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ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE - ISSUE 4.8 - NOVEMBER 1999

Television

Plympton's I Married A Strange Person Premieres On Cinemax. Bill Plympton's second animated feature film, I Married A Strange Person, had its television premiere on the cable television network Cinemax on October 22, 1999 at 8 pm. The film is about a husband who discovers his thoughts become reality. It premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 1997, and was featured in Dramatic Competition at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival. The film was named Best Theatrical Film at the World Animation Celebration in February 1998, and was awarded the Grand Prize for Feature Films at the 1998 Annecy Animation Festival. Plympton is well-known for his award-winning shorts such as Your Face and Nose Hair. His first feature was The Tune.

Roughnecks: Starship Troopers. © Adelaide Productions, Inc.

Starship Troopers Falls Behind Schedule. Sony Pictures Family Entertainment's Roughnecks: Starship Troopers has fallen behind schedule. Although the show is currently in syndication by BKN (Bohbot Kids Network), only nine out of forty episodes have been completed and several episodes have already been repeated with many more repeats expected. Burbank, California-based Flat Earth Productions opted out of its fifteen episode production contract after completing only three episodes because they felt the schedule with the budget was overly ambitious. Valencia, California-based Foundation Imaging remains as one of the original production companies, and Sony has also contracted Phoenix, Arizona-based Rainbow Studios and Glendale, California-based Hyperimage to help with the project. Although the human characters on the show are animated using time-saving motion-capture technology, the bugs, robots, vehicles, and environments are all created with CGI, and the process is proving to be a difficult match for a budget-limited television show. Historically, science fiction television shows have been prone to problems caused by schedule demands and budget restrictions. For example, the producers of the original live-action Star Trek series struggled throughout its three seasons to deliver episodes on time. Because of its ambitious nature and anticipated high quality, there was a good buzz for Roughnecks: Starship Troopers among fans.

Salsa Acquires Gogwana. Paris, France-based Salsa Distribution has acquired the Latin American television distribution rights to the half-hour television special Gogwana. Produced by London-based AARGH! Animation Ltd. for S4C, and directed by Deiniol Morris, Gogwana is based on The Gogs, the Stone Age family depicted in the claymation television series. In the special, after an earthquake destroys the Gogs' cave, the family goes in search of a new home, and, along the way, encounters pygmies, dinosaur air-balloons, and pygmy-piloted pterodactyls. Earlier this year, Gogwana was nominated for a BAFTA award as best animated film, and more recently won the best film of the official competition award at Brazil's ANIMA MUNDI `99.

J.J. Sedelmaier's Final TV Funhouse Aired On SNL Season Premier. Heston, animation director J.J. Sedelmaier's final TV Funhouse segment for Saturday Night Live, aired Saturday, October 2 on the comedy show's season premier, which was hosted by comedian Jerry Seinfeld. Sedelmaier's final vignette, which concludes his three-year collaboration with writer Robert Smigel, lampooned the NRA's pro-gun position by using real audio of NRA president, actor Charlton Heston, addressing Congress combined with dialogue from his Planet Of The Apes movies and The Ten Commandments, in which he played Moses. While J.J. Sedelmaier Productions, which is based in White Plains, New York, will no longer create the animated Saturday Night Live TV Funhouse segments on a weekly basis, Sedelmaier says he will continue to collaborate with writer Robert Smigel on special projects such as an Ambiguously Gay Duo comic book, based on the award winning TV Funhouse Batman and Robin parody. The comic book will be published as an insert in the December 1999 issue of Playboy Magazine. Sedelmaier will also remain available for individual TV Funhouse projects. "Working with Robert on Saturday Night Live has been a great experience in terms of the creative content and the notoriety we've gained," said Sedelmaier, "but the demands of running the studio, and my fear that many in the commercial industry will think it's all we do, made the decision for me. I've spent eight years building an animation studio that prides itself on not having any one specific style and I don't want anything to jeopardize our hard-won reputation."

A dismembered spirit hunts for a new head in The Night of the Headless Horseman. © 1999 Fox Broadcasting Company.

Fox Set To Air Halloween Special. The Night Of The Headless Horseman, an hour-long animated special, aired on Fox on Thursday, October 28, at 8 pm. Featuring the voices of Luke Perry (Buffy The Vampire Slayer), William H. Macy (Fargo), and Tia Carrere (Wayne's World), the special, directed by Trent Di Giulio, is a Fox Television Studios production with Cinematek Productions, Dallas, Texas-based Computed Animation Technology (CAT) and Wimberley, Texas-based Locomotion Studios using performance (motion-capture) 3D animation. It was written by John Shirley (The Crow). The special, like the upcoming live-action Tim Burton film, Sleepy Hollow, an upcoming live-action TV movie, The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow, and half of Disney's video re-release, The Adventures Of Ichabod And Mr. Toad, is based on the Washington Irving short story, The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow.

See "Horsing Around With Vicon 8" in the Technology section of the news for more information about the production of this show.

Cartoon Network Auctions Off Space Ghost Ending. Whoever wanted to know how the cliffhanger ending of the October 15, 1999 episode of Space Ghost: Coast To Coast ended had to win the auction that the Cartoon Network held on Friday, October 15 to Monday, October 18. Cartoon Network auctioned off the last page of that episode's script, which was not part of the broadcast episode, to benefit Clowns Without Borders. The auction was held at www.ebay.com. At the end of the episode, which guest stars comedian Steven Wright, Space Ghost and cast find themselves falling victim to replicating space pods. Clowns Without Borders, based in Barcelona, Spain, is "a humanitarian organization of international [scope], formed by clowns and artists of all the arts, that intends to improve the living conditions of people, especially children and youth, in refugee camps all over the world."

South Park Creators Celebrate Monty Python. Matt Stone and Trey Parker, the creators of Comedy Central's South Park, have received permission to sample copyrighted Monty Python work for use in It's The Monty Python Story. The animated special will celebrate the 30th anniversary of the BBC comedy series Monty Python's Flying Circus, which was created by Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Michael Palin, Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Terry Gilliam (the lone American in the group, who did the animation). The special will include a spoof of the famous "Dead Parrot Sketch" entitled "The Dead Friend Sketch" with South Park's Cartman as John Cleese, Kyle as Michael Palin and Kenny as the parrot. It will also include other classic Python routines, interviews and newly written skits performed by Cleese, Palin, Jones and Gilliam. The special is being produced for England's BBC, but an airdate has not yet been released. It's too bad that Terry Gilliam cannot be convinced, despite the urgings of some of his ex-Python colleagues, to do the animation for something like this.

ITV Orders More Storykeepers. United Kingdom's ITV Network Centre has commissioned a second series of 13 episodes of the animated series The Storykeepers from Dublin, Ireland-based Monster Productions, an animation studio and distribution company formed in 1995 by former management and artists from the Don Bluth studios. The new series, produced by Shepherd Films, and distributed by Monster Distributes, will be delivered in Spring 2001 for broadcast on Sunday mornings. The new series, which is a prequel to the existing series, is set in AD 8, and features Old Testament stories within an adventure context. The series was created and written by Andrew Melrose, who co-created the original series. It was launched at MIPCOM, but has already been bought by Ireland's RTE and Italy's Mediaset. The first series of The Storykeepers was completed in March 1997 and has been a big success on video as well as on television. Two feature length films, The Easter Storykeepers and The Christmas Storykeepers, have also been born from this franchise.

Josh McGrath is Max Steel. © & TM 1999 SPFE/API. Courtesy of Warner Bros.

Kids' WB Orders Max Steel. Kids' WB! has ordered 13 episodes of Max Steel, a new 3D CGI animated action-adventure half-hour series from Sony Pictures Family Entertainment (SPFE) which is set to debut in January 2000. Set in the fictitious suburban city of Del Oro Bay, it centers around Max Steel, a young international secret agent who was the product of a bio-technical accident which infused him with nano-technology giving him bionic abilities. The teenage hi-tech hero is dedicated to protecting the Earth by fighting the most dangerous and sinister mercenary organization, DREAD, and its goal of world domination. Max, who may very well hold the fate of the world in his bionically enhanced hands, lives a double life. His friends know him as Josh McGrath, a typical college student, with a passion for extreme sports, but he secretly travels the world battling evil as Max Steel. The series will be completely CGI, and the cast will include Christian Campbell as Max Steel; Jacob Vargas as Berto; Shannon Kenny as Rachel; Lauren Tom as Laura; Chi McBride as Jefferson Smith; Ed Asner as Chuck Marshak; and Keith Szarabajka as Mairot/Psycho. The series is executive produced by Richard Raynis (Men In Black, Godzilla). Jeff Kline (Men In Black, Godzilla, Jumanji) serves as co-executive producer and Greg Weisman (Gargoyles) is producer. The show will be produced and animated by Sony Pictures Family Entertainment for Kids' WB!

Mission Hill © and TM 1999 Castle Rock Entertainment. Courtesy of Warner Bros.

TV Tidbits. The WB has already removed its new primetime animated series Mission Hill from its Friday night line-up due to poor ratings. (Its premiere episode finished 115th in the ratings for the week of October 4 - 10.) It's expected to return as a midseason replacement. . . Fox has removed Family Guy from its Thursday night line-up also due to poor ratings. (Apparently UPN's new WWF Smackdown! is creating stiff competition.) According to a Fox spokesperson, the network remains committed to the show, and its return date will be known in about two weeks. The show did well last spring when it launched in a Sunday night timeslot and Fox committed to another season. Therefore, it seems likely the show will return as part of the Sunday night lineup when one of the current Sunday night animated shows (King Of The Hill, The Simpsons, Futurama) runs out of new episodes. Folks are also wondering how The PJs will fit into this new schedule when it returns midseason. . . . To celebrate Scooby-Doo's 30th anniversary, Cartoon Network presented a 24-hour Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? marathon beginning Saturday, October 23 at noon, a 10-hour marathon of Scooby-Doo movies on Saturday, October 30, and an eight-hour Scooby & Scrappy-Doo marathon on October 31. Immediately before each of the marathons, as well as during them, Cartoon Network aired live-action footage called The Scooby-Doo Project, in which the real Scooby Gang heads out into the woods for a documentary in a spoof of The Blair Witch Project. Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?, the first Scooby-Doo TV series, debuted September 13, 1969. . . New episodes of South Park returned beginning Wednesday, October 27 at 10 pm on Comedy Central, with an all-new Halloween special, KORN's Groovy Pirate Ghost Mystery, guest starring the band, KORN. . . MTV is developing an animated horror anthology called Dead Time Stories, created by Mike Dougherty (Season's Greetings, a short film). . . Subscribers of TDK, Denmark's largest cable operator, were polled and voted to include Cartoon Network on their system, the only children's channel to receive that honor.


Note: Readers may contact any Animation World Magazine contributor by sending an e-mail to editor@awn.com.