PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Friday NIght Movies 64

Sperhauk was excited that he found a cheap used copy of this dvd. Return of the Giant Monsters is a two movie single disc package from Retromedia. It's insultingly priced at $19.95. RotGM is the US TV version of Gamera vs Gyaos. It was the second feature, The Magic Serpent, that was the prize and what a piece of work it is. Monsters, samuri and ninjas all tossed into the wok and stir fried until most of the color fell off. It's a pretty poor copy of a giant monster movie that you can not find easily. Maybe in Japan but not the western world. It's an American International Television Print. This guy used to see it on tv in the past. I like the past. Less obligations. TMS has several titles listed on IMDb. Kairyu daikessen is the Japanese title. It was also called Battle of the Dragons, Froggo and Droggo, Grand Duel in Magic, and Ninja Apocalypse. There are unfortunately no where near e'nuf monsters in the film. After the opening sea monsters attack the boatman scene there isn't much until the slam bang ending. The giant toad and the sea serpent battle it out pushing most of the castle down. It's a pretty rip snortin' scene. The ninja fighting is okay. The dubbing is good enough to tell a story and bad enough to make you laugh. I'd get one of these if I could find one used cheap.

Mike brought a copy of Big Boobs Buster. It's a 1990 Japanese soft core movie set in a high school. A young girl is upset that the guys like girls with big boobs. She kidnaps some of the big boobed girls, ties them up and takes impressions of their boobs. If these large breasted babes don't leave the boys alone she will show everyone the casts of their boobs. Luckily it was only 43 minutes. About 20 minutes into the film it had turned into Chariots of Eggs. There was a lot of running. And topless girls. The girls were cute. It's nice to know that the soft core porn in Japan is as poor as the soft core porn here.

To finish we watched the Zombie episode from the English series Danger 50,000 volts! hosted by Nick Frost. He's one of the guys from Shaun of the Dead. The big filthy mouthed guy. Here, he's joined by his SotD co-star Simon Pegg and they treat the zombies as if they were real and show how to deal with them. It took me a while to get into it but I got a laugh about half way through. I was tired and needed to go to bed. Just like now.

Contemplating beauty

I found this cover on ebay but didn't actually buy it. I thought it was very striking. It has beautiful colors. A cover is an envelope with cancelled stamps on them. Some are everyday mail with interesting cancellations. Some are preprinted and used to commemorate a stamp issue. Those are called Cachets. Special postmarks are created at the station where the stamp is first issued. It's just more stuff. Stamps are small, easy to keep safe, you can get a lot on a page of an album. Covers are envelopes and a thousand covers eats up the square inches. Virtual collecting is often fine with me. Saves a lot of cubes and often it seems nearly as real as the paper version. I wonder who Mr. Ng Ah Nee is? Why does he not have his cover? I bet he'd croaked it and his family sold his stuff. That's what I'd do. That's the cycle of life.

 

I like repetition. I like multiples of the same image. So stamp collecting has this added bonus feature in sheets of stamps. I have a few, but not this one. I liked the penguins. Who doesn't like penguins? I'd go with the paper ones, less poopy. This is a stamp to commemorate the International Geophysical Year of 1957. I don't know what the hell that is. I just like the pictures.

The times they are a changin'

I like the older stamps of Japan, back in the days of engraving. I like the colors of the inks they used. There's an amazing amount of detail in these little pictures.

Modern stamps use 4 color printing. A mixed blessing.

These are nice modern stamps. Attractive images that evoke thoughts of history, geography, community and nature with out hardly thinkin' more than what a nice picture.

This is just crass commercialism. Part of the business. It doesn't really bother me. Give the people what they want. Here's some recent stamps from Japan.

These are the kind of stamps that give me diabeties just from looking at them. These stamps would appeal to the Topical collector. Cats, dogs, rabbits, flowers, birds. All these are collectable for their own sake, and they are funny shapes, another topic. Bonus. Post offices are always looking for a way to increase the profit. It's no wonder collectors bail or stick to the past. Still, I always figure that subdivisons in hobbies are good. Everyone isn't looking for the same thing, that's good. Competition is only good for the buyer, and only from his unique perspective.

Dragons of Spratt, Ohio

I picked this up because of the dragons on the cover. Flying dragons that have no legs and feet. Not as common. Usually, there's feet, mostly four, occasionally two. I prefer the 4 foot version. There are rhinos, and giraffes and cows. Oh, my? Turns out to be a wildlife preserve on reclaimed coal land. It's based on a real place. I don't think the dragons are real. I probably woulda heard 'bout that. Too bad. I would like to see some dragons. I would have prefered the dragons with legs and feet, but I ain't picky. This was a fun book. An old female dragon settles in the Spratt area, eats some zebra, lays some eggs and dies. Then the book starts. Salt is a kid who lives on a large animal preserve. His dad is the main vet, and his mom is upper management. Their work takes them away from home. Salt's best friend is Ham and Candi is Ham's twin sister. Salt's evil aunt shows up as the parents are called away. She's big in cosmetics and Candi is fascinated by her. The aunt reveals her evil plans more and more as the book progresses. She kills one of the dragons to make an anti aging creme and that leads the kids to secret away the rest of the dragons. More antics follow. You'd almost think they could have marketed it under some sort of horror series. It's might be a bit gruesome for the really young but it's all spelled out for the older thinking kids in good understandable prose. Linda Zinnen is a good writer,she has two previous books. Here's an interview and review of her previous books. Her story flows and pulls you along nicely and she gives the evil auntie a suitable punishment. There are lots of baked goods and animals. Even a stinky buzzard. The kids are likeable and like enough to real kids. I'm glad I bought a copy.

Friday Night Movies 63

Sperhauk succumbed to the appeal of a 50 Movie Pack. He bought the Mill Creek Entertainment 12 dvd set Drive-In Classics, and once again Classics is taken in vain. It's only $16.47 on Amazon. That's 33 (.3298) cents per movie. You can read a list of the 50 films with a short commentary on each at Amazon, which mentions in passing that the box is 4233 minutes long. Shit. Sperhauk picked our first feature based on this guys reviews. MCE has a new set I am interested in but it still hasn't been around for long enough for the price to fall. Both of those boxes would up the ante to 100 chances for pain. Bring it on! Bitch!

We had a double dip out of the D-IC box. Nothing like plunging into a vat of burning sulfuric acid up to your unmentionables. First ball burner, Night Train To Terror, a 1985 "classic". The background to this movie is more interesting than anything in the movie. Really. It's an anthology movie, written by Phillip Yordan, and directed by John Carr, Phillip Marshak and three other guys. Yordan actually wrote some good movies, including 1954's Broken Arrow for which he won a Best Writing Oscar. During the McCarthy era he was a front for several other writers. There's no good writing in this rehashed mess. God, played by Ferdy Mane, and Satan, played by Lu Sifer, are taking a train in the framing segments and telling stories. The three stories are taken from two previously released movies, one - two, and an unfinished and unreleased film called Scream Your Head Off. This seems so wrong to me. Take three bad films and make a fourth bad film out of them. If only they had thrown out the earlier turds. On top of that outrage the producers also re-release NTTT under two other names. Shiver, which the movie could never live up to, and The Nightmare Never Ends, which says it all with a banal cliche. On the same train as G and S are some musicians and dancers. There's a bad song performed by Byron Yordan, who also breakdances. His clothes alone made me want to punch him. You can see a bunch of pictures from the film here. See if you don't think of punching that creepy guy. I wouldn't advise it but you can down load an MP3 of the song on the same page. That page also contains bare naked titties, so beware. Here's another guy's synopsis. There are so many bad things about this film and not much on the plus side. There's a fair bit of nudity and gore in the first story. There's claymation in a couple of segments. Bad claymation. Most everything about this feature is bad and I haven't even commented on how the truncated stories make nearly no sense. I can't wait to get one. It's worth a bit in novelty value.

After nearly watching The Dukes Of Hazzard, we went with the hillbilly pot movie In Hot Pursuit, which scored a 2.2 on IMDb. It would have made some sort of good double bill with TDOH but we don't plan that well and it's often hard to come to a consensus in picking what gets screened. Often there are many abysmal choices to gag on. I like the description of IHP, or it's original title Polk County Pot Plane, from the Amazon guy's review and pushed to watch it. I'm sorry now. Actually, there were lots of things to laugh at and it helped us get through the movie. There's a synopsis on the Alamo Drafthouse fan page, look for item 3 a bit down the page. There isn't much on the internet about the movie. Maybe it was made by some past Georgia legislators using very amateur film makers, but it's got the weed smugglers getting away with the money, so I wonder. It's also got some crazy stunts that look like people could get hurt. And a guy who can land a DC-4 in a field. That's how the smugglers escape with the boss's safe, flying off to a life on the run with a bunch of cash. It has the elements of a pretty average cops and smugglers movie but connections between the scenes are often never explained. But, it doesn't matter, not one bit, it's still fun enough to watch. At least the first time. I was thinking of H. B. Haleki's Gone in 60 Seconds and The Junkman while sitting there. Haleki's not much better of a film maker, he just crashed more cars and other stuff. They both have access to some big gear and they use it fairly well. The smugglers truck with camper on it crashes into an earth movier going down the highway on a tractor - trailer rig. The corner of the earth movers blade catches the camper on the front corner and that impact rips off most of the side and roof. The guys inside the camper are still there, with the pot, while they drive around for another several minutes. They crash a lot of cars and in a big stunt they drive a tractor - trailer right through a house that got stuck on the road. But even those funny bits don't help with the lulls in the story or the just not so exciting chases. I'd give it a three over at IMDb and that being really generous for the few fun bits. It's worth some of it's 33 cents for the fun bits and the effort used complaining about it. I'm thinking under a quarter.

Japan calling

I brought a whole bunch of stuff down from the attic tonight. I had mentioned that I was thinking stamps again. I had been looking up Japanese stamps on the internet. There are a few places that you can see stamp scans at. I haven't been around the stamp hobby for several years now. The last album supplement I bought was 1998. I was using the Scott Country Albums for Japan and Iceland. I had made my own pages for Canada. I looked online for the 1999 supplement and I haven't found one. It's not available from Scott anymore. They package the yearly supplements into a larger pack every so often. Unless I find some dealer with an old year set I will have to buy the 1995 to 1999 year set. The 2000 and on are still available as single years. That could cost me a hundred bucks for the last ten years, maybe more and half again for Iceland. Island doesn't have so many stamps. Japan or Nippon is like the USA, and many other countries, who issue a whole lot of stamps with many topics of interest. They are pandering to the collector market. Stamp collectors were complaining about it 5 years ago and it doesn't look like anything has changed. I like the older stamps anyway.

These two stamps. They are from Japan, Scott numbers 523 & 524, Skiers on Mount Zao. They are a set that was issued Feb 15, 1951. Some how the artist makes skiing sort of interesting. It's the background that I like and the colors of the stamps. They used a lot of soft colors back in the first half of the century, like the above set. I don't have the skiing set, there's one on eBay for 13 bucks. A used could run 2-4 bucks. The set of 4 above is Scott 290 - 293, a 1939 issue with Japanese mountains. The Scott value is over 85 bucks for mint never hinged. There several sets on eBay right now that range from 20 to 45 bucks. The 45 buck one is the mint never hinged. A hinge is a bit of thin paper. It's used to hold the stamp in the album. It's coated with glue on one side and folded. A bit of a lick and your stamp is securely fastened to the album page. The glue holds but once it dries it can be peeled carefully off the stamp and album with little or no damage to the stamp. There is a bit of a disturbance to the glue which can lower the value of the stamp. Scott is the big player in the American Stamp catalog scene. There are other stamp catalogs about the world and they use different numbering systems. Scotts is now up to 6 volumes and cost near 300 clams a year. I have an old set from 1995 which lists stamps through mid 1993. It was only 5 volumes then. There are a lot of stamps out there. More than a couple of hundred thousand.

French & Saunders, dum dee dum de do

More from the Animation Newsletter for 6-14-06

FRENCH & SAUNDERS CAST IN LAIKA'S STOP-MOTION ANIMATED MOVIE CORALINE

LAIKA Ent. has struck a deal with the celebrated British comedy duo of Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders to join Dakota Fanning and Teri Hatcher in its first animated feature film, CORALINE. The stop-motion animated movie, being directed/adapted by Henry Selick, is being distributed worldwide by Focus Features. Selick is adapting the stop-motion flick with CG effects from Neil Gaiman's international best-selling book, CORALINE. LAIKA Ent.'s director of story Mike Cachuela is co-director of the feature.

In CORALINE, a young girl (Fanning) walks through a secret door in her new home and discovers an alternate version of her life. On the surface, this parallel reality is eerily similar to her real life -- only much better. But when this wondrously off-kilter, fantastical adventure turns dangerous and her counterfeit mother (Hatcher, who is also playing Coraline's real mother) and father try to keep her forever, Coraline must count on her resourcefulness, determination, and bravery to get back home.

French and Saunders will provide the voices of Coraline's eccentric neighbors, Miss Forcible and Miss Spink, respectively. The characters are two rival former actresses, living in a basement flat, who dabble in the occult. The acting duo created, wrote, and co-starred in the hit series,
GIRLS ON TOP and FRENCH & SAUNDERS. One skit on the latter program led to Saunders creating and starring in the classic show, ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS. Selick said, "I'd like to say that casting them was my idea, but the credit goes to Coraline's creative father, Neil Gaiman. Spink and Forcible are not the usual comic relief characters of animated films, but as performed by French and Saunders, they will be morbidly funny."

CORALINE is a LAIKA Ent. production in association with Pandemonium Films; Pandemonium president/ceo Bill Mechanic and LAIKA Ent.'s Mary Sandell are producing the feature, now in production at LAIKA's Portland animation studio. The popular music group They Might Be Giants ("TMBG") will provide songs for the film. LAIKA (www.laika.com) is owned by Phil Knight, co-founder and chairman of Nike. The company was rebranded as LAIKA in the summer of 2005, when it absorbed Vinton Studios, an animation leader and innovator for more than 30 years. LAIKA/house produces animated commercials and shorts for global clients, including Coca-Cola, Wrigley's, ESPN and Esure UK.

In addition to CORALINE, LAIKA Ent. is in pre-production on JACK & BEN'S ANIMATED ADVENTURE, a CG-animated family film which tells a story of survival, brotherly love and grand adventure set in the animal kingdom. That film is written and directed by Jorgen Klubien. The company recently purchased the rights to one of the U.K.'s current best-selling children's
novels, writer/illustrator Alan Snow's, HERE BE MONSTERS.

In addition to CORALINE, upcoming Focus Features releases include Woody Allen's SCOOP, starring Allen, Hugh Jackman, Scarlett Johansson and Ian McShane; Allen Coulter's HOLLYWOODLAND, starring Adrien Brody, Diane Lane and Ben Affleck; Phillip Noyce's CATCH A FIRE, starring Tim Robbins, Derek Luke and Bonnie Mbuli; Shane Acker's animated fantasy epic 9, produced by Tim Burton and Timur Bekmambetov and Jim Lemley & Dana Ginsburg; Kasi Lemmons' TALK TO ME, starring Don Cheadle and Chiwetel Ejiofor; David Cronenberg's EASTERN PROMISES, starring Viggo Mortensen and Naomi Watts; and LUST, CAUTION, the new film from Ang Lee, the Academy Award-winning director of Focus' worldwide success BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN.

Focus Features (www.focusfeatures.com) is a motion picture production, financing and worldwide distribution company. Focus Features is part of NBC Universal, one of the world's leading media and entertainment companies in the development, production and marketing of entertainment, news and information to a global audience. Formed in May 2004 through the combining of NBC and Vivendi Universal Ent., NBC Universal owns and operates a valuable portfolio of news and entertainment networks, a premier motion picture company, significant television production operations, a leading television stations group, and world-renowned theme parks. NBC Universal is 80%-owned by General Electric and 20%-owned by Vivendi.

Garth here: NG is a friend of Lenny Henry and Lenny is married to Dawn French. Lenny was the guy who read Anansi Boys for the Audio book. I was just dubbing all the Lenny Henry I had on tape to DVD+R. Most of it from the mid - 80's and some pretty fun. Both Lenny and NG have nice comments about each other on their websites.

Charlie Bone and the Magickers

I just finished two fantasy series. I picked up The Magickers by Emily Drake first. The third book, The Dragon Gate, was out last year in the spring then I was picking up some more young adult fantasies on a buying jag. I hit all the used bookstores looking for something to read, when I wasn't reading Harry Potter. I was looking for other good books with magic and punching. I like series books. That third Magickers book had a blurb on the back. "The Magickers is America's answer to the Harry Potter series." - BookBrowser. Who the hell is BookBrowser? That boasty statement and a dragon on the cover got me interested in the series. I'm easily fooled and for some reason I have been collecting dragon's the last year or three. Not sure why, I have just learned to go with the flow when these moods take hold of me and enjoy. I bought the first three Magickers at that time and left them unread. That happens. I must have picked up close to two hundred books over the last couple of years. There are stacks of them waiting to get done over. This year I am falling behind on my reading. I have only read 26 books this year so far. Way under last year. Got to cut down on the tv. Then there are some books that just don't lend themselves to being read. At least to me. The Magickers are one such series. I read the first one last year and was disappointed so I didn't start the second until March. The main character is Jason. Before the book starts his real mom dies and after a while his dad remarries. Still off screen as it were. Then his dad dies and Jason's step mom remarries. Still backstory. He's now living with his step mom and her new husband, and a daughter from some other marriage. I forget who's her daddy. The whole series is like that, way over written. I read number 2 and 3 quickly, but I was skimming a lot. I still don't like the writing, it wore me down, and the magic was way lame. They use crystals for most of the magic and there isn't much of it. Teleportation is big, and laying protective wards. There were several negative reviews on Amazon and several positive. It's just not a series for me. I actually still haven't finished the 4th book yet. I read many other books in between the 3rd and 4th books and a whole series after starting the 4th. I don't care for the covers of the book either, they look weird, false.

I read the whole Charlie Bone series by Jenny Nimmo with hardly any breaks between books and they were great. They were everything that The Magickers were not. Fun, witty, interesting characters, lots of animals and a nice 5 book story arc that follows Charlie through his quest to find his father. I had picked up the first three last year and hadn't gotten around to reading them. I was at a Half Price Books a month ago and found the 4th. The fifth one just came out. It seemed to wrap up the story, so I went and bought it for full price. I like reading a large hunk of books in the same series and this really is a 2000 page novel. One book picks up soon after the last and the main element that runs through the series is Charlie's on going quest to find his father. At nine his endowment becomes clear and he is sent to study at the Bloor Academy for Music, Art and Drama. Charlie is a descendant of the Red King and many of those descendants have special powers. Charlie can hear what was spoken when a photgraph was taken or a painting painted. He can travel into them mentally. Other kids have other powers. Hypnotism, shapeshifting, weather control, magnetism, various mental powers, etc. There is a great interesting and detailed mythology in Charlie's world and he's at the very heart of it.

I liked Charlie and his friends right from the beginning. There's a great assortment of them, and their pets, to meet as Charlie's new world opens up to him. That cast of secondary players are all wonderful, fleshed out as needed and tossed into the fray. It's a battle between good and evil. The Bloor's lead a small cadre of evil descendants from their seat of power in the Academy. The evil Yewbeam sisters, Charlie's crappy aunts, are on the Bloor side. The good Yewbeam brother, Paton, a power booster, has hidden himself in Charlie's house. He blows up light bulbs quite well, so it's hard to go out during the day, thank you very much, and the nights no picnic either. Charlie brings him out of his shell and he too joins the fight. That's another of Charlie's powers, he can win people over to his side. It's a constant struggle in Charlie's world. But he's tough kid and he wins out with the help of a great bunch of friends. Nimmo has a nice easy to read style, like JKR or Diana Wynne Jones. She pulls you along quickly, showing you one interesting thing after another. She's been writing since the mid 70's but I hadn't heard of her. She mostly writes children's books. I'm planning to keep an eye open for some other one's. I don't mind reading kid's books at all. If the story is good, winner. If there is good writing, bonus. This series is a big scorer. I plan to reread this one. And they have nice covers, especially the US versions.

Friday Night Movies 62

First up tonight Bill Rebane's 1984 film The Cold from the Chilling Classics 50 Movie Pack. Originally title The Game, this Wisconsin made horror flick is poor and silly, but it made me laugh once in a while. And this is my second viewing. I had gotten past this disc in my viewing, but nor reviewing. The premise has three rich characters bring 9 people to a house and offer a million dollars to the last person standing after a weekend of fear. This is their annual game and it starts with spiders in the soup. The movie is set in a resort that's just closed for the season. It's The Northernaire in Three Lakes Wisconsin. Still there, but I could find no good pictures on the net. People start disappearing and then they start dying. The actors aren't great but neither is the material they have to work with. There are several things to laugh about in the movie but that's not enough to make it a great bad film. It's just an average bad film. Rebane did most of the work on the film, directing, cameraman, editor, etc. He's not so good, some of the choices he makes for shots are truely wonderous. Rebane made several other movies. The Demons Of Ludlow is also in the Chilling Classics 50 Movie Pack. It's worse. When I was at BestBuy on Wednesday to pick up the second season dvd of The Adventures Of Pete and Pete I saw two new 100 Movie Packs. There was a Western one and a Combat one. When are they going to have the 500 or 1000 movie packs? Sperhauk ordered the Drive In 50 Movie Pack and I am interested in their new Terror 50 Movie Pack, but I am waiting for the price to drop.

Next up, Maria Bava's Blood and Black Lace. It's an Italian murder movie from 1964. A faceless brute strangles a model and that starts the ball rolling. More murders follow as the cops investigate. It's a nice looking film and there is more film making talent displayed in just about any scene in this movie when compared to the whole of The Cold. But it's still a guy killing some models for money. Not a story I care much about and Sperhauk who had picked up the dvd used was thinking of selling it at DreamHaven. I myself put 47 tapes out for sale last week. I wonder how they are doing. Many were very cheap. That's more than a whole paper box full of plastic gone from the house. That's my basic stand of measurement, a box that ten reams of paper come in, 11 by 17 by 10 inches. I have many. And since I am interested in getting rid of things I don't think I'll be picking up a copy of B&BL.

Rob Zombie, American Dad and Pee Wee

from the Animation Newsletter:

ROB ZOMBIE TO HELM HALLOWEEN RE-IMAGINING

Dimension Films has announced that they will make a new HALLOWEEN movie with Rob Zombie (THE DEVIL'S REJECTS, HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES) writing, directing and serving as a producer. Malek Akkad of Trancas Int'l Films (HALLOWEEN H20: 20 YEARS LATER) will produce along with Andy Gould of Vision Ent. Group (THE DEVIL'S REJECTS, HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES). Zombie will also serve as music supervisor. Miramax Films will co-finance the development with Dimension Films. Zombie's vision of this film is an entirely new take on the legend. The film is set for an October 2007 theatrical release.

The Weinstein Co. co-chairman, Bob Weinstein, stated, "Rob Zombie is a gifted musician and performer as well as a talented filmmaker. His vision for this new HALLOWEEN is spectacular and I am thrilled to be collaborating with him and to work closely with Malek Akkad to continue the legacy built by his father, the late Moustapha Akkad." Zombie said, "I have been a huge, huge fan of John Carpenter's original film since its release. So when Bob Weinstein approached me about this, I jumped at the chance to join forces with Dimension Films on this amazing
project."

Malek Akkad stated, "Trancas is very excited to be working with Rob Zombie and producing another 'Halloween' with Bob Weinstein and Dimension, the home of the franchise for the last three installments. It will be a fitting and worthy tribute to my late father." "I am thrilled to be working again with Rob and with Dimension Films on such an iconic project that will reinvigorate HALLOWEEN and Michael Myers in a truly terrifying new way," stated Andy Gould, Rob Zombie's long time manager and producer of Zombie's two previous films.

Richard Saperstein, president of production, Matthew Stein, svp of production and Alex Franklin, director of development and production will oversee the project on behalf of Dimension. Bret McCartney of Trancas Int'l will oversee production on behalf of Trancas.

AMERICAN DAD GETS 22 MORE EPISODES

Fox has greenlit 22 additional episodes of AMERICAN DAD, extending the show's run through the 2007-08 TV season, reports the trades. In the fall, the series will move to the coveted timeslot following THE SIMPSONS. "It's definitely a good show of faith," said exec producer Mike Barker. "From a writing standpoint, we feel there's certainly a lot of things left to explore in our characters. We never realized there'd be so many layers to a right-wing, conservative father."

Fellow exec producer Matt Weitzman, who runs the show with Barker, notes that writing now for 2007-08 poses a bit of a problem when it comes to timeliness. The show dabbles in politics, yet the scribes won't even know who's running for president in 2008 for some time. The series is wrapping up post-production on next season's episodes. The show debuted after the Super Bowl in February 2005 and has aired 23 episodes. The series first season DVD has just been released.

Barker and Weitzman exec produce the show along with Seth MacFarlane, who created the show with the duo. MacFarlane provides the voices of Stan Smith and Roger the alien, while Wendy Schaal, Rachael MacFarlane, Scott Grimes and Dee Bradley Baker also voice the show's lead characters. AMERICAN DAD averaged a 3.6 rating/8 share among adults 18-49, and attracted 7.2 million viewers, this past season.

PEE-WEE'S PLAYHOUSE MAKES TV RETURN ON ADULT SWIM

PEE-WEE'S PLAYHOUSE, the winner of 22 Emmy Awards, returns to TV, joining the Adult Swim lineup beginning Monday, July 10. The acclaimed series, which has been largely absent from the airwaves for nearly 15 years, stars Paul Reubens as his alter-ego Pee-wee Herman, and features a rich cast of characters who drop by "the place where anything can happen." Adult Swim will air the series Monday-Thursday at 11:00 pm (ET, PT), airing all 45 original half-hour episodes of the series and the rarely-seen PEE-WEE'S PLAYHOUSE CHRISTMAS SPECIAL. Many of the episodes have not been seen on TV since the original Saturday-morning run.

In the series, Pee-wee, dressed in his too-small grey suit and red bowtie, welcomes a cavalcade of characters to his playhouse, including the King of Cartoons, Cowboy Curtis, Miss Yvonne, Pteri the Pterodactyl, Randy (the resident trouble-starter), Captain Carl, Jambi the genie, nosey neighbor Mrs. Rene, and Reba the mail lady. Other inhabitants of PEE-WEE'S PLAYHOUSE include Pee-wee's talking chair, Chairry, Globey the Globe, Magic Screen, Conky the Robot, hipster-beatniks Chickie Baby, Cool Cat and Dirty Dog, Cowntess the cow and the family of miniature dinosaurs that live in a mouse hole inside a wall. Each episode blends live-action, puppets and all different types of animation including vintage cartoons, stop-motion Penny segments and Spanish superhero El Hombre.

PEE-WEE'S PLAYHOUSE originally aired Saturday mornings on CBS, beginning on Sept. 13, 1986. The cast includes Phil Hartman, Laurence Fishburne, S. Epatha Merkerson and Natasha Lyonne. In 2004, TV GUIDE named the show one of the top-10 cult classics of all time. A hugely successful 2004 DVD release brought all 45 original Saturday morning episodes, including eight "lost" episodes, plus the classic PEE-WEE'S PLAYHOUSE CHRISTMAS SPECIAL, to new generations of fans. Gary Panter, famed painter, punk rock illustrator and comicbook artist won three Emmys for his work as the show's production designer. Musicians who scored episodes of PEE-WEE'S PLAYHOUSE include Mark Mothersbaugh, Dweezil Zappa, George Clinton, Stanley Clark and Danny Elfman.

"I'd say this was a dream come true," said Reubens, "but I never dared to dream The Playhouse would join Adult Swim's amazing lineup of cool shows! Well, maybe I did dream of it a couple of times. OK, it's a dream come true!" "We're all huge fans of PEE-WEE'S PLAYHOUSE and we're really happy that it will be a part of Adult Swim," said Mike Lazzo, Cartoon Network svp of
programming and production, responsible for Adult Swim.

Reubens created the Pee-wee Herman character in 1978 while a member of the famed L.A.-based improv group The Groundlings. It rapidly grew into a cultural phenomenon. In 1981, he sold out five consecutive months of performances of THE PEE-WE HERMAN SHOW at the Roxy Theatre in L.A. HBO taped the show for its ON LOCATION series and Pee-wee was introduced to a national audience. His sold-out 22-city national tour in 1984 included Carnegie Hall. The 1985 movie PEE-WEE'S BIG ADVENTURE, co-written by Reubens and directed by Tim Burton, was a commercial and critical success, which led to the series PEE-WEE'S PLAYHOUSE and the 1988 movie BIG TOP PEE-WEE.

Adult Swim (AdultSwim.com), launched in 2001, is Turner Broadcasting System Inc.'s network offering original and acquired animated comedy and action series for young adults. Airing overnights six days a week for a total of 45 hours weekly, Adult Swim shares channel space with Cartoon Network, home to the best in original, classic and acquired programming for children and families, and is seen in 89 million U.S. homes. Turner Broadcasting System Inc., a Time Warner company, is a major producer of news and entertainment product around the world and the leading provider of programming for the basic cable industry.