Get Get Animated!

In 2004 I was lucky enough to stumble upon the site of an animation pro named John Cawley. He was selling copies of his 80s animation fanzine "Get Animated!". I was drawn to it because issue #3 had an article on one of the greatest toy robots cartoons of all time-Mighty Orbots. I was blown away by that issue of "Get Animated!" so I bought a couple more issues and each was just as incredible.

John has been in the animation business for decades and "Get Animated!" is special because he produced it during the 80s. Reading it is like going back in time and re-experiencing happenings in the animation industry

but from an insider's perspective. I don't have my issue #3 with me but I remember the Orbots article was credited to Fred Patten and Darrell McNeil who are respected historians of animation. It included excerpts from an interview with Orbots writer Buzz Dixon done in 1985 during a meeting of the Los Angeles chapter of the Cartoon/Fantasy Organization. Other issues of GA were full of awesome stuff like that-holy hell even Osamu Tezuka is listed as a contributor! I am amazed that John still hasn't sold out of these after 25 years.

I just found out John has a CD of the collected "Get Animated!" for sale. I cannot recommend this highly enough if you're into 80s animation like He-Man and/or The Mighty Orbots. Actually if you're a fan of animation in general I'd say go through John's site and buy everything.