TVSquad

What's happening on other blogs via the interweb.

• The estate of the creator of Mr. Ed is suing MGM for royalties.
• Here's a complete guide to the (possible) strike and what we can expect on Monday.
• Jaime Weinman has some thoughts on CBS' sitcom strategy.
• There's a new cartoon coming, about John Oates' (of Hall and Oates) mustache, who play rock music and fight crime.
• Boy Meets World star Ben Savage is joining Chuck, playing Nicole Richie's husband.
• CNBC + a jar of mayonnaise = either a really gross rumor or a really stupid rumor.
• Did you know that there's a Rock Paper Scissors league, and Fox Sports will telecast the tournament in October?

Paramount, Lionsgate and MGM are launching a new premium cable channel next year that will likely strip Showtime of much of its theatrical movie content. Showtime was originally a sister company to Paramount until 2006 when Viacom president and CEO Les Moonves split the two companies into separate entities.

• Warner Brothers
• Lionsgate
• NBA
• Wine Library TV
• NHL
• CNet
• MGM

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]

Those of you who are suffering from extreme Stargate SG-1 withdrawal are not going to be happy with the news I am about to deliver. According to a report on Gateworld Stargate: Ark of Truth, which had originally been scheduled for release this fall, has now been pushed back until the first half of 2008. If that makes you unhappy then the announcement that the second film, Stargate: Continuum has been pushed back as well is going to downright make you depressed.

All day today, Boomerang is broadcasting cartoons about love and romance. You didn't forget it was Valentine's Day, did you? This is the day lovers exchange socks, shave their heads and carve a menagerie of mythical creatures out of frozen mayonnaise. Okay, that's not true, I'm just trying to start a new trend beyond all this boring "flowers and chocolate" nonsense.

At any rate, if you love yourself some cartoons, keep checking into Boomerang today for love-laced cartoons featuring the Looney Tunes characters, the Smurfs, Popeye, Top Cat, Speed Buggy, the Flintstones, 2 Stupid Dogs, Droopy, Tom and Jerry, and others. You can see the schedule here.

If you don't have Boomerang, you can always watch some of those same shorts over on the In2TV site.

He might be best remembered by television fans as the creator and writer of such shows as I Dream of Jeannie and The Patty Duke Show, but Sidney Sheldon also wrote for the theater and was a novelist as well, writing several over the years (and he started writing novels at age 50!), including The Other Side of Midnight, If Tomorrow Comes, Rage of Angels, Bloodline, and Master of the Game.

Besides I Dream of Jeannie and Patty Duke, he also wrote or created several other series, including Hart to Hart and Nancy, and wrote an episode of the Twilight Zone revival in the mid 80s. Movies he wrote or co-wrote include the Dean Martin/Jerry Lewis comedy Pardners, Easter Parade, The Buster Keaton Story, and The Bachelor and The Bobby Soxer.

Sheldon died this afternoon in Los Angeles from pneumonia.

It's almost impossible to find any Tex Avery cartoons on television anymore, which is exactly why God created the DVD. Some people might argue that Man created the DVD, not God, but if that's true, then how did God know Adam and Eve ate the Forbidden Fruit unless he watched it on DVD? And don't tell me that's the most idiotic thing you've ever heard -- I hear enough of that from the Bible publishers who refuse to accept my revisions to the Book of Genesis.

Here's some news to add on to our Holiday Loot spending guides we've been posting: Amazon is having a huge sale on FOX DVDs, some of them as much as 50% off. So now you can get those cool DVDs you asked someone to get you for Christmas but didn't get because someone got you socks or a McDonald's gift card instead.

For example, you can get the first season of Bones for only $24.97, which is 50% off the list price. A fan of Arrested Development? You can get the third season for only $18.00! You can also get seasons of The X-Files, M*A*S*H, Angel, and other titles. Of course, if you're already a fan of these shows you may have already bought them when they first came out. But I know a lot of people (like me) don't always buy the DVDs when they first go on sale. Unless it's the complete seasons of shows like The West Wing and The Twilight Zone, and then I go nutty.

Amazon always has discounts on their items, less than you'd pay in the store, but these prices are even bigger discounts than usual so it might be a good time to beef up your collection.

[via TVShowsOnDVD]

A few years ago I received a Hanna Barbera three-disc set of cartoon themes, comedy bits and sound effects. I have the content of all three albums on my iPod, which is quite entertaining when the iPod is on shuffle. After every few songs there will be a short clip of some wacky sound effect. Trust me, you've never heard "Smells Like Teen Spirit" until you've heard it followed by Fred Flintstone yelling "yabba dabba doo!"

I like cartoon music, that's my point. So this caught my interest, naturally. Scott Bradley was the musical composer for MGM animation, scoring Tom and Jerry cartoons and the works of Tex Avery. The first three-disc volume covers the 1950s and is limited to 3000 copies. If enough people show interest in the project, other volumes will follow, covering other decades. I suppose people like myself would love to have something like this, but I think even cartoonphiles have to admit that what made these soundtracks so great was seeing them paired up with the cartoons themselves. The next time you catch Tom and Jerry, pay close attention to the music: it stops, starts, takes weird detours, adds subtle gags to the scene, and twists and contorts to fit the action. Some of the most talented musicians in the business worked on those old cartoons, but I get the feeling that hearing the music by itself might leave one as half empty as watching the same cartoon with the mute button pressed.

[via Toon Zone]

The Sci-Fi Channel confirmed the other day that Stargate SG-1 has been canceled. But now comes word that MGM and producers are hoping that another network picks up the show. Ratings have dropped, but the show still gets around 2 million viewers a week.

MGM spokesman Jeff Pryor: "We do have plans. This is not the end of the Stargate franchise. This is just the end of [Stargate SG-1] on the Sci-Fi Channel."

But that quote just confuses me, because saying it's not the end of the Stargate "franchise" makes it sound like they might make a third Stargate show.

[via TV Tattle]

Sony Pictures and Comcast have teamed up to launch an on-demand network focused on horror films. Being someone who loves horror movies, I was excited about this news initially, but the more you read about it the less exciting this venture seems. The network, which will launch by Halloween and has no name as of yet, will be dedicated mostly to re-airing films from the vaults of Sony and MGM. That's fine and all, but most horror fans probably already own the movies in some capacity anyway. Sony and Comcast are aware of this, so they're hoping to sweeten the deal by doing a multi-platform launch, debuting the channel online at the same time it debuts on television (wireless will come later). The online portion of the new network will feature DVD-like extras for the real horror connoisseurs. One of the proposed wireless additions is "horror ringtones," which could actually be pretty cool. I'd love to have a ringtone of Freddy saying, "I'm your boyfriend now!" a la the first Nightmare on Elm Street. I guess I'm just weird that way.

[via TeevBlogger]

Joseph Barbera returning to Tom and Jerry to direct a brand new short got me thinking about all my favorite episodes of Tom and Jerry from the past. The famous duo starred in a ton of cartoons together, so I had to leave a few out. At any rate, here's five of my faves, friends. Grab a stick of dynamite and join in the fun: