At last night’s program “The Animated Performance: Art Meets Technology” held at The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences the question was posed, “Is 2D animation dead?” Brad Bird (who pretty much owned the evening with his wit and infectious rambunctiousness with Eric Goldberg as a close second) responded with, “I don’t think it’s dead. What I think is dead right now is sound thinking.” He also said, “The studios that are succeeding are the ones where the art leads the technology. The studios that are failing are the ones where the technology leads the art.” Then, after his ringing endorsement for the continuation of traditional hand-drawn animation, he also put a plug in for animated movies that were neither hand-drawn nor computer-generated by saying he was looking forward to the upcoming Wallace and Gromit movie then asked who else was. This received a positive response from the audience in the form of a huge cheer. Brad also said that the familiar animation term “squash and stretch” was now being combined into one newly coined word: “Squetch.”