Warner Bros. Online, a division of Time Warner Entertainment Company, and Brilliant Digital Entertainment, an Internet content and tools developer, have announced the formation of a co-production and Internet distribution relationship to launch a co-branded 3-D animation channel, the MULTIPATH MOVIE CHANNEL, on Time Warner's Entertaindom Web site at www.Entertaindom.com.
Joseph Szadkowski reports on Sega's new Dreamcast system, the latest technology to hit the gaming world and put Sega back on top.
San Francisco-based Protozoa, with DotComix, the animation portal atwww.dotcomix.com, has produced a 3D animated rock video for Internetbroadcast with Garry Trudeau and his JT Thudpucker character from theDOONESBURY comic strip for NetAid, a UN sponsored global crusade againstpoverty. The video features JT singing a NetAid anthem, and debuts onWednesday, September 29 at www.doonesbury.com. Trudeau has integrated thepremiere of the Internet video within the plot of his daily Doonesbury
Bothel, Washington-based Humongous Entertainment, creators of children'ssoftware, and Nickelodeon are releasing BLUE'S TREASURE HUNT, a Blue'sClues CD-ROM learning adventure for preschoolers. Based on Nickelodeon'sprimetime special that aired in March 1999, BLUE'S TREASURE HUNT followsBLUE'S ABC TIME ACTIVITIES, BLUE'S BIRTHDAY and BLUE'S 123 TIME ACTIVITIES.In BLUE'S TREASURE HUNT, kids aged three to six team up with Steve and hisBlue's Clues pals to help search for the treasure chest that holds the keys
Lucas Learning Ltd. has released STAR WARS: PIT DROIDS, a STAR WARS EPISODEONE-based puzzle game. Players must direct an endless row of pit droidstoward appropriate goals, and prevent them from falling off the edge of theworld. Players can play the puzzles at random, or work from location tolocation to achieve a high score. There are eight game levels, six gameenvironments, and more than 300 puzzles. The game is compatible with bothPC and Mac, and has a retail price of US$29.99.
MIP INTERACTIVE INDUSTRY SPOTLIGHT will debut the week of September 20, 1999 atwww.mipinteractive.com. The Spotlight will be bi-monthly and the on linesession will last one business week. Each Spotlight will explore specificprogram genres or territories with articles, executive viewpoints,programming highlights, special e-mail sections, bulletin boards,statistics and logistics, reviews and interviews, and more. The firstSpotlight will feature "The Science of Programming Children's Blocks."
According to Reuters, Patrick Naughton, 34, of Seattle, Washington,executive vice president of products at Infoseek Corp., the Internet mediasite which is part of Disney's Go Network, was arrested on Thursday,September 16, 1999 on the Santa Monica Pier, an amusement park area in WestLos Angeles. The arrest came after he met a female FBI agent who hadarranged to meet him there, according to Thom Mrozek, a spokesman for theU.S. Attorney's Office in Los Angeles. He is charged with interstate travel
A website devoted to Walt Disney has been launched atdisney.go.com/disneyatoz/waltdisney/home.html. The site coversDisney's entire career, and features clips from Disney's animated andlive-action films, as well as family photos and home movies.
San Francisco, California-based Mondo Media, Inc. has announced a one-year deal with Netscape Communications, a subsidiary of America Online, Inc., to provide Netscape's Netcenter Web site with two weekly animated shows which will be presented under the banner of MONDO MINI SHOWS. LIKE, NEWS is written and directed by Don Asmussen, a regular cartoonist for TIME and GEORGE magazines, and features a sarcastic teenager with a nose ring who "interviews" newsmakers such as Saddam Hussein and Al Gore.
Tens of thousands of gameboys in the US and Canada flocked to retail outlets early on the morning of Thursday, September 9 as the Sega Dreamcast videogame console was made available for the first time in North America. As Sega expected, sales for the console during the first 24-hours set a new record for biggest 24-hours in entertainment retail sales with a total of $97,904,618.09 (about 500,000 players at a retail price of $199). The previous record was held by STAR WARS: THE PHANTOM MENACE, with its $28 million boxoffice on its first day of release in May 1999.
The Harvey Entertainment Company has selected New York-based Xceed, Inc., amarketing and communications company that specializes in interactiveservices, to develop a family oriented portal to exploit Harvey's brands onthe Web. Harvey Entertainment owns the rights to an extensive list ofwell-known cartoon characters, including Casper, the Friendly Ghost, RichieRich, Baby Huey, Wendy the Witch and Hot Stuff. Potential programming forthe portal include Harvey's classic animation library, stories from Harvey
New York-based studioNEXT.com Corporation and Voyager Entertainment, Inc.have announced a partnership to bring the Japanese television series, STARBLAZERS, to the Internet. The series first appeared on US television in1979, and lasted for three seasons. The story of STAR BLAZERS is about agroup of heroic voyagers who, in order to save Earth from invasion, journeyon the starship Argo to battle the diabolical forces of Gamilon, the evilstellar empire. "There has been further interest to bring back STAR BLAZERS
The first episode ofSATURDAY NIGHT FRED, a CartoonNetwork.com Web Premiere Toon, debuted onAugust 30, 1999. The cartoon features clips from the 1963 season of THEFLINTSTONES that have been re-edited, with new voice-overs, to create newstories featuring Fred, Barney, and the rest of the Flintstones cast fromthat year. Viewers can either download the show as a QuickTime file, orview it as a streaming file. In both cases, it is possible to interact withthe show by replying to questions whose answers determine the direction the
Broderbund has released TOTALLY MAD, a seven CD-ROM compendium thatdocuments the history of MAD MAGAZINE. Included are the entire run ofissues up to 1998 from almost 50 years of MAD's history, along with videoclips of staff and artists, songs and animated cartoons from the currentsyndicated TV show including Spy vs. Spy and 14 animated marginals drawn bySergio Aragones. Back issues can be browsed page by page, or searched forarticles on specific topics. This is a collector's dream. Requires Windows95/98. Retail price is US$69.95.
Sega DreamCast, the superconsole with a built-in 56K modem (for internetgame play) that will bring the most-advanced and realistic video gameplayever developed to consumers when it is launched on September 9, 1999, hasset a record with 300,000 pre-orders, surpassing the previous record of100,000 held by Sony PlayStation. The new 128-bit, Internet-ready SegaDreamCast is fifteen times more powerful than a Sony PlayStation, ten timesmore powerful than a Nintendo 64 and has four times the graphics processing
MTV and sister Viacom unit Simon & Schuster Interactive are producing sixCD-ROM (for PC and Mac) and PlayStation entertainment titles for MTV'sDARIA over the next five years. The first title, DARIA'S SICK, SAD LIFEPLANNER will ship this October for the PC. DARIA, which debuted in March of1997, spun off Beavis and Butt-Head's only female "friend" into her ownshow. The series is about Daria Morgendorffer, a smart and sardonicteenager blessed with an uncanny ability to turn potential disaster to her
New York-based MTV Networks Online, a unit of ViacomInc., has formed MTV Interactive (MTVi), a new Internet-only music company,which will include music super-brands vh1.com, mtv.com and sonicnet.com.Nicholas Butterworth, former president of SonicNet, was named president andCEO of MTVi, and will report directly to Fred Seibert, president of MTVNetworks Online and Chairman of MTVi. "We think there is great value informing a company that includes three of the Internet's best music sites,"
Magicians Penn & Teller willguest star on the September 10th episode of SHO.com's WHIRLGIRL, Showtime'sanimated online series about a sexy, 21st century cyber-heroine. "We sawPenn & Teller's wise-guy approach to magic and their cult-like appeal as aperfect fit for the WhirlGirl audience," says WHIRLGIRL creator DavidWilliams of New York-based Visionary Media, producer of the series."Besides, who else but Penn & Teller could pull off the'Throwing-Knives-at-a-Super-Heroine-On-A-Roulette-Wheel' stunt?" The
On Friday, September 3 a cartoon by Adam Sandler will premiere onwww.adamsandler.com, the official Adam Sandler website. Little is knownabout the film, and Sandler's website refers to it only as a "surprise,"but the title is said to be THE PEEPER. Adam Sandler was a cast member ofSATURDAY NIGHT LIVE from 1991-1995, and star of recent hits such as BIGDADDY and THE WATERBOY. He has also had several hit comedy albums such as"They're All Gonna Laugh at You." His best known song is "The HanukkahSong."
SHOWTIME will launch a newadvertising campaign for the network's exclusive, weekly online seriesWHIRLGIRL, which premiered on SHO.com in February 1999. The new campaign,designed in-house by SHOWTIME's Red Group led by Showtime Networks'Executive Vice President, Creative & Marketing Len Fogge, will debut inprint, outdoor, and on the world wide web in August. Valued atapproximately US$1 million, the campaign will run through October 1999. Togenerate greater awareness of WhirlGirl, the network will target national
Nick Jr.'s dog Blue has taken pre-schoolers, and their parents, by storm. Judith Cockman reviews three Blue's Clues CD-Rom interactive games: ABC Time Activities, Blue's Birthday Adventure and Blue's 1,2,3 Time Activities.
French company Infogrames Entertainment has released 'Bugs Bunny Lost inTime' for Sony PlayStation. In this video game Bugs encounters old nemeses,including Elmer Fudd, Yosemite Sam, Marvin the Martian, Witch Hazel, Rockyand Mugsy, Merlin the Wizard, the Bull, and Daffy Duck in settings rangingfrom the Stone Age and Pirate eras all the way forward to Dimension X.Suggested retail price is US$39.95.
Burbank, California-based Renegade Animation has animated a cute catcharacter as one of the office assistants for the newly released MicrosoftOffice 2000. The assistant is the intelligence center of the Office helpsystem. Users can ask it questions in their own words and it provides help.The cat was rendered with cel animation, and Darrell Van Citters directed.FunArts Software, a company that creates and produces office assistants forMicrosoft, commissioned the animation from Renegade.
Activision, Inc. has acquired Elsinore Multimedia, a software developmentcompany that designed the Cabela's Big Game Hunter series for Activision'sHead Games Publishing unit. As a result of the acquisition, which wascompleted on June 29, 1999, Elsinore has become a wholly owned subsidiaryof Activision. Based in Hollywood, Florida, Elsinore Multimedia is asoftware development company that produces products for the Windowsplatform. In addition to the Cabela's Big Game Hunter titles, the company
Glen Cove, New York-based Acclaim Entertainment, Inc. has announced resultsfor its fiscal 1999 third quarter ended May 31, 1999. The Company reportedthird quarter net revenues of $80.0 million, an increase of 9% comparedwith $73.2 million in the third quarter of the prior year. During thequarter, Acclaim shipped All Star Baseball 2000 for the Nintendo 64 andGame Boy Color, Bust-A-Move '99 for Nintendo 64 and PlayStation,Bust-A-Move 4 and WWF Attitude for Game Boy Color, and Machines and South
