Comedy Central is showing off the ugly side of America with their new series, Ugly Americans. The series comes from the mind of illustrator Devin Clark. It is about an alternate New York in which Mark Lilly (voiced by Matt Oberg) a human social worker, helps ordinary people as well as creatures from horror, fantasy, and sci-fi films, adapt to life in New York City.

In addition to Mark Lilly, the “Ugly Americans” cast features Randall Skeffington, Mark’s zombie roommate (voiced by Kurt Metzger), Callie Maggotbone, Mark’s demon boss and office fling (voiced by Natasha Leggero), Leonard Powers, an aging drunken wizard (voiced by Randy Pearlstein), Twayne, a terrorizing demonic bureaucrat (voiced by Michael-Leon Wooley) and Lt. Grimes (voiced by Larry Murphy), a law-enforcement officer who despises non-humans. Additional characters are voiced by Mike Britt, Devin Clark, Pete Holmes and Julie Klausner.

The series was developed and executive produced by David M. Stern, former writer of The Simpsons, The Wonder Years, and Monk. In an interview with TV.com, Stern discusses how he landed the gig as a head writer and his embarrassing stint as a production assistant on Mystic Pizza. The series is animated by Augenblick Studios, the same company that brought Superjail! to Adult Swim and animated segments to Nickelodeon’s Yo Gabba Gabba.

Ugly Americans will premiere tonight on Comedy Central at 10:30pm e/9:30 pm c, right after the premiere of South Park‘s 14th season. Watch a clip from the show by clicking below.

You can watch more clips and previews of Ugly Americans on the official website.

Photos: Comedy Central

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For the past 40 years, the Wonder Woman has had almost as many make-overs as Barbie. A change in appearance, abilities, and back story have created a character that seems as malleable as a folk tale. Its not without effort that the character hasn’t been given a big break. Baby boomers may recall Wonder Woman as played by Lynda Carter, with spinning transformation sequences and bullet-blocking abilities. Gen X’ers remember her as one of the few female characters featured in the Superfriends. Millennials know Wonder Woman from her role as naive and honorable Diana from Justice League. With each new introduction, the character took on changes to reflect the era, serving as a symbol of female empowerment.

Last month Bruce Timm’s Wonder Woman movie, a direct-to-DVD film featuring the character’s origin, hit store shelves. The animated movie was a success, making more than $2 million in its first week. Keri Russel (Waitress, Felicity) played Wonder Woman and received critical praise for her performance.

Despite the success, I’m left to wonder if these types of films ever find the same audience the big budget, live-action movies do. Warner Bros. has released several Batman and Superman titles in their animated DC Universe line, often focusing character development and hero origin stories. Although avid fans may end up purchasing or renting the films, this type of promotion is devoid of the event-based experience of movie theater watching. Summer blockbusters are about sharing the movie experience. My discussions about Batman, with friends, are a direct consequence of watching the film together, not reading the comics or renting DVDs. Wonder Woman’s chance to be a water cooler topic has been stifled once again.

I know times are tough, and studios are not too keen on attempting risky projects. A live-action Wonder Woman film has attempted pre-production twice by Warner Bros. (once in 2005 and again in 2007), only to be halted for another movie. There seems to be a fundamental lack of faith that a male-dominated audience will turn out to see the a female super hero. Charlie’s Angels, Laura Croft: Tomb Raider, and Kill Bill all attempted to link post-feminism with a strong female archetype, but ended up creating  a caricature of a hero rather than a fully-flushed persona. I won’t begin to delve into the various gender, equality, or objectification discussions, but I will say that the character has proven to have appeal. Countless comic books and graphic novels prove that the character isn’t driven on her looks alone.

I’d like to believe that Wonder Woman will get her big break. The success super hero films has proven that even obscure characters can have mass appeal. I don’t need to be bound by a golden lasso to tell you the truth: Fans want Wonder Woman on the big screen.

(Photo by : Looking Glass)

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Believe it or not, for a strange period between 2004 until January 1, 2009 and from January 2, 2009 onward, Looney Tunes, in their original incarnations, were not seen on American television aside from the infrequent showings of the anthology movies of the late 1970s and 80s. One of these days, I’ll find a lady and have a family, and I hope that I could expose him or her to Looney Tunes shorts on television, the medium they weren’t exactly made for, but have been a part of for almost 50 years of their 80 years of existence. Warner Bros., the owners of the characters and shorts, have no idea how to reintroduce the characters to a somewhat fickle populace.

I do.

There are three steps to reintroducing the Looney Tunes cast of characters, which involves showing them, making new ones, marketing them for all of today’s audiences, not just kids. It’s quite simple and could actually work if done right:

1) Market Their “Flaws”:

For much of the decade, Warner Bros. has marketed the characters to be as family-friendly as the Disney characters. In a mind-blowing announcement, I’m going to tell you that they’re NOT. I know. Shocking, right? See, the reason WHY the Looney Tunes characters have maintained their success for almost 80 years is because they aren’t cutesy, charming, or polite. They represent two extremes of the spectrum of humanity, the wise-ass, ill-tempered, arrogant, and manipulative side and the moronic, gullible, naive, and pigeon-like side. They’re not doe-eyed innocents nor happy friends. They’re like us, flawed and human. They mocked society long before Monty Python, SNL, and The Daily Show were even in the glimmer of their creators’ eyes.

Remember when Taz and Tweety were everywhere? That’s because they were two sides of the same extreme. Taz was ill-tempered yet childlike while Tweety was sweet yet manipulative. Instead of homogenizing the characters to the point of blandness as they’ve been doing for much of this decade, Warner Bros. should be showcasing and celebrating the fact that their characters are the anti-Mickeys. They would never be buddy-buddies nor would they be watered down as characters who needed outside help, babies or Technicolor hero-types (by the way, I’d eradicate every film and videotape with the proof of the existence of Space Jam, Baby Looney Tunes and Loonatics Unleashed, but if I can’t, I’ll hide them very well).

They’d be, as Bugs put it, trying to kill each other.

2) Re-establish the brand for ALL generations and SHOW THEM:

Looney Tunes is a cross-generational brand. Many of you readers grew up watching the shorts on broadcast television and cable. Many of the younger readers watched them on cable and DVD. Some even watch them on the poorly advertised (read: not advertised) Kids’ WB! and In2TV web services. It’s a part of nearly every generation except the current younger generation, and it’s about time it is.

That said, Looney Tunes could be catered for different audiences in different ways. The powers that be at the Watertower can easily create three separate showcases for the characters for the core demographics they want to reach:

- The Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show (families and K6-12/9-14, rated TV-G): The original broadcast showcase that lasted from 1960 to 2000 could easily return in its 1960s incarnation with the “This Is It” theme and shorts without their opening and closing icons and easily bridged with new animated segments ala the original series that could reintroduce the characters to the current generation of viewers. It could be a daily show in a half-hour or hour-long format without the bridges and a weekly hour-long series with them.

- The Looney Bin (T14-18/Adults 18-40, rated TV-PG):  Remember how Cartoon Network presented Looney Tunes before political and puritanical correctness got the better of them? Well, The Looney Bin is crazy enough to present the classic shorts uncut, uncensored, and uncooked. It could be a weeknightly cornerstone for Adult Swim as well as set as the perfect middleground between Cartoon Network and Adult Swim.

- Termite Terrace: (Adults 18-40/Baby boomers, rated TV-PG): A weekly, uncut showcase of the finest Looney Tunes shorts from all eras, including the Bosko years, the wartime shorts, and the postwar shorts bridged by Toon Heads/Popeye Show/Cartoon Alley-like segments talking about the history and stories behind the shorts. It could fit in on channels like Turner Classic Movies or outlets aimed towards older audiences.

Three diverse brands for three different audiences. That would work wonders in reestablishing the Looney Tunes characters in the public eye.

3) Bring together familiar and new creators:

While it would be nice to get the old gang back together, the masters are no longer amongst the land of the living. We don’t have the technology to reanimate or clone them (yet). But that doesn’t mean we can’t recapture the magic they created. There are numerous creators and animators that would love to put their own spin on the Looney Tunes characters.

As they should.

See, here’s the thing I never understood about modern day Looney Tunes adaptations. They’re all this sole, homogeneous entity, especially compared to what they were back in the Golden Age. While in essence they were the same characters, each animation director put his own spin on them. Bob Clampett’s Daffy Duck was manic and wild while Chuck Jones’ Daffy was greedy and vindictive. Tex Avery’s Bugs Bunny was a trickster with a little bit of silliness while Bob McKimson’s Bugs was a little more reserved yet comedically brilliant. Perhaps the reason why newer Looney Tunes productions don’t work is because they’re all working under the same script and guidelines.

And that’s the problem.

All the shorts look the same because they’re largely under the direction of one guy. Instead of depending on just one overseer, perhaps they could create separate units guided by different talents. Folks familiar with the characters, particularly writers and artists who worked on the recent Looney Tunes comics, as well as writers and artists like David Alverez, with the same kind of comedic tendencies as the original shorts could be brought on board as supervising directors. I wouldn’t mind seeing animation creators familiar with the characters like Tom Mitton (Tom and Jerry Tales, probably the best post-golden age adaptations of the characters ever), Sherri Stoner, Mike Milo, Tony Cervone, and others as well as those unfamiliar with them like Chris Sanders (Lilo and Stitch), Stephen Hillenburg (Spongebob Squarepants), John Dilworth (Courage the Cowardly Dog),  C.H. Greenblatt (Chowder), and Maxwell Atoms (The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy) put their spin on the classic characters. Seriously, a Sanders-made Taz short and a Dilworth-made Porky and Sylvester horror short would rule and you know it! In fact, I would enjoy it if Greg Ford was the supervisor of all these shorts.

Who’s Greg Ford, you may ask? He’s the guy behind the aforementioned  Invasion of the Bunny Snatchers, Night of the Living Duck, The Duxocist, and (Blooper) Bunny as well as directed the only good Looney Tunes anthology movie, Daffy Duck’s Quackbusters. What’s unique about all of these productions?  They were all GOOD post-golden age projects featuring the characters and kept them just as the creators intended them to be: edgy, comedic, and not entirely for kids (but they can enjoy them too).

So, there you go. Three steps towards modernizing and reintroducing the classic Looney Tunes characters back to the mainstream. Is it a good plan? Probably. Could it work? In the right hands, yes. But it is a plan. One, I might add, that exists unlike what’s out there right now from the property owners. Of course, Warner Bros., I’d love to be proven wrong.

Photo: Go Daddy Go

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But then, as the years progressed, my seemingly paranoid allusions proved to be not only accurate, but also worrisome, almost to the point that I actually have fears that cartoons are going to become an afterthought at the toon house that Ted and Betty built, replaced in the hearts of the executives with lame sitcoms and ripoffs of Discovery and Sci-Fi reality shows.

It didn’t used to be that way. On day one, Cartoon Network had made it a mission to be a 24-hour network dedicated to airing, as the slogan went, all cartoons, all the time. But in 2005, they broke my heart. They aired a myriad of live-action movies under the guise of being “live-action cartoons.” Films such as Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Small Soldiers were somewhat forgivable, especially the former, because they had many animated scenes in it. However, when they aired The Goonies (a popular movie in its own right), Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves, Dumb and Dumber (an adult movie not really known for being kid-friendly), Snow Day (a movie from Nickelodeon of all places), and Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls (a fairly adult, nearly uncut TV-14 movie), the line was crystal clear. Cartoon may be the network’s first name, but cartoons would have to share the network with live-action. Even Adult Swim, once considered the savior of anime and adult animation, has largely become an outlet for live-action sitcoms.

And it’s all Michael Ouweleen’s fault. Okay, it’s not ALL his fault, but the people who helped pushed the agenda along with him, Jim Samples and Bob Higgins, are both gone. Samples and Higgins wanted to go into the live-action direction because of the success of the Disney Channel live-action series (particularly Hannah Montana) and movies (especially the High School Musical)

Who’s Michael Ouweleen? Well, Michael Ouweleen was once a guy after my own heart. He was the engineer behind the “Cartoons That Didn’t Make It” and “Shorties” projects at Cartoon Network as well as served as executive producer of the ingenious “Harvey Birdman: Attorney-at-Law” series for Adult Swim. He moved up to the position of Senior Vice President of programming and development for Cartoon Network, and deservedly so. Unfortunately, he was the guy hell-bent on altering the landscape of Cartoon Network from an all-animated one to general children’s entertainment network. If he wasn’t THE guy, then he was the one pushing the idea of live-action programming more than usual, especially when he presented Re-Animated in 2006. It was a moronic movie, but curious minds wanted to see this train wreck in action, and it was a ratings winner. It had a follow-up weekly series, Out of Jimmy’s Head a year later.

Re-Animated, not to be confused to with the horror movie franchise Re-Animator, was the story about a boy who had an accident at a Disneyland-like theme park and had a brain transplant using the frozen brain of the theme park’s founder, an animator who saw his characters everywhere, and becoming the head (no pun intended) of the studio. It was a moronic, but curious minds wanted to see this train wreck in action, and it was a ratings winner. Subsequent ratings were lower, but in one genius crossover even with Fridays, they bribed kids into watching it with the promise of giving away $500 to 200 kids. Do the math. That’s $100,000. Ratings grew and convinced Cartoon Network to immediately greenlight Re-Animated: The Series, now dubbed Out of Jimmy’s Head, and consider other live-action pilots.

Here’s the thing about Out of Jimmy’s Head. The first couple of airings were well-received, but it wasn’t the ratings darling the network hoped it’d be and was just hemorrhaging viewers. The Writer’s Guild strike of 2007, which affected production on Out of Jimmy’s Head, was a blessing in disguise. Instead of resuming the series after the strike ended, Cartoon Network just let it die. It didn’t return. The show wasn’t seen again after the summer of 2008. In April 2008, the series wasn’t mentioned at all during the annual upfronts.

In fact, the only live-action mentioned that year were a pair of movie productions for the next year, movie adaptations of Ben 10 Alien Force, which was one of the new productions announced that year, and a prequel to the Scooby-Doo live-action movies. The rest of the productions were animated fare like Chowder (which outshined the live-action Ben 10 movie and Out of Jimmy’s Head as Cartoon Network’s #1 series of 2007), Flapjack, Batman: The Brave and the Bold, the Cartoonstitute endeavor (which promised to produce new shorts for the network for a period of two years), and Star Wars: The Clone Wars, which was the highlight of the upfront event and, when it premiered. However, the biggest show of the year for Cartoon Network was one they didn’t even highlight, a Canadian animated acquisition called Total Drama Island. And you know what happened?

Cartoon Network had its best year-long ratings ever.  Total Drama Island ruled the summer and much of the fall. The Clone Wars shattered network records when it premiered. Cartoon Network’s biggest successes in 2008 were cartoons. So, what did they do in 2009? Completely ignore the animated success and greenlit a record number of original live-action productions, which outnumbered the new animated output for the year.

In March 2009, Cartoon Network announced their plans for the 2009-10 season. They announced Adventure Time, a series from Fred Seibert’s Frederator Studios that originated on Nicktoons Network (currently the only all-animation channel in the United States in 2009), Stoked from the creators of Total Drama Island and a new revamp of the 40-year old Scooby-Doo franchise, Scooby-Doo: Mystery, Inc.. Other shows to get announced were a trio of great-looking science-fiction titles, Sym-Bionic Titan from Dexter’s Laboratory and Samurai Jack creator and the producer of the original Clone Wars microseries Genndy Tartakofsky and a pair of shows from Men of Action – a third incarnation of Ben 10 tentatively called Ben 10: Evolutions and Generator Rex, about a boy with the ability to create weapons with his limbs. Combined with new seasons of Clone Wars, Chowder, Secret Saturdays, Flapjack, TDI’s follow-up Total Drama Action, and Brave and the Bold, Cartoon Network’s cartoon stockpile of over 160 half hours proved impressive.

But that’s not what media organizations aren’t even acknowledging. Instead, nearly every media outlet focused on the live-action productions coming to the network. The Othersiders (teens investigating paranormal activities), Survive This (teens develop survival skills in the woods), ·Destroy Build Destroy (teens becoming demolitions experts by using junk), Head Rush (kids answer questions while riding theme park rides) Dude, What Would Happen: (teens trying to find out the answers to strange, mythical questions in scientific ways), and Bobb’e Says (a viral clip show) were announced and the media ate them up, ignoring the seven new animated series coming to the network and the animated movie, Firebreather, based on the Image Comics series.

And said public failed to acknowledge that each of those reality, “strike-proof” live-action series are almost uncreative rip-offs of Ghost Hunters, Survivorman, Junkyard Wars, Mythbusters, Cash Cab, and Web Junk 20, respectively. And the fact that they’re still pursuing live-action productions of that vein as well as scripted fare (though, to be honest, one of the two pilots they’ve ordered, Prepped, actually sounds like it could be the closest thing to an American-made Prisoner, and could work especially in the right hands) leads many longtime viewers of Cartoon Network to ask, “Has Cartoon Network given up on cartoons?” While the powers that be maintain that animation will remain the cornerstone of the network, one has to wonder for how much longer. Since they haven’t learned much from Out of Jimmy’s Head’s failure (aside from putting money in strike-proof non-scripted programming) and the fact that even the creator of Chowder, Cartoon Network’s  biggest original series since The Powerpuff Girls, believes the series may be ending should be a sign that something’s not quite right at Techwood Drive.

Live-action is seen as a savior for something. I’m not sure what it is, and I’m not sure they know either. Cartoon Network has been relegated to third place amongst the children’s networks in this country behind Disney Channel and Nickelodeon. With the addition of live-action programming, Cartoon Network’s ratings have improved, but they’re still in third place. The live-action shows and movies do fine, but it’s the animated ventures that do better, as Clone Wars, Chowder, and Total Drama Island proved this past year. And yes, the animated ventures are going to be fun to watch, but Cartoon Network seems to be remodeling their image away from the “all-cartoon” model for almost five years now and this year is the year they all but obliterate it.

Do I have to watch them? Absolutely not. I’m not happy with the direction Cartoon Network is headed, but I’m not obsessed like I used to be. If they want to fail, ignore their roots, and forget about their legacy in an effort to remain in third place in the minds and hearts of the nation’s youth, it’s their prerogative. At this point, I’m Pilate, washing my hands of the whole thing. You want to know what’s strange? I’m actually at the point that I would rather see Cartoon Network return the Fridays block that caused the paranoia in the first place.

At least back then, they cared about cartoons and showed them.

Photo: D.L.

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Captain Planet was the brainchild of cable-mogul Ted Turner. The show aired globally on various affiliates and on TBS and Cartoon Network in the US. It combined action and adventure with a strong ecological message. I’m not sure if it was the lame puns or the green mullet, but the show has left its impression on pop culture. Love or hate it, Captain Planet brought concepts such as recycling and ecological ethics to the mainstream.

Next year will mark the 20th anniversary of the show, and to celebrate Mother Nature Network (MNN) is going to be posting 20 full streaming episodes of the series throughout the next 12 months. The site was founded on the same premise as Captain Planet — to promoting “green” values and empowering people to make better choices for our planet. Along with the episodes you’ll see many behind-the-scenes featurettes, including a very interesting one about the Captain Planet feature film that started the production stage in 1995.

The film was set in a post-apocalyptic world, similar to the one seen in Blade Runner. The characters all seem to remain the same but with an updated, futuristic look. While I’m not completely convinced that any of this was a good idea, it would have been fun to see Captain Planet (a sketch the featurette didn’t show) and how his look would have been altered for the movie. Let’s face it, spandex and speedos have never done anyone justice. If you’re a fan or new to the series, I’d suggest you check it out. With re-runs being sparse on cable, this might be your best chance to catch up with your childhood favorite.

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