Posted Nov 5th 2009 10:02AM by Nick Zaino
Filed under: TV on DVD, Adult Swim, Reality-Free
The new
Adult Swim In A Box is an embarrassment of riches - six boxed sets for six different shows and a bonus disc featuring five unreleased pilots -- more than 20 hours on 12 DVDs. I was especially happy to get season two of
Sealab 2021, which I have never been able to catch regularly, and season one of
Metalocalypse, which I have always enjoyed.
Getting season two of
Robot Chicken, volume one of
Moral Orel, volume two of
Aqua Teen Hunger Force, and volume three of
Space Ghost Coast to Coast just seemed like a bonus. Well worth the suggested retail price of $69.98 for Adult Swim fans who haven't already purchased any of the included sets.
The pilots are a mixed bag, but mostly good.
The Best of Totally for Teens is a live action parody of a moralistic teen variety show hosted by thirtysomethings trying to be hip. It's a promising premise, one that should maybe be revisited, but the pilot is a bit of a mess. It hits topics ripe for satire in the format like teen insecurity, drugs, and sex, and has the right look for Adult Swim.
Continue reading Review: Adult Swim in a Box
Posted Nov 2nd 2009 8:35AM by Annie Wu
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, OpEd, Animation, Adult Swim, Episode Reviews
(S04E03) I swear to you, dear reader, that I do my best to stay somewhat objective when reviewing
The Venture Bros. It's tough, though, when the writers keep knocking them out of the park like this. We're only a few episodes in, but I'm already enjoying things more than I did with season three, and it's not just because this episode had mind-blowing prog rock and UPS guys with the Shining.
Continue reading Review: The Venture Bros. - Perchance to Dean
Posted Oct 26th 2009 12:08PM by Annie Wu
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, OpEd, Animation, Adult Swim, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
(S04E02) First things first. If you are not a connoisseur of '90s superhero cartoons or a huge nerd that has been closely following
Venture Bros. news all the way through production, you may have missed out on the full "Handsome Ransom" experience. That is not to say the unaware couldn't have a good time, but things were made ten times funnier if a viewer knew that the not-so-pure Captain Sunshine was voiced by Kevin Conroy, aka Batman.
Continue reading Review: The Venture Bros. - Handsome Ransom
Posted Oct 23rd 2009 9:32AM by Danny Gallagher
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, Programming, Web, Adult Swim, Pickups and Renewals, Reality-Free
Two very unique comedies will get a time slot on an equally unique cable network.
Conan O'Brien's "Conaco" production company and actor Rob Corrdry both scored spots on Adult Swim for two new live-action sitcoms.
O'Brien's company won a spot for Eagleheart, a show about a fading TV star who wins a chance for glory once more on a production in Texas, but constantly clashes with the low-level TV exec in charge of the show.
Corrdry's medical drama spoof web series
Childrens' Hospital will also go to Adult Swim. The channel will show re-edited versions of the episodes that aired on TheWB.com as well as produce new ones. Corrdry originally pitched the show to
Comedy Central, but negotiations broke down with the network, probably because the show didn't have enough bimbo strippers and shirtless fat guys to fill their quota (cough,
Secret Girlfriend, cough).
Posted Sep 16th 2009 4:25PM by Jonathan Toomey
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, Programming, Video, Animation, Adult Swim, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Pickups and Renewals, Reality-Free
When FX initially picked up six episodes of its first foray into animated comedy, the plan for Archer was to pair it with It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Since that greenlight, two things happened.
First, FX got trigger-happy and greenlit a whole bunch of other shows (from the likes of Louis CK and Don Cheadle). Second, and more importantly, according to FX it turns out that from start through post, it takes almost a whole month to complete one episode of Archer. With Always Sunny premiering this Thursday night at 10PM ET on FX, slotting in Archer's six eps suddenly became impossible. So the plan has changed. Instead of pairing Archer with Sunny mid-season, FX plans to launch its fantasy-football themed sitcom The League instead. However, if you were looking forward to seeing Archer, I've got some good news.
Continue reading FX quietly plans sneak-peek of animated Archer
Posted Sep 13th 2009 11:03AM by Annie Wu
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, Programming, OpEd, Animation, Adult Swim
In case you have not heard already, the fourth season of
Venture Bros. arrives on [adult swim] at midnight on October 18 (meaning the night of the 18th, technically the morning of the 19th). Mark your calendars.
This news has already been floating around for a while, thanks to sites like the
Mantis-Eye Experiment, but things have been confirmed by Jackson Publick and Doc Hammer during their panel at DragonCon. Some footage of this has finally been released by AdultSwim.com, so you can stop crawling around YouTube for people's crappy cell phone recordings.
Continue reading Venture Bros. premieres October 18
Posted Aug 26th 2009 5:04PM by Nick Zaino
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, TV on DVD, Adult Swim, Reality-Free
Season four of
Tim and Eric Awesome Show Great Job! has been over for months, and "Season Cinco," as season five has been dubbed on
the pair's Web site, has not yet started. But fans can bide their time with the
Tim and Eric Awesome Show Great Job! S3ASON THR33, which was out earlier this month.
In season three, Tim and Eric took a step up. The shows got funnier and tighter, without losing any of the scattershot, what-the-hell-am-I-looking-at feel. They upped the ante on creepy and uncomfortable with the "Child Showcase" sketch, featuring Patton Oswalt and Rainn Wilson as children singing inappropriate songs while an approving host looks on. It's an immediately unsettling image (though nothing really tops Chippy for that so far), a seamless special effect that puts Oswalt's and Wilson's heads on a kid's body.
Continue reading Tim and Eric Awesome Show Great Job! S3ASON THR33 on DVD
Posted Aug 18th 2009 9:07PM by Danny Gallagher
Filed under: Other Reality Shows, Programming, Cable/Satellite, Animation, Adult Swim
It seems that all of television is slowly losing its identity. The History Channel doesn't cover history. TV Land clogs their airwaves with run-of-the-mill reality shows. Comedy Central gives Carlos Mencia his own show.
It must be hard to draw in the kind of ratings the average television executive expects (average=viewers who are willing to commit mass suicide if they miss a rerun of
Chico and the Man) when you're anchored to one theme or genre. But it's not impossible.
One network that seems very close to giving up entirely is the Cartoon Network. According to the
Los Angeles Times,
CN's new lineup of live-action, reality-based programming is tanking in the ratings and
rumors are swirling that the CN may drop the "C" in its name. Does the head of
Radio Shack now work for the Cartoon Network?
Continue reading Will Cartoon Network become "The Network"?
Posted Aug 14th 2009 12:01PM by John Scott Lewinski
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, Industry, Programming, Animation, Adult Swim, Reality-Free
Cartoon Network picked Thursday to announce a lineup of new, green-lit shows and the return of a couple successful 2008 outings.
The two new original comedy animated series include
Regular Show and the intriguingly entitled
Horrorbots. The former was developed by the network's sort of "animator in training" developmental system, Cartoonstitute.
Regular Show is created by J. G. Quintel and was developed as a short for the development program. In each episode, "two bored groundskeepers, Mordecai (a six-foot-tall blue jay) and Rigby (a hyperactive raccoon) are best friends who spend their days trying to entertain themselves by any means necessary, much to the displeasure of Benson (their boss, who is a gumball machine) and to the delight of Pops (an older, lollipop-headed gentleman)."
Continue reading Cartoon Network gets animated with new series announcements
Posted Aug 6th 2009 10:02AM by John Scott Lewinski
Filed under: Animation, Music and Variety, Adult Swim, Reality-Free
Dethklok, the animated heavy metal band heading up Adult Swim's
Metalocalypse,is going live action and heading out on a 34-city North American tour.
Grammy Award-winning band Mastodon hits the road with Dethklok. Surprisingly enough, Mastodon is a small chamber orchestra specializing in the work of Debussy.
Actually, no. It's not. Mastodon is a big, loud, heavy metal act ready to rival Dethklok in the blown-out amp count when the tour kicks off on October 2 in Portland, Ore. You can get tickets online
here.
Continue reading Metalocalypse's Dethklok hits 34-city North American tour
Posted Aug 5th 2009 8:02AM by John Scott Lewinski
Filed under: Other Sci-Fi/Supernatural Shows, TV on the Bigscreen, Daytime, Animation, Adult Swim, Reality-Free, Comic-Con
G.I. Joe and
Transformers climbed to their lofty perches atop Hollywood's food chain from their iconic beginnings on 80's television.
Now, IDW Publishing is helping to bridge the gap between those classic 80's shows and their 21st Century big screen adaptations with new series of digital comic books based on the adventures of Snake Eyes, The Baroness, Optimus Prime and Megatron.
Made especially for online devices like iPods and the iPhone, these digital comics should be a welcome site for hardcore fans of the original TV hits as they're not blown away by the CGI-driven movie adaptions. Yes, the animation of those after-school cartoons was about one frame every four minutes, but they had such purity and charm to their morality plays.
Continue reading Original G.I. Joe and Transformers go digital for IDW
Posted Jul 26th 2009 6:21PM by John Scott Lewinski
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, Animation, Adult Swim, Reality-Free, Comic-Con
The Venture Brothers have all the trappings of a major, cross-media animated comedy phenomena -- except the popularity and notoriety that comes with it.
Written on the same brilliant scale as
The Simpsons or
South Park and drenched in hip pop culture references,
Venture Brothers remains a show with a devoted cult following that stays just off the mass media's radar. And series creators Jackson Publick and Doc Hammer aren't sure why.
"We didn't even get nominated for an Annie (animation) Award," Hammer told me. "Never mind an Emmy. We thought we could at least get an Annie. We can't explain it. You probably have a better idea of why that is than we do."
Continue reading Venture Brothers creators accept cult following - Comic-Con Report
Posted Jul 24th 2009 2:02PM by Danny Gallagher
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, News, Animation, Adult Swim, Awards, Emmys, Reality-Free
There have been a lot of uneasy vibes floating around the offices of TV Squad HQ about the elevation of
Family Guy to Best Comedy status by this year's Emmy nomination committee. I'm not speaking for the entire group, but it does feel a little out of place earning a nomination that even
The Simpsons couldn't score in its 20 year history. It's like giving the Nobel Peace Prize to Michael Jackson for writing "Heal the World" and completely snubbing Nelson Mandela.
But no one is more unhappy about the news than pop culture's official lifeguard, Bill O'Reilly.
He called out Seth MacFarlane's cavalcade of cartoon pop culture for
winning the nomination during his "Reality Check" segment.
Continue reading Bill O'Reilly doesn't feel so lucky there's a Family Guy
Posted Jul 23rd 2009 10:25PM by John Scott Lewinski
Filed under: Animation, Adult Swim, Reality-Free, Comic-Con
If you asked around to most experts and fans attending Comic-Con International what the biggest event was today, they'd probably pick the 3 p.m. panel featuring James Cameron and his first public showing of footage from
Avatar.
But Seth Green was scheduled opposite
Avatar to discuss
Robot Chicken, the new
Titan Maximum and whatever else his fans could throw at him.
Sure the crowds were massive for Cameron, but it was also a maxed-out Meeting Room 6A for Green and the Adult Swim shows as fans lined up down the hall, down another hall and, eventually, outside the upper level of the convention center.
Continue reading Seth Green's Robot Chicken panel takes on Avatar - Comic-Con Report
Posted Jul 23rd 2009 5:19PM by Jason Hughes
Filed under: Animation, Adult Swim, Reality-Free, Comic-Con
Considering that Dethklok is the biggest and most important band in the universe, my question is why it's taken so long for a
Metalocalypse comic book series to get off the ground. Originally, it was just the
Dethklok vs. The Goon one-shot from Dark Horse Comics. That came about because
The Goon creator Eric Powell is a huge fan of the show.
From there, though, Dark Horse got with series co-creator Brendon Small and have developed a full publishing program around the
Metalocalypse brand. They even got artists and writers from the show to collaborate with the Dark Horse team on whatever's going to come down the pipe.
Continue reading The Dethklok empire expanding into a Metalocalypse comic series
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