Viacom is asking Time Warner Cable for a raise – and if they don’t get it they will pull their channels off the cable service AT MIDNIGHT TONIGHT!

Oh, by the way, Happy New Year.

If Time Warner Cable and Viacom can’t reach a deal, the channel blackout would occur after midnight in each time zone. The affected channels would be: Comedy Central, Logo, Palladia, MTV, MTV 2, MTV Hits, MTV Jams, MTV Tr3s, Nickelodeon, Noggin, Nick 2, Nicktoons, Spike, The N, TV Land, VH1, VH1 Classic, VH1 Soul and CMT: Pure Country.

At of the time of this posting, no deal has been reached between Viacom and TWC. I find it interesting that in their hour of need, Viacom reaches for it’s biggest cartoon stars – Spongebob, Dora and Cartman – to appeal to cable customers for help, in newspaper ads (above) and TV spots (below). Cartoons (and their animators) don’t usually rate the respect of live action fare in Hollywood – but when it comes to the financial bottom line, stunts like this really illustrate how powerful animation is to the major corporations.

Actually, there could be a silver lining in all this for classic cartoon fans. It could be a godsend to Cartoon Network who are running a marathon of Looney Tunes all New Year’s Day. The spill-over of kids looking for Nicktoons could end up on CN, potentially giving a huge rating for the Warner Bros. cartoons, which could encourage CN (or another network) to license the Looney Tunes full time. If I were Time Warner, I’d call Viacom’s bluff.

UPDATE: At the last minute, a deal between TWC and Viacom was reached. Nick, MTV and Comedy Central are all there where they should be.

Silly me! I thought the forthcoming live action G-Force film from Disney was an adaptation of of the anime series Battle of the Planets. Instead it’s another hybrid live action/CG talking animals movie – but this time it looks pretty funny!

Courtesy of Creative Screenwriting magazine, a 70+ minute audio interview with Andrew Stanton (68mb MP3 file) discussing his films Wall-E and Finding Nemo.

The Animation Guild blog linked to this Variety article about the financial woes of animation outfit Imagi Int’l, which has studios in both Hong Kong and Los Angeles. The studio, which last year worked on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and is responsible for the forthcoming Astro Boy, also has three other features in the pipeline: Gatchaman, Tusker and Cat Tale. According to the article, Imagi will be able to complete Astro Boy but auditors say that “it is uncertain whether the Group will have the necessary financial resources to complete these animated pictures,” in reference to the following three films. All the sticky financial details are in the Variety piece. According to the Animation Guild, the studio is employing 66 artists in LA as of early-December. This is what the Guild’s business rep Steve Hulett writes about the situation on their blog:

“A short while ago, we received a communication from the company that there could be a short hiccup in cash flow, but not to worry. There were plenty of bucks overall and everything would be ducky in due course. Based on this, maybe things are a tad more serious than that. The company has several animated features in various stages of production, and a lot of money invested in them. It’s going to be grim for the sizable staff working in Sherman Oaks (not to mention Hong Kong) if everything comes to a grinding halt.”

If you can pull yourself away from Cartoon Network’s New Years Day marathon of Looney Tunes, you might tune into coverage of the annual Tournament of Roses parade in Pasadena. The 33rd of 100 floats entered represents New Mexico, and the state chose the Road Runner (their state bird) and Wile E. Coyote to celebrate the parade’s theme of “Hats off to Entertainment” in this year’s event.

Chuck Jones daughter Linda and his grandson Craig will be riding on the float. Above is the concept sketch, and a few photographs of the float during construction can be seen in this news story out of Santa Fe, NM.

Each year the National Film Preservation Board of The Library of Congress names 25 “culturally, historically or aesthetically” significant films to the National Film Registry, a collection of movies selected to be preserved for all time. Chuck Jones’ What’s Opera Doc?, Bob Clampett’s Porky In Wackyland, Fleischer’s Snow White (1933), Pixar’s Toy Story and several Disney titles including Steamboat Willie and Three Little Pigs, have already made the grade. The 2008 selections were just announced this morning and animation was represented by Ray Harryhausen’s classic The 7th Voyage of Sindbad (1958), Len Lye’s experimental short Free Radicals (1979) and a 1956 home movie of Disneyland.

The home movie, Disneyland Dream, is one of the oddest choices the LoC has ever made. Robbins and Meg Barstow won a free trip to Disneyland as part of a “Scotch Brand Cellophane Tape” contest. The little film they made is charming, and really captures what life was like in the 1950s. And the images of 1956 Disneyland and Universal City are priceless. Check it out on Archive.org.

Looks like Betty Boop has returned to her pre-Code roots… gambling!

Dave Filipi (Film Curator of Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, Ohio) found these Lottery Tickets (above) while visiting his family in Minnesota over Christmas (Alas, no winners).

An iconic symbol during the Great Depression of the 1930s, Betty’s been used for Lottery promotions before in various states (New Jersey, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin for example). Contestants for the current holiday themed contests in Minnesota must scratch off Pudgy to see if they win. Sounds like a good idea to me.

According to this article in today’s London Times, Popeye the Sailor will lose its copyright protection in Europe on January 1. Supposedly anyone, starting Thursday could use E.C. Segar’s earliest drawings to create T-Shirts, posters, or whatever.

In the United States the character is protected until 2024, as U.S. law protects a work for 95 years after its initial copyright.