TVSquad

When FX initially picked up six episodes of its first foray into animated comedy, the plan for Archer was to pair it with It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Since that greenlight, two things happened.

First, FX got trigger-happy and greenlit a whole bunch of other shows (from the likes of Louis CK and Don Cheadle). Second, and more importantly, according to FX it turns out that from start through post, it takes almost a whole month to complete one episode of Archer. With Always Sunny premiering this Thursday night at 10PM ET on FX, slotting in Archer's six eps suddenly became impossible. So the plan has changed. Instead of pairing Archer with Sunny mid-season, FX plans to launch its fantasy-football themed sitcom The League instead. However, if you were looking forward to seeing Archer, I've got some good news.

Before Doctor Who fans say good bye to David Tennant in the BBC's final three specials of 2009, they'll get a little extra colorful bonus Tennant from the Beeb's Red Button service and the Who website.

Doctor Who: "Dreamland" is the show's first venture into "3D" CG animation, and that makes for a stylistic representation of the Tennant's tall, skinny Time Lord. Writer Phil Ford (a veteran of both live action Who and Torchwood) takes the The Doctor to a diner in Roswell, New Mexico where all manner of alien shenanigans are going on.

American fans won't get to see the six-part series in its first run, as they're blocked out of video feeds on the BBC's websites. If only there were other websites that showed online video (illegally) posted by fans. Oh, well.

As an old-school Star Wars fan, I've been a little disenchanted with the many little ways George Lucas has slowly turned his rich tapestry into a children's fable. In the Star Wars I loved, there were moments of real terror, a sinister menace and true danger. The "Ooh, we can sell toys!" started with the ewoks and hit critical mass with Jar-Jar Binks.

But there were some moves in the right direction. Episodes II and III were improvements over The Phantom Menace, so I held out hope that new projects might keep what I felt was the proper maturity of Star Wars in perspective. And so, like a good little drone, I tuned into Cartoon Network's The Clone Wars animated series, and it was ... cute.

For years and years, this was the era we knew so little about. In the novels and comics, which took all of this pretty seriously, thank you very much, we covered from thousands of years before Darth Vader to spans after Han and Leia get married. But not the Clone Wars. That era was special. So we waited. And we got cute.

With childhood animated icons such as Transformers and G.I.Joe getting the movie treatment (sadly done by Michael Bay), Atom Films put together an animated montage of hypothetical '80s characters (cartoon and otherwise) if they were redone by current directors. I think the sketch would have a little more impact if they did it live-action for each segment rather than animated, but I could be in the minority opinion.

I'm not sure which one is my favorite. The Smurfs done by Peter Jackson is certainly up there. Teddy Ruxpin by Wes Anderson is also a hoot. There are a few that aren't mentioned in the video that I think should have been mentioned:

• Strawberry Shortcake
• Rainbow Brite
• Gummi Bears
• The Snorks

Which franchises have I forgotten? And which directors do you think can cover these franchises? Which directors would piss on the memory of them and utterly obliterate them?

Video is after the jump.

Karl Pilkington, longtime friend and podcasting costar of Ricky Gervais, has a head like an orange. He possesses very little education, an extremely pessimistic take on life, a sad obsession with insects and a perpetually confused world view.

But, even with all that going against him, he holds a share of the Guinness Book of World Records title for most popular podcast with Gervais and Stephen Merchant -- and he's about to star in a new animated series on HBO.

According to Variety, The Office creator will bring The Ricky Gervais Show to TV in a series of 13 animated half-hour episodes. In audio form, the Gervais, Merchant and Pilkington formula features Gervais throwing a vast variety of topics at the intellectually challenged Pilkington to see what sense he can make of them.

It's true. You really can't kill Wolverine.

Hugh Jackman is already hitting the gym for a sequel to the just-released X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and Nicktoons just ordered 26 more episodes of Wolverine and the X-Men.

The animated show was a big hit on Nicktoons, helping give the network its highest-ratings ever in key demos. The new eps will kick off May 22.

I know a lot of X-Men fans had problems with Wolverine and the X-Men, but I love the show. Being a Cyclops fan (yes, we do exist), it sorta bugs me that Wolverine is billed as the leader of the X-Men on the show, but that's a minor complaint. The show is fun, packed with cool, somewhat obscure Marvel mutants, and it's pretty entertaining for kids and adults.

In case you didn't get the message with the DVD release of Next Avengers or Hulk Vs., Marvel wants to remind you that ninety percent of its animated output is incredibly awful. That's probably why they're finally releasing the '90s X-Men animated series on DVD.

Stop right there, X-Men fans; lemme explain my love-hate relationship with this series before you start typing four-letter words in the comments section.

I watched this cartoon on Fox faithfully as a kid, and I really loved it. It brought many of the classic X-Men comics stories to life – even some of the weirder ones – and introduced a generation of non-comic book fans to Wolverine, Cyclops and the rest of the gang. But even as a kid it was hard not to wince at the awful animation, the over-the-top voice acting, and the ridiculous melodramatic vibe of it all. Compared to the more sophisticated Batman: The Animated Series, which also aired during the early '90s, this thing looked and felt like an old episode of Thundercats, which was a shame.

After the Thor movie is released in 2010, Marvel will be doing a follow-up by releasing an animated Thor series on television. The series doesn't yet have a channel where it will be broadcast, but given the big Marvel hoopla nowadays, it probably won't be a problem to find one.

Granted, Thor isn't one of Marvel's top tier, like Spider-Man or the X-Men, but he's easily in the second tier. Given Marvel's current strategy of a shared universe of movies leading to The Avengers movie, the character will only get more popular over time.

To me, the classic Marvel cartoon remains the Spider-Man one from the 60's, but Marvel had a bunch of other cartoons in the 60's of the original Avengers characters, including Thor, based on the Kirby comics of the time. They each had some memorable, albeit brief, opening jingles. After the jump, I've included the one for Thor. Sing it! "Cross the Rainbow Bridge of Asgard..."

OK, now that was just plain fun. What was, you ask? I just got finished watching the less-than-four-minute clip of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer: The Animated Series.

Four years ago, it looked like this series was a go, but somehow, it just went. Our friend Jane Espenson penned some of the scripts, and tells us she's in if the project ever takes off again. And rumors abound that the Buffy animated series may just be revived.

(S03E09) This was a real treat for all of those that love some old-school Team Venture action ("Action, action, action!"). In this episode, we found past and present protagonists and antagonists meeting for the first time in decades. The action-packed cold open featured Jonas Venture, Sr. as a terribly unconvincing Asian stereotype sporting a nipple on his face. You know, that same old story. Of course, this far-fetched disguise was just another part of the Team's plan to bring down Scaramantula and his Fraternity of Torment, a sort of a not quite as impressive Guild of Calamitous Intent boasting the powers of Brainulo and a young Manotaur.

(S03E08) After a surprisingly Jackson Publick heavy run, we finally got another Doc Hammer solo with this episode (the first was "The Buddy System"). Apparently, the first half of the season just worked out to be a lot of Publick episodes and we'll be getting a lot more Doc Hammer scripts in upcoming episodes. Right on, right on.

This episode felt more like a Venture Bros. episode than the backstory-tastic stuff that has been dominating this season. Many hilarious moments, beautiful character interactions and gross-out moments were had.

It took just a few weeks, but the trouble is over. The two sides have met and negotiated a fair arrangement. No, I'm not referring to the Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama camps and the Florida and Michigan delegates. No, the news is more animated than that. The powers that be at 20th Century Fox TV have re-signed the actors who voice the The Simpsons.

The principals are signing new four-year deals in which the talent will receive substantial increases in salary. They had been getting $360,000 per episode and were looking for a bump up in that fee to $500,000 per. The negotiated compromise amount is about $400,000 per show. And as expected, instead of a 22 episode season commencing next fall, there'll be 20 shows in the year ahead.

The first animated cartoon wasn't very good. As far as I know, SalesGenie.com is a newcomer to the Super Bowl. Acme Widget boss, Hank Bulleymonger (funny, right?) comes down on his worst salesmen that he needs to double his output or he's fired. SalesGenie.com to the rescue! He gets 100 free sales leads and becomes the Salesman of the year. Never mind that the worst salesman of the year is middle eastern man with seven kids, and any controversy that may or may not bring, the bottom line is it was a lame commercial.

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?

The Simpsons promo machine is still going strong, preparing for the family's bigscreen adventure on July 27th. The marketing for this movie has been wonderfully creative, but even though real-life Squishees are delicious, I think my favorite plug has got to be the new fashion spread in the August issue of Harper's Bazaar. "The Simpsons Go to Paris" depicts the Simpson family wearing outfits straight from the seasons' high fashion catwalks. The spread also features Simpson-ized versions of supermodel Linda Evangelista and designers like Marc Jacobs and Jean Paul Gaultier.

Check out this post with scans of the illustrations, helpfully accompanied by real photos of the outfits on the catwalk. Sadly enough, many of the fashions look better in the cartoon world than in the real one. Case in point: Those bizarre "if Carol Burnett had a stage lighting fetish" Viktor & Rolf numbers. And I also find it a little unsettling that Donatella Versace looks healthier in Simpson-yellow than in whatever shade of leather her skin is now.