Hello, and welcome to the first episode of Digging Up Positivity of this new year. January certainly was a thing. But plenty of good things happened too. Starting off with one of our favorite avians, we will go through some awesome animations, and more, ending with our featurette, TK Wolf! One of the driving forces behind Furs4Life.

Contributors this month include 2cross2affliction, dronon, Equivamp and GreenReaper.

Disney has posted a trailer (now two) for its next animated movie, Raya and the Last Dragon, which will have a release date of March 5, making it officially Walt Disney Animation Studio's first movie of this exciting new decade. It has a talking Eastern-style dragon in it, so that's furry.

Raya and the Last Dragon will release theatrically, but as actually going to movie theaters is still not really recommended at this point, it'll also be released on the Disney+ streaming service the same day, though with an additional "Premier Access" charge of $29.99 in the US.

The movie features Kelly Marie Tran as the titular Raya, with Awkwafina as the titular last dragon (meanwhile, Disney animation regular voice actor Alan Tudyk will once again be "voicing" a non-anthropomorphic animal; this time, the giant pillbug / armadillo creature Tuk Tuk). The movie is set in the fictional fantasy world of Kumandra.

Spirit of the North is a casual adventure game with light puzzle elements, where you play as a fox accompanied by a spirit. I played the Steam version which was released in May 2020, although it debuted on the Playstation in November 2019. It is listed on Steam as a Windows-only game, but I was able to play it on Linux using Steam Proton without any problems.

The 1996 movie Space Jam is about Michael Jordan playing basketball with a bunch of Looney Tunes. It's possibly both one of the most beloved and most hated movies of the entire 90s.

It was notably hated by Chuck Jones, an animator famous for his work on the original Looney Tunes shorts, though, to be fair, Chuck Jones pretty much hated anything Looney Tunes that he didn't do himself, and also about half of his own stuff. Joe Dante directed the next live action/animation hybrid Looney Tunes movie, Back in Action, and his stated goal was basically to direct the anti-Space Jam. Flayrah's own coverage of Back in Action was not pro-Space Jam, calling it a "disaster". On the beloved side of the equation, however, Warner Bros. will be releasing a very belated sequel to the movie on July 16 of this year (both theatrically and on the HBO Max streaming service), and they usually don't do that if no one liked it (and, seriously, you can probably find someone who actually does like Space Jam very easily).

But despite the fact that the original 1996 website is still up (with the following link, this article is now in compliance with ancient Internet law stating that all articles about Space Jam must mention the original website), there isn't really a good list anywhere on the Internet that provides the complete line-up of the members of the Tune Squad, the Looney Tunes basketball team in the film. Seriously, the Space Jam Wiki does not have a team roster. The IMDB trivia page for Space Jam has a bare bones roster buried half way down the page (and it's very incomplete). Well, that won't stand. Here's the full roster of every character (animated or otherwise), who played against the Monstars in the movie's big game.

The Ursa Majors have opened up nominations for 2020. Those wishing to nominate have up until February 13th to do so. The categories for this year are the for this year are as follows:

• Best Anthropomorphic Motion Picture
• Best Anthropomorphic Dramatic Short Work
• Best Anthropomorphic Dramatic Series
• Best Anthropomorphic Novel
• Best Anthropomorphic Short Fiction
• Best Anthropomorphic Other Literary Work
• Best Anthropomorphic Non-Fiction Work
• Best Anthropomorphic Graphic Story
• Best Anthropomorphic Comic Strip
• Best Anthropomorphic Magazine
• Best Anthropomorphic Published Illustration
• Best Anthropomorphic Game
• Best Anthropomorphic Website
• Best Anthropomorphic Costume (Fursuit)

There is a recommended list of all the content that came out last year.

As a reminder, last year, non-fiction work was removed due to lack of nominations. So if you are a regular reader, please take the time to go over the 2020 archives and nominate one of our pieces, or at the very least Jon Oliver's search for rat erotica.

FurCast, the self-proclaimed slow motion car crash that has occured over the past decade finally had the wreckage settle as it came to its conclusion on October 31st, 2020. On that Halloween it would air what would be its final episode of its 10 season run. This ending was not announced on air, but would be announced on their site on December 21st in a post titled It’s Time.

The first thing I want to say is that me, and everyone involved in the history of the production of this show, absolutely love you guys. There has been so much blood, sweat and tears over these years to try and bring you all happiness, help us all have fun, and bring people together.

This comes after 392 episodes of live broadcasts featuring furries that would discuss the week’s events for an 18+ audience, not afraid to take on adult topics with humor and laughs. The good news is that they plan on keeping the show archived on their site so that those who want to take a look back to old times can feel free to watch.

Picking up from where the 2020 documentary The Fandom left off, Ash "Coyote" Kreis' new 44-minute film, Hero: A Furry Story takes a deeper look into the fandom's disability community, particularly its less-looked-at subset with cancer and chronic illness, where people have found that fursuiting and its networks can create a source of happiness during a time of pain and illness. Hero is the film's star, a canine-identifying fan, diagnosed with cancer at age 22, who receives a new fursuit from the talent at Waggery Costumes.

As viewers are slowly introduced to all of the different people it takes to make a fursuit, Hero's story demonstrates what furry fans have already come to know: affirming that people in the fandom can be as family, loved ones, and mentors. Pulling itself away from the criticism that Kreis received after The Fandom, this new film's attention to disability, illness, and networked connections provides another interesting gateway into something that will surely be enjoyed by fans and non-fans alike.

Thabo Meerkat and Dixie Lioness have released their Charity Index finding that furries raised more the $500,000 for Charity in 2020. This is in spite of the challenges caused by the pandemic. It should be noted that information was more difficult to obtain this year, and the numbers for Virtual Midwest Furfest are not included in this tally.

Contributors this month include 2cross2affliction, dronon, GreenReaper, mwalimu, Rakuen Growlithe, and Sonious.

NPA 2020 Year in Review: Attacked by Malicious Media. Twitter Account Infested with Costumed Cop Haters. https://t.co/ZG2gyjRCwL pic.twitter.com/zgtfiyZvvU

As the holidays arrive, some are disappointed in the fact that our gatherings are going to be a bit smaller this year due to the continuing pandemic. For those reluctantly separated from loved ones voluntarily, however, they may find that the greatest present is that they may have the fortune of getting together with those loved ones in future holidays. Because in a year such as this, that is a gift not afforded to everyone.

News emerged on December 17th of a furry mother, Velocity Sloth, who learned that her husband had contracted the deadly virus, and didn’t make it. This holiday tragedy has left a hole for their family that could never be filled, as a mother sloth is left on her own to care for her young. Her husband was the sole provider at the time of his passing.

Known for her volunteer work at some of our largest conventions, furs took up the call in order to try and help alleviate some of the despair wrought by the sudden loss. Within a few days, charitable furs exceeded the $15,000 goal set to help her out.

AlectorFencer (Claudya Schmidt) was recently awarded the Best Artist prize for Artwork in the 2020 Rudolph Dirks Award, named after German-American cartoonist Rudolph Dirks, for her comic Haunter of Dreams.

Haunter of Dreams - released at Eurofurence 25, where she was Guest of Honour - is just one of several comics and illustrations set in the world of Yria which have earned AlectorFencer honours. She received a Rudolph Dirks Award in 2018 for her work on MYRE - Chronicles of Yria Volume 1. Earlier this year, she won a silver Spectrum Award in the comic category for her illustration Flora, depicting a mythical being from Yria.

As the world still deals with the Coronavirus pandemic, political turmoil, and the uncertainty of the future, we did come into the year knowing that a major change was coming to the fandom, which has since been overshadowed by these other events. Flash is going the way of the dodo, due to Adobe dropping support for their Flash Player plugin and browsers withdrawing support in turn; and with it a substantial piece of furry history will no longer function in most browsers as of 2021.

Luckily, some of the most famous, or infamous, pieces of Flash history are preserved as videos. Remember Foxy Fluffs are Everything? Someone did “port” it to YouTube (adult language/situations warning in case you haven’t seen it). But despite the animation being saved in video format, foxy fluffs being motion tweens may not amount for much in a post-Flash world.

Time is running out for those animations that are only playable with Flash on their original sites. They can however be downloaded as an SWF file to run on software that supports them. On SoFurry, Flash files already download directly as a file instead of playing in the browser itself. Soon enough it will probably be the only way to enjoy many classic pieces of furry animation from the earlier days of the fandom in their original format – if you can find a working player.

Disney announced some furry bait titles coming to a screen near you in 2022. One is Turning Red, a movie about a girl who is cursed to transform into a red panda when she becomes too excited. Along with this is a new animated series around the 2016 movie Zootopia, called Zootopia+, which was covered in Rod O’Riley’s In-Fur-Nation. It seems to be set up as a slice of life, reality format that will follow the lives of side characters.

But for Nick’s partner in crime, their voice may be missing from any side cast shenanigans. After showing symptoms for COVID-19, Tommy ‘Tiny’ Lister passed on. The wrestler had many roles in show business. They wrestled Hulk Hogan and were featured on Star Trek, but most furries would know them as the voice of the diminutive fox with an attitude that will “bite your face off.”

It seems 2022 can’t get here fast enough, and not just for the sake of furry films.