TOON BEAT

NEWS ROUNDUP, TOON BEAT

Brian Griffin, Gus the bartender, Hank Hill, and Jimmy Pesto stand in front of the Capitol.

Yee-haw, pard’ners, it’s a special all-Animation Domination edition of News Roundup, where we wrangle up minor news items from all over yonder.

  • Everything’s coming up King of the Hill! Alamo Beer is becoming a reality, Daily Show correspondent Ronny Chieng is taking over the role of Kahn in the upcoming revival, and Hank Hill is rumored to be an upcoming skin in Fortnite.
  • Former Bob’s Burgers voice actor Jay Johnston has been pardoned by President Trump for his actions in the January 6, 2021 fun run, per his fiancée.
  • The Cleveland Show voice actor David Lynch has died.
  • Seth MacFarlane’s doodle of Brian to thank the firefighters battling the devastating Los Angeles wildfires: charming, cute, inspiring. The Simpsons version put out a week later: maudlin, stiff, indistinguishable from DeviantArt.
TOON BEAT

An image from Simpsons Comics #102.

Boo-hoo-oo! Disney XD has officially announced the 2017 DuckTales reboot will be coming to an end next year, confirming a Tweet from Collider reporter Drew Tailor.

In a letter to fans posted on Twitter, series co-developers Frank Angones and Matt Youngberg said they “were prepared for this season to be our last.” Nevertheless, the news has some Scrooge stans calling fowl over Disney’s daffy Duck decision.

Based on the popular Uncle Scrooge comics from overground cartoonist Carl Barks, the original DuckTales began over 30 years ago in the late 1980s. Featuring an eccentric family, an immensely rich old guy, and the vocal talents of Russi Taylor, the series was seen as a gamble for the fledging Walt Disney Television Animation division. Its success spawned a feature film and a couple beloved video games.

Who knows which popular animated franchise could be next on Disney’s chopping block?

[Collider]

FOX NEWS, TOON BEAT

family guy

Holy crap, Lois! According to Deadline, Fox network executive and Seth MacFarlane enabler Kevin Reilly has announced he is resigning as Chairman of Entertainment, “amid a major ratings downside for the network.”

Back in 2010, Reilly stubbornly insisted the network’s strategy “is not all Seth, all the time” at the same time they were planning to give him a fourth goddamn show (presumably the abandoned Flintstones reboot, which mercifully didn’t come to fruition).

TOON BEAT

Bordertown

With The Cleveland Show cancelled and American Dad heading for TBS, it was looking like Fox might be down to just three Seth MacFarlane-produced shows on their schedule: Family Guy, Dads, and the upcoming Cosmos reboot. Luckily, Fox immediately sprang into action and greenlit his latest cartoon (his fourth for the network), thus maintaining their quota:

Fox has given a 13-episode order to Bordertown, from MacFarlane and Family Guy‘s Mark Hentemann. Set in a fictitious desert town near the U.S.-Mexico border, Bordertown centers on the intertwining daily lives of neighbors Bud Buckwald and Ernesto Gonzales. Bud, a married father of three, is a Border Patrol agent who feels threatened by the cultural changes that have transformed his neighborhood. Living next door is Ernesto, an industrious Mexican immigrant and father of four, who is proud to be making it in America. As Bud and Ernesto’s paths begin to cross, their families become bound by friendship, romance and conflict.

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MY TWO CENTS, TOON BEAT

Well, the Maggie Simpson short lost in its bid for an Academy Award, and the world was robbed of the opportunity to see director David Silverman’s majestic beard. Here’s a photopic of Silverman, Matt Groening, and writer Michael Price looking dapper on the red carpet (apparently Silverman and Groening didn’t get the memo to wear this Maggie button):


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TOON BEAT, WRITER WATCH

hawkthorne Can critically-‘cclaimed cult college comedy caper Community compete in cartoon and comedy categories? No, according to a bunch of incensed cartoon writers – including all 537 Simpsons writers as well as the Family Guy manatees – who wrote a strongly-worded letter to the esteemed representatives of television to protest Community stepping on their turf (their turf being the Emmy categories Best Animated Program and Short-Form Animated Program). See, once again Community is eligible for an Emmy or two in animated categories thanks to a special animated episode – last year it was the stop-motion “Abed’s Uncontrollable Christmas” (which won Individual Achievement in Animation, the show’s only Emmy so far), this year it’s “Digital Estate Planning,” an excellent video game-based episode. But since Community is normally a live-action show, it’s also eligible for the usual live-action categories that animated shows are apparently ineligible for, including Outstanding Writing in a Comedy.

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TOON BEAT

seth macfarlaneSeth MacFarlane, beloved by millions around the globe as the voice of Stewie The Talking Baby Who Says Naughty Things and Brian The Talking Dog Who Says Naughty Things, is ready to branch out and tackle the next big challenge of his artistic career: directing, writing, producing and starring in a live-action movie about a Talking Teddy Bear Who Says Naughty Things.

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TOON BEAT

adult swim logoFox hired a guy from Adult Swim to find out how to better compete with Adult Swim and his solution was for Fox to make their own Adult Swim. Brilliant! The two hour programming block will air on Saturdays at 11pm starting next year.

Basically, they’re grabbing up all the “edgy” cartoons they don’t have room for on Sunday nights (which I will henceforth refer to as “Animation Domination Prime”) and dumping them on Saturday nights, formerly the home of MADtv, Wanda Sykes’s late-night talk show, and the remaining episodes of Sit Down, Shut Up they were contractually obligated to air. Nobody knows what’s on there now. The audience for this thing will primarily consist of Adult Swim viewers who forgot Saturdays are when Adult Swim airs The Animes.

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