80. The Animation Podcast. Alexa Rank: 2,787,659. The history of the animation industry is filled with famous pieces of art, and endless pages of text based stories from the past, but there’s a lack of actual audio recordings of both past and present influential names. That’s precisely why this site has the goal of making a podcast “to present today’s voices in animation in their own words to create an audible record that is hopefully a source of knowledge, insight, and inspiration for me as well as you.”
79. Idleworm. Alexa Rank: 1,100,079. Idleworm isn’t just run by a person who talks about animation; his most recent post is a 30 minute short film he worked on for seven years to complete! That proves this worm can talk the talk and walk (or crawl) the walk. Even the new version of his site is nice, but his site’s old version archived plenty of worthwhile bonus material including animation lessons for beginners.
78. Dotmogo. Alexa Rank: 2,708,904. Dotmogo admits it has a strong UK bias, but I would argue it mainly has a unique bias. Dotmogo finds animation projects the other blogs don’t, and even goes out of its way to post job listings and a freelance directory. I like that this site has the guts to have a prominent “pick of the month” section where most sites slap their ads, and gives out extra publicity for free to those studios and projects it enjoys most. Dotmogo embodies the passion of the animation industry.
77. Cartoon Modern Blog. Alexa Rank: 2,662,718. Another blog dedicated to animation’s influential eras of the past, but this one focuses strongly on the 1940s through the 1960s of the industry. You’ll learn how famous episodes and films were sketched, storyboarded, changed from their original forms, and even get several inside scoops from famous animators that worked on some of the big hits from decades ago. The blog’s creator, Amid Amidi, has become quite famous and went on to create another site that would become one of the most successful animation sites on the entire Internet. Keep an eye out for his name to make another appearance later in this list!
76. Animation Meat. Alexa Rank: 2,321,579. A bit of an enigmatic balance of a site, it meshes and molds together animated film news, fun trivia facts, and model sheets of famous animated series. It even creates and archives PDFs that serve as discussion notes for famous industry names and topics of the past. It doesn’t look or feel like a deep site, but it actually has a lot of meta meat on its barebones approach.
75. Animation Brain. Alexa Rank: 2,257,048. Another animation piece of anatomy! Don’t worry; I’ll refrain from the puns this time. If you’re proactive and interested in animation and want to know more about what it takes to be an animator, or if you’re very lethargic and need to cram in an entire college course of 2D animation principles in a single night, then Animation Brain has a simple and condensed list of animation basics, principles, and perspective concepts that every aspiring animator needs to learn. If you don’t have money for expensive college books and can’t find them for cheap on Amazon, then this is a good site to get you started.
74. Joe Murray Studio Blog. Alexa Rank: 5,193,380. Speaking of the brains of animators, here are words and art straight from the brain of Joe Murray. Notice how I listed him much higher than his Alexa rank suggests? It’s a shame this Nickelodeon legend doesn’t get more attention these days, because what he reveals about animation on his blog is priceless. Even better, he occasionally has sales on some of the original art from his Rocko’s Modern Life and Camp Lazlo shows.
73. Yowp Blog. Alexa Rank: 1,902,306. Earlier this year, I ranked Hanna-Barbera as the 7th most influential animation studio of all time. Yowp is a blog dedicated entirely to shining a light on the artistic production of the early Hanna-Barbera cartoons, and it’s amazing how many original storyboards and animator keyframe notes that Yowp has dug up over the years. Yowp still updates several times a month and is an extremely revealing look into the past.
72. Chuck Redux. Alexa Rank: 3,041,997. Chuck Jones was so influential in the animation industry that it would take an entire lifetime to learn every way he helped improve and excel the industry, and that’s why there’s a massive blog like Chuck Redux to slowly go over every revolutionizing contribution he ever had a hand in. It also teams up with other sites like ChuckJonesGallery to keep readers educated on every museum exhibit or public event that honors him in cities around the globe each year.
71. Don Bluth Animation. Alexa Rank: 1,611,681. In my top 100 most influential animation studios of all time list, I ranked Sullivan Bluth Studios at 17, one step ahead of Chuck Jones Productions at 18. In this top 100, I’m doing the same by shining the spotlight on this blog which showcases and sells several famous Don Bluth tutorial videos. Aside from those invaluable possessions, it also boasts a highly visited animator forum that offers great advice and feedback on every topic imaginable.