NEWS ABOUT: cartoon
cartoon stories: 32 news briefs
'The Goode Family' features clan trying a little too hard to stay eco-friendly
Wall Street Journal May 22, 09 3:23 AM CDT
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Goodbye Hank Hill, hello Gerald Goode. Beavis and Butthead creator Mike Judge's new animated series lampoons a vegan, hybrid-driving Midwestern family whose motto is: "What would Al Gore do?" The Goode Family sends up the greener-than-thou clan’s efforts to maintain an environmentally friendly, strictly PC lifestyle just for the sake of keeping up with their friends.
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GlobalPost May 4, 09 4:59 PM CDT
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An online cartoon detailing the sexscapades of a subcontinental MILF is driving India wild, the GlobalPost reports. Millions are drawn to the exploits of Savita Bhabhi, or “sister-in-law Savita,” even though pornography is illegal in India—or maybe because it is, analysts say. "People fantasize about a sari clad bhabhi being so raunchy and sexually liberated," one user wrote. Just what is a bhabhi, you ask?
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Many find mix of SpongeBob Squarepants and 'booty rap' uncomfortable
Chicago Sun-Times Apr 14, 09 2:40 PM CDT
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Burger King is under fire from parents for a new TV ad in which SpongeBob Squarepants, Sir Mix-A-Lot, and rap music video antics combine for an uncomfortable mix of adult and child entertainment, the Chicago Sun-Times reports. The spot mixes cartoon clips with shots of “the King,” and women with rectangular-shaped posteriors dancing to a modified version of Mix-A-Lot’s Baby Got Back .
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Fox orders seasons 21 and 22
Broadcasting & Cable Feb 26, 09 2:31 PM CST
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Fox ordered another two seasons of The Simpsons today, ensuring the legendary animated series will run for 22 seasons, Broadcasting and Cable reports. The series is currently tied with Gunsmoke for longest-running prime-time TV program, at 20 seasons. Fox in January kicked off “Best. 20 Years. Ever.”, a year-long celebration of the show that will end Jan. 14, 2010, the anniversary of the cartoon’s debut.
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Paper apologizes, to some, over cartoon many called racist
New York Post Feb 19, 09 10:43 PM CST
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The New York Post has apologized—to almost everyone—for the editorial cartoon that sparked protests and accusations of racism. "It was meant to mock an ineptly written federal stimulus bill," an editorial says, acknowledging that the cartoon chimp was taken by some as a racist depiction of Barack Obama. "This most certainly was not its intent," the Post writes.
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Newsday Feb 19, 09 4:32 PM CST
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Hundreds of protesters led by the Rev. Al Sharpton assembled outside the New York Post ’s headquarters today to condemn the paper's now-infamous chimpanzee cartoon, Newsday reports. Protesters called for a boycott and vowed to return tomorrow. They insist it's a racist slam against President Obama, while the paper calls it a "clear parody."
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Is it racist, or just morbid?
Huffington Post Feb 18, 09 11:06 AM CST
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A somewhat inscrutable, certainly tasteless, and possibly racist cartoon by Sean Delonas appeared today in the New York Pos t and other newspapers, prompting complaints from several quarters, reports the Huffington Post . In a reference to the recent chimp attack in Connecticut, the cartoon shows two police officers, one with smoking gun, standing over a dead chimp. One officer says, “They’ll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill.”
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Ads aimed at winning support in Time Warner feud feature a sobbing Spongebob
Wall Street Journal Dec 31, 08 5:29 AM CST
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Viacom is enlisting some of its best-known kid cartoon characters in a contract renewal battle with Time Warner, the Wall Street Journal reports. Viacom wants higher fees from the cable carrier for its channels, which could disappear from Time Warner's service at midnight tonight if no new deal is reached. A wave of ads debuts today featuring a sobbing SpongeBob SquarePants and a distraught Dora the Explorer, and urging viewers to contact Time Warner to demand the return of Nickelodeon and its siblings.
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Trey Parker and Matt Stone set their comedic sights on Utah religion
New York Post Nov 18, 08 4:15 PM CST
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Canadians can rest easy. The creators of South Park are ready to offend an entirely new population—Mormons, reports the New York Post . This time, though, they will do so not on the big screen or the small screen but on Broadway. Trey Parker and Matt Stone are bringing the Mormon Musical to the Great White Way with the help of Avenue Q creator Robert Lopez.
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Comics legend Stan Lee draws up idea for Posh and Becks in Spandex
Access Hollywood Oct 30, 08 8:56 AM CDT
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The creator of the Fantastic Four has his eye on famous twosome David and Victoria Beckham to be his next cartoon crimefighters, Access Hollywood reports. Former Marvel Comics kingpin Stan Lee, already working to put Paris Hilton and Ringo Starr into two dimensions, says "the great looking, talented and colorful" pair would be a perfect addition to his roster of superheroes. No word yet on how the dynamic duo feel about the project.
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OPINION
Radar Oct 14, 08 6:45 PM CDT
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Family Guy is back and bigger than ever, and creator Seth Macfarlane is rolling in money, influence, and spinoffs. Sounds like just the right time for a major backlash, Natasha Vargas-Cooper writes for Radar . “Just a few years after thousands of American tastemakers demanded Family Guy be resuscitated from cancellation,” Vargas-Cooper writes, “many of those same arbiters of culture have deemed MacFarlane's humor puerile and brainless.”
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Ghost edges out Titanic, and cartoons are well represented in online outcome
Daily Telegraph (UK) Oct 13, 08 2:15 PM CDT
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Bambi is the best “tear-jerker” ever, the Daily Telegraph reports. An online poll puts the Disney cartoon at the top of the list, and it should be no surprise: Even Paul McCartney credits the death of Bambi’s mother for his vegetarianism. Ghost , the sentimental story of the relationship between Patrick Swayze, Demi Moore, and Whoopi Goldberg, was a close second.
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After 30 years, Breathed will turn focus to children's books
Washington Post Oct 6, 08 4:42 PM CDT
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Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Berkeley Breathed, the genius behind “Bloom County,” will retire his current strip, "Opus," on Nov. 2, the Washington Post reports. "With the crisis in Wall Street and Washington, I'm suspending my comic strip to assist the nation,” Breathed joked in a statement. "I call on John McCain to join me." The artist has penned syndicated comics for 30 years and will concentrate on writing children's books.
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Ex-researcher, law student raise questions that anger Disney lawyers
Los Angeles Times Aug 23, 08 7:44 PM CDT
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A trio of unlikely challengers has angered Walt Disney Co. by arguing that an early version of Mickey Mouse is no longer copyright-protected, the Los Angeles Times reports. Disney has won a $500,000 lawsuit against ex-employee Gregory Brown, who uncovered old film credits that he says invalidate Disney's claim to a 1920s version of Mickey. A law student later took up Brown's case in a class paper.
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Boston Globe Aug 17, 08 4:59 PM CDT
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What if the family dog ate alphabet soup by mistake? Susan Meddaugh answered her 7-year-old son’s question by writing a book, Martha Speaks , which has now become a PBS show about the talking dog. PBS hopes it will teach challenging vocab—"diminish," "concoct," and "courageous" are on the list—by integrating them seamlessly into stories.
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Surreal blog branches out with original creator's blessing
Editor & Publisher Jul 31, 08 6:11 PM CDT
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Some comic strip authors might be miffed—or turn litigious—if a fan became a minor celebrity by systematically removing the namesake character and posting the edited strips on the Internet. Not "Garfield" creator Jim Davis, Editor & Publisher reports. With his blessing, Davis’ publisher will issue a book of Dan Walsh's “Garfield Minus Garfield” comics, with the original strips alongside the doctored versions.
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Creator Mort Walker's Cartoon Museum is Ohio-bound
Wall Street Journal Jul 16, 08 1:14 PM CDT
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One of the world's biggest collections of cartoon art has found a new home at Ohio State University, the Wall Street Journal reports. "Beetle Bailey" creator Mort Walker amassed more than 200,000 pieces of cartoon art during his 7 decades in the business but had to move his National Cartoon Museum several times and eventually shut it for good in 2002.
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OPINION
Cynicism has killed satire, perhaps even humor altogether, in post 9/11 age
Salon Jul 15, 08 1:28 PM CDT
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Many writers are scratching their heads at the incensed reactions provoked by the New Yorker ’s Obamas-as-terrorists cover. Here’s some rebuttal: Liberals “have come to regard all images or texts that contain negative stereotypes as too politically dangerous to run,” Gary Kamiya writes in Salon. “Not a single work of satire could ever pass this paranoid test” in which merely acknowledging racism “is to be racist.”
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Affable Cleveland Brown will step out on his own
New York Post May 28, 08 1:58 PM CDT
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Fox's hit cartoon Family Guy is spinning off a new show centered around Cleveland Brown—the soft-spoken neighbor to Peter Griffin. The Cleveland Show will debut in 2009, and follow a recently divorced Brown on a quest to his Virginia hometown, where he falls in love with an old flame.
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Real-life mom
inspired long-running
cartoon character
Arizona Republic (Phoenix) May 26, 08 2:42 AM CDT
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The inspiration for the mom in the popular Family Circus cartoon has died at the age of 82 of Alzheimer's disease. Thelma Keane was the wife of cartoonist Bil Keane, who based the long-running strip of domestic hilarity on the couple's experience raising five children, reports the Arizona Republic . "I give all the credit to my wife," Keane said. "She was vital to any success that I had."
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