Category: Television (Page 56 of 60)

The half-hour “Shrek the Halls” holiday special on ABC scored the night’s highest adults 18-49 rating with 21.1 million viewers and a 7.2 rating/20 share. “How the Grinch Stole Christmas!” followed closely with 18.7 million viewers and a 6.8/17 share. This back to back ratings knock out gave ABC an easy victory on the last night of the November sweeps.

Congrats ABC. It’s great to see animated shows do so well in prime time.

Via Hollywood Reporter

Nickelodeon has announced its annual lineup of holiday programming, featuring five never-before-seen episodes of Nick Jr.’s Max & Ruby, Wow! Wow! Wubbzy!, Yo Gabba Gabba! and Nickelodeon’s Wayside. During Frosty Fridays throughout December the network will present new holiday episodes every Friday from 12:00 – 2:00 pm ET/PT.

Beginning Monday, Dec. 3 through Friday, Dec. 22, Nickelodeon’s “Ha-Ha Holidays” celebration will feature holiday-themed episodes weekdays at 4:00 pm (ET/PT) of popular Nicktoons. In addition, Nickelodeon will also present holiday programming on Tuesday, Dec. 25. from 8:30 am – 1:00 pm and 4:00 pm – 6:00 pm ET/PT.

Via AWN

The 11th season of Comedy Central’s South Park has earned its best ratings since 1998. This season was watched by 3.6 million total viewers, up 4% from last year’s 10th anniversary season.

The series posted a 2.3 rating among Persons 18-49 which was its best performance since 2000 in this key demographic. Year-to-date, South ParK is the #1 original series in cable among Men 18-24, Men 18-34 and Men 18-49.

Congrats to Matt Stone and Trey Parker.

Fox will continue to work on new episodes of Family Guy its creator/exec producer Seth MacFarlane, who is currently on strike. Seth MacFarlane has been quoted as saying, “I hope they don’t do it” and that going ahead without him would hurt his relationship with the studio.

According to sources, there are three episodes close to completion and several other episodes in various stages of development. We can assume that the voices for these episodes have already been recorded because Seth himself voices the majority of the characters.

Via AWN

Nickelodeon’s Spongebob Atlantis Squarepantis, which aired Monday, Nov. 12, 8:00 pm, nabbed the series’ biggest audience ever, with 8.8 million total viewers tuning in to the watch the first-ever Spongebob TV movie.

The special broadcast led Nick to its highest rated total day of the year with kids 2-11 and kids 6-11, and ranked overall with total viewers as the number-one cable entertainment program of the evening. Spongebob Atlantis Squarepantis is now available on TurboNick and on DVD.

Via AWN

… except not in cartoon form. 🙁

Captain Planet will star in a new line of T-shirts for the holiday season. A full line of the T-shirts for men, women and children featuring Captain America will launch at high-end specialty boutiques and department stores in October.

Created by Ted Turner in 1990, Captain Planet was used as a tool to teach children about potential environmental hazards. It can be seen in syndication weekdays on Boomerang, Turner’s 24-hour cable network devoted to classic cartoons. Also, the network will feature a 12-hour marathon in April in celebration of Earth Day 2008.

Via AWN

According to The Hollywood Reporter, 20th Century Fox TV is in development on three new animated series. The first is a retooled version of the 2003 live-action comedy The Pitts, created by Simpsons vet Mike Scully. The second, Relative Insanity, will be exec produced by Jack Black. The third, Mothballs, is from Drawn Together creators Matt Silverstein and Dave Jeser.

The Pitts originally aired in March 2003 for only four weeks, and followed the misadventures of the world’s most unlucky family.

Insanity follows a twenty-something man who can never seem to get his life in order, thanks to his crazy family.

Mothballs is set in a nursing home run by the dysfunctional family the Westings, as the patriarch must put his estranged father in the rules-oriented facility.

Seth MacFarlane, Family Guy composer Walter Murphy, Fuzzy Door Productions and Cartoon Network have been sued by Bourne, company that holds the copyright to the song “When You Wish Upon a Star”. Bourne alleges that the show violated its copyright to the song in the episode “When You Wish Upon a Weinstein,” which features character Peter Griffin singing a song titled “I Need a Jew” in the style of When You Wish Upon a Star.

We’ll keep you updated if Family Guy will have to fork over some cash. I highly doubt it though.

Via AWN

4Kids announced today that it has partnered with The CW Network to program its Saturday morning kids block for five years beginning with the 2008-2009 broadcast season. 4Kids will be supplying five hours of children’s programming per week to The CW Network for the block, which is broadcast on The CW on Saturday mornings between 7:00 am and 12:00 noon. 4Kids will also sell the national commercial advertising in The CW Network’s kids block.

Under the terms of the deal, The CW and 4Kids will share in national ad revenue from the block, with the network’s share of revenue to be applied against a guarantee to be paid by 4Kids to The CW.

Via AWN

Aardman International have announced its forthcoming Wallace and Gromit film, TROUBLE AT’ MILL, a half-hour special made for TV which will be shown on BBC One in Fall 2008.

Nick Park of Aardman said, “I love making films for the cinema, but the production of Chicken Run and Curse of the Were-Rabbit were virtually back to back and each film took five years to complete. TROUBLE AT’ MILL will be so much quicker to make and I can’t wait to get back into production.”

In TROUBLE AT’ MILL, Wallace and Gromit have a brand new baking business with all the gadgets you’d come to expect from a Wallace and Gromit short. Although business is booming, Gromit is concerned by the news that 12 local bakers have gone missing this year. But Wallace isn’t worried, because he’s in love with local beauty Piella Bakewell. It’s up to Gromit, with Wallace’s life in danger, to solve the murder mystery.

Via AWN

The Shonen Jump DEATH NOTE anime series has been licensed to Adult Swim for domestic broadcast beginning Saturday, October 20 at midnight.

The mystery, inspired by a 12-volume manga, follows the adventures of Light Yagami, a student with great prospects who is bored out of his mind. All of that changes when he finds the Death Note, a strange notebook dropped by a Shinigami death god named Ryuk. Any human whose name is written in the notebook dies, and now Light has vowed to use the power of the Death Note to rid the world of evil. But when criminals mysteriously begin dropping dead, the authorities send the legendary detective L to track down the killer. With L hot on his heels, will Light lose sight of his noble goal — or his life?

Volume 1 of DEATH NOTE, containing four episodes, will be released on DVD on November 20.

Via AWN

As you may or may not know, The Simpsons makes reference to A LOT of films such as The Shining and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Joey Devilla has compiled 66 of those references complete with screenshots. Check out all 66 references here.