Bill Plympton has updated his appearances page. This month, his films will
be appearing in various festivals and other events in the US, UK, France,
Germany, Austria, Italy, Spain and Taiwan. "I Married A Strange Person"
will have its U.S. cable premiere on Cinemax on October 22, 1999. Bill
will also be attending some of the events in the US, Italy and Germany.


Check out Bill's appearance schedule.

This month: Licensing And Merchandising.


As the holidays approach our minds turn to licensing and merchandising and
what is going to be on the shelves this winter. In this issue Tarleton
Gillespie takes us on a trip through Toys R Us to determine the meaning of
toys to kids. The French licensing and merchandising market is detailed by
Valerie Rivoallon. Sharon Schatz profiles toon loving Rhino Records and
Karen Raugust looks at how "Sesame Street's" content changes as the popular

The United States Post Office has issued a Yellow Submarine stamp with The
Beatles which was illustrated by Robin Shepherd and Caleb Lawrence of
Jacksonville, Florida-based The Robin Shepherd Group. The stamp was
officially dedicated on September 17, 1999 in Green Bay, Wisconsin, and the
package of fifteen stamps will be available soon at post offices across the
country. The "Celebrate the Century" stamp series features fifteen stamps
for each decade of the twentieth century. The final stamps were determined

MIPCOM: International Film and Programme Market for TV, Video, Cable, and
Satellite. Starting next week, thousands of producers, programmers and
broadcasters will converge on Cannes, France for the MIPCOM and MIP Junior
markets. From Reed-Midem, the organizers of MIP-TV, MIP Asia and MILIA,
MIPCOM is known as the place where international television deals happen.
Among the properties being offered are Sony Wonder's LION OF OZ AND THE
BADGE OF COURAGE, an animated musical prequel to THE WIZARD OF OZ;

Glendale, California-based Galaxy Digimation has created a thirty-minute
animated newscast for Universal Studios' The Amazing Adventures of
Spider-Man ride in Orlando, Florida. The Spider-Man ride integrates
roller-coaster thrills, realistic motion simulation, and stereographic 3D
computer-generated effects while immersing riders in a story that
transforms them into active photojournalists. Galaxy Digimation's newscast
plays on monitors while riders wait in line inside the newsroom of The

Santa Monica, California-based SIMEX DIGITAL STUDIOS has completed "Ice
Cliff," a spot for Dunlop Tires and agency Dentsu, Inc. of Tokyo, Japan. In
the spot, five luxury sport cars race on rapidly eroding, digitally
generated, ice covered cliffs. The camera moves back to reveal that the
cliffs are created by a giant digitally created Dunlop tire. CGI Artist
Jeff Chung used Alias Power Animator and Maya Media Illusion to create the
effects.

Two years after its release in Japan, Hayao Miyazaki's top-grossing
animated film "Princess Mononoke" will be released theatrically in the U.S.
on October 29, 1999. It is noteworthy that the film is being released by
Miramax Films, a Disney company. "Princess Mononoke" is one of the few
animated features which can compare with Disney's in terms of audience and
box office. The film earned its spot as the all-time highest grossing film
in Japan, bringing in sell-out crowds, long lines at theaters and over $150

It's fall and that means new TV! In this month's issue, Amid Amidi tells us
about the newest shows hitting the air. Sharon Schatz gives us insight into
the world of interactive television. Interactive television has been
available around the globe for years, but has only just come to the United
States. We also go behind the scenes of Bob Clampett's "Time for Beany,"
one of television's first daily live puppet shows, Japan's Toei Animation
Studios and one of France's hottest pilots, "Fats and Moe." We also have a

Fox Family Channel, which was launched on August 15, 1998 when Fox took over the Family Channel, has
announced its fall schedule. The schedule includes four new animated
series: WEIRD-OHS is about three kids uncovering the mysteries of life;
KIDS FROM ROOM 402, based on the book, GRACIE GRAVES AND THE KIDS FROM ROOM
402 by Betty Paraskevas, is about a classroom of ten year old eccentrics;
ANGELA ANACONDA, a cut-out style animated series, is about an eight year
old girl and her elementary school problems; and MEGA BABIES, revolves

VirtualMagic ASIA, the collaboration of VirtualMagic Animation and
ImagineAsia Studio for 2D digital ink, paint and compositing, is looking
for talented USAnimation Compositors for project work at their digital
animation facility in Manila, Philippines. The start date is mid October,
1999 or before. See VirtualMagic on the web and contact them at:


info@virtualmagicusa.com

This week's updates to the Calendar of Events includes the following
festivals: Imagina 2000 in France, Stuttgart in Germany, PISAF in South
Korea; Plus the first International Symposium On Non-Photorealistic
Animation and Rendering in France. The Calendar of Upcoming Events is a
constantly changing reference source for what's happening around the World
of Animation. Use it to stay abreast of animation related activities across
the globe. If you know of animation related events that we don't have

Here's an overview of what's shaking on Cartoon Network's happening web site:


THIS MONTH'S NEXT BIG THING: New Web Premiere Toons! "Germtown" - Look
through the microscope at the wonderful world of germs. What do they do all
day anyway? "Saturday Night Fred" - Help Fred and Barney choose what to do
on a Saturday night in Bedrock! "The Marshmallow Money Show" - Hang out
with the kids on one city block and click to hear them give "shout-outs" or
break into rap-style songs!

David Allen, one of a handful of truly great stop-motion animators, died of cancer on Monday, August 16. He
was 55. Allen's work in commercials includes animating the Swiss Miss and
early Pillsbury Doughboy in the 1960s, and his feature work includes
CAVEMAN (1981), Q-THE WINGED SERPENT (1982), WILLOW (1988) and FREAKED
(1993). For ten years he had been working on an independent project, a
feature called PRIMEVALS. (The film will be finished at Full Moon Studios
where the film was being animated before Allen's death.) Allen began his

Warner Bros. Home Video is re-releasing the feature length THE LOONEY,
LOONEY, LOONEY BUGS BUNNY MOVIE, a collection of Looney Tunes by Friz
Freleng. It includes the following Bugs Bunny shorts: KNIGHTY KNIGHT BUGS,
SAHARA HARE, ROMAN LEGION HARE, HIGH DIVING HARE, HARE TRIMMED, SHOW BIZ
BUGS, WILD AND WOOLY HARE, and THE UNMENTIONABLES, as well as CATTY
CORNERED (Tweety & Sylvester), GOLDEN YEGGS (Daffy Duck), and THE THREE
LITTLE BOPS. (Note: Some films may not be complete.) Also from Warner Bros.

Animators in the TV, Film, and Video Game industries are achieving realistic 3D character animation economically and quickly using the suite of motion capture tools available from Motion Analysis Corporation of Santa Rosa, California. At SIGGRAPH 99, the company demonstrated the latest versions of its products.


"We have customers using our ExpertVision system to capture 1,000 moves a
week to produce a 22-minute TV show in only 10 days using just a dozen
animators. The economy and efficiency of producing digital entertainment

Toonz Animation India Pvt. Ltd., a new animation production studio, has purchased 11 licenses of Cambridge Animation Systems' Animo 2D software. All the systems run under Windows NT.



"We selected Animo because it satisfies all of our digital animation needs, whether for commercials, television series or feature films," says Bill Dennis, president and CEO of Toonz Animation.

White Plains, New York-based J.J. Sedelmaier has completed two :30 spots
for Old Navy. "Girls Zip Pocket Flares" features a young magician who
conjures up and controls Old Navy's new zip pocket jeans for her friends.
In "Boys Boarder Jeans," boys show off their large style jeans while
walking the dog, sawing a log, talking to a frog, and paying the rent while
skateboarding. The spots feature a '60s retro-style designed by David
Sheldon.

Newly-formed, Los Angeles-based FilmWorld Inc. Chairman Menahem Golan and
President John Daly have announced the first of many films they will
jointly produce. GUNGA DIN will be based on Rudyard Kipling's story about a
young Indian boy's adventures with the British Army in India. The
screenplay is by James Silke and Joseph Goldman, and the film's release is
projected for the 2000 holiday-season in theaters throughout the world.
Golan has had a film career spanning more than thirty years in which he has

This week's updates to the Calendar of Events includes the 11th International Children's Film Festival in India, and the 27th International Emmy Awards in New York.

Lucasfilm's STAR WARS EPISODE I: THE PHANTOM MENACE took in $16.5 million
in 24 territories over the weekend, bringing its foreign total to $154.3
million. In its second weekend in the UK, it finished first and grossed
$8.1 million, which was 70% of the market, for a total of $32.7 million in
11 days alone! It finished first for the third straight weekend in Japan,
as it grossed $4.5 million, for a total of $39.1 million. DreamWorks' THE
PRINCE OF EGYPT grossed $758,000 to bring its foreign total to $118.2