TVSquad

Okay, okay. It's been a while since we've had a solid update on the Venture Bros. and I suppose we're due for another one. With no new episodes to fill that Venture-shaped void in your hearts, it's cruel to deprive you all of this delicious information. We've got a lot of news to cover, from conventions to soundtracks to Adult Swim super-sneakiness, so let's get started.

All right, best news first: The official premiere date for Season Three is June 1! It has been confirmed by Jackson Publick, so you know it's good. The crew is about to get back to work and start Season Four, which means the wait for a new season won't be quite as painful as usual.

Clone Wars, Secret Saturdays, a teenager with a super watch, and yet another Batman cartoon. These are just some of the items that were announced at the Cartoon Network upfronts this past week. A presentation, mind you, that was attended by one George Lucas.

Lucas was there to promote the CN's pickup of the animated Star Wars: The Clone Wars, which many are expecting big things of. This series, which we told you about way back in May of last year, will continue the adventures of Obi-Wan, Anakin, and many others during the Clone Wars. According to Stuart Snyder, President and COO of Turner Animation, Clone Wars will be a game changer for the network and will be event viewing for kids as well as entire families. "Star Wars: The Clone Wars will be appointment television for everyone in the family", said Snyder

What are you going to do? The Office, How I Met Your Mother, and even new shows like Pushing Daisies and Chuck are either out of fresh episodes or quickly running out. Well, you don't need to spend the "strike season" curled up in the corner of your bedroom crying through a pile of TV Guides, remembering the good old days when you didn't already know what was going to happen this week on House.

Television is alive and well, and even growing ... just somewhere else. Want to know what happened to Jack Bauer before Season One of 24? How about Buffy and the Scooby Gang after the series finale of Buffy the Vampire Slayer? More and more shows are expanding their horizons by telling prequels, sequels and even in-between-quels in comic books, or graphic novels.

On November 27, Futurama comes back in a big way with Bender's Big Score, an "epic" film involving all the characters from the show that ran on Fox from 1999-2003. The DVD is the first in a series of four direct-to-DVD releases, which will be edited into 16 episodes that will air on Comedy Central in 2008. Fellow Squadder Brad Trechak gave the disc a positive review last week, which is high praise coming from a big fan of the show as he is.

David X. Cohen, executive producer and show-runner of Futurama, spoke to me via phone last week. We didn't have much time, only about ten minutes or so, so we got down to the nuts and bolts: how the movies will play on Comedy Central, some information on the show's comeback, a quick preview of the next DVD, and how the Fox executives felt about being ground into all-purpose powder.

Unfortunately, it's not as a new super-villain on the next season of Venture Bros., although really, somebody should do about getting that put together, don't you think? Instead, Duchovny will be executive producer of a live-action kids show for the network.

Right now, it's just a pilot order, and there's no title yet, but the show will tell the story of a junior high kid from a long line of newsmen who uses the high school A/V club to launch a legitimate citywide news broadcast. Joining Duchovny on the team are Matt Dearborn (Even Stevens), who wrote the pilot, and Robert Mora (Phil of the Future, The Secret Life of Alex Mack).

Hey, Brigitte here with TV Squad Daily. I'll be covering the TV stories I find interesting each day, Monday through Friday, in this video blog.

Today on TV Squad Daily:

• American Idol contestants are accusing Simon Cowell of fixing the competition.
  
• Did the head of Cartoon Network really need to resign following the Boston bomb scare over Aqua Teen Hunger Force advertisements?
  
• Clay Aiken's plan for fighting back against tabloid rumors is bound to backfire.
  

The video's embedded below, or you can download the file directly (Quicktime required). You can also subscribe to this vodcast via our feed.

Have you ever hated a TV show so much you said you wouldn't watch it even if someone paid you? Well, that's what Cartoon Network is doing. Okay, they're not really doing that, but they are giving away five hundred dollars each to two hundred kids who call a toll-free number during a repeat of Re-Animated, Cartoon Network's first original movie. The movie follows the adventures of a young boy who has his brain replaced with a famous animator and begins to see cartoon characters in real life. It garnered record ratings when it debuted Paul Reubens, Ellen Greene, Tom Kenny and Brian Posehn provide the voices of the characters.

You have to be under eighteen years of age to qualify for the cash giveaway. I plan to cheat this by calling and speaking in a high pitched voice. In order to be authentic, I've asked a small child to punch me in the groin right before I call. I promised him I would split the money with him if I win, though I'm actually just going to abandon him and move to a different city. It won't be my proudest moment, but we must do what we can to survive.

The repeat airs January 12 at 7pm.

TV Squad reader Steve Ely hasn't been able to see Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas for the last few years. And, while he knows it is being re-released in theaters this Halloween season (in a 3D format) he wonders if it is being broadcast anywhere on television.

Well, fear not, Steve. After some extensive research (about 10 seconds) we discovered that Nightmare will be appearing on Cartoon Network October 29th at 7:00 pm and again on October 30th at 5:00 pm. For those not familiar with the movie, which was released back in 1993 (holy crap!), it stars Jack Skellington, king of Halloweentown. Jack discovers Christmas Town, but doesn't quite understand the concept. However, once he does, he kidnaps Santa and makes himself king of Christmas Town so he can have the happiness of Christmas all of the time.

In 2005, Burton followed up Nightmare with another animated feature entitled Corpse Bride. This movie, which involves a shy groom and a young woman who rises from the grave thinking she is married to him, airs on ABC Family Monday, October 30th at 8:00 pm.

Some strange billboards have been popping up lately, and people are wondering what the heck they mean. For example, one simply reads, "I Pooted" while another reads, "Clowns Hate Tangelos." There's nothing else on these billboards, just those odd, seemingly meaningless phrases. Well, they only seem odd and meaningless to someone who doesn't watch Cartoon Network programming such as The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy and Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, but what the heck is the point of these esoteric billboards anyway? It turns out they're just teasers to get people excited about an upcoming summer program announcement on the all-cartoon network. So there you go, now you know what the signs are for, except you really don't. I hope this was helpful.

Cartoon Network Enterprises announced recently it had signed a license deal with Mattel to create toys based on its animated series for the 6 to 11 age group. What this means is that in 2007 we'll be seeing new toys and games hit the shelves based on shows such as Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, Camp Lazlo, My Gym Partner's A Monkey, Powerpuff Girls, Ed, Edd n Eddy, The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, and The Life and Times of Juniper Lee. Relationships between Cartoon Network and other toy manufacturers will remain unaffected. I don't buy toys for myself anymore, obviously, but since I have nieces and nephews in this age bracket the news caught my attention. Foster's will be the first show to have its toyline launched, and I'm curious to see what kind of action figures they come up with based on those characters.

No, we're not talking about a return of the old Beatles cartoons; that would be the Fab Four. We're talking about the long-running Marvel Comics series created by Stan "The Man" Lee that became a popular movie last year. Starting in the fall, Cartoon Network will air 26 new half-hour episodes of the Fantastic Four animated series.

Produced in cooperation between Marvel Studios and Moonscoop, the animated series will incorporate both 2D and 3D animation styles. According to Marvel Chief Operating Officer Michael Helfant, the animated series will be part of an aggressive strategy to promote their comic book characters through a number of different media outlets.

Everybody knows you can't take "upcoming" entries on IMDb seriously, but the readers over on Digg are either extremely hopeful or are in utter denial. A recent(?) entry on IMDb shows a Futurama show coming to be, sometime in 2007, though most likely straight-to-video. So, if this is the real deal, what would you rather see of the movie: a kick-off for the renewed series, or a nice wrap-up of the series?

Cinematical wrote on the "confirmation" of this movie long ago.

[via Digg]