I was a consultant to the Cartoon Network shortly after it launched in 1992. Somehow back then I acquired a copy of this 1991 presentation video, which Ted Turner used to pitch the idea to cable operators and potential advertisers. It’s interesting to revisit this piece today — the channel’s current agenda is a far cry from its original stated goals. Also note, this was before CN created their checkerboard logo.

Cartoon Network held great potential — and still does. Perhaps posting this video will give someone the idea to revive it.

Worth checking out: a hi-res version of the Cartoonstitute short 3 Dog Band directed by Paul Rudish (Dexter’s Lab, Star Wars: Clone Wars). I wanted to like this short because there’s a lot to appreciate about it, including funny character movement, moments of visual inventiveness (the dj who flips his turntables into a bike), and a solid track at the end that is probably the best piece of music to ever accompany a Cartoon Network product.

At the same time, the characters have vague unappealing personalities, there’s little chemistry between the leads, and the attempts at humor fall flat (was the ending even supposed to be a joke?). It’s also a shame they couldn’t figure out what to do with the music. The last couple minutes come across as a fetishistic exercise in design and art direction that offers little in the way of entertainment value. By comparison, this is an example of how to properly end a cartoon with a musical sequence that rewards its audience.

In a shorts program, not every cartoon is going to be a homerun, especially when they’re produced in the completely nonsensical manner of allowing each director to only make one short. But when all is said and done, even the weaker shorts that I’ve seen so far from the Cartoonstitute program have their moments, and few appear to be offensively bad as so many TV animation pilots tend to be nowadays.

Filmmaker Michael Sporn interviews Jennifer and Bert Klein about their ambitious new animated short Pups of Liberty and the lengths they to to finish it:

Jennifer: It is hard to sit down and work after you have worked a full day, but I always remembered something Bert would say, “Even if you just get one drawing done you are one drawing ahead.” So I’d try and get one scene’s worth of layouts done a night, or read a track, or just something, and we’d inch forward until we were done.

The Venture Bros. creator Jackson Publick and voice actor James Urbaniak recently appeared on “The Best Show on WFMU with Tom Scharpling.” The interview lasts a couple hours and there’s a lot of goofiness, but there’s also a lot of good discussion because the host, Scharpling, is a TV writer and producer (Monk, Tom Goes to the Mayor). The interview begins a little after an hour into the September 29 program, which can be listened to at the WFMU website.

Disney buys Marvel, so it only stands to reason that Nickelodeon would pick up Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

But Nick didn’t just buy the old TV shows and movies, they bought the property in its entirety, including the merchandising rights and the ability to make new series and TV shows.

MTV Networks acquired the global rights to the Turtles from The Mirage Group and 4Kids Entertainment for roughly $60 million dollars. Nickelodeon plans to develop a new CG-animated TMNT television series to premiere in 2012 and, in partnership with Paramount Pictures, a new Ninja Turtles feature film for 2012.

One of the most popular kids’ television programs of the 1980s, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was created in 1984 by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird as an independent comic book. Note, the current network TMNT animated series now running on CW4Kids Saturday morning will continue to air through Aug. 31, 2010.

I admit it, this one has me stumped. Don Martin, Antonio Prohias, Al Jafee, Mort Drucker and Dave Berg - adapted to animation! How did I miss this? Did it ever air? If so, what network?

It was co-directed by Chris Ishii, Jimmy Murakami and Gordon Bellamy. You can hear Allan Swift and Len Maxwell on the soundtrack. There are some New York animation veterans, such as Johnny Gent and Cosmo Anzilotti, as well as many Hollywood freelancers, including Gerard Baldwin and Bud Luckey, listed in the end credits. Perhaps my friends Mark Kausler and David Brain (who are also credited) can send us some info on this in the comments section below.

It’s been uploaded in three parts. Start here:

UPDATE: MAD’s Maddest Writer, Dick DeBartolo wrote to JJ Sedelmaier about the special. Quote: “We had a copy of that show up in the office, but I haven’t seen it in years. It never aired. That was the pilot. Nobody wanted to sponsor a show that made fun of products that were advertised on TV, like car manufacturers.”

(Thanks, Charles Brubaker)

This is not the ugliest kids show I’ve ever seen - but it comes darn close.

Found among the 1,050 look-alike cartoon shows offered at last week’s annual children’s TV market, MIP Junior, was this one: Twisted Whiskers, a co-production of American Greetings, Moonscoop Productions and DQ Entertainment.

The project’s entire pitchbook / powerpoint presentation is online, and you can see for yourself how “wacky, quirky, irreverent and attitudinal” these characters are. (Click thumbnails below to see images from the pitch book). I just can’t get past the eyes. They’re creeping me out, man.

To be fair, the development art — backgrounds and pencil sketches — in this PDF look good. Bill Kopp and Savage Steve Holland (Eek! the Cat) are attached to the show, and have already directed a series of nine 40-second web-shorts that try their best to make a silk purse from a sow’s ear - but why do these characters have to look so goddam creepy:

Steve Worth over at the Asifa-Hollywood Animation Archive has posted a plethora of Alvin and The Chipmunks memorabilia to tell the story behind this eternal pop-culture phenomenon. Steve has posted much rare material from the Format Films era Alvin Show including several storyboards (including the rare pilot) and Jules Engel color keys. Go there now! Here’s the direct link.

Another cartoon Dennis and his Dad won’t be seeing on TV. From Cartoon Network’s aborted Cartoonstitute program, created and directed by Chris Riccardi.