Television

TV Tidbits: Over the Thanksgiving weekend, The Learning Channel featured a special entitled Ultimate Special Effects. Premiering Sunday, November 28th from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. ET/PT, the special event was comprised of three shows highlighting the effects in recent films like The Matrix, The Haunting, Armageddon, and Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. . . .The Disney Channel and Toon Disney geared up for the holiday season with a new millennium celebration. The Disney Channel featured holiday episodes from Playhouse Disney series Bear In The Big House, Rolie Polie Olie, and PB&J Otter. To highlight Fantasia 2000's January 1st opening in IMAX theatres around the country, Movie Surfer's went inside the new film. Toon Disney, the 24-hour all-animation network, presented various holiday-themed features as well as the television premiere of the Annie Award-nominated Pocahontas II: Journey To The New World. Zoog Disney, simultaneous on-air and on-line television program, welcomed in the New Year with Disney Channel's Z2K: Zoogin' New Yearz Eve Party, an exclusive celebration where kids can vote on-line December 3-16 for their favorite Disney Channel programs of 1999. Then in the last few hours of 1999 and the first few hours of 2000 kids watched the results on the Disney Channel. . . .We have more information to add to the Pokemon insanity. When Pokemon: The First Movie debuted in theatres on the weekend of November 12, 1999, the TV series Pokemon stole enough kids away for the local movie house to finish #1 and #2 for both weekdays and Saturday morning. The weekday 7 am Pokemon averaged a Kids WB! record 4.8 rating, 32 share, in kids 2-11, and surprisingly beat all other weekday kids series, morning and afternoon, except for its chief competitor the WB's 4 pm. Pokemon. . . .On Friday, November 19, 1999, Universal Studios Hollywood celebrated the 40th anniversary of the first airing of the Jay Ward cartoon Rocky And Bullwinkle. Guests were treated to a hand-carved chocolate moose weighing almost 4000 pounds. Estimated calories nearing 40 million. . . .

Will Vinton Studios' artists work on the stop-motion television show The PJs.
© Will Vinton Studios.

On December 10, 1999, Cartoon Network debuted the one-hour millenium special Dexter's Laboratory's Ego Trip. The special centers around Dexter's over-zealous reaction to receiving a message from the future which informs him that he will one day save the planet. The show aired at 7 pm on December 10 and repeated at 12am on Janurary 1, 2000. . .Director/animator Mike Dietz, founder of Orange County, CA-based Mike Dietz Studios, has signed on to direct an episode of The PJs, the stop-motion animated show starring movie-star Eddie Murphy, for Portland, OR-based Will Vinton Studios. Mike Dietz was one of the founding partners of The Neverhood, the stop motion animation studio that produced several projects for Steven Spielberg's interactive division of DreamWorks SKG. Since leaving The Neverhood to start his own animation studio, Mike has provided animation for several spots produced by Will Vinton's commercial division. The PJs was airing in primetime on Fox and will return for another season in the new year. . . .On December 12, 1999, Fox Family brought Bartok The Magnificent to TV for its world broadcast premiere. Bartok the batty side-kick from Fox Features' Anastasia flew in at 4:30 pm ET/PT. Leading into the premiere Fox Family broadcasted Rudolph's Shiny New Year at 2 pm and All Dog's Christmas Carol at 4 pm. Released on November 16, 1999, Bartok was Fox's first major direct-to-video project produced in-house at their Phoenix-based home. . . .Cult comic and TV franchise The Tick is getting a new lease on life. Producers Barry Sonnenfeld and Barry Josephson (Fantasy Island, Maximum Bob), via their deal at Columbia TriStar Television, will bring a live-action, primetime half-hour version of the clueless hero's show to Fox Broadcasting. The series is scheduled for fall 2000.