Toothy fiends, giant cats, exploding pigeons, screaming vegetables, and hungry mailboxes -- your television will never be the same. Independent animator Amy Winfrey's popular web series MAKING FIENDS is now also a full length television series on the Nicktoons network. MAKING FIENDS debuted on Nicktoons in October 2008, and is currently the channel's highest rated original program. Episodes air every Saturday at 12 p.m. ET. A special marathon featuring all the television episodes will be airing on February 15 from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. ET.

Annecy 2009 Call for Projects
Deadline: February 15, 2009

The Creative Focus is strengthening its support to projects for animation films At Annecy 2009. Discovering and promoting projects for animated films has always been central to the Creative Focus and has become a top priority.

After a very promising start in 2008, Annecy is renewing its four Calls for Projects in 2009, adapted especially to the different categories concerned:

ASIFA U.K. President Pat Raine Webb died Friday. Webb was an AWN contributor, animation festival regular, freelance researcher, writer and programmer in animated film with more than 30 years in the animation industry.

Webb passed away on Friday on a London bus of a severe heart attack, and is survived by her longtime companion Margot Grimwood.

The International Academy of Television Arts & Sciences announced the winners of the 36th International Emmy Awards Monday night at a gala event held in the New York Hilton, hosted by award-winning stage and screen actor Roger Bart, currently leading in Mel Brooks' new Broadway musical, YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN.

Longtime Sesame Workshop producer Arlene Sherman has died. Sherman spent more than 30 years with the organization, starting out as a Production Coordinator and moving up to Co-Executive Producer for SESAME STREET.

AWN has learned that GLAGO'S GUEST, the latest short from Walt Disney Animation Studios and helmed by BOLT co-director Chris Williams, will not play with BOLT when it opens.

The short, experimenting in smoke and hair animation and the studio's first stereoscopic 3-D CG short, had long been scheduled to play in front of BOLT, coming November 21, but Disney said Wednesday it was pulling GLAGO'S GUEST.

The 2007 Academy Award Winner for Best Animated Short PETER & THE WOLF arrives on DVD December 9 from Magnolia Home Ent.

Based on the classic musical composition PETER AND THE WOLF by Sergei Prokofiev, this spellbinding new interpretation combines stop-frame model animation and state-of-the-art digital technology, along with a new orchestra recording to create a magical world in which little boys can find the strength and courage to overcome their fears.

DIVE OLLY DIVE!, the environmentally-conscious preschool series from Taffy Ent. and Mike Young Productions U.K. (MYP), has added two new co-producers, Atlantyca Ent. and Studio 100, as it begins production on a second season. Twenty-six new half hour episodes (52x11) aimed at preschool audiences, have been ordered by Taffy Ent. following continuous great ratings for season one and new international licensing deals.

Aimee McCammon, general manager of Park Road Post Production will give a keynote at this year's AnimfxNZ conference.

Additional speakers include Jeff Barnes (CafeFX), Laurel Walker (Universal), Dan Sarto (ANIMATION WORLD NETWORK), and Carolyn Giardina (THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER), who bring additional international perspectives on VFX and Animation to the conference.

DIVE OLLY DIVE!, the environmentally-conscious preschool series from Taffy Ent. and Mike Young Productions, will be released on DVD in the U.K., Germany, Italy, Spain, Norway, Sweden, Belgium, The Netherlands, Luxembourg, Portugal, South Africa, Brazil and other selected territories by Universal Pictures International Ent. in 2009.