After asking one of the creators of Baby Blues, Jerry Scott, about the future of it as a television show on the WB Network, (which I earlier reported on Brian Cruz's WB Cartoon Page on June 7th as 'Vincent') this is what he had to say:

"Don't despair. The WB decided to use the Christmas Special for NEXT year (don't ask me why), but the regular episodes will start sometime this spring. They haven't given us an air date yet, but we are assured that the show will start this spring. We meet the television critics in a couple of weeks and then you should start to hear about it in the papers."

The show has been often delayed, but has been ordered for 13 episodes and a Christmas episode. I also invited Jerry Scott to come to this board to discuss about this new primetime animated series, but I ahven't recieved an answer yet. He is a wonderful man and hopefully he will show up. Good day.

---Rembrant

More News From...
Mon Dec 20 19:49:34 1999

He's annoying, he's egotistical, he's obnoxious, but damn if Amid Amidi isn't a fountain of news. Here's what he has to say:

A reliable source at Warner Bros. is reporting that Kids WB! is heading in an action-adventure direction for the fall 2000 season. The Pokémon-addicted network is very close to picking up a new JACKIE CHAN animated series. I really hope they use Chan's actual voice because when he speaks English, it's a non-stop laughfest. And honestly, that's the only redeeming quality I can see to such a series.

Additionally, Kids WB! will be airing X-MEN cartoons next fall (presumably to cash in on the live-action feature arriving in 2000). Based on the classic Marvel comic, it's still unclear whether the X-MEN series will be reruns of the old Fox Kids show, or new episodes, although I'm guessing it'll be the latter. This year, Kids WB! is the highest-rated broadcast kids' network in ages 2-11, well ahead of ABC, FOX, NBC and CBS. However, with the Pokémon fad on its way out, the 2000-'01 TV season is a wide open field, and Kids WB! will have to introduce some quality shows to retain their ratings title. And a note to Kids WB! execs, by QUALITY shows, I don't mean HISTERIA! and DETENTION.

A Jackie Chan series? Hmmm... I like Jackie movies, but I'm not sure how it would translate to animation. It's Jackie's own personal touch that makes his stunts fun to watch.

I have my doubts about the validity of his X-men scoop, though. If anyone is going to do any cashing in, it would be Fox... they're the ones making the movie, after all. Not to mention the fact that the toon X-men was made by Saban, whose founder now runs Fox Kids... I doubt he'd let that baby go.

And I reeeeeeeeally don't think Pokémon is on its way out quite yet, based on ratings and sales. Sure, a lot of us would like it to die down a bit, but it's not happening yet. Think before you speak, guy.

Hatter

Wakko's Wish Site Launched (Finally!)
Fri Dec 17 22:34:59 1999

It's up and running, and about @#$% time too.

http://wakkoswish.com/

What almost comes as a shock to me (other than the fact that they actually put "this much" effort into it) is the surprising amount of content here. I'm exploring the site in another browser as I speak, and I'll be danged if this isn't a really neat little site! They put more "effort" into this site than they did even for the last Scooby-Doo video one, if you can believe that.

Oh, and I saw a TV promo for it on Cartoon Network yesterday too, so they did at least spend a little money marketing it.

Gookie
--laughed when he saw it, in spite of himself.

Dini Speaks About Return of the Joker
Fri Dec 17 11:16:17 1999

Holy (humorous expletive of choice). I just read this bit of info from the comics continuum, and my head's still spinning. I'll shut up and let cutting and pasting speak for itself...

Paul Dini, producer of the Batman Beyond animated series on Kids' WB!, provided The Continuum with first details of Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker, a straight-to-video movie from Warner Bros. scheduled for a Nov. 7, 2000 release.

"Mark Hamill is back playing several key roles, one of which is, of course, the Joker, who has miraculously turned up in the time of Batman Beyond," Dini told The Continuum. "The other role is sort of a surprise, and that's all I'll say about it now.

"I will say that for long-time Bat-fans, this is the big story they've been demanding for two years, bridging the gap between the classic Batman Animated series and Batman Beyond.
Nearly a fourth of the film is a flashback which shows the classic Bat-team in action, dealing with a problem that is not fully resolved until Terry McGinnis enters the picture decades later.

"Throughout the film a number of secrets will be revealed, including what happened to Robin, Batgirl and Nightwing, as well as the details of that fateful night years before when the first Batman fought the Joker one last time.

"Fans will also learn secrets about Terry's past and his reason for continuing to be Batman long after he's avenged his father's death. In addition to this, we've got a bunch of new villains, appearances by a few old ones and many more surprises."

Dini, who wrote the script for Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker, told The Continuum that voice recording for the movie has been completed.

"One bit of guest-star news I can give you is that among the many new villains introduced in the film are twin hit-girls both named Dee-Dee," Dini said. "They are played by everyone's favorite teen witch, Melissa Joan Hart."

Hart, the star of ABC's Sabrina, The Teenage Witch, has worked with the Bat-crew before. She did the voice of Saturn Girl in an episode of Superman.

Look for more details on Batman Beyond:
Return of the Joker in future Continuum reports.

(awed explitive deleted) It looks like this, ladies and gentlemen, is the proverbial IT. A quarter of the film with the classic Bat team... all fates revealed... new faces... geez. It's almost as if there's too much in there... but I'm sure they can pull it off. It's enough to make me a psychofan camping out at the Warner lot at Burbank, hoping to catch a glimpse of the creative team so I can beg them for a script. (If any of the creative team is reading this... I'm kidding.) I really don't think it's humanly possible for me to get any more excited about this. I just really, really hope that the WB doesn't pull a Sub-Zero on this and delay its release for over a year.

Hatter

And the Batman Beyond Movie Title Is...
Thu Dec 16 03:31:30 1999

RETURN OF THE JOKER

The official site wasn't subtle about it, so why should I be?

Sorry if that's a spoiler to anyone. Kinda takes any surprise out of it. But like I was telling Tim earlier this eve, I'm sure they'd rather them just announce it bluntly than have the news leak out and be buried under the flood of questions.

If Dini, Timm and Burnett retain creative control, and with TMS animating it, I still think we're in for one whopper of a movie. I think we can still anticipate a major surprise, even with the spoiler title. If they truly do bring back the Joker, I wish they'd name it "The Last Laugh" - fitting, don't you think?

Anyway, if you don't believe me, check for yourself:

http://www.batmanbeyondvideo.com/

Thanks to our own Tim "Two-Face" Leighton for passing this along to me, which was passed along to him by our own Dick Grayson (aka James Harvey), which in turn was posted to the World's Finest Batman Beyond Board

And in case you missed my earlier post, the animated Bat-releases to DVD due out the 21st will include more than previously advertised. The Batman Beyond DVD will include all of "Rebirth", plus FOUR other episodes: Golem, The Winning Edge, Dead Man's Hand, and Meltdown. There were only to be 3 other episodes from earlier reports, but this press release says otherwise.

And congrats to Jon Cooke and to our Toon Zone staff for receiving a unsolicited plug for our site at Animation Blast. I know some of you really can't stand Amidi, but like him or hate him, he's still a great source for news. And with all the traffic his site earns, you couldn't get better publicity for free. Hey, at least he presented us in a positive light! He could have said we sucked or made comments about certain of our sections going unupdated, but he didn't. See the last news item from Dec. 8 for our little plug.

And I don't mean to pour salt in an open wound, but out of curiousity, I entered wakkoswish.com into the location bar of my browser and got this. Naturally, there's nothing there. But at least they made the effort to purchase the domain name, right? That's better than trade, print and TV ads, right?

Okay, so Warner marketing and promotion sucks, for anything other than their biggest seller. What else is new?

And maybe someone here cares to know that, according to ign.com, that "Warner Bros. has reportedly set an official release date for the next installment of the Pokémon animated movie franchise. The official date, July 21 of next year, is tentative and subject to change, but it's a safe bet to assume that the movie will arrive sometime in that neighborhood."

Oh, and since the news of the live-action Tick series seemed to be of interest here, I thought I'd mention that according to Comics2Film, "Ben Edlund will be the writer developing the live-action TV show based on his comic book". Most appropriate, since it is his creation. You couldn't ask for better treatment from anyone else.'

Finally, I don't know how many or if any of you were able to see the 1-hour "Dexter's Lab" special, Ego Trip on Cartoon Network last Friday, but I've watched it 5 times since. It's that good. I'm very surprised no one offered a review of it here. It was splendidly done. I didn't think they could pull off an hour special because it seemed Dexter cartoons were best when kept short. Boy, did they ever prove me wrong. Not only was it extremely entertaining, hilarious and very well-animated, but Christine Cavanaugh and Jeff Bennett performed some of their best voice work to date in it. If Christine doesn't get nominated for an Emmy and/or an Annie next year from her performances (multi-voices) in "Ego Trip", I will be sorely disappointed.

And it was chock full of cultural references and in-jokes which were very well-blended into the backgrounds and storyline. They spoofed nearly a dozen sci-fi films and TV series (Star Wars, Star Trek, Tron, Dune, Planet of the Apes, Thundercats, etc, etc) and even Batman Beyond!

If you guys would like a full review (with spoilers), I'll do one over the weekend. And "Ego Trip" airs again on January 1st, 2000, so don't miss it this time, okay?


Gookie
--plans to make an "ego trip" to the fridge as soon as this post goes up.