Tonight at 9:30pm Eastern/Pacific, Disney’s Tron Uprising airs its pilot on Disney Channel (it’s also available online). I personally think this series is a breakthrough for a US-generated animated action series; a game changer.

For decades the standard look for adventure cartoons was the model started by Doug Wildey on Hanna Barbera’s Jonny Quest (1964). Later, Bruce Timm and the team at Warner Animation advanced the field with Batman: the Animated Series (1992), and there’s no denying Anime certainly brought a new feel to the genre.

Tron Uprising certainly borrows from those traditions and ups it a notch – a BIG notch. To be fair, the pilot airing tonight only shows off half the picture – the beautiful visuals designed by Art Director Alberto Mielgo and Lead Character Designer Robert Valley. The pilot Beck’s Beginning is a bit of a paste-up – as its constructed from the elements of the previously announced mini-sodes which were originally planned to preview the show (Disney execs decided to edit them into one 31 minute episode instead of presenting them as serialized bite-sized pieces, as first intended). Producer/director Charlie Bean (The Ren & Stimpy Show, Dexter’s Laboratory, Samurai Jack, The Amazing World of Gumball) has the perfect sensibility for this show – and from what I understand the storyline for the actual series is far more complex than the set-up presented tonight.

But so far, I love what I see. How about you? What’s your take? You have no excuse not to give it a try. Take a look at some of this gorgeous production material below. Top row: two of Mielgo’s magnificent production paintings, and a third by Joon Ahn; second row: a model sheet for some of the lead characters; third row: a few of Valley’s storyboards and (at my request) a Beck model sheet (click thumbnails to enlarge). Click all images for larger, fuller views.

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The Hub has responded to yesterday’s brouhaha caused by this Care Bears press release from their pr agency, BWR Public Relations. Crystal Williams, the Hub’s manager of communications and publicity, sent me the following note this afternoon:

Hi Amid,

Last night I came across your story on Cartoon Brew titled “The Hub Hopes Men Will Start Calling Themselves “Belly Bros” and “Care Dudes.” In response, I wanted to let you know that this was an unapproved and unsanctioned pitch by our PR agency that we are completely taken aback by. Both The Hub TV Network nor American Greetings Properties had any knowledge of the pitch angle. It is not our intention to compare Care Bears to My Little Pony and/or the Brony community.

All the best,
Crystal Williams
Manager, Communications & Publicity
The Hub

Next month, The Hub network will debut another revival of a 1980s toy commercial, Care Bears: Welcome to Care-a-Lot. Their earlier series, My Little Pony Friendship is Magic, sparked an unlikely following among adult males, otherwise known as the Brony phenomenon, but one fandom isn’t enough for the Hub.

They think their Care Bears show needs an adult male fanbase, too, and they’re shamelessly encouraging it themselves. Their PR firm sent us the following press release, which besides not understanding the distinction between drawn and CG animation, suggests names for potential male Care Bear fans:

Hey Amid-

What’s the Care Bears equivalent of a Brony? Belly-Bros? Care-Dudes? “Care Bears: Welcome to Care-a-Lot” premieres this June on The Hub TV Network and features the same re-imagined CG animation and spirit of friendship and caring that made shows like “My Little Pony Friendship is Magic” a cult hit.

“Care Bears: Welcome to Care-a-Lot” is a modernized, CGI-animated version of the classic animated cartoon, which hits its 30th anniversary this year! Re-imagined in the same vein as the Hub’s other hit television shows, everyone’s favorite bears and their iconic Belly Badges have been transformed with today’s technology into a series that kids and families can enjoy together. I’d love to see if you’d be interested in featuring the bears for the series launch this June.

I have art and clips available and can also do email interviews with Executive Producer Sarah Finn, our director and voice talent. Let me know if this interests you and I can send over some more details!

Thanks!
[PR flack]

This is likely the last time I’ll be mentioning Care Bears on Cartoon Brew’s homepage, but here’s a parting gift—the show’s teaser:

UPDATE: The Hub sent us a statement about this press release. Read it HERE.

Disney is previewing the entire pilot episode—”Beck’s Beginning”—of Tron: Uprising on YouTube (sorry, US viewers only). The series, which premieres June 7 on Disney XD, takes place between the original Tron and the more recent Tron: Legacy. It follows the quest of a young program named Beck (not Jerry), who under the mentorship of Tron, leads a revolution to wrest control of The Grid from the sinister clutches of Clu.

If you’re the type of fan that geeks out over new vehicles in the Tron universe, you’ll likely have a different take than mine, but as someone who just wants to see good entertainment, I wasn’t satisfied. There’s some mad artistic talent working under art director Alberto Mielgo, but they can’t overcome the monotonous direction that alternates between flat dialogue scenes and numbingly repetitive (though impressively staged) action scenes. The leaden CG character animation, produced by Japanese studio Polygon Pictures, and ridiculous script (“There you are.” “Here I am.”) don’t help matters.

To be fair, this is just the pilot. As Tron: Uprising director Charlie Bean gets more episodes under his belt, he may yet realize the show’s full potential. On the other hand, it could just be ten more episodes of a guy jumping on a light cycle ad nauseam, which is what this pilot felt like at times.

On a sad note, the end credits include the dedication “For Pete.” That refers to a technical director on the show, Peter Kranjcevich, who passed away unexpectedly last month at the age of 36.

If you watch the episode above, please share your thoughts.

(via Super Punch)

Congratulations, June Foray!

It’s only taken over fifty years for the Television Academy to recognize the “First Lady of Animation”. This morning, June received her first-ever Emmy nomination in the category of Outstanding Performer in an Animated Program. It’s for her role as Mrs. Cauldron on Cartoon Network’s The Garfield Show.

And additional congratulations to writer/producer Mark Evanier for directing June in this performance!

June’s competition in her category are:

Outstanding Performer in an Animated Program
June Foray, The Garfield Show
James Hong, Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesome
Jeff Bennett, Penguins of Madagascar
Rodger Bumpass, SpongeBob SquarePants

The complete list of 2012 Daytime Emmy Nominations are posted here.
Read the rest of this entry »

I don’t know if this series will ever make it to the US – or will even get made – but here are some tantalizing clips from a new TV pilot called Mr. Skrutnik’s Space Zoo, which is currently making the rounds at several festivals. It was produced by MOL Toons out of São Paulo, Brazil; Chico Zullo directed the pilot and designed the characters. I think it looks cool.

(Thanks, Chico Bela)

Check out this kick ass new trailer for Disney XD’s Tron: Uprising. The series will premiere next month with a voice cast that includes Paul Reubens, Nate Corddry, Mandy Moore, Reginald Vel Johnson and Bruce Boxleitner as “Tron”. Oh, and Elijah Wood plays the main character, leader of a revolution inside The Grid, named “Beck” (great name, eh?).

The show will officially debut Thursday, June 7th on Disney XD, with a prelude called Tron: Uprising, Beck’s Beginning airing on the regular Disney Channel on May 18th. Charlie Bean (Ren & Stimpy, Samurai Jack) is directing and exec producing, and the incredible Alberto Mielgo is also contributing to the project.

Thundarr, Fangface, Turbo Teen, Plastic Man, Rickety Rocket (above), Mighty Man and Yukk, Rubik The Amazing Cube, Mr. T… If these are the Saturday morning cartoons you grew up with, you’ll want to tune into Wednesday’s internet radio broadcast of Stu’s Show. TV animation producers Joe Ruby and Ken Spears will be giving a rare 2-hour interview, live on May 2nd at 7pm Eastern/4pm Pacific, with host Stuart Shostack and writer Mark Evanier.

Probably the most succesful suppliers of Saturday morning programming next to Hanna-Barbera, Joe and Ken actually began their careers working at H-B in 1959 in the film editing and sound tracking departments. They were quickly hired as writers and contributed so much to H-B that CBS network president Fred Silverman wanted them to supervise such H-B staples as “Wacky Races” and “Scooby Doo”. When Silverman left CBS for ABC, he gave the team an exclusive contract to produce ALL of the cartoons for the network, and that’s how “Fangface”, “Thundarr”, “Plastic Man”, and many other series were born.

Ruby-Spears (the company) still exists (check their website) and the two veteran producers will discuss what they’ve been up to, what they plan to do next and of course, answer questions about their classic shows from Stu and Mark – and from readers who submit their questions via email. Check the Stu’s Show website for details on how to submit questions and how to hear the the show free this Wednesday.