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TV Series

Another Brick at the Mall

Mar 26th, 2025
by rodney.
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If you’re not big on collecting exclusive toys, you might not be familiar with the Be@rbrick series of collectible anthro-bear figurines, created by the MediCom Toy Company of Japan. Well now, they’ve stepped things up even further by teaming with Dreamworks Animation to bring us the new Be@rbrick CGI series, which premiered on Apple TV+ this month. According to Animation World Network, “Be@rbrick follows Jasmine Finch and her bandmates as they pursue their dreams and inspire others to do the same. But it won’t be easy to do when living in a world where everyone’s role is chosen for them and where the painted-on look you receive when you graduate from high school determines who you’ll be for the rest of your life. Jasmine realizes that in order for her world to change, she and her friends will have to make it happen themselves.” More interesting stuff: “Meghan McCarthy (My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, Centaurworld) serves as developer, showrunner, executive producer, and writer. Alex Almaguer (TrollsTopia) is the supervising producer, with Taylor Orci (Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts) serving as story editor, and Athena Hofmann (Amateur) serving as line producer. Timbaland serves as executive music producer.” That’s a serious line-up of experienced talent for a new show. Check out the article over at Billboard, which includes an interview with Ms. McCarthy and an exclusive trailer.

image c. 2025 Dreamworks Animation

The Annie Awards for 2024 are Totally Wild

Feb 16th, 2025
by rodney.
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This year the Annie Awards (the annual “Oscars for animation”, presented by ASIFA-Hollywood) were utterly dominated by two works: Arcane from Netflix in TV/streaming, and Dreamworks’ The Wild Robot in Feature Films. Both of them won the award for 2024 in each and every category they were nominated for. Obviously the more “furry” of the two, Wild Robot won for Best Character Animation, Best Character Design, Best Production Design, Best Voice Acting (Lupita Nyong’o as Roz the robot), Best FX Animation, Best Music, Best Editing, Best Direction (for Chris Sanders), and Best Feature Film. Meanwhile, Gintz Zilbalodis’ blender-animated film Flow took home Annie Awards for Best Writing (Feature) and Best Independent Feature. (More than one person commented that it’s interesting the film that won Best Writing has not one word of spoken dialogue in the entire movie…) Now the big question is whether the Oscars will follow the Annies and award The Wild Robot, or follow the Golden Globes and award Flow. In other news of interest to furry fans, Marvel’s Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur won Best TV for Children, and Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes won Best Character Animation in a Live Action Feature. Among the Special Awards categories, ASIFA gave the Windsor McCay Award (a lifetime achievement honor) to Aaron Blaise, one-half of the directing team of Disney’s Brother Bear (among many other films that he’s worked on). You can see the complete list of Annie Awards for 2024 over at Animation Magazine. (And don’t forget: Nominations are open now through the end of this month  for the 2024 Ursa Major Awards too!)

image c. 2025 Dreamworks Animation

Take Off to the Great Wide North

Dec 28th, 2024
by rodney.
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Where did this come from? Well, Canada, actually. We just got lucky and came across it! Northern Tails is a new puppet series from the Yukon that’s coming soon to YouTube. The makers describe it as “… a wildlife ‘mocumentary’ web series that is serious (and seriously silly) about nature. With a cast of spirited puppets, engaging storylines and snackable science, each 12-minute episode explores how animals in the boreal forest interact with each other, their environment, humans and the wider world. It’s original ‘edutainment’ that makes us see how we can all be better neighbours.” Did you know that the boreal forest is larger in square miles than the Amazon? We didn’t either…! Find out more at their web site, or head on over to their YouTube Channel.

image c. 2024 Little Brown Bird Entertainment

Arigato, Dr. T

Nov 20th, 2024
by rodney.
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In 2018, a group in Japan gathered together artists from around the world to celebrate Dr. Osamu Tezuka’s 90th birthday — by creating new works based on some of his most famous and popular manga. Now, finally, both volumes of Tezucomi have been released in English.  “600 pages of extraordinary content by popular contemporary comic book authors from around the world pay tribute to Tezuka’s enormous body of influential work. The stories feature characters from Tezuka’s history, such as Astro Boy, Unico, Black Jack, Big X, Dororo, Songoku, Kimba, and more.” Both volumes are still available from Magnetic Press.

image c. 2024 Magnetic Press

Cry Havoc

Jul 11th, 2024
by rodney.
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Somehow we overlooked this one when it was a comic — but now it’s been collected together as a single graphic novel! It’s Star Trek: Deep Space Nine — The Dog of War, written by Mike Chen and illustrated by Angel Hernandez. “An extremely rare purebred corgi from Earth makes its way aboard Deep Space 9 when Quark cuts a deal to procure it for a high buyer. After all, a Ferengi without profit is no Ferengi at all! But Latinum the corgi comes with unexpected cargo that shakes Captain Benjamin Sisko to the core: A Borg component discovered by a crew sent to uncover Cardassian technology after the station’s reoccupation.” Check it out over at Penguin Random House.

image c. 2024 IDW

Islands in the Streaming

Jun 16th, 2024
by rodney.
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Recently Animation World Network told us about Tumble Leaf: The Movie, an upcoming feature film based on the multi-award-winning stop-motion animated series for kids created by Drew Hodges — who will also direct the feature version. “When everyone on the island of Tumble Leaf gathers at the Finding Ceremony, a momentous coming-of-age celebration, only Fig the Fox resists because it threatens to upend his perfect life. Suddenly, the ceremony is interrupted when the island mysteriously breaks apart due to a long-hidden ancient entity. With Tumble Leaf lost, Fig and his friends must lead their eclectic community as they set sail on an epic, quirky, and hilarious quest across the vast unknown to find a new home and their place in a bigger, wilder world.” No word yet on a release date, but the film-makers are seeking out distribution.

image c. 2024 Bix Pix Entertainment

It’ll Be A Hit!

Jan 17th, 2024
by rodney.
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It’s always dangerous in this business to say “now I’ve seen everything”, but hooey, this comes close. From Animation World Network: “Corus Entertainment’s Nelvana has teamed up with London-based entertainment company Toikido to greenlight a new 2D animated children’s series, Piñata Smashlings. Inspired by the popular Roblox game, the series follows the previously released shorts currently streaming on Nelvana’s ‘Keep It Weird’ YouTube channel… The series follows four friends, characters from the game, thrown together by fate to form a team of unlikely heroes. Whether questing across the land, unlocking maps, or collecting ‘fruities’ and ‘power ups’, these Smashlings are out to save the Piñataverse from the evil Bashlings and level up on fun along the way.” Already set to show in Canada (naturally), the series is looking for international markets.

image c. 2024 Nelvana

The Annie Award Nominations for 2023

Jan 14th, 2024
by rodney.
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The International Animated Film Society (ASIFA) recently announced the nominations for the 2024 Annie Awards, celebrating the best of animation in 2023. Needless to say, there was a lot of anthropomorphic material being shown off last year! The shape-shifting little rebel known as Nimoma walked away with the most nominations: Nine in all, including Best Editing, Best Writing, Best Voice Acting (for Nimona herself, Chloë Grace Moretz), Best Storyboards, Best Production Design, Best Directing, Best Character Design, Best Character Animation, and Best Animated Feature Film (whew!). Not far behind was Hayao Miyazaki’s swan-song (heron-song?) The Boy and the Heron, with seven nominations including Best Feature. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem and Pixar’s Elemental followed with six nominations each. Rather a surprising one was Robot Dreams (directed by Pablo Berger) which brought in five nominations including Best Independent Feature Film — the latter shared by Earnest and Celestine: A Trip To Gibberitia and Four Souls of Coyote. Nominations for Best Animation in a Live Action Production include Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3, The Little Mermaid, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, and Cocaine Bear (!). Some interesting anthro films with one nomination each include Migration (Voice Acting), Super Mario Brothers (also Voice Acting), and Leo (for Editing). Over on the TV & Series side of things, the one to beat is Marvel’s Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur, with four nominations, but there are also multiple nods for Hilda and My Dad the Bounty Hunter. See all the nominees over at the Annie Awards web site, and watch for the winners when the awards are given out on Saturday, February 17th. (And don’t forget: Nominations for the 2024 Ursa Major Awards will open up soon as well. Be ready!)

image c. 2024 Netflix

So Who DID Come First?

Nov 23rd, 2023
by rodney.
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Hitting at an interesting idea from several angles at once, Canadian production house Wind Sun Sky have given us Future Chicken, a new environmentally-themed presentation for children that’s arriving as a podcast, a streaming series, an interactive web site, and so forth. Here’s an announcement from Animation Magazine: “Wind Sun Sky Entertainment partnered with the Ontario Water Centre’s social enterprise ClearWater Farm are gearing up for the November 5 launch of Future Chicken — a new animation property designed to help children counter ‘climate doomism’ with hope, inspiration and empowerment — with the announcement of a coop-load of trailblazing green guest stars. This new global platform will launch with a digital series, a podcast, YouTube shorts, a Roblox experience and more. Featuring a variety of entertaining learning experiences for kids aged six to nine years old, the property revolves around a time-travelling eco-superhero chicken from 2050 named Potato, a.k.a. Future Chicken, who travels alongside other amusing characters, including a gossipy mushroom with a love of travel and an egg who wears rocket-pants.” Typical stuff that, of course. The official web site has a whole lot more.

image c. 2023 Wind Sun Sky

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