Parents of children beware: it seems that Cartoon Network, in its middle age, has developed a fascination with young boys. A recent article in Variety, describing the new direction of network, sounds off the alarms with the headline “Cartoon Network Eyes Young Males.” In it, various Cartoon Net execs try to justify their new perversion by explaining that the network “has a strength with boys” and that they want to rebuild themselves as “the home for boys.”

Most disturbingly, the writer of the article warns that Cartoon Network has “set their sights on male teens and tweens” and plans to have boys’ action shows “up the wazoo.” After years of masquerading around as a network that offered cartoons to viewers of all ages and genders, they’ve finally succumbed to their true feelings and revealed plans to seduce young boys exclusively into watching their channel with enticing boy candy like Ben 10, Batman: The Brave and the Bold, and Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Remember, the next time you see Cartoon Network lurking around a school playground, it may not be as innocent as it looks. They like young boys now.

Say what you will about the Great Gazoo, but Harvey Korman (who performed his voice) was a fine comic actor.

He passed away today at age 81.

In addition to his role as Gazoo on The Flintstones, Korman voiced characters on several other animated shows and movies, including Hey Arnold, The Wild Thornberrys and Buzz Lightyear. (The less said about his involvement with this, the better.) He’ll best be remembered by his appearances with Carol Burnett and Tim Conway. And as Hedley Lamarr in Blazing Saddles, he certainly won’t be forgotten. As a tribute, here’s a sample clip of Korman as Gazoo:

There isn’t much to say about this:

Here’s something to note. Inspired by the NPR radio show Car Talk, PBS has created its first prime time animated series, Click and Clack’s As The Wrench Turns.

The animation is by CTTV, a new independent studio. Bill Kroyer and Howard Grossman are the producers, Stephen Silver (Kim Possible) designed it and Tom Sito directed the entire season. Ten episodes were produced and they begin airing on July 9th at 8pm. The program’s website contains only a brief promo clip, but I’ve been told it will be updated with more stuff very soon.

This Variety article explains how 20th Century Fox TV and Fox Broadcasting Co. are launching Fox Inkubator, a new inititative designed to find and develop animated projects. The program will give animators the opportunity to make two-to-three minute shorts, and the successful ones will later be developed into pilots and series. Inkubator, headed by Jennifer Howell, a former supervising producer on South Park, could eventually turn out up to 25 shorts a year. Most notable, unlike development programs at other networks, the Inkubator shorts will be distributed online and available to the public.

In addition to Inkubator, 20th Century Fox has established an in-house animation department for the first time in its history. It is also headed by Howell. The Variety article makes it sound as if Fox is dedicating its future to animation in a big way. Various Fox execs are quoted in the piece saying that animated series “have done so much for us financially and building the brand of this studio. We felt we needed to shine a bigger and brighter light on the future of animation production at this studio,” and “Animation is the perfect product for the world we live in, where DVD sales are so critical, appealing to young men is so critical, and there’s growing digital distribution of shortform content.”

Read between the lines though and things look less rosy. For example, take this quote from one of the suits about the production costs of the Inkubator shorts: “It will be cost effective given the way technology has developed…This isn’t about paying big premiums or big fees to writers. It’s intended to be done on a less-expensive scale.” In other words, they’re likely planning to hire a bunch of young artists and have them produce a crapload of cheapo Flash cartoons with the hope that audiences latch onto one of them. That’s too bad. I’ve long felt that development programs today are shortsighted by focusing on the creation of one-hit wonders and trendy properties, instead of pouring their resources into the long-term development and nurturing of talented artists, who in turn could develop many successful properties. Perhaps if any good comes out of the Inkubator, Fox will finally realize that there are plenty of talented animation creators out there whose names don’t begin with “Seth” and end with “MacFarlane.” I’m not holding my breath though.

The illustration above appears in the latest issue of Southwest Airlines inflight Spirit Magazine. This month the magazine has a fun article written by a parent who spent a marathon day watching all the kids cartoon channels. It’s an interesting snapshot of what’s right - and mostly wrong - with kids TV these days. Read the whole article here.

The article also features several great illustrations (below and above) by Pasadena based cartoonist Mark Matcho.

It was announced today that Viacom and Paramount have teamed with MGM and Lionsgate to create a new cable channel to compete with HBO and Showtime (which is owned by CBS). The channel will be mainly showing new movies, and it is not yet clear whether this will be a basic cable or a premium pay channel, but the initial press release says “the new venture will have access to motion picture titles spanning the vast libraries of the five studios”. And they plan to push its video-on-demand capabilities.

I’ve posted open letters like this before (see here and here). It doesn’t do much good, but it makes me a whole lot feel better.

Dear Viacom/Paramount/M.G.M./Lionsgate,

The announcement of your new cable TV venture has me very excited. I especially like that you are going to use the “vast libraries” of the partner companies to create this new venue for programming. My only concern is that you might overlook the thousands of classic animation titles in your massive holdings.

Viacom/Paramount has rights to the Terrytoons library, hundreds of cartoons which include such rarely seen cartoon characters like Mighty Mouse, Heckle & Jeckle, Deputy Dawg and many others. Paramount also owns classic cartoon shorts of the 1960s. Lionsgate has licensed from you (and does nothing with) the pre-1950 Paramount cartoons which include Little Lulu, George Pal’s Academy Award winning Puppetoons, and the library of Betty Boop cartoons, amongst much else. Together, you can make these classics available for the first time in decades.

Additionally, MGM brings the DePatie-Freleng cartoons to the table. This library includes Oscar winning Pink Panther shorts, and numerous other cartoons featuring The Ant And the Aardvark, The Inspector and the Tijuana Toads.

And guess what? Your home video divisions have only released a fraction of the material you own. Making them available now on cable would provide you with unique, exclusive, entertaining fillers that people of all ages will enjoy. I know you aren’t starting a children’s channel, nor competing with Cartoon Network, but these classic animated shorts are a lot of fun, and deserve to be seen.

So unearth your old cartoons. Make them available as interstitials between programming or for video-on-demand purchase. Believe it or not, people really want to see them.

Best of luck,
Jerry Beck
CartoonBrew.com

Below are the opening titles to the upcoming series Kaiba, created and directed by Masaaki Yuasa, the genius visionary behind Mind Game. A few more details on the series, which is described as a sci-fi romance, can be found on Wikipedia.

And here is a tantalizing clip from Kemonozume, Yuasa’s first TV series made in 2006. Considering how much I admired Mind Game, I’m ashamed to admit that I haven’t seen this series yet, though Ben Ettinger’s write-ups about the 13 episodes make it sound phenomenal. Even in this short clip, the graphic invention and cinematic quality of storytelling are astounding, and so far beyond anything I’ve ever seen in American TV animation. The only thing that surprises me is that Yuasa’s work isn’t more readily available in the United States. (Thanks, Brandon)