The canceled Comedy Central series’ feature length finale is a low-budget direct-to-video effort designed to provide its fans with, as the cliché goes, “closure” and to say farewell once and for all to its cast of animated archetypes… maybe. “Buying the DVD is a vote for the show” returning, its producers say. “Besides, there’s a part of the movie you can’t download that will change your life.”

Waking Sleeping Beauty is a warts-and-all look behind the scenes recounting the rebound of Disney animation from its dark post-Walt days to its Lion King/Beauty and the Beast peak of 2D glory. Released by the studio’s own Disney Enterprises division, WSB is way more candid than any in-house company history has any right to be.

Ralph Bakshi

Cartoon rebel Ralph Bakshi was the guest of honor at Soho’s Animazing Gallery for the opening of “The Works” – not the creations of his decades in animation, but the collage paintings he’s dedicated himself to since turning his back on his former medium.

After the emotional depth of Kung Fu Panda, the lazy humor of Monsters vs. Aliens was a major disappointment, and as a result I wasn’t holding out much hope for DreamWorks’ new How to Train Your Dragon. Guess what? I was wrong.

Think that guy sitting across from you on the subway looks ugly? What if he had two heads? Or horns and a forked tongue, or maybe was a fish from the waist up? And there were plenty more like him all over town? Then you’d probably be living in the imaginary New York City where Ugly Americans, Comedy Central’s new animated series takes place. The concept: “Newcomers,” a bizarre assortment of monsters and fantastical creatures have become an accepted part of the population, and a small government bureaucracy, the “Department of Integration” tries to help them fit into society. It’s the brainchild (and by the way, bodiless brains are among the Newcomers) of one Devin Clark…

New York’s Society of Illustrators has great shows focusing on great artists and genres – all of which I read about but never get around to seeing; dammit Joe, get thee ass to East 63^rd Street just off Lex and check the place out. (www.societyillustrators.org)

What finally lured me through the doors of the Society’s classy little townhouse: their March 10^th show of animated commercials and music videos. Can I say ‘cutting-edge,’ or has that cliché passed its sell-through date? I’ll say it anyway; the stuff screened had a very high “wow, that was amazing” quotient.

Want to do something nice for kids in Bed-Stuy Brooklyn and Sierra Leone Africa at the same time – and come away with a beautiful piece of art for your troubles? It’ll cost you a few well-worth-it bucks…

Blue Sky’s David LaMattina and Chad Walker are the creators of Brownstones to Red Dirt, a documentary centering on a pen pal program linking kids an ocean apart who have the odds stacked against them: at-risk Brooklyn sixth graders and African war orphans. You can learn more about the film at http://www.brownstonestoreddirt.com/

It’s a neat trick for a small Irish studio to snag an Oscar nomination for Best Animated Feature and go head to head with Pixar, Disney, Henry Selick and Wes Anderson, not to mention beat out Hayao Miyazaki’s Ponyo for a slot.

It’s even more impressive when it’s the first time you’ve directed anything longer than a few commercials or TV segments. But that’s what Tomm Moore of Ireland’s Cartoon Saloon has done with Secret of the Kells - and on a budget that’s probably less than what any of the other films spent promoting themselves.

Beyond South Park and Dr. Katz, not much has stuck to Comedy Central’s cartoon wall. Drawn Together came close with three seasons. Lil’ Bush vanished with Bush II’s presidency, TV Funhouse came and went awfully fast back in Y2K – and anybody even remember Shorties Watching Shorties or Kid Notorious? Well, next month Comedy Central tries one more time with Ugly Americans, a higher-than high concept show that just might stick around for a bit.

How did this film manage to snag an Oscar spot alongside films that cost over $100 million dollars with $50 million marketing and promotion budgets? How did it manage to beat out DreamWorks, or even the deity of animation, Miyazaki himself?