TVSquad

(S03E06) I'm not sure what I just watched, and I'm not sure if I liked it. I recently realized that my anticipation from week to week has been less about looking forward to another episode and more about waiting for something as awesome as "Escape to the House of Mummies, Part II" or "Twenty Years To Midnight" to come along. The show is still amazing and all, but it's not packing the same punch as before. Last season, I had a new favorite just about every week, but this time around, I have to watch the episodes multiple times before I really like it. It's like I've built up a tolerance to The Venture Bros. Soon, I'll have to cop four or five viewings a week, just to get that same high.

(S03E05) In last week's review for "Home Is Where The Hate Is," I mentioned how I felt the season so far has all been set-up, set-up, set-up and we're still waiting for the punchline. I mean, it's been hilarious and beautifully animated set-up, but it's been set-up nonetheless. With "The Buddy System," we're finally getting back to everyday life on the Venture compound. It feels good to get a better sense of the family's present.

(S03E03) The Venture Bros. has some of the most incredibly strong secondary characters in the entire cartoon universe. I love their intricate back stories and the delicate explanations of their tendencies and motivations. It's like Lost, but with more robot hands and bad break-ups. That said, is Season Three going to be the season of back stories? I mean, seriously. The first episode was all about the origin of The Monarch and Dr. Girlfriend, the second was an in-depth exploration of Rusty's past affecting his future, and "The Invisible Hand of Fate" taught us more than we ever wanted to know about the early days of Billy Quizboy and Pete White.

ABC will be airing Disney favorites this summer every Saturday evening. John Goodman, the Jonas Brothers, Miley Cyrus, and Jamie Lee Curtis are just a few of the special guest hosts who will be hosting these "movie nights."

From the looks of the schedule, ABC is showing mostly newer Disney films. While I love films like Monsters Inc., I wish ABC would pay tribute to the older Disney movies like Robin Hood, The Sword in the Stone, and Cinderella.

I have the full schedule after the jump. The Disney extravaganza starts this coming Saturday, June 14th.

I'm a sucker for cartoons of the 40s and 50s, whether it's Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, or those two squirrels that just wanted to have a nice life where everyone left them alone (their names escape me at the moment). I also like the great pseudo-documentary cartoons that you often saw, like the one after the jump.

It's Television From Tomorrow from MGM and Tex Avery. It shows what the typical household is going to look like in the future (the future meaning now - this was released in 1953). Specifically, it shows what the television of the future was going to look like. It's not serious, of course, but it's very clever and really fun. I like the big guns that pop out of the top of the television, and I think that complicated knob on the front of that one TV accurately predicts the complicated remote controls we have today. Oh, and the 4 out of 5 people who own TV sets? That could have been drawn today.

Can you guess who the narrator is?

[via Boing Boing Gadgets]

G.I. Joe is just one of many adaptations of '80s toys/animated series that have been on deck for the last few years. There was of course Transformers, followed by rumors of bigscreen versions of He-Man and Thundercats. Now, however, the live-action G.I. Joe movie is official.

Writer/director Stephen Sommers (The Mummy) will helm the project, which will envision the G.I. Joe team as an international collaboration of military forces battling the evil Cobra, as opposed to the America-centric gang most of us remember from the '80s cartoon. Fans can also expect favorites like Duke, Snake Eyes, Scarlett, Destro and Cobra Commander in this new flick. The movie could hit theaters by summer of 2009.

Don't you wish someone would make a live-action movie based on a popular cartoon from the '80s about giant robots?

No, not that one, I'm talking about Voltron. Variety reports that Voltron: Defender of the Universe is finally on the cusp of getting made. Of course, the success of Transformers has helped quite a bit as far as stirring up interest. New Regency and the Mark Gordon Company are close to finalizing a deal to start production on the movie. New Regency's other live-action adaptation is Alvin and the Chipmunks. Eek.

Choke on hot blue nostalgia, Generation X.

The Smurfs, that popular animated program I and many of my friends watched religiously as children of the '80s, is finally coming out on DVD. The Smurfs: Season One, Volume One is a two-disc set including the first nineteen episodes of the first season, along with "The Smurfs Springtime Special" and "Smurfs: The Music Video." The set comes out December 4.

Pete Emslie, a Canadian-born artist who works mostly as an illustrator for Disney merchandise and children's books, has a site with some really amazing caricatures, many of them television celebrities. His drawing of Larry King is on the right, but also check out this drawing of Don Rickles from Jeff Pidgeon's blog, where I first read about Emslie's site.

As Pidgeon points out, Emslie's caricature is more than just a good likeness, it also captures the essence of the real person. That mischievous grin and those bright ornery eyes tell volumes. I also love how King's shoulders are almost higher than his head.

When I heard Speed Racer was coming to Nicktoons, I figured it was the original cartoon, but no such luck. Instead, a newer version is being created to (not) coincide with the upcoming live-action film version from the Wachowski brothers (The Matrix), although having both debuting around the same time will definitely result in the kind of synergy studios crave.

The new Speed Racer 'toon is being produced through Lionsgate and Animation Collective, the studio behind Kappa Mikey, an anime-inspired comedy that also airs on Nicktoons.

Rick and Steve are a gay couple, and they're animated. I don't mean they're lively, I mean they're the stars of a new animated series for Logo called Rick and Steve. The series, which begins July 10 at 10:00 p.m., features voice work by Alan Cumming, Margaret Cho, Wilson Cruz and Peter Paige. The music for the series is composed by the same folks who wrote the music for Avenue Q.

The characters in Rick and Steve resemble tiny posable toys, which makes the show look like something created for the Nick Jr. set. Of course, the themes are just a tad more adult than that, or so I gathered by watching the trailer.

Lil' Bush debuts on Comedy Central tomorrow night, June 13, at 10:30 p.m. This is an early review.

I've mentioned before that, outside of South Park and the occasional rerun of Duckman and The Critic at 4:00 a.m., Comedy Central hasn't offered much in the way of animated programs. No offense to fans of Drawn Together, but I've always found it cloying and grating. Freak Show, which I cut a bit more slack because it was made by comedic folks I admired, was still not as good as it should have been.

Some of you may remember a cartoon series that aired in the mid-'90s called Mega Man, based on the Nintendo video game of the same name. The series had something to do with Mega Man, a cyborg of sorts, battling an army of evil robots or some such thing. Whatever, the plot really isn't important, because it has nothing to do with the video I've placed below.

The folks from OvertimeComedy.com have dubbed their voices over a short clip from Mega Man to create "Lack of Social Awareness Mega Man." Instead of battling the forces of evil, Mega Man tries to convince his pal that Six Feet Under is the greatest show ever, and that he should come over to his place and watch it on DVD.

Oh yeah, it's happening.

Following the soon-to-be -released Transformers and the recently-announced He-Man comes yet another afternoon 'toon from my childhood making its way to the silver screen.

This time, it's ThunderCats, an animated series that aired in the 1980s and focused on a group of warriors that looked like a meld of both human and feline. Warner Bros. has optioned a script from Paul Sopocy for the live-action CGI feature-length adaptation.

First of all, some Adult Swim news:

The first Brak Show webisode is now online. Go watch it.

Also, some cool news for Metalocalypse fans: a brand new Dethklok album will be released on September 25, followed by the release of the first season DVD one week later. Before all of that, however, a brand new 2nd season, with that fresh "2nd season smell" will hit Adult Swim one week before the CD release. NOTE: Thanks to Holly for pointing out that this information changed since I first posted this.

Finally, you can bid on a tour of the Robot Chicken studio. Seth Green himself will be your tour guide.