Here comes one of the most brilliant casting moves in television history since Saturday Night Live hired a 12-year-old boy to play Dan Quayle.
Ron White, one-fourth of the Blue Collar Comedy Tour, has been cast as the lead voice in a new animated sitcom called "Hounds" for Comedy Central.
The show will be set in a small Southern town where White will play Chicken, "a countrified Yoda with a bottle of Jack and a bag of weed, an opinionated Southern philosopher who considers himself the center of the universe." No offense intended to "Tater Salad," but I can't think of a better person to play that part...until someone resurrects the remains of Sorrell Booke in some kind of horrible government experiment to turn flesh eating zombies into a military weapon.
In the grand tradition of show business, though, the special will go on November 8, just without Microsoft commercials. Fox is looking for alternate sponsors. Here's my first call if I'm at Fox -- Apple. Don't you think those Mac/PC ads would send a message to viewers who might still think Microsoft is behind this?
It would also be a brilliant PR move by Steve Jobs and Apple. After all, they could say, "Hey, we're not afraid of the content in Seth MacFarlane's show. We have a sense of humor."
This sounds like a really odd new show from G4. It's Slasher School, a new animated show that features the voices of Attack of the Show hosts Kevin Pereira, Olivia Munn, and Blair Butler. The show debuts tonight at 7PM on AOTS.
The plot? It's about a school where killers learn to kill.
(S04E02) First things first. If you are not a connoisseur of '90s superhero cartoons or a huge nerd that has been closely following Venture Bros. news all the way through production, you may have missed out on the full "Handsome Ransom" experience. That is not to say the unaware couldn't have a good time, but things were made ten times funnier if a viewer knew that the not-so-pure Captain Sunshine was voiced by Kevin Conroy, aka Batman.
The popularity of SpongeBob SquarePants amongst kids (and many adults) is almost beyond explanation.
Don't get me wrong. It's a fun show that skillfully blends little kid appeal with occasional bursts of adult-worthy humor. It also boasts an impressive voice cast, including Tom Kenny and Clancy Brown. But there are kids who can't live without this little tie-clad yellow blob.
To celebrate the little champ's tenth birthday, Nickelodeon has announced SpongeBob's 10th Anniversary Celebration (Nov. 6 at 8 p.m.) with a list of A-list celebrities, including Rosario Dawson, Craig Ferguson, Will Ferrell, Tina Fey, Ricky Gervais, LeBron James, Pink, Triumph the Insult Comic Dog and Robin Williams.
That impressive collection will appear in an hour-long special featuring SpongeBob flashbacks.
The special is hosted by Patchy the Pirate, "President of the SpongeBob Fan Club (Encino Chapter)." He sets off for Burbank -- home of Nickelodeon. (It's on Olive, near Victory -- in case you were wondering.)
Neil Patrick Harris is the It Boy of television right now. He can really do no wrong, whether it's on How I Met Your Mother or hosting the Emmys, he's come a long way since Doogie Howser, M.D.
Tonight he plays a villain, the Music Meister, on Batman: The Brave and the Bold (Cartoon Network, 7:30). He even gets to sing, and the song is actually catchy.
Nickelodeon is hoping to win back some of those younger eyeballs by buying up one of the most beloved children's franchises of all time.
The "first kids' network" bought the global rights to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles with plans to turn the property into a CGI TV series and feature film by 2012.
The network has high hopes for the cartoon series. They have invested a lot of time and money into winning over young teens and this could be just the thing to win back their old core audience: young kids and heavy stoners.
Even after I'd given up on watching The Simpsons every week many years back, I continued tuning into their annual "Treehouse of Horror" specials, the most recent of which aired Sunday. After a few more years of watching just that one episode each year, I eventually let it go as well. But I've been watching this 20th Anniversary Season of the show, and reviewing it for the site, so I settled in to see what we'd be tackling this year.
As always, the special is broken into three parts. This year's batch: a send-up of Alfred Hitchcock films, 28 Days Later, and Sweeney Todd. That sounded promising enough, and yet ...
Maybe I'm too old for the "Treehouse." Or maybe they just try and do too much. Or maybe, as was the case with all three of this year's segments, they have decent enough set-ups, but their endings are all stupid.
Do you just love it when life imitates art? It makes me wonder if art can legally sue for copyright infringement.
Fox wants Simpsons viewers to design a new character as part of a contest for a future episode at TheSimpsons.com. Aspiring character engineers have until Oct. 24 to submit their entry.
And here's the best part: you don't even have to know how to draw to enter. All you have to do is describe your character and the animators will draw it for you. That should come in handy for the next WGA Strike. I wonder if the winning character will go in a fire extinguisher case in case of contractual emergencies.
Jonah Hill will soon be stomping around Seth MacFarlane's territory. The comedian has signed on to co-write and contribute voice work to a new Fox animated series. The show will center on a rich seven-year-old kid who walks and talks like an adult and has trouble adapting to public school.
I'm looking forward to Hill's animated show, but I'm also a little wary. You'd think a show co-scripted by Hill would end up on a cable network. The young comedic actor has developed a reputation for his very blue comic rants and ad lib scenes in films like Knocked Up, Funny People and Superbad. It'll be interesting to see him hold his tongue for Fox and still deliver the laughs.
Not that the future of this series was ever in doubt, but Fox has extended its original season-and-a-half order of The Cleveland Showto a full two seasons. Given the strong premiere ratings for the show, seasons beyond number two will likely be in the bag. If Fox didn't extend, they'd have to deal with an irate Seth MacFarlane who currently controls most of their Sunday night line-up.
Is The Cleveland Show going to end up being more popular than its progenitor Family Guy? Do these ratings simply represent a high initial interest in the new show that will wane over time? I have used the analogy of The Jeffersons spinning off from All In The Family, but did The Jeffersons ever beat All In The Family in the ratings?
Whatever the case, Seth MacFarlane doesn't have to worry about it for at least two seasons, and probably longer.
Disclaimer: Children should not take Acid. In fact, no one should sample LSD, but children should really stay away.
That said, speaking theoretically, if kids did drop a soaked sugar cube or six, they would see visions potentially less bizarre than what they take in during an episode of Yo Gabba Gabba(!). The Nick, Jr. and Noggin show is back this week with new episodes for fascinated children and really high adults.
A lot of kids love it. It's colorful, kinetic, and everybody involved keeps a smile on their face -- even the bizarre anthropomorphized, toys-turned-life size characters -- Muno (red cyclops), Foofa (pinkish bow thing), Brobee (the green monster with no elbows) ), Toodee (the blue cat) and Plex (the yellow, 50s-ish robot).
Before Speed Racer offered an anime slant to Saturday morning cartoons in the 1970s, and before G-Force or Voltron made kids rush home from school in the 1980s, there was Astro Boy.
Widely considered the original manga comic, Astro Boy was conceived and written by the recognized pioneer of the genre, Osamu Tezuka in 1952.
From the franchise's diminutive launch pad, the endless chain TV anime franchises took flight. Without Tezuka's creation, there's no Lupin III, no Golgo 13, no Ghost in the Machine, no Cowboy Bebop, etc. The strange thing is, some of those TV shows from different eras pack more U.S. pop culture recognition than the franchise that set the table.
I'm not sure how this is going to change the show (though a show with freaky sponge/squirrel mutant children might be interesting), but SpongeBob SquarePants is getting married! Yes, the yellow square will finally tie the knot with the lady squirrel in the bowl, Sandy.
The Bradleys are the family at the heart of Bagge's work over the past several years in seminal comic series Hate and Neat Stuff, along with their own series. While the comics followed Buddy Bradley through young adulthood, the FOX series would reportedly focus on his teen years, still at home with the family.
I've always liked Bagge's unique artistic style and thought it would lend itself very well to animation. There's a fluidity to his limbs and lines that reminds me of classic Disney black-and-white animation. The humor is very raw and grounded in very real, and not necessarily good, human behavior. It could be a great way for FOX to continue expanding their animation lineup.
Here comes one of the most brilliant casting moves in television history since Saturday Night Live hired a 12-year-old boy to play Dan Quayle. 
Well, it seemed like an unusual pairing when it was announced. Kind of like oil and water. Well, the oil slick has hit the proverbial fan. 
The popularity of SpongeBob SquarePants amongst kids (and many adults) is almost beyond explanation.
Nickelodeon is hoping to win back some of those younger eyeballs by buying up one of the most beloved children's franchises of all time. 
Even after I'd given up on watching 
Do you just love it when life imitates art? It makes me wonder if art can legally sue for copyright infringement. 
Jonah Hill will soon be stomping around Seth MacFarlane's territory. The comedian has signed on to co-write and contribute voice work to a 
Not that the future of this series 
Disclaimer: Children should not take Acid. In fact, no one should sample LSD, but children should really stay away.
Before Speed Racer offered an anime slant to Saturday morning cartoons in the 1970s, and before G-Force or Voltron made kids rush home from school in the 1980s, there was Astro Boy.
I'm not sure how this is going to change the show (though a show with freaky sponge/squirrel mutant children might be interesting), but SpongeBob SquarePants is getting married! Yes, the yellow square will finally tie the knot with the lady squirrel in the bowl, Sandy.
With FOX's Sunday "Animation Domination" continuing to be a strong draw among the 18-49 crowd, the network is still out there looking for its next animated hit. And this time they went further than Seth MacFarlane's front door. 
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