Tagged With: Series

THE GREENBLATT JANOLLARI STUDIO, a Los Angeles-based production company, has signed ERIC FOGEL, creator of the MTV animated series Celebrity Death Match and The Head, to develop a concept for a new, prime-time, stop-motion animated series. The deal gives Fogel a flat six-figure sum for developing a series concept and pilot script, which, if adapted as a series, will be executive produced by Fogel, and targeted for fall 1999. No network is attached at this early stage.

The Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television presented the 13th annual Gemini Awards on Sunday, October 4 in Toronto. The winner in the Animated Program or Series category is Nelvana Limiteds 2D series, Sam & Max, produced by Patrick Loubert, Gwenn Saunders Eckel, Michael Hirsh, Stephen Hodgins, Robert Ross, Clive A. Smith and J.D. Smith. The winner in the Preschool Program or Series category is Cochran Entertainments mixed-media show, Theodore Tugboat, produced by Andrew Cochran.

Sydney, Australia-based independent producer and distributor Energee Entertainment Pty Ltd., producers of the animated series Crocadoo, has acquired two cartoon series from the 1960s to sell to the nostalgia niche market. Clutch Cargo follows the seaplane travel adventures of Clutch and his friends Spinner and Paddlefoot, and Space Angel follows the intergalactic adventures of law enforcer Scott McCloud from the Earth Bureau of Investigation. Both are contained in half-hour episodes which can also be shown as five-minute daily strips or used as fillers.

U.K. company Fairwater Films has a new series of animated interstitials for the international market, titled World Wide Webley. The 52 one-minute shorts depict the adventures of the title character, a spider, in cyberspace, covering such topics as electronic mail and Internet etiquette.

Bohbot Kids Network (BKN) is launching the animated series "Roswell Conspiracies--Aliens, Myths and Legends" for a Fall 1999 U.S. debut and BKN affiliate debut in 2000. It's unusual format will be comprised of 20 one-hour episodes that can also be split into 40 half-hour episodes. With a production budget of U.S. $850,000 per episode, the show is described as Bohbot's most ambitious children's series to date. The science-fiction show, based on the concept that a NATO Alliance was formed to seek out and destroy alien trespassers, is aimed at kids aged 7-13.

U.S. network NBC aired only three episodes of the prime-time animated series Stressed Eric before pulling it off the air due to disappointing ratings (Nielsen average 4.8). The show, produced with British broadcaster BBC by Klasky Csupo and Absolutely Productions, had been specially dubbed with a new voice track for American viewers, and was slated to air for six episodes through the end of the summer season.