WebProNews

Tag: Adult Swim

  • John Krasinski Has a New Animated Comedy Coming to Adult Swim

    Fans of John Krasinski and Stephen Merchant, two very funny guys, will be happy to learn that the pair has a new show coming to TV.

    Adult Swim has greenlit a new animated comedy series called Dream Corp, LLC. Krasinski and Merchant are executive producing the series.

    Here’s how Variety describes the show:

    Described as an absurd workplace comedy, this series is set in a neglected dream therapy facility. Episodes will feature a rotating cast of desperate patients who have their dreams recorded and analyzed by Dream Corp’s absent-minded professor, Dr. Roberts (Jon Gries), and his team of unremarkable scientists.

    The show has a distinction, as it’s the first Adult Swim original series to “utilize rotoscope technology, or the act of tracing over live-action footage frame-by-frame.”

    Krasinski and Merchant are both alums of the US version of The Office. Krasinski, of course, starred as the lovable Jim. Merchant co-created the British version of The Office, and then served as an executive producer on the American version.

    No word on a premiere date, but the show will start production later this year.

  • Erykah Badu To Play Parrot-Hybrid Woman In ‘Black Dynamite’ Animated Series

    Adult Swim is known for its cutting edge programming, with surreal TV shows as well as forward-thinking animated shows. One of the animated shows in its roster right now is Black Dynamite, an adaptation of the comedy action film starring Michael Jai White. The season finale of Black Dynamite is set to feature appearances by some of hip-hop’s most well-known names. Erykah Badu, Tyler the Creator, and Chance the Rapper are set to appear in the show’s special musical episode that focuses on police brutality.

    In the wake of Ferguson, police brutality has become a hot button issue and is more relevant than ever before. A trailer for the special episode focuses its satirical and critical eye on race relations in America filtered through a distorted Wizard of Oz-inspired lens. It’s potentially crass, but it’s also poignant and funny as hell.

    In the story, Black Dynamite gets hit in the head with a brick and he hallucinates that he’s in a place called “Oz-Watts”, where he is called upon to defend the public from abusive police officers. Tyler the Creator will be playing as a talking poodle that serves as Black Dynamite’s guide, while comedian JB Smoove will be playing a police officer. Badu is reportedly cast as a parrot/muscular-woman hybrid. Black Dynamite will also encounter Oz-Watts’ version of the fairy godmother (James Brown, the fairy godfather of soul), as well as “The Wicked B***h of The West Side” (an overzealous police officer).

    Erykah Badu has appeared in an earlier episode of Black Dynamite where she played dual roles as Bob Marley’s wife, Rita, as well as a prostitute. She also recently collaborate with Tyler the Creator for his album, Wolf, appearing on the track “Treehome95”. Early last year, she revealed that she’s working on a new record.

  • ‘Too Many Cooks’ Reminds Us That Facebook Is Really Slow At Rolling Out Graph Search Features

    A lot of people are talking about “Too Many Cooks“. Maybe you’ve heard. It’s been trending on Twitter all weekend and throughout Monday.

    If you’re on Twitter, you can easily see what people are saying about it, from people you follow and celebrities to the common folk of the Twitterverse. A lot has been said, and some fun content is being created around it.

    I’m sure there will be plenty more, but Twitter is going to continue to be a lot better place to search for what people are saying and sharing about Too Many Cooks than Facebook, because Facebook still hasn’t rolled out Graph Search for posts, despite having announced it in September of last year.

    While they said it would be a slow roll-out, this is ridiculous. With Graph Search, you should be able to search for “posts about Too Many Cooks” or “Posts about Too Many Cooks by my friends” or things of that nature.

    Unfortunately, for most users, they still get something like this when they try such a query:

    Facebook is notorious for announcing product updates, and taking FOREVER to roll them out, if they do at all. In the case of Graph Search, one would think it would be a higher priority at the company considering it’s another ideal place to put ads.

    The company may not want to spoil the broth around privacy concerns, as the feature will potentially surface a lot of content that would otherwise be buried. It did say it would be taking feedback from the small amount of users it gave it to at the beginning. Unfortunately, we can only speculate as to what Facebook is doing with it.

    In August, Facebook was found to be letting more people search posts from mobile devices, “testing” a feature it announced nearly a year prior.

    Too Many Cooks is a perfect example of when people want to know what their friends are saying about it, and the fact that I can’t do this on Facebook right now is just a reminder that Facebook is really just lagging on this. It also implies that it could be a pretty huge feature once available.

    Image via YouTube

  • Comic-Con 2013: Robot Chicken DC Comics Special Sequel To Focus On Villains

    If you ask me, the best thing to come out of entertainment last year was the Robot Chicken DC Comics Special. The 30 minute episode spoofed its way through some of the greatest (and lesser known) DC Comics heroes and villains. Now Seth Green and team are putting together a sequel.

    Entertainment Weekly reports that the next special will be called Robot Chicken DC Comics Special II: Villains In Paradise. The special will be formally introduced today during the Robot Chicken panel at Comic-Con 2013. Before that, however, Green shared some details of what the special will entail.

    As the title implies, the special will focus on the villains of the DC Comics universe. Specifically, it will focus on Lex Luthor and his daughter. Green hints that the overarching story may have to deal with a what if scenario involving Luthor’s daughter falling in love with Superboy. He says that the special will be “a little bit more of a West Side Story/Romeo and Juliet star-crossed love story.”

    Green says that script for the second DC Comics special is done, and that they’re starting to record voices now. They’re also going to start filming in August. The second special will air on Adult Swim sometime in 2014.

    If you missed the first DC Comics Special, you missed out on a storyline where Aquaman finally gets his due. After being ignored and abused by the Justice League, he decides to team up with the Legion of Doom to get revenge. It spirals out from there into a series of jokes making fun of everything from Batman’s fight with Bane in Knightfall to lesser known DC characters like Mr. Banjo.

    Here’s the trailer for the first special:

  • Netflix Gets Cartoon Network, Adult Swim Content through Another Warner Bros Deal

    Netflix Gets Cartoon Network, Adult Swim Content through Another Warner Bros Deal

    Netflix has just announced new licensing deals with Warner Bros Television Group and Turner Broadcasting System that will bring more streaming content to the service in March of this year, as well as January 2014.

    The deal with Warner Bros TV will bring Cartoon Network programming, as well as Adult Swim programming to Netflix. That includes Cartoon Network shows like Adventure Time, Ben 10, Regular Show, and Johnny Bravo, and Adult Swim shows like Robot Chicken, Aqua Teen Hunger ForceThe Boondocks and live action hit Childrens Hospital.

    Netflix will get all the past seasons of the aforementioned shows on March 30th, 2013.

    The licensing agreement with Turner will bring additional content to the service a little on down the line – TNT drama Dallas will become available in January, 2014.

    “We are delighted that Netflix will become the exclusive over-the-top streaming subscription destination for past seasons of favorite Cartoon Network and Adult Swim titles,” said Ted Sarandos, Chief Content Officer of Netflix. “We’re also thrilled to be able to offer the latest seasons of Dallas, one of the greatest all-time guilty pleasures.”

    “We are thrilled to continue our great relationship with Netflix giving their subscribers access to more and more of our programming,” said Ken Werner , President, Warner Bros. Domestic Television Distribution. “This represents another evolutionary step in the TV ecosystem working with Netflix, on the SVOD platform, to improve the consumer experience while being respectful of existing business models.”

    Just last week, Netflix announced an exclusive deal with Warner Bros Television Group to acquire the rights to eight programs including NBC’s Revolution, USA’s Political Animals, and FOX’s upcoming drama The Following.

  • TBS invests in Funny or Die: TV show in the works?

    The 2007 startup co-founded by Will Ferrell, Funny Or Die, sees 6 million unique viewers and 60+ million video views a month. Not bad for a user-video comedy service. It was enough for Turner Broadcasting to take notice and make a minority investment in the company. The strategic partnership is aimed to increase content and sales.

    “While we are incredibly excited about how this partnership will catalyze our growth and make Funny Or Die an even better place for comedic talent, we are even more excited about the opportunities this will open up to brands and advertisers to create far-reaching, hilariously funny cross-platform content and messaging,” said Dick Glover, president and CEO of Funny Or Die. “TBS, Adult Swim, Turner Digital Sales and the rest of the Turner organization are a fantastic fit with us in all ways. Plus, we are instantly gaining an even larger sales staff, something it would take us years to develop. This is very cool.”

    Funny or Die

    “We’re thrilled by our acquisition of Turner,” said Adam McKay, co-founder of Funny Or Die, jokingly. “We’re now taking a long hard look at Viacom. These are heady days over here at Funny Or Die.”

    The partnership will bring Funny or Die to other platforms, including television and mobile. This brings up some interesting possibilities for future TV shows. Would they do a sketch based kind of show or expand some of their current skits into a longer format. A real Zack Galifianakis talk show would be hilarious.

    It is unclear if television shows will be launched on Adult Swim or if they will start making their way to TBS. Either one has interesting possibilities. According to both Turner and Funny or Die, they have already began working together on the creative side of the business.

    On the not so creative side of business, Turner Digital Sales will now handle Funny or Die advertising, exclusively. This will hopefully open the doors to some big buyers, and we can see an increase in both the quantity and quality of Funny or Die’s programming.

    [source: TVbythenumbers]

  • Cartoon Network Brings Back The Classics With Cartoon Planet

    Cartoon Network, where have you gone? Besides the launch of fantastic series like Adventure Time and Regular Show, you are largely off the mark. You have lost some of your best talent (i.e. Craig McCracken). You’re pushing subpar live-action content like Level Up. To add insult to injury, you got rid of Toonami.

    This all paints a rather bleak picture of the network, but they seem to have finally listened to the fans. Cartoon Network, starting this Friday, will start a new block called Cartoon Planet. The point of the block is to air the old cartoons that made Cartoon Network famous.

    What makes this really special is that the segment will be hosted by long time fan favorites Zorak and Brak. You may remember these two from the original Space Ghost cartoon who then migrated to Space Ghost: Coast to Coast, which them culminated in the excellent and under-appreciated The Brak Show.

    The question though is what cartoons are they airing? All the classics are mentioned like The Powerpuff Girls, Dexter’s Lab and Cow & Chicken. Unfortunately, some of their newer content is along for the ride like the mostly disappointed Chowder and Spongebob rip-off Flapjack. It’s sad that Courage the Cowardly Dog isn’t mentioned by name, but I guess I’m the only person who thinks that was the best show to air on Cartoon Network over the years.

    The show starts this Friday at 8 p.m. and continues to 9 p.m. The programming block this week includes some of the best episodes from the shows they’re drawing from. The episodes airing this Friday are:

    Cow and Chicken “Happy Meat”
    The Powerpuff Girls “Meet The Beat Alls”
    Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends “Sight for Sore Eyes”
    Johnny Bravo “Johnny Bravo Meets Adam West”
    Dexter’s Laboratory “Star Spangled Sidekicks”

    You can check out the promo for the new programming block below. It’s a good first step back to the Cartoon Network we know and love. Now get more Adventure Time out and we’ll call it even for introducing the world to Level Up.

    [h/t: HuffPost]

  • Kate Upton’s Zoo York Commercial Is Too Hot For MTV, Adult Swim [Video]

    Last month, model and Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue covergirl Kate Upton blew up the twitterfeed when she filmed the hottest hamburger advertisement ever for Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s. Now she has a new steamy commercial coming out, this time for skateboard and clothing company Zoo York, and this one’s so racy that MTV and Adult Swim won’t run it.

    Thats right: MTV and Adult Swim won’t touch it. Now that’s risqué.

    Here’s the rundown (though you won’t find it nearly as interesting as the video below): Upton runs through New York’s Tompkin’s Square Park in a sports bra. She gets ogled by a pair of profane, lascivious talking cockroaches, who sit on a dumpster and play with skateboarding-themed innuendo. But why am I still typing? Here’s the video, which is most definitely Not Safe For Work:

    MTV and the Adult Swim Network have refused the ad, but it is still scheduled to run on other networks starting in April. The profanity will be bleeped out, but Upton will still be hot.

    [Hat Tip, Business Insider]