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Universal's SITTING DUCKS, a new CGI children's animated series, has been licensed in multiple international territories. ITV has secured rights to the show in the U.K., with other licenses going to France's TF1, Australia's ABC, Mexico's Televisa S.A., Portugal's TVI and Star TV in Greece. Cable rights to SITTING DUCKS have been acquired by Canada's YTV and by the Nickelodeon Channel in Australia. In the Netherlands, the show will be shown exclusively on the SBS group of channels.

London-based production company Stink has launched Skunk, a new animation house producing music videos, commercials and short films. The first project for the new company will be three spots for whisky brand Famous Grouse via ad agency Abbott Mead Vickers. Prague-based director Michal Zabka will helm the spots.

Nickelodeon has signed a new SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS licensing deal with the fast food chain Burger King, launching on June 11. Big Kids Meal and Kids Meal customers will be able to collect seven SpongeBob toys designed to be used both on land and in the water. The four-week SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS promotion will be supported with in-restaurant merchandising, the first kids merchandising created by Draft Worldwide Chicago, as well as Web-based marketing and national kid-directed television advertising.

FrameStore has wrapped on three new commercials to launch Nintendos latest Game Boy handset, Game Boy Advance. All three commercials were written and produced by agency Leo Burnett of Chicago, and directed by the Vienna-based directing duo, Rad-ish (Moritz and Christophe). FrameStore's SFX artists created three, highly stylized, virtual worlds, which each allude to one of the three new games developed to accompany the new handset. As synthetic snow was banned on the location of "Church," FrameStore created falling and settling snow for the interior shots.

THRU THE MOEBIUS STRIP, the animated 3D feature film from acclaimed French graphic artist/novelist Jean "Moebius" Giraud, has launched its official website (www.moebius-strip.com). In conjunction with the launch, Moebius is scheduled as the first ever online celebrity interview and chat sponsored by WIRED. Details will soon be available on www.moebius-strip.com and in the July issue of Wired. "I'm trying to find a balance between the strange ideas I have and the dream of a movie for everyone," said Moebius in a quote from the WIRED story.

Mondo Media announced a content agreement with Yahoo!, which will bring three popular Mondo Mini Shows to Yahoo! The three shows are THUGS ON FILM, PIKI & POKO ADVENTURES IN STARLAND and LIKE, NEWS. "Our popular Mini Shows are a great fit for Yahoo! Broadcast," said Douglas Kay, president of Mondo Media. "Mondo has been very successful in capturing the essence of online entertainment and continues to create compelling characters and weekly shows that are sure to strike a chord with Yahoo! Broadcast consumers." David Mandelbrot, vice president and general manager, Yahoo!

Hypnotic and Nibblebox have announced they have completed their merger and closed a second round of financing. The new round of financing was led by Hypnotic's initial investor Vivendi Universal and the media group Dresdner Kleinwort Capital, as well as Nibblebox's initial investors, Knowledge Universe, Windsor Media and Entertainment Media Ventures.