• Kevin Conroy has announced that he will be retiring as the voices of Batman and Bruce Wayne, after having voiced the characters for nearly 8 years. After a exhaustive search for a replacement, WB is pleased to announce that the new voice of Batman will be legendary comedian Bobcat Goldthwait.

• Warner Bros has issued a press release stating that viewers will no longer be allowed to videotape any WB programming, even for personal use. Anyone caught doing so will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, and if convicted, could face up to seven years in prison, a $400,000 fine, or an appearance in the next Batman movie.

• It was announced today that the upcoming Animaniacs movie "Wakko's Wakko Wish" will not be released to VHS as originally planned. Instead it will be released "Direct to Beta". This will prevent the movie from competing with the recently announced made-for-video release, "The King And I 2: I Am What Siam". It is felt that this bold move will guarantee increased revenues for both films.

• Here are Saturday morning ratings for the weekend of March 27th, this time including cable networks:
  
  1. Nickelodeon 5.6/18
  2. ABC 4.8/15
  3. Fox 4.5/14
  4. Cartoon Network 3.2/8
  5. Home Shopping Network 2.9/7
  6. C-SPAN 2.8/7
  7. Max on Max 2.5/6
  8. Fish Tank TV 2.3/5
  9. Kids' WB! 2.2/4
  10. CBS -3.0/-7

• Here's what to expect from the next two new episodes of Histeria:
  
  --Airing on the weekend of April 3rd is "Executive Logic", which takes a look at the history of TV network execs. It includes the segments "Murdoch Mania!", "Turner-ator 2: Sweeps Month", "David Sarnoff's Last Stand", and the song "Don't Cry for Me, Jamie Kellner".
  
  --Airing on the weekend of April 10th is "Great American Tragedies", which features the segments "Big Balloon Go Boom" with Loud Kiddington re-enacting the Hindenburg disaster, "Donner Dinner Party" (with special musical number "Tastes A Lot Like Chicken", written and performed by Weird Al Yankovic), "Custer's Last Hand," "Abe's Theatre Review: Our American Cousin" and "The Making of Speed 2". The voice cast includes Paul Rugg as Nostradamus, Billy West as Ben Franklin, and Rex Hamilton as Abraham Lincoln.

• It has long been rumored that the next live-action Batman movie may be written by someone from the animated Batman/Superman series. Those rumors have become fact, as WB has announced a 5th Batman film in the works from famed director Joel Schumacher, currently titled Batman & Robin 2: Electric Boogaloo. Fan-favorite writers Hillary J. Bader (Superman: "Warrior Queen") and Steve Gerber (Batman: "Critters") will be writing the screenplay. "This movie will be a bit of a departure from the previous Batman films," says a WB executive, "We're making it much more like the 60's version. We'll be playing the comedy up a lot more, as we feel that poor performance of the last two films was due to the overly-dark tones." The film, slated for release in summer 2001, stars Drew Carey as Batman, Adam Sandler as Robin, and, making her first appearance outside of the Batman animated series, Harley Quinn, who will be played by Christopher Walken in drag.

• Based on the incredible success of Pokémon, Kids' WB has announced another toy-based series in development for the 2000-2001 season: Furby: The Animated Series. Inspired by the popular toy from Tiger Electronics, this series focuses on the adventures of a group of the cute mythical creatures know as Furbies and their adventures in trying to master the English language. In order to providing a fresh new spin on the Furby concept, everyone's favorite WB cartoon character will be along for the ride -- that's right, Elmyra will be along to "squeeze the fuzzy-wuzzies to itty-bitty pieces!". The star-studded voice cast features many stars from the WB primetime, including the casts of The Wayans Bros. and Dawson's Creek as the Furbies, and Nikki Cox as Elmyra. Here is the tentative weekend lineup for the rest of the 2000-2001 season:
  
    8:00 am: Furby: The Animated Series
    8:30 am: The Further Quests for Camelot
    9:00 am: Waynehead (new episodes!)
    9:30 am: Foghorn Leghorn Beyond
  10:00 am: The New Aquaman/Detective Chimp Adventures
  10:30 am: The Gary Coleman Show
  11:00 am: The Daffy & Speedy Mysteries
  11:30 am: The Slapped Together, Totally Butchered, Change the Channel, Don't Bother Watching Cause It's Really Lamey Bad Cartoonie Show
  
  The weekday lineup:
  
  7:00 am: The Super Screwy, Out of Tuney, Bababooey, Please Don't Suey, One Saturday Morning Wannabe Show (1 hr.)
  3:00 pm: Pinky, Cartman & The Brain
  3:30 pm: Þòkëmôñ
  4:00 pm: The Same Old Batman/Superman Adventures (1 hr.)

This April Fool's Day joke has been brought to you by Anubis Market, a division of Osiris Foods. So shop at the sign of the Jackal-headed man for food so good, you can eat it!

These gag new items were put together by myself, Colin Feder, Craig "Gookie" Crumpton, Craig Marinaro, and Romey. Here are the credits for each gag:

--Bobcat as Batman (Brian)
--No taping (Gookie)
--Direct-to-beta (Romey)
--Ratings (Brian)
--Histeria: "Executive Logic" (Craig)
--Histeria: "Great American Tragedies" (Gookie & Colin)
--New Batman Movie (Craig)
--Furby/2000-2001 Lineup (Craig & Brian & Colin)