When it comes to pet owners some are attention deprived when it comes to the needs of their said animals. Simon’s Cat is a new animation created by Simon Tofield of Tandem Films. Sure this is Garfield territory, but then again we can’t be finicky. Simon Tofield’s simple lined feline animated shorts are hitting the right chord with cat lovers. With 3 short films in the can, this is one creation that will have more than nine lives.

From teenage doctor Doogie Howser to Doctor Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, Neil Patrick Harris is making house calls once again with the latest offering by Joss Whedon.

Look out Bugs Bunny there is a new rabbit in town.  Big Buck Bunny is the epitome of today’s super-size me culture. This clever cartoon was produced by Ton Roosendaal of the the Blender Institute.

There is an old adage when it comes to creative people, stick to what you know. Seth MacFarlane must be the crazy glue of the animation world. A one time writer for the Simpsons created Family Guy and then American Dad. At closer scrutiny, the characters have different names but the principles and main ideas are just the same as Family Guy which is basically itself a clone of The Simpsons.

The award winning 1970 children’s book, In the Night Kitchen, by illustrator Maurice Sendak is a take and homage to early the 20th century way of life and a spice of his own vision of his youth . The book was banned in many libraries because of light nudity of Mickey the main character. Some went as far as to black out any genitalia with a marker. Winsor McCay’s comic strip of the early 1900s, Little Nemo in Slumberland, was the inspiration of the book as a journey into Maurice’s childhood.  Many scholars examined the book on many levels of hidden meaning which are many and led to a ban that deemed the book to be of sexual ambiguity and exploration in youth. The animated version is void of certain elements but paying close attention will reveal the mild implications of youthful discovery of the world around them.  Read more >>

With the advent of gaming and lackluster interest in reading, illiteracy is on the rise. Who better to come to the rescue but Letterman and Easy Ready from the Electric Company. Turn up those generators cause the "The Electric Company" is coming back this January on PBS to help the young tykes to be better readers. Will Spidey be back once again to the series? Not much is known, but this is good news if the series is made in the same vein as the original series that ran from 1971-1977 which featured Morgan Freeman and was syndicated till 1985.

The property of Edgar Rice Burroughs? John Carter of Mars has always had an allure in the Sci-Fi community. This series that was penned by the Tarzan author begot the likes of Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers and the three never graduated to great success because of often ridiculous and outlandish stories. Disney/Pixar are working in bringing once again another Edgar Rice Burroughs franchise to the screen. Unlike Tarzan that has a rich tradition in many milieus in the entertainment industry, John Carter has less of a fandom to draw from. Bob Clampett animator guru was approached by the author in 1936 to create a series based on the John Carter books, unfortunately the tests for the series never graduated into a full project. What is left is the following video of an abandoned project that had promise.  Who knows if that series was made, John Carter would be a household name today.

Not since Cornelius and Zira first touched down on earth on Planet of the Apes that chimps will once again grace the silver screen in years. There is so much bad publicity as of late on various sites about this movie. The movie is produced by the duo of John H. Williams (Shrek, Shrek 2) and Barry Sonnenfeld (Men in Black, The Addams Family). Seems animal space flights is the flavor of the month. Nick Abadzis’s graphic novel "Laika" is one of the first in the past year to examine this side of the animal world experiments by man to conquer the stars. As much as we want to glorify the animal achievements both dogs and chimps did die in these flights. Heralded as heroes by the space community, these poor animals went through torture in space. Cartoons are always on a light side of reality and with caution because of the young audience.  This movie is all in fun but one must remember the blotted out stories of over 50 years of animals that suffered in the exploration of space. This will be a great movie but it just is a bit tainted because of the true realities of the early space program and Nick Abadzi’s bold telling of Laika’s 5 hour flight that lead to his death. This movie is cliched at best as you might noticed from the trailer, but I highly recommend it for the family.

The Love Guru is Mike Myers new comedic vehicle to ridicule his Canadian roots. Seems Mike is paying homage to a famous skit from John Byner’s Bizarre TV show from the 80’s when he meditates and pulls his legs all over the place. John Byner was notorious for using famous midget actor Billy Barty on his show. I wonder if that was the inspiration for Mini-me? Bizarre was one of those shows that dared to be different and had a politically non-correct bit called the "Bigot Family" that has since been cut out in syndication. After watching the trailer of Love Guru I am left with a sense of nostalgia for Bizarre. There was a famous actor that was on that show that went on to bigger things. If you guessed it was Mike Myers, you would be right. He played John Byner’s nephew on the show.