tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-227102402011-07-29T04:21:59.127-04:00Richiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11821845158568897202noreply@blogger.comBlogger341100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22710240.post-15384220611381113372011-04-03T01:23:00.014-04:002011-04-03T04:42:40.690-04:00

After hanging a few framed pieces of poster art in my apartment last year, I stood back and realized that I still had a really bare patch of wall space in a corner. I started to think about ideas to fill this space which at floor level is occupied by a set of three nesting end tables. Since space is limited and I like to plant my tree in that corner annually in December, I decided against a tall

Richiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11821845158568897202noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22710240.post-71775476742971357212008-09-28T23:54:00.011-04:002008-10-03T22:36:14.070-04:00

Do I take the car or not?With gas prices the way they are, I opt for the train. I depart from the Bronx via the 6 train.I arrive in Long Island City about one hour later.Breakfast consists of a buttered Blueberry Bagel and Orange Juice from Panera Bread.After breakfast, I begin my walk to work down 35th Avenue. What's this? Looks like I can definitively tell you how to get to Sesame Street. It's

Richiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11821845158568897202noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22710240.post-84133150853211563042008-09-21T06:14:00.033-04:002008-09-28T22:47:29.752-04:00

The resilient (and dwindling) little feast that defeated an attempt by Little Italy residents to end it once and for all a year-and-a-half ago, returned for its 81st anniversary last week. While each year it resembles less and less the feast I remember from my childhood (more so for earlier generations), I suppose the reason why I still enjoy going - aside from a sausage and peppers sandwich - is

Richiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11821845158568897202noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22710240.post-18724540938800544772008-05-21T10:35:00.009-04:002008-06-05T19:05:42.496-04:00

This is the first time I've posted a comic from my strip, Five & Tension, on the blog - more can be found on my website. Directions:1. Click on the strip for a larger view if necessary. 2. Enjoy. 

Richiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11821845158568897202noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22710240.post-49674753846658370472008-04-14T00:26:00.012-04:002008-06-30T02:18:37.519-04:00

According to the cereal aisle, the summer blockbuster season is upon us. For those keeping tally, so far General Mills has the Speed Racer movie tie-in - offering premiums such as the "Turbo Racers" pictured above (actually in the box!) and a Speed Racer Cereal Bowl mail-in offer - while Kellogg's has the Indiana Jones tie-in and is offering a "free" Indiana Jones and The Raiders of the Lost Ark

Richiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11821845158568897202noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22710240.post-87881273122705382642008-03-25T03:22:00.006-04:002008-06-30T02:16:34.559-04:00

Richiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11821845158568897202noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22710240.post-48903662478014246032008-03-20T23:46:00.012-04:002008-03-21T03:44:08.017-04:00

Ringling Bros.' arrival in New York City was marked early Wednesday morning with its annual march of its elephants (and - to much less fanfare - its horses) across 34th street to Madison Square Garden.  I claimed a spot around 11:30pm Tuesday night - the time the 'no parking' signs stated this was scheduled to happen - and I proceeded to wait. A small scattering of spectators lined the sidewalks

Richiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11821845158568897202noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22710240.post-16833431108293766452008-03-17T16:43:00.005-04:002008-03-21T01:28:44.804-04:00

Richiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11821845158568897202noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22710240.post-69752609938877952342008-02-21T19:43:00.031-05:002008-02-24T01:57:27.372-05:00

I've been watching a lot of Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies Cartoons lately. One in particular sparked a weird parallel in my mind between the cartoon shorts of the 1920's/1930's and today's feature-length computer animated films. The short in question is the Hugh Harmon-Rudolph Ising produced It's Got Me Again (1932 - on Disc 2 of Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 3). As the short begins, a

Richiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11821845158568897202noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22710240.post-6897483669085405702008-02-07T03:13:00.000-05:002008-02-07T03:38:43.134-05:00

I've been meaning to post these images - and given Coke's Super Bowl Ad, it seems like a perfect time to do so. They are from a billboard in the Times Square area for Fage Yogurt. I'm assuming it's been up since the fall - I, myself only noticed it for the first time about two weeks ago.It's situated along the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade route, a little more than half way before the parade's

Richiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11821845158568897202noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22710240.post-4172762472577043262008-02-03T20:36:00.002-05:002008-02-04T05:58:57.483-05:00

I love this commercial so much that I could end this posting here - but I won't because there is just so much that was done right with the production of it. As usual, it involves three things I'm extremely passionate about: New York City, Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and cartoon characters. In a previous posting, I made clear what I believed to be some of the biggest problems with CG animation

Richiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11821845158568897202noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22710240.post-91050223029648370542008-01-01T05:05:00.000-05:002008-01-01T18:32:55.427-05:00

TWO years ago, right around the second week of January, I was in Times Square crossing from the corner of West 43rd Street to the traffic island that sits between Seventh and Broadway. Now, perhaps it was because it was raining, or because the holiday tourism crunch was well over or a combination of both, congestion (pedestrian and vehicle) was uncharacteristically light.Upon reaching that

Richiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11821845158568897202noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22710240.post-10012927979644621022007-12-31T05:06:00.000-05:002008-01-01T18:37:15.274-05:00

Back in early December 2004, temperatures had climbed to an unseasonably warm 60 degrees in New York City. I can recall almost every neighbor of mine out on their front lawns, gaily hanging decorations in shorts, swimwear and white clothing. Even people who don't usually celebrate Christmas religiously, spiritually, commercially or otherwise, took advantage of the nice weather and 'decked the

Richiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11821845158568897202noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22710240.post-61542603882612887672007-12-30T02:50:00.000-05:002008-01-01T18:55:52.164-05:00

I was just looking back at my first official year of blogging ("official" because there was another, forgettable Richard Buran blog that stood in this very spot a year earlier). I must say that I am quite disappointed with the results. Go ahead, I'll pause while you glance to your right to examine the blog archive list. Given the amount of interests I've listed under my profile, you would think

Richiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11821845158568897202noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22710240.post-19418563302686020822007-11-21T04:30:00.000-05:002007-11-21T04:36:14.850-05:00

I captured this video on my digital camera Monday night. It's the cast of Broadway's Legally Blonde: The Musical rehearsing "What You Want" for tomorrow's 81st Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Also rehearsed that evening was Young Frankenstein: The Musical and Xanadu: The Musical. Surreal, it is, when every musical highlighted in the parade is based on a film property produced in the last forty

Richiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11821845158568897202noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22710240.post-56382156173423993022007-11-18T07:02:00.000-05:002007-11-20T00:06:53.326-05:00

What can be expected over these next four days (or actually, next month and two weeks) in New York City? CROWDS!Unbelievable, sidewalk-clogging 'OMG!-I've-never-seen-indoor-plumbing-and/or-buildings-over-four-stories-tall before,' crowds. I'll tolerate it this week because a large percentage of them are what will add to the electric energy of Thursday's 81st Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Richiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11821845158568897202noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22710240.post-19166607258188953272007-10-31T15:47:00.000-04:002007-11-11T23:37:59.138-05:00

What happened this year? It's as if Halloween decided to spend the season leading up to its own day in the pumpkin patch. Merchandise was lackluster. Residential displays were minimal. Fall foliage was...non-existent.Pushing forward anyway, I created my own decorations. Two rolls of postal paper, one-half dozen paper towel tubes and several tablespoons of wheat paste and water later I wound up

Richiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11821845158568897202noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22710240.post-48569555927994375452007-10-13T22:31:00.001-04:002010-06-13T23:20:13.938-04:00

Last spring, someone demonstrated for me that if you typed "New York, NY to London England" into Google Maps' directions search, it would return driving directions to somewhere along New York City's furthest eastern waterfront and then instruct you to "swim." Recently I tested this again and apparently Google has corrected this, with search results now revealing that they "...could not calculate

Richiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11821845158568897202noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22710240.post-80239811602618586172007-10-10T03:03:00.000-04:002007-11-11T23:50:53.688-05:00

I know – we still have Halloween to contend with, but this gets me just as excited. Macy’s has redesigned its Thanksgiving Day Parade website for 2007 and it went online today: http://www.macys.com/campaign/parade/parade.jsp. The site features some of last year’s elements – namely the 80th parade line-up and some of the character balloon art – but also features a new layout and the television air

Richiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11821845158568897202noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22710240.post-32905430376038773382007-07-16T17:48:00.001-04:002007-08-04T19:21:08.515-04:00

Walt Disney: (answers phone) It’s your dime - talk.Robert Moses: Walt! It’s Moses.Walt Disney: The guy who parted the Red Sea?Robert Moses: No! The guy who parted the Bronx. Have I got a proposition for you…That of course, is a loose interpretation of the beginning of Walt Disney’s association with 1964-1965 New York World’s Fair.When fair president and master planner Robert Moses decided to go

Richiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11821845158568897202noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22710240.post-54990462976540868912007-06-27T00:42:00.000-04:002007-06-30T03:34:02.645-04:00

Should I, a self-described, obsessed (well, one of my obsessions, anyway) Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade fan, be worried? Although I try to be an optimist, I take nothing for granted – especially with two news items like these: A possible Macy’s buyout and a decline in American parade attendance.Last Friday the Associated Press reported that “Shares of Macy’s, Inc. jumped 9 percent Friday amid

Richiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11821845158568897202noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22710240.post-48880951733855246662007-05-25T01:39:00.000-04:002007-05-27T04:23:32.759-04:00

“The fires were set by landlords who were tired of trying to evict delinquent tenants. They were set by vandals who intended to return for the plumbing systems, which were easier to extract and sell once the firemen had knocked down the walls. They were set by idle kids who wandered the streets aimlessly after school….Sometimes ignition was preceded by the ritual removal of property, meaning that

Richiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11821845158568897202noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22710240.post-82565083917366161852007-05-24T23:21:00.000-04:002007-05-25T00:38:00.010-04:00

What do Shrek (2001), Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl (2003) and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (2006) have in common?Tight, sharp and funny writing. Namely that of the screenwriting team of Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio (they also penned the screenplay for Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, but I can't speak for that one yet).Sadly, Shrek the Third (and its

Richiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11821845158568897202noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22710240.post-80294363653051905482007-05-07T10:54:00.000-04:002007-05-07T11:05:17.329-04:00

It is time to put the Spider-Man film franchise to sleep. Sure, Spider-Man 3 will set records in terms of ticket sales and potentially even DVD sales, but the film suffers from an ill-conceived story, excessive length and digital effects that often don’t blend well with the live-action shots.Spider-man 3’s plot can be explained in a single sentence: Peter Parker, over-taken by a hostile space

Richiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11821845158568897202noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22710240.post-28181056991200078042007-05-05T23:14:00.000-04:002007-05-07T11:06:22.253-04:00

The Merriam-Webster online dictionary (http://www.m-w.com/) defines supernumerary as [noun] “1: a supernumerary person or thing” and “2: an actor employed to play a walk-on.” I coined a slightly different term for my dual responsibilities on The Juilliard School’s production of La finta giardiniera: 'cractor'.What exactly is a cractor? Simple: A cractor is a hybrid of stage crew and actor. How

Richiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11821845158568897202noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22710240.post-55717726689948109722007-04-30T00:27:00.000-04:002007-05-06T03:55:48.229-04:00

It’s fitting that on a Saturday afternoon, the day of the week associated with cereal and cartoons, I would come across an almost extinct pairing: a character-based premium in a box of cereal. None of this five-UPC-codes-and-an-order-form-then-wait-six-to-eight-weeks business. It was right there in the box, hermetically sealed either for my protection or that of the toy.For me to extol the

Richiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11821845158568897202noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22710240.post-78898381414258629502007-04-15T02:56:00.000-04:002007-04-15T03:41:26.837-04:00

“We didn’t want to appear to be setting up a Disney department that ‘did what Pixar does,’ primarily because we wouldn’t want to spend a lot of effort on anything so impossible…John Lasseter and his crew are simply geniuses, and so unparalleled at what they do that trying to ape them would have been an exercise in foolishness.”Thomas SchumacherFormer President, Walt Disney Feature AnimationThe

Richiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11821845158568897202noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22710240.post-84833245701384924372007-04-11T18:32:00.000-04:002007-04-11T21:23:27.404-04:00

Sometime during the winter, while passing a Burger King I noticed a banner advertising their new breakfast menu. I hate eggs, so fried chicken embryo on a biscuit scaled up 800% serves no purpose other than triggering my gag reflex. But something else on that banner made me do a double-take: Cini-Minis. For those unfamiliar, they were (and are once again) four bite-sized cinnamon rolls with icing

Richiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11821845158568897202noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22710240.post-77891106850368318752007-04-03T01:01:00.000-04:002007-04-05T15:58:50.159-04:00

Last Friday, most dogs not using the newspaper for house-breaking, probably came across this two-page ad placed by Macy’s:On Sunday, those same dogs dug out their most ridiculous spring ensembles (and in some cases, the matching human-sized versions as well) and participated in Macy’s Petacular Fair. This was, however, only a portion of a larger event: Macy’s Flower Show.As the description below

Richiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11821845158568897202noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22710240.post-7210036922073202122007-03-27T00:40:00.000-04:002007-04-06T06:51:20.086-04:00

This year, at 80 years old, Little Italy’s San Gennaro Feast in New York City finds itself in a precarious predicament. According to a New York Daily News article printed March 26, 2007, Little Italy’s Community Board 2 Street Events Committee would like to ensure that the annual street festival is never again held on its streets and "...stopped short of voting down the feast's applications..."

Richiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11821845158568897202noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22710240.post-72467727588176366252007-03-23T00:06:00.000-04:002007-03-27T01:42:54.844-04:00

In the screen shot below from Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Eddie Valiant (Bob Hoskins) has entered the office of R.K. Maroon (Alan Tilvern). After being dismissively gestured at to 'wait' by Maroon, Valiant scans the room and its memorabilia. He stops in front of an end table on which sits a framed photo of what appears to be a younger Maroon posed with Felix the Cat. To the right of the photo is a

Richiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11821845158568897202noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22710240.post-10923723125312418892007-03-21T00:12:00.000-04:002007-04-05T15:55:07.659-04:00

Last Friday I was off and I wanted a bagel. But it was snowing and I hadn't quite built up the drive to walk one block and extract forty-five cents from my pockets for the bagel. I instead opted for a bowl of cereal. As the day wore on, I couldn’t get bagels off my mind. More importantly, I couldn’t get the idea of conveniently obtaining a bagel off my mind. I ventured out into the snow. It was

Richiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11821845158568897202noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22710240.post-75537408107959871032007-03-20T18:46:00.001-04:002007-03-21T01:17:01.445-04:00

Richard Buranrichard@richardburan.comMr. Richard W. CookChairman, The Walt Disney StudiosThe Walt Disney Company500 South Buena Vista StreetBurbank, CA 91521March 20, 2007Dear Mr. Cook,I’d like to begin by commending you and your marketing team on the admirable job you do in promoting Disney and Pixar’s films. My main reason for writing, however, is Ratatouille. Being a native New Yorker and

Richiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11821845158568897202noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22710240.post-62936981840436500512007-03-20T18:46:00.000-04:002007-03-21T00:31:31.278-04:00

Richiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11821845158568897202noreply@blogger.com1