Animated Series

Hurling the Angry Birds at evil green pigs is fun and all, but maybe you'd like get to know your feathered friends on a deeper level. You're in luck! Rovio, the Finnish company behind the wildly successful mobile game, is planning to launch a series of short animations starring all your favorite characters from Angry Birds this fall. By creating an animated series, Rovio can get deeper into the characters that populate the Angry Bird games, said Nick Dorra, Rovio's head of animation, speaking at the MIPTV conference held in Cannes, France.

Hurling the Angry Birds at evil green pigs is fun and all, but maybe you'd like get to know your feathered friends on a deeper level. You're in luck! Rovio, the Finnish company behind the wildly successful mobile game, is planning to launch a series of short animations starring all your favorite characters from Angry Birds this fall. By creating an animated series, Rovio can get deeper into the characters that populate the Angry Bird games, said Nick Dorra, Rovio's head of animation, speaking at the MIPTV conference held in Cannes, France.

DIC Enterprises in Burbank, the largest supplier of children's animated television programming, agreed to develop an animated series with Broderbund Software of San Rafael based on Broderbund's series of Carmen Sandiego detective-chase computer games. Nearly 2 million Carmen Sandiego games have been sold since they were introduced in 1985, the companies said. The games aim to teach geography and history to children through their chase of Carmen around the world and through time.

SERIES Adventure Time: The animated series returns. Guest voices for the fourth season include Donald Faison, George Takei, Erik Estrada, Bobcat Goldthwait and Susie Essman (7:30 p.m. Toon). The Voice: Vocalists from two teams compete against each other in this new episode (8 p.m. NBC). Gossip Girl: To thank him for saving his life, Chuck (Ed Westwick) invites Jack (Desmond Harrington) to town, but things don't go according to plan in this new episode (8 p.m. KTLA). House: An Army veteran refuses treatment unless he and his brother are given information about their dead father, while Adams (Odette Annable)

This weekend, USA kicks off its new, offbeat detective series, Nickelodeon premieres its latest animated series, and Fox Family Channel adds two new shows to its lineup. Tony Award-winning funny man Nathan Lane salutes the legendary Danny Kaye on "Evening at Pops," tonight at 8 on KCET and KVCR. Nickelodeon premieres its new animated series, "SpongeBob SquarePants," Saturday at 10 a.m. The half-hour comedy deals with an optimistic sea sponge living in a pineapple.

It's a big weekend for awards shows on TV. Ben Stiller hosts "The 1998 MTV Video Music Awards," tonight at 8 on MTV. After four years in New York, the show returns to Los Angeles and the Universal Amphitheatre. Madonna, Hole, Master P and Dave Matthews Band are among the performers. "Merlin" was the big Emmy winner Aug. 29 at the "Creative Arts Awards," taking home four statues. TV Land presents a one-hour version of that ceremony Friday at 5 and 9 p.m. E!

In the latest battle on TV's prime-time front for bigger audiences, the lines are being drawn--literally. The not-so-secret weapon has become animation. In a season that has already seen Fox's urban-tinged "The PJs" and UPN's office cubicle comedy "Dilbert" join "The Simpsons" and "King of the Hill," three cartoon rookies are leaping into the ranks of network prime time in the next few weeks. And even more fresh 'toon troops are on the way.

For 12 years, cable television's only channel expressly for kids, Nickelodeon, has been without the most common staple of all children's television programming: cartoons. Although the channel has shown animated specials and wowed the industry with its colorful station IDs, the high cost of quality animation has discouraged Nickelodeon from developing weekly animated programming. That's about to change in a big way on Sunday.

She's still Sabrina and she's still a good-hearted witch--but she's not a kid anymore. "I'll be a little more grown-up--and I'm getting a job," says Melissa Joan Hart, looking ahead to her fourth season on ABC's "Sabrina, the Teenage Witch," returning tonight. She's 23 now and playing a supernatural 18-year-old, she'll find comedy in more mature situations--swooning over her new boss, for instance, casting spells in unexpected ways--often with surprising and amusing results.

In 1969, two dope-smoking hippies hopped on their Harleys and set out in search of America. In 2000, two hapless puppets will hop into a convertible and set out in search of the same place. One thing you can say about the difference between "Easy Rider" and the upcoming animated comedy "Gary & Mike": The more things change, the smaller they get. You won't hear Steppenwolf's thundering "Born to Be Wild" in the opening credits of the new comedy, which will premiere on Fox at midseason.

Ian Abercrombie, 77, the British character actor who played Elaine's demanding boss, Mr. Pitt, on "Seinfeld," died Thursday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, said his friend Cathy Lind Hayes. He suffered complications of kidney failure and recently had been diagnosed with lymphoma. As the eccentric Justin Pitt, Abercrombie appeared in seven episodes opposite Julia Louis-Dreyfus' Elaine Benes in the high-rated sit-com. "I was a pain in the neck. I was a hypochondriac.

Splashy colors and giant robots will be in short supply at the first installment of the four-part Summer Classic Anime Film Series, which showcases vintage anime films from the 1920s and '30s, considered the Golden Age of Japanese silent movies. The series continues next Thursday. Japanese American National Museum, 369 E. First St., L.A. 7 p.m. Thu. Pay-what-you-can admission. (213) 625-0414. http://www.janm.org.

Fox welcomes another animated family to its Sunday-night cartoon block this weekend, and for once it has not been thought up by Seth MacFarlane, the "Family Guy" guy. The less phenomenal but more interesting Loren Bouchard, who produced "Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist," co-created "Home Movies" and created "Lucy: Daughter of the Devil," is the responsible party, working now, as before, with H. Jon Benjamin, who heads a cast of names familiar from the...

Supermodel Gisele Bündchen has been canonized in British newspaper the Independent as "the biggest star in fashion history. " So, since Bündchen (at age 30) already has the making-history thing nailed, she's focused on adding the future to her résumé ? specifically, the future of the environment. If you were to ask this 6-foot wonder what her favorite color is, without a doubt, she'd say green. Partnering with AOL and A Squared Entertainment, Bündchen has gone digital. She's appearing in cartoon form in the new AolKids.

Peter Fernandez, who helped introduce the U.S. to Japanese animation in the 1960s by adapting the series "Speed Racer" for American audiences, has died. He was 83. Fernandez, a voice actor who was also a writer and producer, died July 15 of cancer at his home in Pomona, N.Y., said his wife, Noel. "He was a major pioneer of anime," said William Winckler, a Tarzana-based producer of English-language anime films. " 'Speed Racer' was once the most popular Japanese cartoon in America, and he did a wonderful job with it."

The whimsical children's book "Pete & Pickles" tells the story of an unlikely friendship between two mismatched characters: a free-spirited circus elephant and a strait-laced pig. The theme also applies to the odd pairing of the book's author, the irreverent cartoonist Berkeley Breathed, with the buttoned-down French company that has bought the rights to his book. Technicolor, the longtime film processing company and world's largest producer of DVDs, is venturing into an improbable new business of producing animated TV series, starting with an adaptation of "Pete & Pickles" and, eventually, feature films.

Ian Abercrombie, 77, the British character actor who played Elaine's demanding boss, Mr. Pitt, on "Seinfeld," died Thursday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, said his friend Cathy Lind Hayes. He suffered complications of kidney failure and recently had been diagnosed with lymphoma. As the eccentric Justin Pitt, Abercrombie appeared in seven episodes opposite Julia Louis-Dreyfus' Elaine Benes in the high-rated sit-com. "I was a pain in the neck. I was a hypochondriac.

The Great Toon-In of 1999 is turning into the Big Tune-Out of 2000. Inspired by the success of "The Simpsons," "King of the Hill," Comedy Central's "South Park" and several animated series on cable, networks, in their never-ending search for bigger audiences last year, embraced animation as the hot new trend.

Carl Macek, 58, who developed the influential anime series "Robotech," died of a heart attack April 17 in Topanga Canyon, said his wife, Svea. Macek was a producer and creative director for Harmony Gold U.S.A. when he developed "Robotech," which blended three Japanese anime series into an 85-episode, syndicated show for American audiences. "He thought it was a beautiful art form and should be made accessible to everyone," his wife said. Macek was born Sept. 21, 1951, in Pittsburgh.

Actor-writer-director Jorma Taccone remembers with loving fondness the gear montage from almost every '80s action flick of his youth -- Rambo movies and "Die Hard" and the "entire canon" of Arnold Schwarzenegger. "It's people putting the big Bowie knife into the sheath, the shell belts over the chest, click-clacking the gun. It was a quintessential awesome moment. It has permeated the minds of people who grew up in that era. There are entire websites dedicated to the gear-up montage." Of course, Taccone has included several choice gear-up moments in his new film "MacGruber," based on the "Saturday Night Live" skits and starring Will Forte and Kristen Wiig.