TOPIX/Mad Dog has completed the animation for "Stick People," a :30 spot,
with a :15 lift. The colorful, playful spot, which promotes Crayola Color
Wipeoffs, removable water-based magic markers, for TBWA/Chiat Day (Toronto,
ON) and Binney & Smith Canada (Markham, ON), rolled out throughout Canada
March 15th and will continue to air through the end of the year. In it, a
boy's stick figure drawings come to life. "With Photoshop I drew the
figures, frame by frame, so that it's a bit like cel animation, but not

The adventures of Toucan Sam continue in a 30 second spot made by SimEx
Digital Studios for Leo Burnett/Chicago. The spot, entitled "Frog/Idol,"
promotes Kellogg's Marshmallow Blasted Froot Loops.


"Frog/Idol" is a continuation of last summer's "Marshmallow Temple/Extreme
Adventure." In it, Toucan Sam falls through a temple floor into an
underwater cavern. There he discovers an enormous frog idol, and swims into
its mouth. Once he surfaces, a multitude of frog marshmallows jump towards
him.

A team from HELIUM PRODUCTIONS, INC. and TWO HEADED MONSTER has created a new computer animated spot for Starburst which immerses the viewer in a simulated water environment designed for absolute believability. The animators used SGI Octanes, Side Effects' Prisms, and Pixar's Photorealistic Renderman software to create the realistic physics of water splashing and swirling. At Helium Productions, John Scheafer was creative director. At Two Headed Monster Christopher Willoughby was creative director and Ruth Schiller produced.

Marketing and communication company Pittard Sullivan (Culver City, CA)
engaged SIMEX (Santa Monica, CA) to help create a new full-motion, computer
animated logo to accompany all of King World's programs. The animated logo
features a star burst animated in Alias|Wavefront PowerAnimator. From
Pittard Sullivan, Reid Thompson directed, and Jim Capp and Debra Kaufman
produced. Nick Bates was the visual effects supervisor and George Mendoza
was the executive producer at SimEx Digital Studios.

The San Francisco office of CURIOUS PICTURES has created a pool of five
spots for Round Table Pizza through Wieden & Kennedy (Portland, OR). There
are four 15-second spots - "Steam Dance," "Rooster," "Full," and "Freedom
of Speech" - along with a 30-second spot, "Tornado." The commercials were
directed by Michael Bade and designed by Seattle-based alternative
cartoonist Peter Bagge (HATE), marking his first foray into both animation
and television. Featuring various characters, the commercials guarantee the

San Francisco-based RADIUM has animated more than a half-dozen 3D
computer-generated building block characters for "Toys," a national
television spot promoting Wrigley's Juicy Fruit Gum. Conceived by BBDO
(Chicago, IL), the 30-second spot revolves around a group of toy figures
that spring to life in pursuit of the sweet taste of Juicy Fruit. The
commercial blends 3D animation, 2D effects, live-action and cel animation.
Radium created the tiny plastic blok characters as 3D elements. Afterwards,

THE INK TANK has produced "Hockey Monkey," a mixed-media music video for
Nickelodeon's KA-BLAM!, which will air this spring. The 1-minute, 30-second
piece follows a group of live-action adults who are in search of a monkey.
Unbeknownst to them, the animated monkey is in an ice hockey match with a
group of cut-out animated kids. For The Ink Tank, R.O. Blechman was
creative director; Brian O'Connell, executive producer/co-director; Jesse
Gordon, live-action director/cameraman; Maciek Albrecht, cut-out

Hollywood-based CLASS-KEY CHEW-PO COMMERCIALS, in conjunction with Ogilvy & Mather, has created the newest Cocoa Pebbles cereal spot starring Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble. The 30-second commercial, directed by Raul Garcia, features a traditionally-drawn Fred and Barney placed in a computer-generated 3D video game environment, and eventually jumping into a live-action setting. The video game environment and other characters were created in Maya NT software. The 2D and 3D live action were combined using both Flame and Toon Boom software.

Chicago, Illinois-based TRICKY PICTURES has produced a 20-second main title animation sequence for Nickelodeon's I AM POEM series. In addition, Belgian director and animator Dirk van de Vondel, represented by Tricky Pictures, was selected from more than 200 candidates to create a visual adaptation of "I Used To Be," one of the 15 poems in the series. Produced by Nickelodeon's Creative Lab to serve as interstitial programming, I AM POEM is a new series of short-form films based on original kids' poetry.

New York-based SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION created a 10-second animated logo for design company Number 17 New York, which will be shown at the head of all future SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE (SNL) theatrical releases. It will debut later this year with the release of SUPERSTAR which features the neurotic Catholic schoolgirl Mary Catherine Gallagher, who is portrayed by Molly Shannon on NBC's long-running sketch comedy series. The opening is a dreamy and abstract representation of nightime in New York City with lights of different speeds, scales and densities resolving through to the SNL Studios Logo.