UNICEF, the United Nations International Children's Education Fund, is
looking for additional animation partners to participate in their "Cartoons
for Children's Rights" initiative. The partnership currently includes over
70 animation companies, as well as independent animators from 32 countries.
Each participant produces and donates at least one 30-second non-verbal
public service announcement dealing with a single right, such as a child's
Animation film company ADV Films has inked a distribution deal for the
entire catalog of films from The Right Stuf International, Inc. ADV's
library includes BKN cartoon MONSTER RANCHERS. "Because we have anime
standards such as NEON GENESIS EVANGELION and new classics like BUBBLEGUM
CRISIS: TOKYO 2040, forming an alliance with The Right Stuf is a dream come
true for us," states ADV Films President John Ledford. "The Right Stuf has
two of the true milestones of anime in their enormous catalog; KIMBA, THE
Want to know about events in Italy? Then visit ASIFA Italia's re-designed
Website at www.asifaitalia.org. The Italian-languaged site is a growing
destination for animation in Italy. The site features ASIFA events and
other information regarding the Italian animation organization.
The Art Institute of Los Angeles has received approval from the Accrediting
Commission of Career Schools and Colleges of Technology (ACCSCT) to offer
Bachelor of Science degrees in computer animation, graphic design and
on-line media and marketing. Established in 1997 as a branch of The Art
Institute of Pittsburgh, the Los Angeles arm received state approval to
offer baccalaureate-level programs in September, 1999. With more than 850
students enrolled, The Art Institute of Los Angeles also offers Associate
* Wednesday, April 19 - Sunday, April 23, 2000. New York, New York, U.S.A.
On Thursday, March 2, 2000, South Carolina's Democratic Senator Ernest
Hollings of the Senate Commerce Committee told Time Warner CEO Gerald Levin
and AOL chairman Steve Case that the "Disney people are afraid to come
testify" about their concerns regarding the proposed merger of the two
companies. Hollings told Levin and Case, who were in Washington D.C.
testifying about their merger, that Disney is concerned that Time Warner
will retaliate against the company by relegating its cable networks to
The promised land of prime time nirvana will escape GOD THE DEVIL & BOB in
Salt Lake City, Utah, whose NBC affiliate has refused to air the network's
upcoming animated comedy. KSL-TV VP and general manager Al Henderson said
the station decided to pre-empt the "not-so-heavenly" toon because it "was
not very funny." "We didn't think it was written well," Henderson said. "We
found some of the humor tasteless." The new series follows the
misadventures of Detroit auto worker Bob Alman (voiced by French Stewart),
3Dlabs, Inc., a professional graphics firm, has expanded its presence in
Europe with a new office near Frankfurt, Germany. 3Dlabs plans to use the
new branch as a base for expanding its market coverage in Central Europe,
one of the largest markets for its workstation graphics products. In turn,
3Dlabs announced the appointment of Frank Losch as country manager. Mr.
Losch brings many years of marketing and sales expertise to the new
position. "The ability to increase market penetration of Oxygen workstation
The newest Scooby-Doo adventure, SCOOBY-DOO MEETS THE BOO BROTHERS, and
classic episodes on DVD will soon float into stores across the U.S.
Debuting on March 14, 2000, SCOOBY-DOO MEETS THE BOO BROTHERS has the
heroes Scooby, Shaggy and Scrappy-Doo inheriting a haunted house from
Shaggy's uncle. The terrified trio calls for help from the Boo Brothers, a
family of ghost hunters. But wait, the Boo Brothers are ghouls themselves!
Check out the new adventure to find out if Scooby really hired ghost
Fans of the BUBBLEGUM CRISIS series can catch the new adventures in
mid-March. VOLUME 4 -- RAMPAGE will pop into stores on March 14, 2000. A
new terror clouds over Tokyo. An evil entity runs amok, pulling its victims
into the sewers and devouring their flesh. The Knight Sabers, Genom and the
AD Police all join in a desperate search to find and destroy the monster.
The English dubbed version is priced at US$24.95 and the Japanese with
English subtitles version is priced at $29.95.
Warner Bros. proudly presents an new adventure from Bedrock entitled THE
FLINTSTONES STONE-AGE ADVENTURES. Rolling into stores March 14, 2000, the
new escapade features 6 episodes from the classic FLINTSTONES TV series.
The promotion coincides with the theatrical release of the new live-action
FLINTSTONES movie VIVA ROCK VEGAS! The pre-historic price for the tape will
be US$14.95.
On Wednesday, February 23, 2000, the U.S. Recording Academy's premiere
recording awards, the Grammies, were presented, and a few toon-related
tunes took home golden statuettes. In the category Best Musical Album For
Children: "The Adventures Of Elmo In Grounchland" beat out "A Bug's Life
Song-Along" and Walt Disney's "Mannhein Steamroller Meet The Mouse." TARZAN
won for Best Soundtrack Album over THE PRINCE OF EGYPT and THE MATRIX.
Beating John Williams' score for THE PHANTOM MENACE, the award for
TOM & JERRY'S GREATEST CHASES is running into stores on DVD and VHS at the
end of March. The new compilation will feature 14 classic TOM & JERRY
cartoons. The DVD will feature the classic dance sequence with Jerry and
Gene Kelly from the film ANCHORS AWEIGH! Racing into stores March 14, the
DVD will be priced at US$24.98 and the VHS at $14.95.
ADV Films brings more anime to VCRs and DVD players with the adult drama
SAKURA DIARIES VOLUME 1 on March 15, 2000. The story follows the main hero
Touma's mishaps in trying to court Meiko, who only dates college boys. The
flick is from famed manga creator Ujin. The suggested retail price for the
DVD is US$24.98 and for the VHS $19.98. The DVD features English, Japanese,
and Japanese with English subtitled versions.
The big kids at Digital Entertainment Network (DEN), a Gen-Y geared on-line
programmer, have received much-needed play money to the sum of US$24
million. The new round of financing includes investments from NBC, Chase
Capital Partners, Enron Broadband Services Inc. and Intel, among others.
Missing from this round of financing is former Warner Bros. chairman, Terry
Semel. However sources say he has separately invested $2 million in the
company. Santa Monica-based DEN has also restructured its management team,
Rick DeMott reviews Disney's latest, The Tigger Movie, and reveals a true classic.
The big snow ball of Paramount's SNOW DAY picked up momentum and rolled in
to #2 at the U.S. box office. In its second week in theatres, the kid-pic,
with special effects by Curious Pictures, grossed US$8.34 million bringing
its gross to $43.1 million. USA Films' ALIENS-like PITCH BLACK, with
primary visual effects by Double Negative Ltd. and The Chandler Group,
finished at #5 grossing $7.14 million raising its total gross to $22.9
million. THE TIGGER MOVIE finished the weekend in sixth place, making $6.31
Last week Alias|Wavefront unveiled a new upgrade to its powerful 3D
animation system Maya, an upgrade which will add a major new feature to the
software, particularly useful to games developers. Trax is a new non-linear
animation editing solution which will allow games developers to manipulate
extensive amounts of animation and blend it together in a way that can be
reproduced in the final game play. Trax features include reusable time
independent motion clips, blending of hand animation, data filtering and
France-based company REALVIZ recently announced the release of its new
ImageModeler photo-modeling software. This release comes after the release
of several other photo-modeling systems designed to turn objects in 2D
photographs into 3D models. Unlike other solutions on the market, however,
ImageModeler is a high-end application aimed at professionals, and this is
reflected not only in the programs toolset, but in the quality of the
models it produces. The creation of a 3D model in ImageModeler is simple --
On Tuesday, February 29, 2000, Shockwave and sponsor CYBERWORLD launched a
Stan Lee premiere, live on shockwave.com. The star-studded event was hosted
by Dick Clark. The celebrities on the attendee list were Tom Hanks, Keanu
Reeves, Michael Jackson, Richard Dreyfus, John Travolta, Quentin Tarantino
and Leonardo Dicaprio. Excerpts from the event will also be televised
internationally on ET and other entertainment news broadcasts. On
Wednesday, March 1, Stan Lee/CYBERWORLD content will launch on their site
