I watched the first episode of the new Clone Wars series on Cartoon Network tonight. I went into it not expecting much. I didn’t see the recent theatrical release, so I really wasn’t sure what to expect.
I enjoyed the show quite a bit. I was surprised at the level of the lighting, effects, and story. The animation of key scenes was well done, with some hit or miss bits inbetween, but overall it was pretty well done. I really liked the narrator intro at the start, and the pacing of the stories seemed spot on.
While I enjoyed the 2D Clone Wars cartoons from a few years back, if these first two episodes are any indication, this new series will be a very good one.
Two new animated series for grown-ups premiere this Sunday, September 28: The Life and Times of Tim debuts on HBO at 11 PM and Superjail airs on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim at 11:45 .
Here are the official descriptions:
The Life and Times of Tim follows this everyday working guy from one scandalous crisis to the next….Tim is a young guy who always tries to do the right thing, but for some reason the world conspires against him. In many episodes, he’s trying to better himself, but the harder he tries, the worse things become.
Heavy animation and violence run rampant in Adult Swim’s newest original series Superjail! Created by Christy Karacas, Stephen Warbrick and Ben Gruber… Superjail is the most intense and complicated jail in the universe, residing on a remote island under the tedious eye of the mysterious and slightly delirious Warden.
Although I am rather peaceful by nature, I am really looking forward to Superjail. The team behind it are Supertalented; Christy and Stephen first collaborated on the hysterically over-the-top short Barfight. The series was produced at Augenblick Studios in Dumbo. Lots of tasty show artwork and info here.
The Life and Times of Tim seems to be going for an award for Animated Show With the Least Actual Animation Possible. It’s attempting a charmingly inept drawing style, but I don’t think it can compete with the best of the genre: Beavis and Butthead and Dr. Katz. You can check some sample videos on this page. A few red flags for me: the creator’s big claim to fame is that he was co-creator of Budweiser “Lizards” TV campaign; the show was developed for FOX, which didn’t pick it up. But he did make a funny short called Angry Unpaid Hooker. Since HBO hasn’t had an adult animated series since Spawn, I guess I will hope for best…
Both shows plan to be outrageous…my money (okay, eyeballs) are on Superjail!
If you watch either of both of these shows on Sunday, please come by this thread on Monday and post your reviews!
After the jump…Barfight and Angry Unpaid Hooker, for those who haven’t seen them. Both NSFW…especially the second one. [Read more…]
“Scooby-Doo: In the Beginning” will feature an all new cast of lesser-known actors replacing the original quartet of Freddie Prinze Jr., Sarah Michelle Gellar, Matthew Lillard and Linda Cardellini. Rob Amell (”Life With Derek”) will play Freddy, joined by newcomers Kaitlyn Melton as Daphne, Hayley Alcroft as Velma and Nick Palatas as Shaggy. The computer-generated Scooby-Doo will be voiced by Frank Welker, a longtime voice actor on the animated “Scooby-Doo” series.
Who knows? This film could be good. The problem is that the Scooby Doo universe has been done to death, with a few takes on the subject matter from the same prequel perspective as this new film, including the very well done “A Pup Named Scooby Doo”. That series included a lot of inside jokes from the [Read more…]
In 2007, comix legend Kaz made an animated pilot called Zoot Rumpus for Cartoon Network, starring a junkyard dog living in a seedily tumbledown Kaz-erific setting. Part One has been posted on You Tube. (Part Two will show up soon, and I will announce when it’s viewable.)
The show is currently without a home, so why don’t you media moguls out there start fighting over it like dogs fight over a large, meaty bone?
A little Zoot trivia: Kaz used to draw another character named Zoot Rumpus, a roly-poly worse-for-wear fellow who appeared in Underworld strips and also taught kids about creating cartoons in a how-to-draw strip for the Nickelodeon Magazine Comic Book.
After the jump, an earlier contribution to animation history: Kaz’s Dr.Worm design appears in a They Might Be Giants video on Nickelodeon’s KaBlam! [Read more…]
Matt Schwartz, another ex-MTV Animation comrade (and there are a lot of us around), contacted me to say that his cartoon, Calling Cat-22!, will be featured as a Wedgie this Sunday on Cartoon Network.
Wedgies are cartoon shorts that CN is currently “wedging” in between programs, such as the “Not So Smart Toons” marathon on Sunday from 12-6 PM. If you can’t be home and/or don’t have TIVO or some such gizmo, you can watch Wedgies on the CN Video Page.
If you want a sneak peek of Calling Cat-22!, there is one episode up right now called “Stink”. Other Wedgie series so far are Flapjack, Bremen Avenue Experience, Nacho Bear, and The Talented Mr. Bixby.
(Oh, and one thing I don’t like about the CN video site is that there are no show credits and they don’t provide any info about the creators. C’mon, CN, why make it difficult for us to [Read more…]
While there is a lot of negative buzz about this film on many animation forums, the fan community is eagerly awaiting the release of “Star Wars: The Clone Wars”. While I wasn’t too excited about this project when I first heard about it, the newer trailers look promising.
It really would have been nice to see a theatrical release of the 2D Clone Wars series which ran on Cartoon Network a few years back.
What do you think? Are you looking forward to the new film?
Not all fan videos are created equal. Youtube has no shortage of bad videos of animated content set to random songs. This video from YouTube user Poopydough is one of the good ones though. He combined the Cake cover of the Black Sabbath song “War Pigs”, with visuals from the Cartoon Network series “Clone Wars”. He matched up key lyrics with visuals that correspond, and the results are pretty nice.
I still prefer the way Black Sabbath does the song though.
I wish I had a story or two about Zac Moncrief to share with you all, but I didn’t really attend his classes while he taught at Calarts. But what I can share with you was how I felt about him, his teaching methods, when I did crash a class or two of his.
Zac is a very funny person, and was a very sharing and encouraging teacher. It’s to bad he’s not teaching at Calarts still, because the kids there need people like Zac.
Zac, himself, attended Calarts and obtained an internship on the animated film, The Pagemaster. Soon after he moved into the role of assistant animator on Cats Don’t Dance. During his time on Cats Don’t Dance, Fred Seibert (who’s that guy?) had bought a pilot from Zac entitled, Godfrey and Zeek, for the Hanna-BarberaWhat-A-Cartoon Series.
Zac then found himself doing work on another HB series, Johnny Bravo in the story department.
Some time passed, [Read more…]
