amiga version 3.59 was released as free download. TVPaint Animation currently runs on Mac, Windows, Linux, and Android operating systems.
Love, Death & Robots is an American adult animated anthology television series created by Tim Miller and streaming on Netflix. Although the series is produced by Blur Studio, individual episodes are produced by different animation studios from a range of countries and explore diverse genres, particularly comedy, horror, science fiction, and fantasy. Each episode is connected to one or more of the three titular concepts. Miller serves as the showrunner and producer alongside Joshua Donen, David Fincher, and Jennifer Miller; most episodes are written by Philip Gelatt, and are adaptations of short stories.
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