Cars.com has an nice interview with NPR’s famous Car Talk hosts Click & Clack on their roles in ‘Cars’ from Disney/Pixar.
Cars opens wide June 9, 2006.
Official site

Sony BMG has acquired the rights to release cult favorite Transformers The Movie on DVD.
Details are scarce but they do promise “never-before-seen footage, exclusive interviews, interactive games and collectible packaging” so one can only assume they’re going to try one-up the old Rhino release from 2001, which like the entire 84-87 series is currently out-of-print.

Fan demands have been high for a more in-depth DVD release, and hopefully this one fits the bill.

Full press release and promo image after the jump…

[Read the rest of this entry…]

Animation legend Alex Toth died Saturday May 27 at the age of 78.

Toth is best known for character designs on Space Ghost, SeaLab 2020, Johnny Quest and SuperFriends. His pen defined Hanna-Barbara cartoons of the 60s and 70s, and lives on in Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim programming bloc, with Space Ghost: Coast to Coast and SeaLab 2021.

PvP’s Scott Kurtz reports Alex Toth died at the drawing table. It is a fitting tribute to his own enduring talent that he continued to create until his final breath.

Rest in Peace, Mr. Toth. You’ll be missed.

June 25, 1928 – May 27, 2006

Celebrating the theatrical release of “Superman Returns,” Boomerang will be airing 24 hours of Superman animation starting at 6 AM on Saturday June 24.
Episodes from Superman The Animated Series, Justice League, and even Batman Beyond will be showcased during the television event, just a few days before the June 29 opening of the new Bryan Singer directed movie.

Press release follows.
[Read the rest of this entry…]

Missed this when it happened at E3. Space Ghost interviews Microsoft’s Peter Moore at the GameTap booth.

Slashdot.org is currently linking to a story on Mainichi going over the past 10 years since Neon Genesis Evangelion turned the manga and anime markets on their side. Its covers Hideako Anno’s past projects to his development of Evangelion and then delves into the show itself headfirst. A good read for any fan of the series.

In what might qualify as the worst idea in the long sad history of bad ideas, the not-yet-launched CW network has announced its intent to produce a Legion Of Super Heroes series for broadcast later this year. Thanks to Superman Homepage for the scoop.
While “The Batman” has steadily increased in quality from a rather dismal first batch of episodes, they still have a long way to go before coming close to the legendary Batman The Animated Series. LSH intends to jump off that new “The Batman” continuity, as you can plainly see by the character designs. Justice League Unlimited touched on the Legion in Far From Home, but as you can see Brainiac 5 is way different looking and we’ve traded SuperGirl for a rather slender Superboy. Without seeing any actual animation, hearing any voices, or knowing plot details, its hard to say if this will be good or bad. But its easier to be pessimistic, so I’m running with that. Here’s the word direct from WB animation:

One thousand years from now, a group of teenage super heroes travel back in time to recruit the greatest hero of all, Superman, and enlist him their fight against evil in the 31st Century. While their intentions were good, their time travel skills were not, and Lightning Lad, Saturn Girl, Brainiac 5, Phantom Girl, Bouncing Boy and Timber Wolf end up going too far back into the past, accidentally retrieving the young Superboy instead. Together, this unlikely Legion of Super Heroes bands together to defend the rights of all free worlds and uphold the laws of the newly formed United Planets. That is, if they don’t kill each other first.

LEGION OF SUPER HEROES combines humor with high-stakes, grand-scale super heroics to create the ultimate sci-fi, super hero fantasy for kids of all ages. Each episode of this fast-paced, character-driven action comedy will pit Superboy and the Legion against otherworldly threats and adversaries who challenge the team on both super heroic and emotional levels. The series is executive produced by Sander Schwartz, and produced by Linda Steiner and James Tucker for Warner Bros. Animation.

On somewhat related news, some really exciting Superman Returns footage has been released from an odd source: Coca-Cola. They’re featuring a few seconds of Supes flying through Metropolis and the much talked about Airplane sequence in a new ad campaign. You can see the relevant parts of this commercial from a download on Aint-It-Cool or just stop fast forwarding your TiVo and watch a commercial break sometime.

I don’t know nothing about Naruto, but if last weekend at NoBrandCon was any indication, its a really popular anime. Kotaku has screens from the lastest Naruto fighting game to be imported.
What a shameless way to increase traffic on my part.