This post is only slightly on-topic, as I want to give a plug to a new soundtrack CD for one of my favorite live action sitcoms of the 1960s.

La-La Land Records has just released a limited edition CD that contains the musical score for the TV series My Favorite Martian (not to be confused with Filmation’s god-awful My Favorite Martians). The album contains the music cues created by composer George Greely, who cleverly combined ’50s sci-fi musical motifs (i.e. heavy use of the Theremin) with ’60s atomic/ lounge/space age pop. It’s a lot of fun to listen to while driving, which is what I was doing when I first heard it.

In an effort to connect this to animation history, I’ll point out that the My Favorite Martian opening title animation was done at the Howard Anderson optical effects house, with animation by Chuck Jones unit animator Lloyd Vaughan (who animated the titles for a another show, also produced by Martian’s Jack Chertok, called My Living Doll - anyone got an episode of that?).

The only place you can order this CD is at La-La Records website. You can watch numerous episodes of My Favorite Martian free, online at AOL Video. And for info on the My Favorite Martian comic book and the illo above, visit Scott Shaw!’s Oddball Comics.

One of the silliest cartoon shows ever contrived by network executives and foist upon kids, back in those deep dark days of network Saturday mornings, was based on the toy Rubik’s Cube.

At long last, a fan website devoted to Ruby Spears 1983 ABC series Rubik the Amazing Cube is here — with everything you ever wanted to know about the show, including episode guides, character profiles and, should it ever be forgotten, clips of the show itself.

Happy Groundhog’s Day!

One of the most unexpected surprises at theaters last year was the box office success of Alvin and the Chipmunks. Nearly everybody expected a modest showing, better performing than the Underdog pic, but certainly not a blockbuster. The film, however, is now Fox’s second highest grossing film of the year (behind only The Simpsons Movie), and with over $160 million to date, it is showing no signs of letting up. By the time it leaves theaters, it will have surpassed the grosses of The Simpsons Movie, Ratatouille and 300.

Obviously, we’re going to be seeing a lot more CG Alvin over the next few years. But perhaps this will also convince Viacom (Paramount Home Video) to release the awesome original Sixties animated series, The Alvin Show, produced by Format Films. It’s amazing that nobody at Viacom has awakened to the fact that they’re sitting on a goldmine with this TV series. Then again, this is the same company that owns the libraries of Terrytoons, Puppetoons, Famous and Fleischer (including Betty Boop). Apparently, their home video strategy is “We don’t like to make money.”

Despite the film’s box office success, it’s still an embarassing project to be involved with if you’re a major part of its creative team and you consider yourself to also be an artist. This became clear when actor Patton Oswalt made an offhand comment on his blog about how he and comedian Brian Posehn were both offered the role of Ian, the agent, and how they both rejected it because of its awfulness. David Cross, who took the role, was so peeved by the notion that he was a sell-out wrote a five-point blog post defending his decision to be involved in the movie. Thankfully, the film’s animation director Chris Bailey, doesn’t have to write a blog post defending his work on the film. Because unlike live-action actors, animation artists have no choice but to work on shit. It’s the only game in town sadly.

This is pretty good… a 40 minute speech by Simpsons director David Silverman from the recent Picnic 07 media event in Amsterdam this past September 26th. David reveals his secret past on Turbo Teen and Mr. T, and the origins of The Simpsons, (Note: the video of this speech is currently off line and is being re-edited. It should be available again soon).

(Thanks, William Phung)

Currently at Texas State University-San Marcos, just south of Austin, there’s a wonderful exhibit on The Making of King of the Hill. Writer and executive producer Jim Dauterive has donated 11 years worth of material to the Southwestern Writers Collection at Texas State. This vast amount of material includes original scripts, story pitches, production notes, promotional material, model sheets, research notes, and even tapes from the unseen, live-action spin-off Monsignor Martinez. The exhibit is on display through December 14, but all the material has been made available for research.

Last Saturday night, Dauterive was on-hand to discuss the show’s history - as well as to answer questions from admiring fans. For more information on this exhibit use this link. And click here for a page that includes a pdf of the complete archive inventory.

(Thanks, Jess Price)

C.H. Greenblatt’s promising new series Chowder debuts tonight on Cartoon Network at 7:30pm. Greenblatt, whose previous experience includes Spongebob and Billy and Mandy, talks about the show in this Toonzone interview.

Bye Bye Batman, Tom & Jerry, and The Legion of Super Heroes. Hello more Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh and crap like that.

Variety is reporting that The CW will shut down Kids’ WB! at the end of this season and turn Saturday mornings over to 4Kids Entertainment (which has taken over Fox’s Saturday morning kids block for the past six years). According to Variety:

Under the five-year pact, 4Kids will program five hours of children’s programming between 7 a.m. and noon on Saturdays on the CW starting September 2008. 4Kids will handle all national commercial advertising, and will share in ad revenue with the CW.

The CW is the last broadcast network to air original kids programming produced in-house. With one less outlet for homegrown animated shows, this announcement is another blow to the local SoCal production community.

On the plus side, it’s one less outlet for the perennial spin-offs of Scooby Doo. Zoinks!

There are plenty of gems to mine in this AWN article about the new live-action/animated Cartoon Network series Out of Jimmy’s Head. Nothing however tops this enlightened description of the show’s animation by CN exec Michael Ouweleen: according to him, the animation in the series is “more animation-y, more out there.”

Now, I’ve been in and around the animation business for a number of years but I honestly have no idea how anyone could make animation more animation-y. If it’s already animation, then it can’t be any more of that technique than it already is. Enough of this silliness, my head hurts just thinking about it. I think a little music will soothe my mind. Let’s just hope it’s music-y enough.