TVSquad

The Saturn awards ceremony was held last night, and Lost dominated the television categories with four wins. The drama won the award for Best Network Series and nearly swept the acting categories. Evangeline Lilly lost the Best Actress award to Ghost Whisperer's Jennifer Love Hewitt, last year's winner. Most of the first-time nominees, such as Pushing Daisies and Journeyman, were shut out. Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles was the only exception; Summer Glau tied for Best Supporting Actress.

Comedian Jeffrey Ross hosted the event. Hopefully this is just the beginning of a successful awards season for Lost. A complete list of winners in the television categories follows after the jump.

TV syndication upfront ad sales are brisk, with syndicators expected to sell higher levels of ad inventory, similar to the broadcast networks.

Sales are more than 50% complete, with one syndicator, Warner Bros. Domestic Television Distribution, more than 70% sold out of its 2008-09 ad inventory, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

What's it all mean? It means that syndication upfront totals are expected to be around $2.4 billion, up 4.5% from last year.

Maybe one reason is that syndicators are incorporating more product integration into their packages, especially with talk and entertainment shows. Strong categories include packaged goods, pharmaceuticals, movies, and fast food.

Hmmm ... I wonder what they're saying. That TV viewers sit around eating Big Macs, doing drugs, and woofing down Cheetos? Yeah, that can't be right.

Due to the complicated and apparently outdated Emmy Awards nomination rules, prime-time animated shows like Family Guy, The Simpsons, American Dad, South Park and others have had to choose which Emmy category they want to compete in, animated or comedy series. Then, that decision impacts eligibility for writers and animators on those shows in other categories. Well, Family Guy is in a unique position this year, as their "Blue Harvest" Star Wars parody was classified as a special. And as the animated category looks at single episodes, Family Guy can submit "Blue Harvest" to the animated category, and the show itself, to comedy series.

I'd say it's a tremendous long shot that an animated show can be nominated over the live-action comedy series it will be facing. But there's always a first time for everything; when Disney's animated Beauty and the Beast picked up an Oscar nod for "Best Picture" it was groundbreaking in the same way. It's a tough debate. These shows compete with prime-time comedies every week and yet get put up against the likes of Spongebob Squarepants come awards time. How do you compare The Venture Brothers and Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends?

Being the award for Excellence in Animation, this was easily the widest ranging category, and you all really came through in your nomination suggestions (sorry The Venture Brothers doesn't qualify). With animation owning several channels all to itself and still appearing everywhere else, you've got kid's shows, very much adult only series (did I mention The Venture Brothers can't get nominated?), gag cartoons, sci-fi cartoons and even gothic horror.

With your help from my Adam Finley Award call for nominations post last week where you tried to trick me into nominating The Venture Brothers, even though I can't, we've managed to narrow down the field of contenders to what we feel were the five strongest entries into the wide world of television animation in the past season. Don't forget to check out the Reader's Choice at the bottom where you can vote for which of the five you think are deserving to win. Next week, we'll be revealing both your winner and ours.

For many longtime TV Squad readers the name Adam Finley could only be associated with one thing: the wide world of animation. Adam was passionate about animation, covering many shows for us here as well as reporting on anything and everything happening in the industry. So it's only right that the award for Excellence in Animation be named after him.

There's all kinds of possibilities for contenders here. I'd give a nod to both Star Wars tributes -- Family Guy and Robot Chicken -- and South Park definitely stretched their animation style with 'Major Boobage,' but I didn't think the episode was all that good. Aqua Teen Hunger Force had some good episodes this season (personal favorites include the VeggieTales parody and that crazy trilogy that opened the season).

But I've by no means watched all the best in animation this year, so I call out to you, dear readers. Which episodes or shows do you think set the bar or even raised it in this past year? Are The Simpsons out of their prime and not worthy of TVS recognition? How about King of the Hill or American Dad? The new The Mr. Men Show is retro-tastic, simple, but still cleverly awesome! Too many to handle! Help me TVS Readers, you're my only hope!

Bobby Bowman is continuing his monogamous relationship with 20th Century Fox TV. The My Name is Earl executive producer has inked a new two-year deal with the studio.

Bowman will continue on Earl, where he manages the writing staff and oversees the writer's room, serving as executive producer with creator Greg Garcia and director Marc Buckland. He'll also develop new projects for the studio.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, it's a seven-figure deal (so if my math is right, it's at least one million, but less than 10 million).

Bowman has spent the past eight years at 20th TV, working on Family Guy, Yes, Dear, and Earl. He describes his relationship with the studio as "monogamous," saying, "They do exciting shows and have great executives. Sure, I would prefer it if 20th were monogamous in return, and didn't feel the need to have multiple partners. But they're not going to change."

So I was reading this press release about a new CBS reality show called Greatest American Dog (working title). The network has just named a host of the Greatest American Dog and his name is Jarod Miller. The show premieres on July 10. What caught my attention was this phrase, "Animated zoologist Jarod Miller." Now, maybe it was just me, but for a moment I envisioned Jarod Miller as Brian Griffin, the dog on Family Guy. You know, an animated cartoon creation. After all, on Family Guy, Brian is the most intelligent character, and he has co-hosted a radio talk show.

In fact, the only thing animated about Jarod is his enthusiasm for animals. He's a guy who really loves his job. He's been on talk shows galore, putting creepy crawlies on Rachael Ray and keeping snakes from slithering all over Jimmy Kimmel.

Propane rules! Fox has renewed King of the Hill for a 13th season. The down home hilarity of Hank and Peggy Hill, their son Bobby and dog Lady Bird, will continue for another year, likely remaining in Fox's strong Sunday night animation lineup that includes The Simpsons, Family Guy and American Dad -- although that's only speculation on my part.

Creators Mike Judge (the voice of Hank and Boomhauer) and Greg Daniels (The Office) will continue at the helm, and all the usual characters remain. That means more of Kathy Najimy as Peggy, Brittany Murphy as Luanne, Pamela Adlon as Bobby, Johnny Hardwick as Dale, and Stephen Root as Bill.

(S06E09) You'll have to forgive me: I'm an unabashed lover of Fox's Sunday night animation block. I know that the internet is alive with constant controversy as to the exact point where The Simpsons started sucking or how much random joke-telling is too much random joke-telling on Family Guy, but I've always looked at Fox's Sunday the same way a never-married 39 year-old woman looks at a potential husband: it has to be pretty bad not to be good enough.

It's probably a good thing, then, that I don't review this show regularly. Brad's reviews are free of my good-enough slacker ethos; he's always got something intelligent to say about an episode. I'm sure you'd all tire very quickly of me finding an infinite number of variations on, "It wasn't a classic, but I laughed a lot, so I guess I have to give this a positive review!"

That being said: This episode wasn't a classic, but I laughed a lot, so I guess I have to give it a positive review!

So, we've got this promotional thing going on with this new zero calorie sparkling drink from Pepsi called Tava. Haven't heard of it yet? Well, from what I can tell, you certainly will. What did they give us to give away? How does this sound:

• Two (2) 80GB iPod Classics.
  
• Five (5) swag bags containing TAVA Canvas tote bag, TAVA t-shirt and TAVA pen.
• Seven (7) sample packs of TAVA.

What do you need to do? Well, to accompany this post I'm listing a bunch of memorable fictional drinks from TV. All you need to do is list your favorite, either from this list or one I missed. More details on the giveaway are at the end of this post, after the jump.

It's that festive time of year when children put tinsel on the television antennas and hang mistletoe over their favorite DVDs. Where celebrities check into rehab to spend the holidays with all their celebrity friends. And where the rest of America is invited to corporate non-specific, non-religious, non-alcoholic generic winter holiday luncheons where they can mingle with their co-workers and say things like "Remember when this company used to have real Christmas parties?"

But while political correctness may have ruined most holiday functions, nothing can ruin Festivus! That magical season in which TV Squadders hope and pray for televisions dreams come true. And I know just what I want...

Now that The Simpsons has made a successful jump from the small screen to the big (a billion bucks worldwide so far!), people are talking about bringing another FOX animated series, Family Guy, to your local theater as well. But does it have enough of an audience for such a project?

Seth MacFarlane isn't sure, but he has a live-action cast picked out. Rosie O'Donnell would be Peter (a very scary Peter), David Hyde Pierce would be Stewie (?), Ann Coulter would be Brian, Phillip Seymour Hoffman would play Chris, Juliette Lewis would be Meg, and Kathy Griffin would portray Lois.

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:

• Will we see Britney Spears on stage at the VMA's? I hope not.
  
• Family Guy is a stage production, too? I had no idea.
  
• Kristen Bell chose Broadway over Lost, darnit.
  
• The Sopranos has inspired a line of pool sticks.
  

The video's embedded below, or you can subscribe to this podcast via our feed. Plus, you can also download the file directly.

While the thirty years of Star Wars panel featured plenty of video game previews and Lucas-approved montages of the fans that have made him one seriously wealthy man, it also featured a special preview of Family Guy's season premiere - a one hour Star Wars tribute starring Stewie as Lord Vader, of course. Who else were you expecting to don Vader's robes?