Animation Archives - Page 15 of 22

MTV’s “Good Vibes” has a lot to feel good about

October 26, 2011 Ryan Berenz

By Ryan Berenz Follow @ChannelGuideRAB Amid the fanfare of the triumphant return of Beavis and Butt-Head to the MTV schedule, there’s a new animated comedy that the network is pairing with B&B on Thursday nights, and it’s definitely worth checking out. Good Vibes premieres Oct. 27 at 10:30pm ET/PT, and features the voices of Josh Gad, Adam Brody, Debi Mazar, Alan Tudyk, Jake Busey and Danny McBride. Teenager Mondo Brando (Gad) and his hot mom move from New Jersey to a California beach community. Mondo is short, fat and a little awkward, which doesn’t make him a big hit with […]

Hallmark’s “Jingle” toy and TV special to top kids’ 2011 holiday gift list

October 21, 2011 Barb Oates

By Barb Oates Back in August, I returned from the TV critics press tour with an interesting new toy. It was a plush little husky pup named Jingle that had a red tag attached to it urging you to: “Press my button to hear how I work.” Jingle sat on my desk for months and was greeted with much adoration and intrigue (OK, annoyance for some) as my colleagues and visitors pressed his little red button and were told: “Jingle’s ready for you to read his story to him.” Jingle is a Hallmark creation and is accompanied by an interactive […]

“Transformers Prime” EP opens up about struggles to get 1st season right

October 14, 2011 StayTuned Staff

By Stacey Harrison Follow @ChannelGuideSRH Tonight’s season finale of Transformers Prime, which airs at 8:30pm on The Hub, will represent the culmination of a long, arduous road for not only the characters, but the creative team behind the show. Executive producer Jeff Kline says his team had just under a year to launch what he calls “the most complicated CGI show really ever attempted” for TV in about half the time that would normally be allotted. It was part of not just a new version of the Transformers franchise, but of an entirely new network. The Hub, a partnership between […]

FOX airs previously postponed “Animation Domination” hurricane-themed crossover

September 29, 2011 Jeff Pfeiffer

By Jeff Pfeiffer Follow @ChannelGuideJP This Sunday’s (Oct. 2) new episodes of The Cleveland Show, Family Guy and American Dad will be series crossover episodes focused around a hurricane that hits the shows’ respective cities of Stoolbend, Quahog and Langley Falls. These episodes were originally slated to air last spring, but were postponed out of respect to the victims of the devastating tornadoes and storms that battered the South at that time. Since then, various other storms have not shown Mother Nature has any inclination to ease up too much, so perhaps FOX is trying to squeeze these in before […]

“Star Wars: The Clone Wars” Season 4 premiere gets wet and wild

September 16, 2011 Jeff Pfeiffer

One of the reasons we had to wait until the Star Wars prequels before we saw any underwater denizens of George Lucas’ universe on their home, um, terrain — aside from story considerations — may likely have been that the special effects technology simply didn’t exist during the original trilogy to effectively present such a world to viewers. And even when we finally did see one of these societies in the form of Jar-Jar Binks and his fellow Gungans in Episode I, it was for a few minutes. But the two-part Season 4 premiere of Star Wars: The Clone Wars […]

“Family Guy” hits the big screen for one-night event

September 14, 2011 Jeff Pfeiffer

By Jeff Pfeiffer Follow @ChannelGuideJP To help you gear up for the upcoming 10th season premiere of FOX’s hit animated comedy Family Guy — and if you live in certain areas — you can try to attend the special one-night only, exclusive, “Something, Something, Something Anniversary” midnight screening event this Thursday, Sept. 15, being held in 10 cities around the country. The event is in celebration of the series’ 10th anniversary (although the show began 12 years ago, there were some lost years in there after FOX had temporarily canceled it). Screening events will feature an exclusive sneak peek of […]

Discovery Channel’s “Dinosaur Revolution” is a blast from the prehistoric past

September 1, 2011 Jeff Pfeiffer

By Jeff Pfeiffer Follow @ChannelGuideJP Notable dinosaur illustrators and animators have gotten together for the intriguing new Discovery Channel series Dinosaur Revolution that, in the previews I saw, managed to recall for me the best dino-thrills and emotions that I also found in everything from the Walking With Dinosaurs series to the The Land Before Time films and the “Rite of Spring” dinosaur sequence in Disney’s Fantasia. Almost narration-free, the series presents CG-animated vignettes depicting life for various dinosaurs, using the latest theories of how we believe these animals behaved.

“Fairly OddParents” joins toons that have made the leap to live-action

July 8, 2011 StayTuned Staff

Viewers will soon get to experience The Fairly OddParents in a completely new way. Instead of a manic, anime-inspired cartoon, they’ll see the characters in flesh and blood in A Fairly Odd Movie: Grow Up, Timmy Turner!, which premieres Saturday on Nickelodeon. Drake Bell (Drake & Josh) plays a 23-year-old Timmy who despite his age is still struggling to mature. It might seem a novel way of approaching the material, but the truth is, plenty of cartoons have made the jump to live-action. Sorry to say, much of the time the results are less than stellar. But a few gems […]

“Dan Vs.” Curtis Armstrong: Character actor talks about his latest role

July 8, 2011 StayTuned Staff

When actors become known for a certain role, it’s not uncommon for them to subsequently go out of their way to show how different the character is from their real personality. Take Curtis Armstrong, who pretty much owned the wild-man sidekick role in 1980s teen movies like Risky Business, Better Off Dead and, of course, as Booger in Revenge of the Nerds. But it’s not long into a conversation with Armstrong when it becomes readily apparent that the well-spoken, thoughtful actor is indeed nothing like the slovenly belch factory he made famous. In his latest role, however, Armstrong can’t help […]

“Simpsons” fans can vote for the future of “Nedna”

May 19, 2011 Jeff Pfeiffer

This Sunday’s episode of The Simpsons, “The Ned-liest Catch” (FOX, 8pm ET/PT), is the season finale and kicks off a cliffhanger that will be resolved in the Season 23 premiere this fall — and which fans will have a direct influence in resolving. It may not be as big a cliffhanger as “Who shot Mr. Burns?” but it still has the opportunity to shake up Springfield. In the episode, Ned Flanders and Edna Krabappel find love, but Ned has reservations when he learns that Edna has been with many other men, including Homer and Aerosmith drummer Joey Kramer (guest-voicing himself).