Jackson Publick, one of the show-runners for the Venture Bros., has posted on his blog news that the Venture Bros. show has renewed its contract with Adult Swim for two more seasons, in addition to a special 60 to 90 minute special.

We’ve recently signed a new contract with adultswim to produce two more seasons of The Venture Bros.

Doc and I officially started writing last week. Though, in truth, we technically started writing season 5 last year when we accidentally brainstormed a handful of (we think) pretty hot new stories while we were writing the season 4 finale. Our goal is to have enough scripts to comfortably begin pre-production by June.

But wait…that’s not all!

Our contract also includes a long-form (60-90 min.) Venture Bros. special. Don’t ask me when we’ll make it, what it’s going to be about, or whether it’ll be on TV or direct-to-DVD, because we don’t have a clue yet. Nevertheless: good news!

Tell them what else they get, Jackson…

We’ve been secretly working on an 11 minute Venture Bros. special for the past couple of months. A sort of light-hearted, one-off little aperitif we’re producing and animating entirely in-house at Titmouse Studios in NY and LA. It will premiere some time this summer.

We’ve been left in limbo for quite some time over the fate of the show, so its great to hear this news. The Powet staff are big fans and look forward to the continuation of this series.

Collider has an interview with Emmanuelle Chirqui, who let slide that she would be voicing Cheetara in the upcoming Thundercats animated show. Chriqui is also doing work on an upcoming TRON animated series and most recently portrayed Bambi in the motion picture Elektra Luxx.

Kevin Michael Richardson has confirmed that he will be the voice of Panthro. He also let slip that Will Friedle will be portraying the voice of Lion-O. You may be familiar with Friedle’s work as Terry McGinnis in Batman Beyond and Blue Beetle in Batman: Brave and The Bold.

Since the alphabet is the building block of our language, the Powet Alphabet is the building block of what makes us geeks.

One of the things the Venture Brothers is known for is its diverse cast of characters. Just seeing the logo or mentioning it by name automatically brings images of Doc, Brock, Hank, Dean, The Monarch and his henchmen to mind. One of the characters who is often overlooked is Thaddeus “Rusty” Venture’s own father, Jonas.

Jonas is an obvious parody of Hanna Barbera’s Benton Quest (Johnny Quest’s father) and other “Adventurer” characters from the late 60’s and 70’s. Jonas’ voice (provided by voice actor Paul Boocock) and physical appearance are a definite nod to characters of that era. Unlike most Hanna Barbera action-dads, he is much colder towards his son and generally has a somewhat of a disregard for his feelings and general well being. If you’re a fan of the show, you’ll probably know all of this, but if not be warned, there are plenty of spoilers after the break.
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It looks pretty clear that they’ve made some changes and fleshed the story out for the Thundercats. The animation also looks great. It’ll be fun to see where this series takes us.

Thanks to poweteer Kingsukhdev for the link!

The late Dwayne McDuffie had credits on over 60 episodes of the Cartoon Network Justice League Series. In the wake of is death, I wanted to review one of his most memorable episodes. This one has magic, aliens, multidimensional monsters, zombies, gangsters, and Aquaman!

“The Terror Beyond” is from the second season of Justice League, and like most episodes from the series, is split into two parts. It opens with the US Military hunting for a very large target, revealed to be Solomon Grundy. After a rocket propelled grenade to the face, Grundy chucks around some tanks like they were nothing. One tank fires a laser(!) on him, and as the military prepares to capture Grundy and take him in, Aquaman comes to his rescue. Riding atop a purple sea serpent, Aqauman announces “If you want to live, come with me” and the two escape under water. Now I remember how awesome this show is. Ha!

Aqauman arrives not in Atlantis, but the tower of Doctor Fate. Fate’s wife Inza greets them, and Grundy is offered a chest full of gold in exchange for some task or information. As a more immediate reward he scarfs down two cupcakes. Doctor Fate arrives and is pleased to me “Mr Grande.”
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Mattel had a bunch of news of new products for its DC licensed line including DC Universe Classics, a new Young Justice line, the final year of Justice League Unlimited and a brand new Batman line.

Read on after the jump for all the news.
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Thundercats had a big presence this year at Toy Fair. Bandai had a great display of its upcoming products, so here is a brief summary.

Images in this post mostly originate from ASM. Please check out their full gallery for many more photos from Toy Fair 2011.

Information and images after the jump!
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Variety brings us news that THQ has acquired the rights to Voltron for video games. The first game will launch around the same time as the new animated show Voltron Force on NickToons in the Fall of this year. The first entry in the video game series will follow the adventures of the original show from the 80’s Voltron: Defender of the Universe. Mattel will also be launching a brand new toy line based on the new series expected around the same time. I would not be surprised if there was a sub-line dedicated to the original line much like every other 80’s cartoon revival going strong today.

It should be noted that THQ recently also reached an agreement with Mattel itself, to create games based on its own in-house properties including Barbie and Masters of the Universe.

If we had our pick of lions, I’d probably pick to be the Yellow lion to take on Robeasts prior to ganging up and forming Voltron. How about you? Let us know in the comments!