Sugar Ray Gets Animated At Cartoonnetwork.Com

If you thought Sugar Ray was already a pretty animated band, wait until you see them at CartoonNetwork.com. The Website introduces an innovative extension to its Web Premiere Toons franchise when it premieres an animated music video starring the Lava/Atlantic recording group. The band has been working with Cartoon Network Online to create and produce a video based on their new hit single, WHEN IT'S OVER, from their forthcoming self-titled album, set for release on June 12, 2001. The animated video will premiere exclusively at CartoonNetwork.com on June 4, 2001. "We got together with the band and started brainstorming different ideas for the video," said Sam Register, senior vice president and creative director of Cartoon Network Online. "It turns out they are all cartoon fans, so they were really psyched and had a lot of ideas for the direction of the animation. It's been a very collaborative process." The video is a stylized tribute to classic animation, with each character representing a different genre. Lead singer Mark McGrath is reminiscent of the classic Hanna-Barbera HARLEM GLOBETROTTERS animation; Murphy Karges looks like something out of THE FLINTSTONES; Stan Frazier takes his space-age look from everyone's favorite futuristic family, THE JETSONS; Rodney Sheppard pays tribute to SPEED RACER; and D.J. Homicide, of course, is already an animated character in his own right. The video is part of CartoonNetwork.com's Web Premiere Toons program, which highlights the best in animated entertainment. In 2001, CartoonNetwork.com will premiere more than 40 Web Premiere Toons, demonstrating their commitment to online animation. With more than 125 million page views per month, CartoonNetwork.com, where users can interact with all of their favorite Cartoon Network characters, is consistently one of the most visited entertainment sites on the Web.