Category: Television

UK-based distributor Indigo Kids has signed a deal to distribute Toonz Animation India's new project THE ADVENTURES OF TENALI. Indigo will take worldwide television, video, DVD and licensing rights, excluding India and Singapore, as part of an ongoing agreement with the studio, which includes Asian distribution rights for HOW TO CARE FOR YOUR MONSTER, a co-production with UK-based Treehouse Productions and Canada-based Vivamundo. Based on a character from Indian folklore, THE ADVENTURES OF TENALI (26 x11-minutes) takes a trip through history to a world of monarchs and palaces.

Vancouver, Canada-based Mainframe Entertainment, Inc. will provide the CGI animation production for Columbia TriStar Domestic Television (CTDT) Family Entertainment's new animated series, SPIDER-MAN, slated to premiere on MTV in winter 2002. According to Mainframe, this new incarnation of the Spider-Man series, featuring Peter Parker as a college student trying to juggle school, work, relationships and being a super hero, will feature CG animation processed to have a classic animation look, combining bright, abstract colors and including a realistic neon lit city.

Fox Kids UK has announced the line-up for its new season of programming and it includes several UK television premieres and a second season of the battling robots show MEDABOTS, which is currently one of Fox Kids UK's top-rated shows. Among the UK premieres are the anime series SHIN CHAN, acquired from TV Asahi, and PIG CITY, a Cinegroupe production that features the adventures of a country bumpkin pig in the big city.

Cartoon Network hasrevived yet another Warner Bros. series with the premiere of THEOBLONGS on Sunday, August 4, 2002 at 10:30 pm during Adult Swim,Cartoon Network's twice-weekly block of animation aimed at adults.The Oblongs is a series about a typical close-knit family that justhappens to have various physical abnormalities due to living in closeproximity to a toxic swamp. The series is based on characters thatappear in Angus Oblong's book, CREEPY SUSIE AND THIRTEEN OTHER TRAGIC

QUEER DUCK, the animated series about an openly gay duck and his friends, is going international following a recent agreement between Showtime Networks and The British Broadcasting Company (BBC). The show, which consists of 20 x 3-minute episodes, will air on BBC Choice as a regular part of the weekly magazine program That Gay Show. BBC Choice is a mixed genre channel aimed at a modern young audience whose core is 25 to 34 year olds. The BBC will have all television rights to show QUEER DUCK in the United Kingdom until 2005.

Highlighted by the premiere of '60s cult series THUNDERBIRDS, U.S. cable network TechTV recently announced its 2002-2003 line-up, which focuses on a new programming strategy. "In addition to our existing original programming, TechTV has added more entertainment-based technology programming with a new line up of acquisitions and commissions," explained Greg Drebin, senior vice president of programming and production for TechTV.

Augenblick Studios has signed a deal with Film Roman to produce a series based on the short film DRUNKY. DRUNKY recently screened at Annecy 2002 and the Brooklyn Film and Video Festival. It also took first prize in the 2D animation category at the First Annual DIRECTV - Level13.net Online Animation Festival, which is sponsored by Film Roman. You can see DRUNKY online at www.augenblickstudios.com. More details to come

Cartoon Network's newest series, WHATEVER HAPPENED TO ROBOT JONES?, premieres Friday, July 19, 2002 at 9:30 pm. In the retro-1980s future where robots have become commonplace, Robot Jones is a spunky young robot trying to cope with life, fit in with humans and survive adolescence and junior high. ROBOT JONES was created by Greg Miller, who has previous worked on DEXTERS LABORATORY and COW AND CHICKEN.

General consensus is Warner Bros. didn't give 1999's THE IRON GIANT its fair share of marketing, so it went unseen in theaters by a large number of people. Cartoon Network hopes to remedy this somewhat as it celebrates the network's debut of the film by dedicating 24 consecutive hours to this lovely animated feature.

Canadian animation house Studio Brecently unveiled a roster of new shows, including plans for anall-new preschool series based on the '50s live-action series LASSIE.Created for LASSIE rights-holder Classic Media and illustrated byRebecca Dart (WHAT ABOUT MIMI?), the new 2D animated series (52 x11-minutes) will maintain the spirit of the original series butfeature everyone's favorite collie in all new adventures as a puppy.Studio B is also lining up some wackier projects including Gerry

pasi (philippine animation studio,inc.) has teamed with management consultants VentureslinkInternational and ABC-TV Channel 5 in the Philippines to launch thePASI KARTOON SHOW, which premiered Saturday, June 15, 2002. Theone-hour program will air weekly and is designed to create a localmarket for Filipino-produced animation. The first 13 installmentswill be comprised of a half-hour episode each of KONG, THE ANIMATEDSERIES and BIKER MICE FROM MARS. Later episodes will utilize other

Beginning June 15, 2002, DC Comics' superheroes will be fighting evil across the pond. Cartoon Network Europe has acquired the new Warner Bros. Animation series JUSTICE LEAGUE, which debuted in the U.S. on Cartoon Network in November 2001. An updated version of the SUPER FRIENDS series that aired from 1973-85, JUSTICE LEAGUE brings together DC Comics' squad of superheroes -- Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, The Flash, Hawkgirl and Martian Manhunter to battle supervillains, evil monsters and natural disasters.