Cartoon Network has greenlit Gavrilo Gnatovoch's LONGHAIR AND DOUBLEDOME
for production as a seven minute series pilot. The short features
Longhair, a fastidiously sophisticated and self-serving Cro-Magnon, and
his charmingly earnest yet irksome friend, Doubledome, as they endeavor
to evolve alongside their oafish neighbors, the Neanderthals. An air
date has not been announced. Gavrilo Gnatovich runs his own studio KNOCK
KNOCK CARTOONS in Cleveland, Ohio, which is a commercial animation house

The Kushner-Locke Co. has announced that they have entered an agreement
with Toei Animation to license Toei's animated product. Toei has one of
the largest animation libraries in the world. K-L plans to use the newly
acquired product to launch its own Spanish language animation channel in
Latin America. The deal gives K-L 1400 half-hour episodes, in the first
three years, of Toei animated product including the popular series
SAILOR MOON and DRAGON BALL Z. Toei is one of the leading animation

Siren Entertainment, an Australian company, has released eight volumes
of THE MILTON THE MONSTER SHOW, available in both VHS PAL and NTSC
formats. In the fall of 1964, THE MUNSTERS and THE ADDAMS FAMILY,
sitcoms about families of monsters, appeared on US TV. Attempting to
cash in on their subsequent success, Hal Seeger Productions produced THE
MILTON THE MONSTER SHOW for ABC's 1965-1966 season. Milton is a giant
Frankenstein monster-type created by Professor Weirdo and Count Kook.
His creators meant Milton to be scary, but he turns out to be a

Animation World Network is accepting resumes for a web designer position...

At the new Student Corner you’ll find advice, jobs, references, schools, resources and more...

The Quickdraw Animation Society web site has been updated, with the presentation of "When the Water is Sick, The World is Sick," a 5:30' collective film by 10 young QAS animation students. It will be featured this summer in the Annecy International Film Festival in France, and hopefully other festivals as well! Read more about this project on the QAS web site at:


www.awn.com/qas

Once again, this week's comic is about the pleasures of smoking, one of Bill's favorite subjects...

Featured in the Animation World Store this week: The South Park Collection.

In its fifth week of release, THE MATRIX, the special effects heavy action film starring Keanu Reeves, finished second in the USA weekend box office race and grossed $8.7 to bring its total gross to $129.7.

On Monday in the USA, toymaker Hasbro introduced a series of action
figures, play sets, vehicles, and other toys based on STAR WARS: EPISODE I
- THE PHANTOM MENACE, the prequel to the STAR WARS trilogy. Most Toys R Us
stores and some FAO Schwarz and K-B Toys stores opened at 12:01 a.m. on May
3, and within hours their stock was sold out. "It was unbelievable.
Insane," says AWN's Heather Kenyon, who visited four stores in the Los
Angeles area. "People were leaving with shopping carts filled up. It was

Michel Ocelot's new feature film, KIRIKOU AND THE SORCERESS, will be
screened as part of the DGA (Directors Guild of America) film festival,
City of Lights: A Week of French Films. The screening will take place
Saturday, May 1 at 1 pm in Los Angeles, California. For ticket information,
call (310) 289 2000. There are currently no plans to release the film in
the USA, so this may be your only chance to see what appears to be, based
on the pressbook images, a very beautiful film. The story is based on

Fox Family Channel's 1999-2000 6 pm-8 pm lineup includes two new animated series. Saban Entertainment's PIGS NEXT DOOR, a new animated series in the tradition of ALL IN THE FAMILY, chronicles the life of a family of pigs who move from the farm to the suburbs and are forced to deal with prejudiced humans. Rodney Dangerfield provides the voice for the title character of RODNEY, a series in development for the 1999-2000 season that depicts Rodney's misadventures as a struggling comic and the everyday ups and downs of dysfunctional family life.

ImagineAsia Studios, the Manila, Philippines-based 3D animation studio, announced the hiring of two U.S.-based executives in San Francisco and Los Angeles. Chairman Jeffrey Harrison appointed JAMES MYHRE to the post of Director of Development & Marketing, and IVAN ROTH as the studio's new Creative Director. Myhre will oversee operations in ImagineAsia's corporate headquarters in San Francisco. Roth will divide his time between Los Angeles and the studio's main facility in Metro Manila.

Frank Gladstone, Head of Artist Development at DreamWorks, and Clifford Cohen, founder and president of AnimAction, have joined forces as members of UNICEF's International Animation Consortium for Child's Rights to create an animated PSA that addresses the Right to a Name and a Nationality. The PSA will be screened on June 4 at the Annecy Film Festival in Annecy, France. Also at the Festival, Mr. Cohen will speak about "How Animation Can Change People's Thinking."

Released last week in the USA, Pixar's A BUG'S LIFE was the week's best
selling video and DVD title, selling enough copies to already put it at No.
4 on the list of the year's best selling videos, and No. 10 on the list of
the year's best selling DVD's. (There are no plans to release the Pixar
film on laser disc.) It is already ahead of ANTZ and just behind THE
RUGRATS MOVIE, but farther behind MULAN. Other best selling VHS titles for
the week include THE RUGRATS MOVIE, which finished third; SCOOBY-DOO'S

In opening statements in the second phase of a $250 million breach-of-contract lawsuit, Jeffrey Katzenberg's lawyer Bert Fields presented a series of memos to bolster his argument that Disney concocted a contract argument over an incentive bonus to deprive Katzenberg of the money he was owed for making the Disney company a success while he was the chief of Disney's film entertainment division. During Katzenberg's first few years at Disney, operating income went from $2.3 million in 1984 to $186.3 million in 1988.

Walt Disney Co.'s earnings plunged almost 41% in its second quarter. Although Disney said it expects improvement in the second half of the year, it still plans to review its operations in a bid to make them more efficient and increase cash flow. The Burbank, California-based media and entertainment giant turned in net income of $226 million, or 11 cents a diluted share, for the quarter ending March 31, compared with $384 million, or 18 cents a diluted share, in the same period a year ago.

The recently concluded Cartoons on the Bay festival in Poistano, Italy has announced its awards. The Golden Pulcinella for best character went to the Little Entertainment Co.'s BILLY, an animated British TV series for pre-schoolers about an infant daydreamer. The Golden Pulcinella for best program went to Folimage's CHARLIE'S CHRISTMAS, a French TV film about an abandoned child's friendship with a postman.

THE MATRIX, the special effects heavy action film starring Keanu Reeves,
returned to the number one spot at the US box office last weekend and
grossed an estimated $12.6 million to bring its cumulative gross to $117
million.

Nichimen Graphics, Inc. (Nichimen), a manufacturer of technology for the 3D
content creation market, and Viewpoint(R) Digital, Inc. (Viewpoint),
creator and publisher of a 3D digital content library, have released
Nendo(TM) & LiveArt(TM) SE Workshop, a combined graphics software package
that provides 3D modeling and rendering tools for $99 (suggested retail
price).


The Workshop consists of Nendo v. 1.1, Nichimen's award-winning 3D modeling
and 3D paint software, and Viewpoint's LiveArt SE software, with the