TVSquad

Cartoon Network and Warner Horizon Television fired up the cameras in Toronto recently on the new live-action pilot, Unnatural History.

While it's easy to ask why another live action show is proceeding on the Cartoon Network, Unnatural History could be fun enough to delay your need for that explanation.

According to a network press release, we're dealing with an "action-packed blend of mystery and martial arts" here. Fortunately, there's no sign of Power Rangers masks or rubber monsters stalking Unnatural History.

When the San Diego Comic-Con opened its doors to allow every corner of television onto their floors, they weren't kidding. After seeing the roster of panels, I'm surprised the original panel from PBS's Washington Week didn't field questions from guys dressed in Transformer cosplay.

Apparently, Warner Brothers set up a panel for just about every television show that have in development including Patricia Heaton's new ABC sitcom The Middle, making it the most "fish out of water" selection for a panel at the geek confab.

And so did the geeks in attendance. The panel only drew around 75 attendees and studio heads ordered Heaton not to introduce the panel because the crowd was too small.

It seems like a no-brainer that television and Comic-Con would go together like peanut butter and jelly. But TV has actually been a bit slow to the game and viewed their presence at Comic-Con as something that goes together like peanut butter and regular butter (trust me, I've tried peanut butter and butter, and it's not good).

This year, studios have recognized the importance of the annual geek con-fab and are presenting more shows and panels than ever before. There is going to be more TV at the Con than you can shake a stick at, so don't forgot your shaking sticks.

Why so many? Variety reports that studios and networks are recognizing the buzz they can generate at the convention through electronic social networking and good ol' word-of-mouth by showcasing and premiering exclusive screenings of their shows.

No, they're not sending nuts, bolts or robot arms to Fox executive's doors. Instead, fans of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles are joining a creative campaign called "Sarah Connor Made Me Do It" to help save the show.

Here's the idea, thought up by our friends at io9.com: TSCC fans are being asked to take photos of themselves posing with products that sponsor the show and posting them on a Flickr group. io9 says they'll make sure Fox and Warner Bros. see the photos and feel the buying power of TSCC fans.

So if you drive a Dodge Ram or love stuffing your face with Whoppers and want to see a third season of TSCC, take a picture and upload it to the group.

The folks at our sister site Cinematical are working hard to give you news and reviews of the best -- and worst -- the silver screen has to offer. Here are some of their latest musings on the latest blockbusters, indies, and everything in between:

• You guys, I cannot take Valkyrie seriously. Seriously, who thought that making a movie in 2008 about Nazis starring Tom Cruise in an eye patch was a good idea? Anyway, Cinematical reviews Valkyrie here.
  
• Don't you love year-end list time? Movies, actors and trends; Cinematical examines the hottest of 2008.
• Okay, don't freak out yet. Warner Bros. is still planning on releasing The Watchmen in March, but a judge has ruled that FOX has at least distribution rights. Read the latest on the battle for Watchmen here.
• If you have to take out classics like Psycho and the original Friday the 13th and only choose movies from 1990 to the present, what would you put as the best horror movies? Cinematical has the top 25.
• Because it's the day after Christmas, I present to you without further comment, drunk Jeff Goldblum. Happy holidays!

When I heard that TMZ had been renewed for two more years, I thought, yeah, I get that. In my neck of the woods, the show airs at 7:30 p.m. every weeknight. Tabloid TV has gotten to the point where it's no longer relegated to a 3 a.m. timeslot. Now it airs at a respectable hour, which has somehow made the show respectable, too.

So what IS it about the rich, famous and screwed-up that we find so fascinating? Other than the fact that it's just plain fun to gawk at these folks, I've come up with a few reasons why TMZ is one of the best things to enter our lives in years:

1. TMZ shows us that even though the rest of us might be struggling out here, we're still way better off than the people on TMZ's radar. That's comforting in a weird way.

Starting this spring, Warner Bros. will only release DVDs high definition DVDs on Blu-ray. That's a lot of DVDs only on Blu-ray for you HD DVD people (although Warner Bros. will continue to release DVDs in both formats until the end of May). Kevin Tsujihara, the President of Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group, says that the choice to go exclusively Blu-Rray is for the consumers: "Consumers have clearly chosen Blu-ray, and we believe that recognizing this preference is the right step in making this great home entertainment experience accessible to the widest possible audience."

My friend Wild Bill sent me news that Jonny Quest, the Hanna-Barbera series about the titular lad who accompanies his scientist father on wild adventures, is being made into a live-action movie. The series, much like The Flintstones, The Jetsons and Top Cat, aired during primetime when it first aired in the '60s. New versions of Jonny Quest also popped up in the '80s and '90s.

Like the upcoming Speed Racer flick from the Wachowski brothers, reports so far say the movie will be "family friendly." The movie will serve as an origin story explaining how Jonny's bodyguard Roger "Race" Bannon and Dr. Benton Quest's adopted son Hadji join the family.

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.

If you've been having trouble sleeping at night because you're concerned about what might become of Notes from the Underbelly creator Stacy Traub if her show doesn't make it, you can stop worrying. Traub has signed a two-year deal with Warner Bros. Television that will allow her to develop new series should Notes from the Underbelly not get picked up for another season. Otherwise, Traub will remain with the show as a show runner and executive producer. As far as what new shows she would develop, Traub says she likes shows with "flawed characters." She's also written for Kitchen Confidential and Spin City.

Notes from the Underbelly is about a young couple who become pregnant and must settle into a more mature lifestyle while simultaneously hearing advice from meddlesome family and friends. It will air on ABC.

When people talk about the greatest voice actors in cartoons, Mel Blanc is always at the top of the list, and for good reason: he solely provided the voice of the majority of the Looney Tunes characters, save for Elmer Fudd, who was voiced by Arthur Q. Bryan. His first real contribution was providing the voice of Porky Pig, a gig originally given to an actor named Joe Dougherty whose genuine stutter made it impossible for him to control the character's voice.

Blanc also worked in radio before and during his time at Warner Bros., working with such legends as Jack Benny, Abbot and Costello, and Burns and Allen. It was radio that helped him to create solid but unseen characters, a talent that carried over beautifully into animation.

After the jump is a clip from the Tonight Show featuring the man himself being interviewed by Johnny Carson. It's rather bittersweet to see these two great comedic minds on screen together, and to think of what the world of entertainment lost when they each passed away.

[via Frederator]

In 1963, shortly before the Warner Bros. Animation Studio closed down, Friz Freleng created a pilot for ABC called Philbert. The series, a mix of animation and live-action, featured actor William Schallert (The Patty Duke Show, The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, Gunsmoke, Get Smart) as a newspaper cartoonist who lives with Philbert, the character from his comic. ABC never picked up the pilot, so it was repackaged as a theatrical short instead. If you own the Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 3, then you own the theatrical version of Philbert, which is included with the set.

Animation historian Jerry Beck provided audio commentary for the short, and has posted a rough clip of the original television pilot on Cartoon Brew. The pilot was directed by Richard Donner (Superman, The Goonies). Freleng directed the animation. I've also placed it here for your enjoyment. It definitely has a very "'60s sitcom" feel to it, and it's neat to see the cartoon character holding and interacting with objects in the real world.

In2TV recently added a Looney Tunes channel to its ever-growing collection of TV shows. My first thought was, "hey, that's pretty awesome." I mean, it is awesome. There's a whole bunch of great shorts to pick from, including the very first appearances of Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck. This is another chance for people to see these cartoons, and that's a good thing.

However, as someone who adores these old classics, I have to say there are better ways to view these cartoons. Refrederator is an excellent video podcast that features a ton of old cartoons from Warner Bros. and other studios that you can download, and it's always worth digging through Archive.org for public domain cartoons that can also be downloaded to your computer.

My generation grew up with GI Joe, Voltron, Thundercats and He-Man, so we're not exactly strangers to action-based cartoons, but we also had reruns of Looney Tunes shorts and early Hanna-Barbera (Tom and Jerry, The Jetsons, The Flintstones, etc). These days, it seems cartoons are all about action, and those old cartoons have either disappeared completely, or have become more difficult to find (Boomerang excluded). It's quite a shame, because my own nieces and nephew, regardless of being generations removed from the likes of Bugs Bunny and Tom and Jerry, absolutely love those old cartoons. Sure, they still love Avatar: The Last Airbender and Shaolin Showdown, but they also know what funny is.

Nevertheless, someone, somewhere felt that Bugs and his pals needed to cash in on the popularity of anime and anime-inspired action cartoons, and the result was Loonatics Unleashed, a cartoon set in the future, featuring descendants of the classic Looney Tunes characters with super powers and crazy gadgets and weapons. The first season will be out on DVD this March, and if you see your kids walking towards it in the store, I suggest you kick them towards the classic Golden Collection DVD sets instead.

What's New Scooby-Doo? was an updated version of the classic Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? that stuck with the basic premise of the gang solving spooky mysteries, but with new gadgets and contemporary music to give everything a more modern feel. The only voice actors who remained from the original series were Casey Kasem as Shaggy and Frank Welker as Fred (who also took over the voice of Scooby-Doo after Don Messick passed away in 1997). All other characters were voiced by different people. The animation was done by Warner Bros, giving it a more fluid look than the Hanna-Barbera original. The first season of the cartoon, which ran for just under three years on the WB, will be released on DVD on February 20, 2007. Fans of the original series probably don't care too much about this modern version, but younger kids seem to like it. Besides, it's not like people my age aren't more familiar with the Ralph Bakshi version of Mighty Mouse than the original Terrytoons version. Things get updated for new generations, that's how this nutty industry works sometimes.

[via Toon Zone]