Posted Oct 21st 2009 4:06PM by Danny Gallagher
Filed under: Industry, Animation, Children, Pickups and Renewals, Reality-Free
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.
Posted Oct 20th 2009 10:02AM by Jason Hughes
Filed under: OpEd, The Simpsons, Animation, Reality-Free
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.
Continue reading I remember when the Treehouse of Horror was appointment TV
Posted Oct 19th 2009 8:46PM by Danny Gallagher
Filed under: The Simpsons, Animation, Reality-Free
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.
Posted Oct 15th 2009 6:13PM by Mike Moody
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, Industry, Animation, Celebrities, Casting, Reality-Free
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.
Continue reading Jonah Hill bringing new animated series to Fox
Posted Oct 15th 2009 5:47PM by Brad Trechak
Filed under: Animation, Pickups and Renewals, Ratings, Reality-Free
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 Show to 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.
[Watch
clips and free episodes of The Cleveland Show at
SlashControl]
Posted Oct 15th 2009 11:01AM by John Scott Lewinski
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, Other Sci-Fi/Supernatural Shows, Daytime, Animation, Children, Reality-Free
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).
Continue reading Yo Gabba Gabba! returns to amuse, confuse, terrify kids
Posted Oct 14th 2009 8:04AM by John Scott Lewinski
Filed under: TV on the Bigscreen, Animation, Children, Reality-Free, British TV
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.
Continue reading Original anime TV series Astro Boy evolves into movie, game
Posted Oct 13th 2009 4:26PM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: Animation, Reality-Free
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.
Entertainment Weekly has an exclusive sneak peek of the SpongeBob wedding. Guests will include Tina Fey, Ricky Gervais, LeBron James, Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, Will Ferrell, Craig Ferguson, and Rosario Dawson!
Posted Oct 13th 2009 3:00PM by Jason Hughes
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, Animation, Pickups and Renewals, Reality-Free
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.
FOX has inked a deal with Peter Bagge to produce a pilot based on The Bradleys.
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.
Posted Oct 13th 2009 2:26PM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: Animation, Reality-Free
This isn't too far from me, so I should check it out. Someone has mowed
a maze into the shape of Family Guy characters Brian and Stewie. And yes, FOX says that they're OK with the Connors family using the characters at their farm.
Looking at the photo, it seems like if you make it to Brian's nose, you're completely lost.
Posted Oct 12th 2009 9:25AM by Jason Hughes
Filed under: OpEd, Animation, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
This is the third week of the new FOX Sunday night, so it's time to check in and see how the lineup is shaping up. I wanted to give
The Cleveland Show a few weeks to settle down and start to figure out what kind of show it wants to be. The pilot wasn't the strongest, but there was so much set-up involved, you couldn't tell anything about what future episodes would be like.
With Seth MacFarlane now providing a full hour-and-a-half of FOX's Sunday programming, we decided to take a look at all of his shows in a single post each week. At first, I wasn't sure if I was even going to like
The Cleveland Show enough to do this, but it's already grown on me. And that's much faster than
American Dad, which took more than a year of sampling here and there before I tuned in regularly.
Continue reading Sundays with Seth: Meet the Crinklesacks and fly with the Smiths
Posted Oct 12th 2009 2:10AM by Jason Hughes
Filed under: OpEd, The Simpsons, Animation, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
(S21E03) "Call me a killjoy, but I think that because this is not to my taste, no one else should be able to enjoy it!" --Marge Simpson on Ultimate Punching
I'm not a fan of
Ultimate Fighting, though I think that other people should be able to watch it, if they're so inclined. But it is an all too common stance among watchdog groups, including mothers, sympathetic school officials and the clergy, as Nelson so kindly pointed out. Of course, this has been going on for years, but it was still a clever enough send-up of the problem.
Maybe it's because I don't find Marge to be one of the funnier characters on the show and this episode focused on her, so there weren't as many funny moments in the main storylines. Luckily, there were plenty of side characters and moments to spotlight.
Continue reading The Simpsons: The Great Wife Hope
Posted Oct 11th 2009 10:02AM by Jane Boursaw
Filed under: TV on DVD, OpEd, Animation, Children, Reality-Free, Jane After Dark
Like most people in the known universe, I grew up with Charlie Brown. In addition to watching all the TV specials, my family amassed a fairly large collection of the paperback Peanuts books and even a few nice hardcovers. Family friendly graphic novels, you might call them.
So I was pretty excited to learn that Warner Home Video was releasing a lot of the TV specials, both individually and in collections. On Oct. 20, the
Peanuts 1970's Collection, Vol. 1 will hit store and cyber shelves in a 2-disc set. A nice publicist sent me an advance copy, so I'm happy to devote this week's
Jane After Dark to this lovely set.
I'm always harping on all the sex and violence on TV right now -- often in shows that bill themselves as family friendly -- so it's really nice to have something you can watch with your kids that you
know won't contain anything offensive or off-color. Not only that, the stories usually have a moral lesson, but they don't whack you over the head with it. It's more subtle, wrapped up in the humor and innocence of the stories and characters.
Continue reading Jane After Dark: Peanuts 1970's Collection, Vol. 1
Posted Oct 1st 2009 4:00PM by Jason Hughes
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, OpEd, Animation, Reality-Free
I can admit that I'm no longer the hip young kid that I quite honestly never was. So it didn't surprise me that MTV was able to launch a new show and I was completely unaware of it. But, I've talked to younger friends who do watch MTV, and they don't remember any promotion for
Popzilla either.
I found it purely by accident, and when it popped onto my screen, I was looking at something that looked like a mix of old Walt Disney animation and something the folks at Jib-Jab would have come up with. Utilizing photographs for the heads of celebrities, exaggerated slightly for comic effect, and little white Disney gloves, the show skewers celebrities and pop culture in short skits like
Robot Chicken, and it's far funnier than it has any right to be.
Continue reading Where did MTV's Popzilla come from, and why do I love it?
Posted Sep 30th 2009 2:00PM by John Scott Lewinski
Filed under: Other Sci-Fi/Supernatural Shows, Industry, Animation, Reality-Free
Lucasfilm's
Star Wars: The Clone Wars might just be the
beat best action and adventure show on television.
Admittedly, there isn't a ton of competition as action shows are few and far between on TV these days. They're expensive to produce in live action, so reality TV, detective shows and "chick-flick" dramas drive network schedules. Since the
Star Wars universe exists only in the imaginations of George Lucas and his team encamped north of the Golden Gate bridge,
The Clone Wars has more room to play affordably.
The second season of
The Clone Wars launches this Friday on Cartoon Network. To build some force behind the premiere, LucasFilm Animation hosted a press event at Skywalker Ranch in Marin County. Munching on Wookie-Cookies (as all of the catering was
Star-themed) and rubbing elbows with costumed Clone Troopers and bounty hunters, show creators and cast members mingled with reporters in an enthusiastic, nerd-friendly atmosphere.
Continue reading Set Visit: Clone Wars returns with better visuals, darker stories
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