Nickelodeon, into its third week of presenting a festival of shorts to viewers, sees Comedy Central has jumped in on the action with its new shorts compilation show called, JUMP CUTS, that premieres Nov. 7, 2004, at 12:00 am, midnight. This half-hour for the next four Sundays is for late night, adult comedy viewing with an interesting mix of animation and live action with an encore presentation on Wednesdays at 2:00 am.

U.S. cable viewers are suddenly getting some especially good exposure to animated shorts from the comfort of their living rooms, without having to travel to festivals and university screenings. Comedy Central viewers will be exposed to Don Hetzfeldt, Bill Plympton, Chris Elliot, Joe Nussbaum and Aardman’s ANGRY KID as well as new work from Eugene Mirman, IngredientX, Hot Dog Boy, STRINDBERG AND HELIUM and other experimental filmmakers in a variety of styles such as clay animation, traditional 2D and cutouts.

There had always been the idea to have a short film series since the channel covers every other area of comedy, said Tricia Sherrer, manager, acquisitions, Comedy Central and JUMP CUTS supervising producer. The only holdout was that no one could agree on just the right format in terms of length, host or no host, commission or acquisitions. “It’s a lot of work to find just the right films that speak to each other,” she told AWN.

It was decided that it would be good acquisitions project. When she pitched the show last year, she said, “Let’s bring in some new filmmakers that don’t have an outlet for their work – live and animated – and give them a shot. Everyone makes a short film nowadays, from celebrities to a girl in Brooklyn alone in her apartment, they’re everywhere. This is a perfect opportunity to bring in some fresh talent and see what we can find.”

Sherrer worked with a couple different distributors, plus people would send her films. She tried to keep things five minutes and under. GEORGE LUCAS IN LOVE is the only one that is longer.

Comedy Central didn’t announce the search, but just kind of put it out there. “I told everyone they have to be really funny,” said Sherrer, who did all the initial screening. Her litmus test with anyone pitching her is, “If the first thing you would say about it is it’s really funny, then it will work. If you would say it’s cute or it’s interesting or it’s weird, then it’s probably not for us. Funny has to be the first thing you think of.”

She surfed the Net. If she found someone’s work she liked, she checked who they were linked to. “When you find someone where you like their sensibility, then generally the people they link to share that sensibility. I did that sort of Google hunting thing,” Sherrer explained.

They had submissions from the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival, where her boss, Susie Kricena, vp of acquisitions, is a judge. Sometimes, Sherrer followed links sent by friends, which she found not only funny, but great for the show. “That’s how I got STRINDBERG AND HELIUM. A friend of mine knew that it was my kind of sense of humor, and didn’t know I was putting this show together. He sent me the link and said, ‘this is dark, you’ll love it.’ I emailed back, not only do I love it, I’m calling them right now.”

When asked why mix, why not segregate live action and animation like most programmers do, Sherrer replied, “I don’t know one good reason for segregating. For our demographic, males -- and even females -- 18-34, we grew up with animation being part of what we expected our adult life to include. We have SOUTH PARK and THE SIMPSONS, things like that. We learned, OK, cartoons can be for adults. It’s not that off-putting.

“I’m always surprised by someone who will say, ‘I just don’t like animation’. That’s like saying you don’t like live action. How can you say you don’t like a whole group of something? I’ll put them together. It will give me more material to work with. It fits with the idea behind the show, to throw a whole bunch of disparate pieces together and see how they look when they all came back up to the top.”