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All the Turtles Together on Blu-Ray

Now available on Blu Ray disc is the special Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 25th Anniversary Collector’s Edition Movie Collection (whew!), featuring all three of the original live action Ninja Turtles movies (the first, Turtles II: Secret of the Ooze, and Turtles III: Turtles in Time) as well as the TMNT CGI movie, all in one box. We’ve seen it quoted at many different prices (from about $30.00 on Amazon.com down to about $15.00 in the Previews magalog) so do your homework and do some shopping around before you buy!

[Besides all of that, Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours.  And our thanks to all of YOU for coming to visit!]

Kevin James is The Zookeeper

Okay, so, recently the trailer for Kevin James’ 2011 live action/CGI film The Zookeeper has been making the rounds at movie theaters. The animation and cartoon blogs have been going “wild”, calling it friendly things like “Madagascar in live action with a fat guy” and such. We’ll let you make your own decision when the film comes out on July 8th. Here’s the official description from Sony Pictures: “In Zookeeper, the animals at the Franklin Park Zoo love their kindhearted caretaker, Griffin Keyes (Kevin James). Finding himself more comfortable with a lion than a lady, Griffin decides the only way to get a girl in his life is to leave the zoo and find a more glamorous job. The animals, in a panic, decide to break their time-honored code of silence and reveal their biggest secret: They can talk! To keep Griffin from leaving, they decide to teach him the rules of courtship.” Really now. The film is directed by Frank Coraci, who’s directed several successful comedies starring Adam Sandler — including The Wedding Singer, The Waterboy, and Click. In The Zookeeper, Sandler plays a monkey. According to Cinema Blend, the film was originally scheduled to be released this fall, but Sony later decided to save it until next summer and put it up against films like Transformers 3 and the final Harry Potter film. Really.

Firebreather — The Movie

In the past we’ve told you about Firebreather, the comic book series created by Phil Hester and Andy Kuhn, published by Image Comics. Now it seems that Cartoon Network has gone and snuck out a CGI movie based on it! The story is the same as the comic, described here from Firebreather’s Wikipedia entry: “High school teen Duncan Rosenblatt is the son of divorced parents — a typical suburban soccer mom who wants him to get into a good college, and a 300-foot fire-breathing dragon who wants him to follow in the family business — conquering the Earth and inheriting the throne of King of Monsters; they share custody. Like every other teenager, he struggles to fit in with his peers. His being half-dragon further complicates matters.” The movie comes to Cartoon Network on November 24th. Check out the trailer on YouTube, too.

Return of the Love Skunk

And they just keep coming… Now word is out from Hollywood that Warner Brothers will soon be starting work on a live-action-with-CGI Pepe Le Pew feature film. In other words, a world of humans where only the amorous skunk Pepe and his feline love-target, Penelope, would be animated. New York Magazine is reporting that none other than Shrek himself, Mike Myers, will be voicing Pepe le Pew for the movie (rather than Joe Alaskey or Maurice LaMarche, who’ve voiced him in other recent animation projects). The point of all of this, of course, is to re-brand Warner Brothers characters like Pepe before they run out their copyrights, and to get them back in the public’s eye so they will again start moving merchandise. No word yet on a planned release date for the film. The folks over at Cartoon Brew don’t seem very happy about this whole development.

Disney and the Annie Awards split up!

Word is spreading like wildfire around the industry newspapers and blogs that Disney/Pixar have completely withdrawn their support from the annual Annie Awards, presented by ASIFA-Hollywood. The Annies are considered to be the Oscar Awards of the animation industry, and Disney has been a financial supporter of the awards since 1972. But now (according to reports) Disney fears that the awards process has been skewed towards Dreamworks Animation, as evidenced by the 2009 awards when Kung Fu Panda swept everything — and Wall-E was shut out entirely.  Now (again, this is the word going around) Disney fears that a similar thing might happen, causing How to Train Your Dragon to beat out Toy Story 3 in one or more categories. As evidence, Disney/Pixar have pointed to the fact that Dreamworks offers a free ASIFA-Hollywood membership to its employees as part of their employment package, and previously voting on the Annie Awards was open to all members of ASIFA, regardless of where they worked in the animation industry — if at all. This story is still breaking, and it will be very interesting to see how it plays out. Interestingly, because of the way the Annie Award rules work, Disney/Pixar films can still be nominated for the awards, and win them, even if they’re not official entered by the creators.

Brand-New Coyote and Roadrunner

If you head to out see Cats and Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore, you’ll find a surprise in front of it: Coyote Falls, a new 3D CGI Warner Brothers cartoon starring Wile E. Coyote and the Roadrunner. It’s the first of three such new 3-minute cartoons that Warner Brothers is releasing in front of new feature films.  According to CartoonBrew.com, “This is the first Looney Tunes short produced by Sam Register’s new Warner Bros. Animation division. (BTW, the film is simply a Warner Bros. Cartoon with no Looney Tunes or Merrie Melodies designation). Spike Brandt and Tony Cervone are supervising producers along with Allison Abbate (Fantastic Mr. Fox, Corpse Bride, Iron Giant). Matthew O’Callaghan (Curious George) directed in respectful homage to Chuck Jones.” Cartoon Brew also has an exclusive clip from the short.

From "Coyote Falls", c. 2010 Warner Brothers

Yogi Bear. In 3D.

In the “Where the heck did this come from?” department… Warner Brothers is releasing a new live-action-with-CGI Yogi Bear movie this coming December 17th. Starring as the voice of the animated Yogi is none other than Dan Aykroyd, with Justin Timberlake (!) as the voice of Yogi’s little bear-friend Boo-Boo. And yes, it’s all about grabbing pic-a-nic baskets and running away from Ranger Smith (Tom Cavanagh). The new Real-3D film is directed by Eric Brevig (Journey to the Center of the Earth). You can check out the brand new trailer on YouTube and see what you think.

Johnny Depp is Getting Weird Again

You might have come across the teaser trailer for the upcoming CGI film Rango, which features a giant wind-up fish floating serenely through the air across a desert landscape. Well now there’s a possibly even more weird trailer that at least tells us a little more about the film. For one thing it stars Johnny Depp as the voice of a nerdy chameleon named Rango who aspires to be a swashbuckling hero. When he finds himself stranded in a run-down desert village beset by bandits, he might just have to play the role to save the day. Interestingly, this is the first animated feature film produced by Industrial Light and Magic (of Lucasfilms fame), and it’s directed by none other than Gore Verbinksi, who directed Mr. Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean. This very odd (check out the trailer, trust us!) little film from Nickelodeon Movies and Paramount Pictures is set for release in March of 2011.

Orangina Goes Furry… Again

After blowing everyone’s mind with this commercial a couple of years ago, the French advert campaign for the beverage known as Oragina has done it again. That is, created a commercial with an amazing amount of sexy, anthropomorphic appeal.  Only now it’s an entire set of short commercials, each with a different species. Taking off on the assertion that Oragina is “all natural” with no artificial ingredients, the ad campaign spoofs ads for various other “all natural” products, with Orangina standing in. Among them are: Orangina as a hair care product (featuring a lady afghan hound), Orangina as a deodorant (featuring an athletic bear), and Orangina as a feminine hygiene product (featuring a naked lady panda).  An ad for Orangina as an aftershave lotion (featuring a male cougar and his… friend) is raising quite a few eyebrows. In fact, some nations in Europe have already banned it from TV. (If you can’t follow the links here, just go to YouTube.com and search on “Orangina”. You’ll find all of this and more.)