Television
TV Tidbits. NBC
will air the animated series Stressed Eric in their Wednesday night
prime time line-up starting on August 12. This is the first time NBC has aired
a regular prime time animated series since The Famous Adventures of Mr.
Magoo aired on Saturday nights during the 1965/65 TV season. Stressed
Eric, a co-production of Absolutely Productions, the BBC and Klasky Csupo,
stars a British main character with a strong accent, so NBC will re-dub the
track with an American voice actor to make the dialogue more comprehensible
to its American viewers. . . . Film Roman has been contracted by Twentieth
Century Fox Television to produce 13 episodes of the new animated series Family
Guy, created by Seth MacFarlane and slated to air on Fox prime time in
1999. Film Roman also produces The Simpsons and King of the Hill
for Fox. . . By the end of 1998, Nickelodeon will launch two 24-hour
feeds of its kids cable channel in Asia: on DirecTV in Japan and on Asian
Cable Communications in the Philippines. . . . Cartoon Network has
ordered an additional 13 episodes of the Johnny Bravo series from Hanna-Barbera.
The new shows will air in 1999. . . . Matinee Entertainment and producer
Frank Saperstein have completed 13 episodes of the animated series Kampung
Boy based on the comic by the Malaysian artist who goes by the name of
"Lat." The show was recently screened at the Singapore
Animation Fiesta and is slated to air in October on the ASTRO satellite
network in Malaysia. U.S. and international sales are still pending. . . .
Stop-motion animator Corky Quakenbush is gearing up to produce more spoof
shorts for another season of Mad TV on Fox. He recently completed two
series pilots; one for Fox and another for HBO. . . . Klasky Csupo's new animated
series, The Wild Thornberrys will be included in Nickelodeon's
new Nick-O-Zone prime time line-up starting August 31, along with returning
series Hey Arnold! and Kablam! A tie-in promotion with Burger
King will feature toys based on Nick shows, such as figurines from Action
League Now!. . . . Nickelodeon debuted its new series of animated shorts,
Oh Yeah! Cartoons! on July 19 at 12:00 noon, starting with Chalkzone
by Larry Huber and Bill Burnett, What is Funny? by Bill Burnett and
Vince Waller and Jelly's Day by Greg Emison and Bill Burnett.. . .
. Fox Family Channel, launching on August 15, has added the Nelvana/Medialab
series Donkey Kong Country to it's weekend line-up, The Weekend
Chill. Fox Family Channel has also purchased a package of CGI program
interstitials called Bob and Scott from French network TF1. . . . .
 |
| Donkey Kong Country will air on Fox Family Channel in the U.S. Image courtesy of Medialab. |
HBO has purchased broadcast rights to three
animated series by Canadian production company CINAR: The Adventures of
Paddington Bear, The Country Mouse and the City Mouse Adventures and The
Little Lulu Show. CINAR is partnering Paris-based Alphanim (a company
founded by Christian Davin last year) to co-produce a new animated series
called Mona the Vampire, based on books by Sonia Holleyman. The half-hour
show will air on YTV in Canada, France 3 and Canal J in France, and Animation
Services in Hong Kong.. . . . Starting this fall, a west coast feed of Disney's
new all-animation network Toon Disney will be available to cable affiliates,
on the Galaxy 7 and Transponder 17 systems. This means that west coast viewers
in pacific and mountain time zones will see programming at its scheduled time
rather than three hours later than east coast viewers. . . . Canada's all-animation
network, Teletoon is airing a weekend series called Frame by Frame
featuring animation from the National Film board of Canada (NFBC). This month's
highlights include the animated shorts, The Cat Came Back, The Big Snit,
The Balgonie Birdman and others. Canadian NFBC fans also caught the NFBC
special, The Art of the Animator, profiling Co Hoedeman, Jacques Drouin
and others, on July 31 on the Saskatchewan Communications Network (SCN). .
. .
Want to know what's on and when? Animation World Magazine's upcoming
September 1998 issue will feature an overview of new TV animation series.
Nick And Cosby Animating Little Bill. Nickelodeon is teaming
up with Bill Cosby to produce a new animated series for pre-schoolers called
Little Bill, based on Cosby's books of the same name published by Scholastic.
The show, which investigates life through the eyes of a five-year-old boy
on a quest to understand the world, will air on Nick Jr. starting in January
1999. It will be produced in Nickelodeon's digital studio in New York, launched
for production on another pre-school animated series, Blue's Clues.
Cosby will executive produce, Robert Scull (Rocko's Modern Life, Kablam!)
will produce and direct and Fracaswell Hyman will write the series. Bill Cosby
is also working on an animated feature with MGM.
Start Your Noggins! U.S. cable broadcaster EchoStar Communications
Corporation has agreed to launch Noggin, the first 24-hour educational network
for kids. The Nickelodeon/Children's Television Workshop joint venture will
be available in January 1999 on EchoStar's DISH Network. The announcement,
representing Noggin's first DBS distribution agreement since its inception
two months ago, was made today by Nicole Browning, executive vice president
of Affiliate Sales & Marketing for MTV Networks.
VH1 Tooning In. Yet another cable network is launching into animation.
VH1, a Viacom-owned sister company to MTV and Nickelodeon which focuses on
music programming, has announced a development slate that includes two animated
series. The Agent is being developed in conjunction with Lorne Michaels'
(producer of Saturday Night Live) company Broadway Video, as a weekly
half-hour show following the life and times of a music agent and his clients.
As the series is only in development stage at this time, a production company
has not been chosen, but it is possible that J.J. Sedelmaier Productions could
be involved because of their track record of producing the TV Funhouse
animated segments for Saturday Night Live. The second series in development
is called Animal Tracks. Playing on analogies of animal personalities,
the show is about a record company with a snake for a president, a bat for
an A&R guy, and a "cute chick" for an office manager. Get it?
VH1 senior vice president of Programming & Production Jeff Gaspin said,
"Our new development slate combines the same passion for music that marked
our best programs with a wider variety of traditional television genres."
Note: Readers may contact any Animation World Magazine contributor by sending an e-mail to editor@awn.com.
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