Joseph Barbera now joins his partner William Hannah in history. They formed the production duo Hannah-Barbera, responsible for the most recognizable and loved cartoons outside of the old Disney and Warner Bros vaults.

In 1940, their first short for MGM “Puss Gets the Boot” had the dual distinction of being the nominated for an Academy Award and the first in many, many Tom And Jerry cartoons. In the 60s, they went solo and created The Flintstones, Jetsons, Jonny Quest, and Scooby Doo. And even into the 90s working under Turner Broadcasting, they produced Cartoon Network’s earliest breakout hits.

William Hannah passed in 2001, but just last year Joe Barbera wrote and produced a new Tom and Jerry short. It is a testament to his talent and longevity that he return and finish his career with the characters that made him famous 65 years prior.

read more: Wikipedia, AP Obituary

thanks to Sindra and Matt

Thanks to forum member spooie, we have this blurb in the most recent issue of Nintendo Power:

“Based on the upcoming Michael Bay flick, Transformers will let you play as either the heroic Autobots or evil Decepticons. Each ‘bot will come equipped with unique weapons, moves, and transformations. Activision is planning a Wii version and two DS versions of the game.”

Hmm, game based on a license published by Activision? This sounds like a job for Raven Software.

Our coverage of BotCon 2006 has Powet’s very own Zac Shipley registering for more information at the Activision table (5:45). Activision made a point of showing up to the convention, despite not being able to release any information about their upcoming Transformers games. As Zac says in the video, all they could confirm at that time was there would be an Xbox 360 version. Hmm, I wonder why the Nintendo article failed to mention that…

Atari did a great job with the Armada-inspired PS2 Transformers game. If Activision makes a game that’s even half as good, it should be quite enjoyable.

So why two DS games…? Why haven’t we heard anything about a PS3 version? Come join the discussion at the forums and share your theories!

TrekMove.com, a site I can only assume was founded to unearth information about the still hazy JJ Abrams movie, has some news on a possible new animated (!) internet(!!) series.

Under the headline “CBS Considering New Animated Trek Series For The Web” Trek Movie reports:

The idea for a new animated Trek started back around the time that Star Trek Enterprise was cancelled. David Rossi and his partners didn’t buy into the notion that Star Trek ‘needed a rest’. “We wanted to spark a little life into Star Trek and to keep it alive in people’s eyes,” explains Rossi. They knew CBS and Paramount weren’t going to be keen on a new (and very expensive) live action show so they decided that animation was the way to go. Their first notion was to do a show set in the Original Series era (but not on the Enterprise), however that notion didn’t sit well with the people at CBS. Rossi then took the advice he got from LeVar Burton on how ‘Star Trek should always be about moving forward and what is next in the human adventure.’ So the team came up with the notion of taking a big leap forward and setting a show 150 years after the time of Picard and Star Trek Nemesis, but in a very different and somewhat dark Trek universe. CBS were more open to that idea and over the last year and a half have asked the team (now formed into Zero Room Productions) to flesh out their idea. Although CBS have not committed to the series, they have asked the team to develop test artwork and scripts for 5 mini episodes.

I always liked LeVar Burton.

No more prequels, no ancient history, no revamps. Taking a big leap into a “Next Next Generation” will give them lots of room to play around while not abandoning the races and planets we know.

So I’m firmly in the camp that loves the concept. Why am I nervous? Because they’re going for “mini-episodes” meaning all stories will have to be low character development but high action. This is not Trek’s strong point. At the risk of comparing to Star Wars (cue groaning), All the characters there were defined by actions and broad dialog, where as I didn’t feel like I knew a character like Picard until the show had been on for years, and they still managed to surprise me for years afterwards. Star Trek may be overshadowed by Battlestar, Stargate, and other sci-fi series these days, but lets not forget that the character based sci-fi drama began with Trek and its only fair that Trek come back to reclaim it. I don’t think they’ll do it with cartoons for the YouTube audience.

Best case scenario: The ‘toons take off and a real new series is developed to flesh out the new timeline. Worst Case scenario: we’re pretty much already living it, so we’ve got nothing to lose.

Thanks Shiv’Kala

Live Free or Die Hard’s trailer is boring as hell. And Justin Long is a poor follow up to Die Hard 3’s sidekick, Sam Jackson.

Frank Miller’s epic graphic novel is being turned into a experimental film using digital sets. Nope, not a rerun of Sin City, its a new trailer for 300

SHREK THE THIRD! DOES ANYONE CARE? NOT ME. The clip prominently features “Do You Remember Rock N Roll Radio?” by the Ramones for no reason what-so-ever, and lists Justin Timberlake as a cast member. I missed the first two movies. Can I three-peat?

iFilm collects what they call The Best Trailers of 2006. I’ve seen all of them, but only half of the movies.

Forum member spooie recorded this trailer when it played on Attack of the Show earlier this week. This is a new all CG Ninja Turtles movie that’s been in the works since I still had my original teeth.

The trailer is also available on MTV’s website though I’m completely incapable of playing it.

In the last few days we’ve unveiled the first look at Scorponok in the movie and Barricade as a toy. I’m happy to report we have the reverse now.

Harbx has posted a wallpaper of Barricade. Its very nicely done, but I can’t help being bothered that maybe they cut some of the model off to make it look nice as a desktop image for a computer.

Infamous Hong Kong ebay seller SPX Toys has an auction for Scorponok. He’s not as monochrome as we thought, but may win the battle for ugliest face.

View both after the jump.

[Read the rest of this entry…]

Nearly finished toys for several Transformers movie characters have made it onto eBay. For the first time we can see what they look like with painted decoration… and in robot mode!

Once again, we are going to mirror these images since eBay auctions don’t last forever. Click to continue reading!
[Read the rest of this entry…]

The car bloggers at Jalopnik have come through again with some CG partial stills of Megatron and Bumblebee, as well as a full body shot of Optimus Prime. Since these images are potential spoilers, we’ll save those for after the jump.

ShootForTheEdit.com, Michael Bay’s site, has an update on the next trailer:

I spoke to Mike about a week ago, and as you can imagine he’s busy editing the movie.

He indicated that the trailer was basically done (minus a little CGI work) and that if all goes according to plan, the trailer should be out by the weekend of the 22nd of December.

Ok, now how about those CG renders….
[Read the rest of this entry…]