Monthly Archives: October 2012

Renown Czech direc­tor and writer Bretislav Pojar passed away sud­denly on Fri­day pro­ducer Michal Podhrad­sky announced ear­lier today. Pojar’s body of work pro­duced at Krátký Film Praha (the Czech ani­mated film stu­dio) was cel­e­brated by both his fel­low coun­try­men as well as the world at large.

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Car­toon Net­work is pre­sent­ing a new Hal­loween spe­cial take on the Santa ver­sus Hal­loween meme with the ani­mated spe­cial Dear Drac­ula. Based on writer Joshua Williamson and artist Vicente Navarrete’s 2008 graphic novel “Dear Drac­ula”, the spe­cial will air Octo­ber 16th on Car­toon Network.

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Actor Ken San­som, the voice of Rab­bit in Disney’s Win­nie the Pooh car­toons for 22 years, died this week in Hol­la­day, Utah from com­pli­ca­tions after a stroke. He was 85.

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British author Helen Nicoll, cre­ator of the immensely pop­u­lar Meg and Mog series of children’s books about a witch and her cat, died Sep­tem­ber 30. The Wilt­shire, Eng­land res­i­dent was 74.

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The new motion cap­ture ani­mated take of the Tarzan leg­end has a new poster, and a new teaser trailer. To be released in 3D next sum­mer, the film is pro­duced by Con­statin Film in Germany.

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Twen­ti­eth Cen­tury Fox Ani­ma­tion and its Blue Sky Stu­dios unit have acquired rights to make a fea­ture film based on the late Charles Schulz’s beloved and iconic Peanuts fran­chise, Twen­ti­eth Cen­tury Fox Ani­ma­tion pres­i­dent Vanessa Mor­ri­son announced Tuesday.

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One of the world’s most beloved car­toon duos returns to tele­vi­sion in The Tom and Jerry Show, a fresh take on the clas­sic fren­e­mies com­ing soon to Car­toon Network.

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The Amer­i­can Fed­er­a­tion of Musi­cians sued 20th Cen­tury Fox and NBC Uni­ver­sal last week, object­ing to the use of the recorded music sound­track from The Simp­sons in a series-based roller coaster attrac­tion at Uni­ver­sal Stu­dios Theme Park in Hollywood.

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This year’s DOK Leipzig, a Ger­man fes­ti­val of doc­u­men­taries and ani­ma­tion, will have 114 short ani­mated films in its offi­cial pro­gram, orga­niz­ers announced Friday.

The selected films were cho­sen from 2,847 entries sub­mit­ted from 113 countries.

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Four series have been nom­i­nated in the Kids: Ani­ma­tion cat­e­gory of the inau­gural Inter­na­tional Emmy Kids Awards.

Up for the award are The Amaz­ing World of Gum­ball (Turner Broad­cast­ing; United King­dom), Ask Lara (Tomavistas/Televisió de Catalunya/Red Kite Animations/Submarine; Spain), Digi­mon Xros Wars — The Young Hunters Who Leapt Through Time (Toei Animation/TV Asahi; Japan) and The Jun­gle Bunch (TAT productions/Master Films/Vanilla Seed; France).

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What do you call an auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal film that bills itself as totally untrue? How about exactly what you would expect from the five remain­ing mem­bers of Britain’s infa­mous comic troupe Monty Python.

A Liars Auto­bi­og­ra­phy fea­tures the voices of Pythons’ John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin as well as the sub­ject of this film, Gra­ham Chapman.

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“Put another can­dle on my birth­day cake, we’re gonna bake a birth­day cake. Put another can­dle on my birth­day cake. I’m another year old today.”

“The Birth­day Cake Polka” was a favorite song per­formed by much-loved “Sher­iff” John Rovick, who emceed the daily show Car­toon Time from 1952 to 1970 on KTTV 11 in Los Angeles.

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Tim Burton’s “Franken­wee­nie” was a bit of a dog at the box office, open­ing at a weak fifth place over the Colum­bus Day/Canadian Thanks­giv­ing weekend.

The Dis­ney release was screened in 3,005 North Amer­i­can the­aters, but made just $11.5 mil­lion. It cost $39 mil­lion to produce.

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