Studio

A federal bankruptcy judge on Friday approved the sale of Rhythm & Hues, the Oscar-winning visual effects company that recently filed for bankruptcy protection, to an affiliate of Prana Studios, a Los Angeles animation and effects company. The sale, valued at about $30 million, ends a closely-watched auction of one of Hollywood's best-known visual effects companies whose financial struggles have come to symbolize the challenges faced by an industry that was pioneered in California.

Gordon Stoker, the lead tenor in the Jordanaires vocal group that backed Elvis Presley, died Wednesday at his home in Brentwood, Tenn., after a lengthy illness, his son, Alan, told the Associated Press. He was 88. Stoker joined the Jordanaires in 1950, two years after they formed in Missouri. He originally played piano for the group. They caught the attention of Presley in the mid-1950s when they performed with Eddy Arnold at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville. When Presley burst onto the national scene in 1956 on Steve Allen's TV show, Stoker and the Jordanaires were with him. They also sang on the original New York RCA studios recordings of "Hound Dog," "Don't Be Cruel" and other hits.

Tina Fey brought back her uncanny Sarah Palin impression during an appearance on Bravo's "Inside the Actors Studio" this week. The "Admission" star was prompted by host James Lipton to answer questions in character, a recurring segment of his, which winks back at her impressions from the 2008 presidential campaign that were comic gold. We have Fey's "SNL" and improv background to thank for her glorious resurrection of the former Alaska governor. Fey definitely separated the mavericks from the "not mavericks," that's for sure.

Customized TV Listings are available here: www.latimes.com/tvtimes Click here to download TV listings for the week of March 17 - 23, 2013 in PDF format This week's TV Movies     SERIES Splash Lakers legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, comic Louie Anderson, reality star Kendra Wilkinson are among the stars competing on this new celebrity diving competition. 8 p.m. ABC Pretty Little Liars The teen-themed drama ends another season, followed by a sneak peak at the pilot episode of the summer series "Twisted.

When veteran filmmaker Roland Emmerich was first offered the chance to direct a movie about terrorists taking over the White House, he couldn't believe his luck. "It's such a good idea," Emmerich, the money-minting director of movies such as "2012," said last week at a Culver City editing facility, where he has been holed up polishing his new film, "White House Down. " "I was surprised no one had done it before. " It turns out someone has. Just before. Emmerich's movie, about a wannabe Secret Service agent with a Messiah complex who serendipitously ends up at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. during a fiery terrorist attack, will come out June 28. That's barely three months after the release Friday of Antoine Fuqua's "Olympus Has Fallen" - about a wannabe Secret Service agent with a Messiah complex who serendipitously ends up at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. during a fiery terrorist attack.

Noted Pasadena furniture maker William Stranger will open his studio March 23 and 24 and offer his current inventory at half-off the retail price. “It's nice to have all the pieces displayed in the place where they were built without having to find a gallery,” Stranger said. The corrugated metal building where he works is an old Navy facility where torpedoes were tested. “It's a great looking space and it's filled with tree slabs, and sometimes people fall in love with a piece of wood and get inspired to order a new piece.” For the past 15 years, Stranger's inspiration has been salvaged and recycled wood.

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.

On his first trip to Los Angeles in February, Japanese director Goro Miyazaki found a native custom perplexing. "I've never been to any other place in the world where you see so few pedestrians," Miyazaki said, speaking through a translator in a rare interview at his Beverly Hills hotel. "Normally I go for a walk every morning, but I was told that if I'm just walking around, people will see me as somebody strange. " Miyazaki is accustomed to moving to a different tempo. He's the son of Hayao Miyazaki, the so-called Walt Disney of Japan, whose fantastical, hand-drawn animated films such as "Spirited Away," "Howl's Moving Castle," "Ponyo" and "Princess Mononoke" have made him his country's most successful filmmaker and a defiantly old-school hero in a global boom era for computer animation.

In a bid to spur sales of its struggling Nook tablet, Barnes & Noble Inc. struck deals with major Hollywood studios that will make more movies and television shows available on the device. Barnes & Noble's Nook Media subsidiary reached licensing deals with Lionsgate, MGM, Paramount Pictures, Relativity Media and others that will deliver thousands of additional videos to the service, including such hit films as "The Hunger Games," the "Twilight" movies, "Flight" and "Paranormal Activity 4" and television shows such as "Mad Men. " "Nook is one of a growing spectrum of new digital buyers for our films and TV content and illustrates the breadth and depth of opportunities for monetizing our content across a broad array of platforms," Thomas Hughes, Lionsgate's senior vice president of digital, said in a statement.