Television

Pokemon: Europe Won't Be The Same. Europe got a good old dose of American capitalism, Japanese style. Pokemon has infested the European television market. The children's mega-hit first debuted in the U.K. on Sky 1 in April and quickly became the channel's #1 kids show. In October, the ITV Network and GMTV secured UK terrestrial broadcast rights to the show. A month prior to the ITV and GMTV deal, Pokemon started airing on Germany's RTL2, The Netherlands' Fox Kids, Belgium's VT4 and RTL, Portugal's SIC and France's Fox Kids. Starting at the end of December Spain's Tele5 will start airing the Pikachu-vehicle as well. Tele5 acquired 105 episodes from Lacey Entertainment which is the international distributor of the series. To coincide with Pokemon's TV debut, Madrid-based BRB International started a Pokemon merchandising-licensing campaign for the Spanish market. BRB also holds the right to release Pokemon videos in Spain. France's TF1 Video also released Pokemon videos to the French market in January to ride the overwhelming international success of the series. Pokemon is the first series to hold the #1 kids ranking in the U.S. for Saturday mornings and first-run syndication since the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles did it in the early '90s. Just for fun ask your four-year-old niece or nephew who the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are.

Scandinavia Surrenders To Pokemania. Three new Scandinavian markets surrendered their airwaves to Pokemania. Worldwide sensation Pokemon was recently sold to TV4 in Sweden, TV2 in Denmark and TV2 in Norway. The show will hit the new territories in January and February 2000. Lacey Entertainment, the international distributors of the series, also announced the sale of the Pikachu-vehicle to ATV in Turkey and Noga Communications' Children's Channel in Israel. In Europe, Pokemon began broadcasting in September 1999 on Germany's RTL2, The Netherlands' Fox Kids, Belgium's VT4 and RTL, Portugal's SIC and France's Fox Kids.

TV Tidbits: Fox Family's newly picked up Angela Anaconda rang in the New Year with a 14-episode marathon on January 1, 2000. The seven-hour event started at 7 am and ran 'til 2 pm on Fox Family. The show that TV Guide recently named one of the top ten new kids shows of 1999 regular airs at 1 pm on Saturdays and Sundays on Fox Family. . . .London-based Passion Pictures finished stings, bumpers, and indents to promote PBS KIDS. The interstitials were directed by Alyson Hamilton, who received an Emmy nomination for her work on the title sequence for U.S.-based TV channel CBS' The Promised Land. . . .Daria fans can start gearing up for a telefilm full of fun-filled teenaged angst. Is It Fall Yet? will be based off the Daria series and is slated to hit MTV in the fall. Karen Disher and Guy Moore will direct, and Glenn Eichler and Peggy Nicoll will script. . . .Boston-based animation house Fablevision is slated to create two new shows for Noggin, the new 24-hour educational network for kids from Nickelodeon and the Children's Television Workshop. Fablevision will produce Cecil And Her Very Own Universe and Swamp Dog. Cecil will feature a 12-year-old girl and her robot dog who live in a underground society in the future. Cecil dreams of leaving her mole-like life to see what above ground has in store. Swamp Dog features a 10-year-old boy named Gyro who travels through space with his family and their travelling circus. In conjunction with the show, kids will be able to give Gyro advice about his problems and adventures on-line. . . .Salsa Distribution put together the deal that created the new Jim Henson programming block entitled Muppet Time in Panama. FETV started airingMuppet Time on January 3, 2000 in a deal that lasts 2 years. The block includes the Muppet Show, Muppets Tonight, Muppet Babies, Fraggle Rock and Jim Henson's Animal Show. . . .The Nickelodeon toon The Wild Thornberrys will be coming to a town near you beginning February 14, 2000. Starting at Toy Fair in New York City, the Commvee recreational vehicle from the series is making its real world debut. After Toy Fair, the Commvee will make appearances at Nick's "All That Music and More" tour venues, "The Big Help" events, and various "Lucky 10" markets across the U.S. So when picking up wild berries at the local Lucky 10 don't miss out on meeting the wild Thornberry's film-making family. . . .Interactive Television Entertainment (ITE) has secured two new territories for its show Hugo Jungle. The show will start airing March 1, 2000 on Nat 7 in Malaysia and January 17, 2000 on BKTV in Serbia and Montenegro. Extensive use of the Animation Mask System, and animated links between each playing scenario, make Hugo Jungle a unique live interactive cartoon show. . . .Nick Jr. and Teletoon have asked Nelvana Limited to start production on Maggie And The Ferocious Beast, based on the mother and son team of Betty and Michael Parakevas' storybooks. The adventures of 5-year-old Maggie in Nowhere Land will hit Nick Jr. in Summer 2000 and Teletoon next fall. . . .Men In Black: The Series has been picking up steam on Kids WB! The Sony Pictures Entertainment show has increased its ratings by 110% since its second season last year. It has earned a 4.2 rating with kids 2-11 and a 5.0 rating with kids 6-11. . . .ZDTV, a 24-hour cable television channel about computing, technology and the Internet, had Atari founder Nolan Bushnell on Big Thinkers. Hosted by Mark Eddo, Big Thinkers features in-depth discussions with the most visionary and influential men and women working in the high-tech industry today. The episode with Bushnell, the creator of Pong, aired January 5, 2000 at 10:30 pm. These interviews, plus additional footage not shown on air, will be available in streaming video on the show's companion Web site. . . .

Hogarth and friends are not the only ones surprised by Warner Bros. handling of The Iron Giant. © Warner Bros. No other uses are permitted without the prior written consent of owner. Use of the material in violation of the foregoing may result in civil and/or criminal penalties.

In a move much like a parent buying their child a toy and then receiving money from their kids allowance for it, Warner Bros. Features has sold The Iron Giant to Cartoon Network and TNT. Cartoon Network couldn't handle the license fee of US$3 million, so sister Turner channel, TNT, came in to help out on a six-month pre-Cartoon Network window. TNT will get six runs of the critically acclaimed box-office disappointment within that six month time period. Both networks plan to promote the film as a special picture that was overlooked (mis-marketed to some) at the box office. Hopefully, everyone over at the Time Warner family of WB Features, Cartoon Network and TNT will be pleased once The Iron Giant makes it to the less-giant screen. . . .PBS' Nature received a new animated logo for its opening from digital animation and effects house, SimEx Digital Studios. The opening is a montage of snippets from nature. SimEx helped bring together the show's theme in the opening by illustrating how humans relate to nature everyday. . . .London-based Link Entertainment Television has sold the rights to Teddybears to U.S.-based Trio Channel, a new satellite channel broadcast on Direct TV and TCI Hits. Trio's 26 episode purchase comes on the heals of another recent deal for Link with Canada's SCN for all 52 episodes of the lovable bears television adventures. . . .On December 2, 1999, USA Networks' Live Telecast of Improv-Ice, debuted graphics done by Pinnacle Systems' Rocket for FXDeko. Rocket for FXDeko is a template-based tool that allows the generation of real-time 3D elements which can be automatically updated by live data streams. Rocket integrates with Pinnacle's award-winning FXDeko character generators and adds further dimension to live broadcasts including textured, reflective and transparent elements. "Rocket for FXDeko provided a look that was not possible with any other character generator," said Senior Producer Gregg Picker of USA Networks. "Using the Rocket software allowed the Internet survey results to be displayed as 3D bar charts on-air as soon as they were available," said Richard Townhill, Product Manager for Rocket for FXDeko. . . .South Africa-based Triggerfish Animation, a leading stop-frame animation company in South Africa, is currently shooting animation sequences for the South African Sesame Street, using an assortment of different materials including local contemporary art work, creating a unique African feel to the production. In addition, Triggerfish recently shot a 30-second commercial using 7 plasticine characters for a new product being launched in South Africa and Australia called Slo Jo -- a fruit smoothie. . . .Bender will be back next year for more adventures on Futurama. The animated series from producers Matt Groening and David X. Cohen has been picked up for the 2000-01 season by Fox. A decision has not been made yet on whether the number of episodes ordered will be 13, 22 or some number in-between. . . .Clifford The Big Red Dog will come to life on PBS' fall 2000 schedule. The show will be based on the 39-year-old CLIFFORD Scholastic book series written by Norman Bridwell. John Ritter will provide the voice of Clifford; while Kel Mitchell (Keenan & Kel) will voice the dog's buddy, T-Bone; Grey DeLisle (Rugrats) will voice Clifford's best friend, Emily Elizabeth; and Cree Summer will voice Cleo. . . . Tom Snyder Productions, the creators of Dr. Katz: Professional Therapist, were assigned to create a new animated comedy series for Oxygen, Geraldine Laybourne's new network to launch February 2, 2000 to accompany the Web site of the same name. The comedy series titled Hey Monie is based on the life and longings of a single African-American professional woman in big city America. This is the first network animated series based on an African-American woman and her friends. The show is scheduled to air on Saturday night at 8 pm and Sunday at 7:30 pm in a program called X-Chromosome, a half-hour showcase for cutting edge animation. . . .Fox Kids has started developing a series based on the comic book/Internet toon Joe Psycho & MooFrog Cartoonshow. Set in the fictional town of Spleen, Oregon, Joe Psycho revolves around humorous mishaps of the local TV station where crazy Joe and mind-mannered MooFrog work.