Animated Series

Sixteen years after Notorious B.I.G.'s life and career were cut short in a drive-by shooting in Los Angeles, his children will pay homage to their iconic father with a new animated series. "House of Wallace" is anchored around the slain rapper's two children, 16-year-old C.J. Wallace -- who he had with his wife, R&B singer Faith Evans -- and 19-year-old T'yanna Wallace, as they fight to maintain his New York City recording studio and preserve his legacy, Ossian Media has announced.

Sixteen years after Notorious B.I.G.'s life and career were cut short in a drive-by shooting in Los Angeles, his children will pay homage to their iconic father with a new animated series. "House of Wallace" is anchored around the slain rapper's two children, 16-year-old C.J. Wallace -- who he had with his wife, R&B singer Faith Evans -- and 19-year-old T'yanna Wallace, as they fight to maintain his New York City recording studio and preserve his legacy, Ossian Media has announced.

Rovio Entertainment is launching an animated series based on its popular "Angry Birds" game characters, which it will make available on television, smartphones and tablets. "Angry Birds Toons" will feature its familiar characters in a year's worth of episodes -- 52 weekly installments -- starting this weekend. New shows will appear on television Saturdays, then become available the next day through mobile apps and video-on-demand platforms. "Launching the channel, and partnering up with some of the best video-on-demand providers and TV networks, is an important milestone for us on our journey towards becoming a fully-fledged entertainment powerhouse," Rovio Chief Executive Mikael Hed said in a statement.

Rovio Entertainment is launching an animated series based on its popular "Angry Birds" game characters, which it will make available on television, smartphones and tablets. "Angry Birds Toons" will feature its familiar characters in a year's worth of episodes -- 52 weekly installments -- starting this weekend. New shows will appear on television Saturdays, then become available the next day through mobile apps and video-on-demand platforms. "Launching the channel, and partnering up with some of the best video-on-demand providers and TV networks, is an important milestone for us on our journey towards becoming a fully-fledged entertainment powerhouse," Rovio Chief Executive Mikael Hed said in a statement.

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.

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!

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.

Behind the glass wall of a tiny sound booth, 14-year-old actress Kyla Pratt reads the lines for her leading role in a new animated series, "The Proud Family." On the other side of the glass sit series creator and executive producer Bruce W. Smith, co-executive producer and writer Ralph Farquhar, supervising producer Calvin Brown Jr. and story editor/series co-developer Doreen Spicer, among others. All are following along in the scripts, suggesting bits of direction, approving takes and laughing.

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.

"Out There," which premieres Friday on IFC, is a rather lovely coming-of-age cartoon series from Ryan Quincy, who spent 14 years on "South Park. " It is nothing like that. Coming-of-age stories tend to be told by the misfits and weirdos and refuseniks of Normal Life, and this is no different. Our heroes are Chad (voiced by Quincy himself, whose slightly flat, unaffected delivery works well for this) and his strange new pal Chris (Justin Roiland), "the kind of friend who would shove you into the abyss and then jump right in after you. " Invisible to their peers except as occasional targets of mockery, they spend their days "off to the side, riding a wave of obscurity, observing the tableaux of teenage bliss.

Customized TV Listings are available here: www.latimes.com/tvtimes Click here to download TV listings for the week of Feb. 17 - 23, 2013 in PDF format This week's TV Movies   SERIES CSI: NY: The forensics drama starring Gary Sinise ends another season (9 p.m. CBS). Cult: This creepy new mystery-drama encores its pilot episode (9 p.m. KTLA). REVIEW: 'Cult' serves up a new form of mass anxiety Austin City Limits: The soulful Alabama Shakes and blues guitar phenom Gary Clark Jr. perform (9 p.m. KLCS)

When singer-songwriter Alicia Keys wanted to create an animated children's television series about the exploration of music, she turned to Burbank animation firm Bento Box for ideas. Bento's producers suggested an alternative: Instead of a TV show, how about an interactive storytelling app? That idea became "The Journals of Mama Mae and LeeLee," which was released through the iTunes store last fall for $3.99 and expands to Android mobile devices and tablets this month. Featuring original compositions from Keys, the animated series uses music, games, rewards and a journal to tell the story of a relationship between a young girl and a mystical grandmother.

Pop music + cartoon animation + pubescent audiences + sugary breakfast cereal ads = hit entertainment. In the 1960s and '70s, that equation briefly produced a string of clever, endearing animated feature films and Saturday morning TV serials that still give today's frenetic, hyper-edited animated flicks a run for their money. Some were instant classics, like "Yellow Submarine," with the Fab Four's music set to Heinz Edelmann's memorable designs. Others, like the Jackson 5 cartoon serial that originally ran on Saturday mornings on ABC from September 1971 to October 1972, slowly sank into the post-syndication ether, leaving barely a trace.

Lucille Bliss, who provided the voice of the cartoon character Crusader Rabbit in the early days of television and gained recognition a generation later as the voice of Smurfette in the 1980s television hit "The Smurfs," has died. She was 96. Bliss died Nov. 8 from natural causes at an assisted living center in Costa Mesa, according to the Orange County coroner. Bliss parlayed a childhood love of radio theater into a career as an animation voice actress that stretched more than 60 years.

Dan Harmon is headed back to the small screen with a new animated series, "Rick and Morty," which just got picked up for 10 episodes by Cartoon Network's Adult Swim. According to reports, Harmon's new series, co-created with "Fish Hooks" animation writer Justin Roiland, will join the Adult Swim lineup sometime in 2014. The series reportedly follows the adventures of a genius inventor and his less-than-genius grandson. Harmon has had a long-standing love of animation. Even before he worked stop-motion and traditional animation into his otherwise live-action NBC series "Community," he was known as co-writer of the computer animated feature film "Monster House.

"Out There," which premieres Friday on IFC, is a rather lovely coming-of-age cartoon series from Ryan Quincy, who spent 14 years on "South Park. " It is nothing like that. Coming-of-age stories tend to be told by the misfits and weirdos and refuseniks of Normal Life, and this is no different. Our heroes are Chad (voiced by Quincy himself, whose slightly flat, unaffected delivery works well for this) and his strange new pal Chris (Justin Roiland), "the kind of friend who would shove you into the abyss and then jump right in after you. " Invisible to their peers except as occasional targets of mockery, they spend their days "off to the side, riding a wave of obscurity, observing the tableaux of teenage bliss.

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.

Click here to download TV listings for the week of Sept. 23 - 29 in PDF format This week's TV Movies     SERIES NCIS: The action drama is back for another season (8 p.m. CBS), followed by the return of "NCIS Los Angeles" (9:01 p.m.). Ben and Kate: Nate Faxon and Dakota Johnson play the titular brother and sister in this new sitcom (8:30 p.m. Fox). Frontline: The new installment "Dropout Nation" looks at one Houston high school's efforts to see that high-risk students reach graduation (9 p.m. KOCE)

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles has become such an enormous global franchise - the action figures! the movies! the short-lived breakfast cereal! - that it's easy to forget that it began life in the early 1980s as little more than a goof. Kevin Eastman was messing around with his friend and fellow artist Peter Laird, just doodling to pass the time, and came up with a sketch of a masked turtle, twin nunchaku at the ready. Even the title they came up with - "ENMV0002398"> "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" - sounded like what it was: a joke told between fanboys.