Our morphin’ jumpin’ jivin’ hiphopin’ furry-creature lovin’ creative partner Bowen has done it again, launching yet another lovable, danceable animal animation on YouTube. This one features a pet that may have slipped out of fashion but is definitely back in the spotlilght now - a hamster - let out of his/her(?) cage to invade the screens of fans of Kitty Said What? and I’m a Pug!.

Meowin’ and scratchin’ its way to the top, Bowen’s “Kitty Said What?” morphin’ cause celèbre continues to make waves on YouTube. Now it’s featured on the home page and has 1,648,403 views (not that we’re counting). The Stray Cats don’t have nuthin’ on Kitty, except Brian Setzer just might play a meaner guitar:>.

Some people have even made “Kitty Said What?” their music ringtone. You can download the Kitty Said What? ringtone at LilTone.com. Note: select “Other” from the dropdown menu to find this and other animania ringtones.

More quirky animating animals, more catchy tunes & good fun from our friend Bowen, as he tallies up the hits (625K+ as of this posting) on YouTube with the rockin’ good time of I’m a Pug! Woop - Morphin’ Pugs, a crowd pleasing, morphed-out music video sensation from the wacky land of pets bent on entertaining us video-glazed humans.

This clip has also garnered 11 YouTube Honors: #58 - Most Viewed (This Month) | #2 - Most Viewed (This Month) - Pets & Animals | #3 - Top Rated (This Month) - Pets & Animals | #96 - Most Discussed (This Month) | #3 - Most Discussed (This Month) - Pets & Animals | #83 - Most Discussed (All Time) - Pets & Animals | #18 - Top Favorites (This Month) | #1 - Top Favorites (This Month) - Pets & Animals | #70 - Top Favorites (All Time) - Pets & Animals | #4 - Most Linked (This Month) - Pets & Animals | #33 - Recently Featured - Pets & Animals

In addition, “I’m a Pug” ringtone has become a top ringtone download under the Other category on LilTone.com

Catchy and infectious, our colleague Bowen’s irresistible YouTube phenom "Kitty Said What?" pretty much starts and defines a new genre: pet rap. Having received 12K+ views in a week’s time [UPDATE: 2.9 MILLION VIEWS ON YOUTUBE AS OF 11/13/07], it’s delivered with inventive uses of morphing, sound sync and humour, and shows how Morpheus can serve as a cool tool in the arsenal of music video production. For kids of all ages. Way to go, Bowen – definitely keep ‘em coming.

Another cool morph posted on YouTube has come to our attention. This one is a kind of drifting, romantic, dreamlike sequence of woven-together photographs of Lake Atitlán in Guatemala, set to the music of the darkwave/etherial (or, if you prefer, gothic) band Dead Can Dance (the song is Host of Seraphim). There’s definitely some Mayan magic in this experiment - check it out here. As one YouTube viewer commented: “very hypnotizing.”

Here’s another sophisticated multi-image morph found on YouTube, this one featuring the progressive cosmetic transformations of songwriter, dancer, pop star, media sensation and internal exile (as the Soviet poets used to say) Michael Jackson, the one and only. This video has received 200,000+ views since being posted slightly over a month ago. Suffice to say that serial plastic surgery is a type of real-body morphing, echoed here in video format. Despite the gruesomeness of the ending image, we do find the final message well worth pondering: “If this is what’s happening outside, what’s going on inside?” You can view it here on YouTube. More and more complex morphs of this type are showing up on YouTube; the mophing momentum is gathering, you could say. Keep us informed about ones you spot or the ones you post on YouTube that we can feature on animaniablog.com.

There’s a beautiful, in-depth and inspiring new video on YouTube called Women in Art that morphs between an inspiring series of portraits of women in western art from a Byzantine fresco through Impressionism and Picasso. This video has received over a million user views in about a month since its posting. While we’re not 100% sure it was created using Morpheus, it’s sure looks that way, and we believe it well worth pointing to as yet another excellent use of this technology. There’s a lot of passion, patience and art appreciation in this video, which can easily be said to be a work of art itself. Take a look here.

Here’s a lovely tribute to art imitating life, and then still more art giving the imitation still more life (but not more still life). Did you get that? Well, maybe you can ask your classmates for notes. Anyway, we choose the classic title of a classic novel for the title of this classic piece, but it is also known to the author andreysue2 as “Blue Sunday No Flash.”

There’s a little tough guy in all of us, huh? And way before “G” hit MTV, there was the one and only Al C. Yo, don’t forget to pay your taxes, all you heavies out there, ’cause that’s how they got him in the end! Thanks for sending this in, Jmac945.

Thanks Tim for this smooth rendering of alien-ation. Scully & Mulder would be proud.

Thanks to frequent Morpheus collaborator (& Flash, branding and illustration wiz) Timothy Corrigan for this send up of American Idol.

Thanks to Morpheus user queenb****3769 (are there that many?) for sending this one in. Interestingly enough, there is actually some gothic architecture here – in the romantic moonlit backdrop, complete with tiny bats (of course) – before she dons her high heels and beams down to the red underworld hotel.

Morpheus user and YouTube member thomastittle sent us a nice note pointing to his brilliant, remarkable and – yes – enchanting animation of “Alyssa.” You can view the video here. Complete with soundtrack, this is a cinematic, compelling, cleverly-paced use of Morpheus to tell the story of a child’s growth. It exudes all the love of a caring parent, and practically creates a new medium - the photo album of the future. Thanks thomastittle!

It’s nice when a short animation can portray a small action inside the morph, adding motion and narrative to the mix. This submission does that with style, going from the photographic to the cartoon world and sending the viewer a kiss in the process.

Like a doll come to life in a Stephen King story, or an instantaneous snapshot across the room at the merry prankster’s midnight party, you see her eyes move toward you as she perceives your gaze and the color shift while all else remains the same. Killer concept and execution on this strobe effect morph. We like the butterflies and the sig too.

This morphin’ machine will take larrys and other intimidating mugs and turn ‘em into indestructible armor plated robots that run amok in all the playgrounds of the nation. Also useful for creating garden sculptures to keep the crows out & scare the neighbors…

Pretty self-explanatory – of course it helps if you look a whole lot like the star to begin with. Unlike Being John Malkovich, where you could only be Malkovich, with Morpheus you can be(come) anyone…

Love the action on the ears! There is a certain family resemblance… Very nicely done, great dynamic feel to this morph. It also helps clear up that age-old question: “Can red pandas touch their tongue to their nose?”

Great work here with the precise layout of dots to get a very centered, symmetrical and dynamic morph. Revenge of the nerd dogs! We also like the subtle shades of gray in the two photos used, adding a further sophistication to the animation.

Odd how the geometry of a room can feel suddenly yanked out from under you, like a proverbial carpet or a tablecloth at a fine dinner. What is the relation of these two women? Guess what, we have no idea either. It’s like “You know, I was just minding my own business, waiting for Bela Lugosi to come by, when suddenly it all changed and I was blond and on the phone — plus the house had changed.” We think David Lynch might enjoy this one; unfortunately that might also mean that not everyone will. Well, we have morphs and animations for all tastes. Sorry for the hiatus, but we’re BAAAACCKKK!

We think that everyone has a rock star inside of them, just waiting break out of the obscurity of the day job. Sometimes all it requires is just the right pair of glasses, or a killer animation idea.

This dynamic mother daughter duo created a home-made “bluescreen” - an animation technique from way back - using a sheet to set up a neutral background shared by both shots. Way to go!

We like how this animation sets the beach on fire, and reveals the feline inside.

Some of you may remember John Woo’s 1997 thriller Face/Off with Nicolas Cage and John Travolta. The tagline was In order to catch him, he must become him. Well, here’s a little homage to that imperfect piece of cinema with perfect casting…

With this post, we begin a series of experimental animations on celebrities, trying to draw out some of the more dynamic elements made possible by Morpheus. If you have ideas for celebrity combos you’d like to see represented here, let us know by by leaving a comment below or contribute your own!

Thanks to Morpheus user mr-r34 for this one - great attention to detail here. We like the morphs of the coifs almost as much as that of the nicely-transitioning facial expressions. Definitely a keeper.

This is one of those charmingly surreal uses of a classic b/w portrait with a new color one, and across generations. Really nicely done, in our opinion. We’re guessing from the file names that this is a mother-daughter combination. Thanks to wl_missnono for sending it in.

Either he’s brave or his girlfriend sent it in, but thanks to Morpheus user musicmaniac313 (don’t you love how we refer to people by numbers nowadays; what would Orwell say?) for this nice gender-bending celebrity morph. Smooth!