Category: Television

Adult Swim, Cartoon Network's successful block of late night animation for adults, will join the schedule five times per week beginning Sunday, January 12, 2003. Airing from 11:00 pm to 1:00 am (ET/PT) Sunday-Thursday, the block will showcase recent acquisition FUTURAMA, along with quirky original animated series including HOME MOVIES, AQUA TEEN HUNGER FORCE and HARVEY BIRDMAN, ATTORNEY AT LAW, and popular action/anime series COWBOY BEBOP and INUYASHA.

You can settle down with some creepy fiends in your own home this Halloween, thanks to Cartoon Network. Every Friday night in October from 8:00 pm until 1:00 am, Cartoon Network is serving up classic episodes of SCOOBY DOO, plus Cartoon Network originals COURAGE THE COWARDLY DOG and GRIM & EVIL. You can never have enough Courage, so you can watch COURAGE THE COWARDLY DOG tangle with such threats as the savage Weremole, the sinister Katz, the devious French duck Le Quack and even the misunderstood Bigfoot during the 24-Hour COURAGE THE COWARDLY DOG Marathon on Halloween day.

5f Chennai, India came out of MIPCOM with two co-production deals for new animated series. MUV has teamed with Comet Entertainment of Toronto, Canada and Lasal of the Canary Islands, Spain to co-produce and provide animation for the CG series TINGUARO, THE SUN LIZARDS. Set in a futuristic world where peace-loving lizards struggle against war-mongering scorpions, TINGUARO is a 13-episode action/adventure series, which is also the first and only series to be supported and funded by the Spanish government, according to Carmen Llanos Acero, Comet COO.

Millimages has sold the broadcast rights to four of its new animated properties to Australian broadcaster, ABC (Australian Broadcast Corporation). The programs included in the deal are HILLTOP HOSPITAL, CORNEIL & BERNIE, PIGEON BOY and JASPER THE PENGUIN. HILLTOP HOSPITAL is a 39 x 10-minute stop-motion animated series. Described as a "pre-school medical soap opera," the stories focus on a hospital that is run by animals, for animals. Both CORNEIL & BERNIE and PIGEON BOY are Millimages co-productions with France 3.

Nickelodeon has aged the precocious RUGRATS tots into tweens for their new spin-off series ALL GROWED UP, now in production at Klasky Csupo in Los Angeles. The 13-episode series will take off from the 10th anniversary special ALL GROWED UP that aired on Nick in July 2002. The new series is scheduled to run concurrently with RUGRATS during the 2003-2004 season. "What better way to reward an incredibly loyal audience than to serve up a perennial favorite in an all new way," said Cyma Zarghami, executive VP and general manager, Nickelodeon.

CineGroupe has joined with Fox Kids Europe (FKE) to distribute its new animated TV series PIG CITY. The series is a co-production of CineGroupe and AnimaKids (France), in association with Merchandising Munchen and Fox Kids France. The agreement with FKE includes the television, home video and merchandising rights to the series across Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and Africa. CineGroupe will continue to distribute the series in Canada, the U.S., Asia, Australia and New Zealand. Animakids will handle the rights in France and Merchandising Munchen in Germany.

The award-winning team of writer Neil Gaiman and artist Dave McKean are in development with TV-Loonland subsidiary Sunbow Entertainment to create a series based on their children's book THE DAY I SWAPPED MY DAD FOR TWO GOLDFISH. This week at MIPCOM, Sunbow is presenting the 13 x 22-minute animated series, targeted at 6 -11 year-olds. Gaiman is best known for his critically acclaimed and widely successful graphic novels SANDMAN and the 3-part series DEATH: THE HIGH COST OF LIVING which he is currently adapting to a feature film for Warner Bros.

This week at MIPCOM, Los Angeles-based Mike Young Productions (MYP) introduced the companys international roster of partners for its new extraterrestrial property, PET ALIEN from John Doze Studios. The partners are: Frances Antefilms Production, based in Paris; jadooWorks PVT. LTD. of Bangalore, India; and Abú Media in Galway, Ireland. The partners are joining forces to create the CGI-animated project, a series of 52 x 11-minute episodes aimed at 4 to 11 year-olds.

Mike Young Productions (MYP) announced that renowned filmmaker-writer-actor Mel Brooks (THE PRODUCERS, HIGH ANXIETY, YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN, SPACEBALLS) will voice the role of Wiley the Sheep in the new half-hour CGI series, JAKERS! THE ADVENTURES OF PIGGLEY WINKS, based on original stories by Irish writer Denise Fitzpatrick. The series, a co-production from MYP, Entara Limited and PBS affiliate WLIW, features 26 episodes aimed at children aged 4-8.

Tremendous! Entertainment has secured the international television rights to the animated television series GARFIELD & FRIENDS, and plans on reintroducing the lasagna-loving feline to broadcasters at this years MIPCOM. To promote the series, Tremendous! Entertainment will produce and distribute a Garfield 25th anniversary television special, slated to begin production in January 2003 for broadcast in June 2003. The company also plans to release special home video and DVD Collector Editions in fall 2003.

Banjax, a new digital animation company based in Belfast and London, will be at MIPCOM Jr. and MIPCOM with four new animated projects: GENE-FUSION, SICK AND FAMOUS, GNARPH and THINGIES. GENE FUSION (26 x 22 minutes) is set in an authoritarian future society where mutant creatures, called Fusimals, battle a spectacular gladiatorial road show owned and run by the World Fusing Federation. The series is based on a comic book created by U.S. Publisher/IP House Beckett Entertainment. SICK AND FAMOUS (26 x 22 minutes) is a comedy about a series broadcast from an exclusive rehab clinic.