AWN Headline News

Dream Quest Images, the feature film visual effects division of the Walt Disney Company, has hired Price Pethel in the newly created post of Vice President/Creative Director. Pethels role includes contributing to the overall direction and debate of such digital studio issues as imaging, compositing methodology, rendering and software development. Pethel joins the company from a five year tenure as VP/Creative Director at Digital Domain.

By special arrangement with Nielsen Media Research, AWN publishes the Nielsen ratings for animated programs on a monthly basis in the Animation Flash. The ratings included herein are only for U.S. national network television. The following list of animated national network programs is ranked by Household Ratings. A Rating is the percentage of households that tuned into the program. This percentage can provide us with the number of households that tuned into the program on average during the month. The universe estimate for the 1997-98 television season is 98 million TV homes.

New York-based The Attik produced a pair of 30-second spots, "Save Chef," to promote the new Comedy Central "South Park" musical offering "Chef Aid: The South Park Album" on American Recordings (Los Angeles)/Columbia Records (New York). The CD, which was released on November 24, is an extension of the "Chef Aid" episode, where Chef gets sent to prison and the community sponsors a "Chef Aid" concert to raise money and bail him out.

For over thirty years, long-time actor Paul Winchell has supplied the voice of Tigger in Walt Disney's "Winnie the Pooh" animated productions. However, the upcoming animated Pooh feature, "Tigger's Family Tree," won't feature his distinctive voice; instead Tigger's voice will be supplied by veteran voice actor Jim Cummings, who is also the current voice of Pooh Bear. Although a Disney spokeswoman denies he was fired, Winchell was let go after only one day of work on the film. She says his day of work was an audition, and the job simply went to the actor who gave a better performance.

Zoog Disney is a new two-hour block of programming on the Disney Channel that features a companion web site signaling the network's latest attempt at converging television and the Internet. The programming block which airs on Saturday and Sunday evenings from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. works in tandem with the web site by allowing children who watch the programs to submit suggestions, vote on outcomes, play games related to the programs, and give input to the shows.

Popular Plasticine cartoon characters Wallace and dog Gromit are returning to the screen for the first time since the Academy-Award winning 1995 short A Close Shave. The cheese-loving duo will make a cameo appearance in an episode of the new 13-part Aardman series Rex the Runt, a cartoon about the adventures of four dogs who share a suburban semi-detached home. Their brief appearance showcases them in their Close Shave role of window cleaners, except this time they face the dastardly Bad Bob.

Canadian-based CINAR Films has signed an agreement with Shanghai Animation Film Studio, a subsidiary of Shanghai TV, Chinas second largest broadcasting company, to co-produce a 52 ten-minute episode animated series called Rumble and Growl. The Chinese-developed educational series chronicles the adventures of two friends, Rumble and Growl, who are always hungry. In their quest to find food, the pair uncovers scientific wonders and never-before explained natural phenomena. This is the first-ever official Canada-China co-production for an animated series created in China.

* Monday, November 30. San Francisco, California, U.S.A.

Nik Phelps and the Sprocket Ensemble present Mike "Temple" Brady and the"Flaming Won Ton Show," a performance art presentation. The event is partof the Ideas in Animation program and is billed as "an evening of animationwith live original music." The West coast premiere of "Publegg Enemy," anew clay animated film from Dave Clausen and Carrie Kessler, and JasonShiga's new cartoon, "Double Duce," will also screen at this event which

* Tuesday, December 15. Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.

The downtown central Los Angeles Public Library will screen a selection ofthe best experimental animation made at CalArts in the last 25 years at 6p.m. The free event is open to the public and will be introduced byfounding director of the CalArts Experimental Animation Program, JulesEngel. Early work from "Antz" co-director Eric Darnell and "Nightmarebefore Christmas" director Henry Selick will be among the fourteen works

On Sunday, December 6, Fox Family Channel premieres AN ALL DOGS CHRISTMASCAROL at 6 -7:30 p.m. (ET/PT). The canine retelling of Dickens' "AChristmas Carol" is based on the Don Bluth film, "All Dogs Go to Heaven.".

A digitally remastered version of the animated holiday classic, RUDOLPH THERED-NOSED REINDEER will air on U.S. network CBS Monday, November 30 from8-9 p.m. (ET/PT). The Rankin-Bass film about an awkward shiny-nosedreindeer will include an additional two minutes and 50 seconds of footagenot seen since 1964. The extra footage comes from the reinsertion of twosongs, "We Are Santa's Elves" and "We're a Couple of Misfits."