Animation Insider has a report on Disney’s plans to release sequels based on Pixar films even without Pixar’s aid. According to Dick Cook, Walt Disney Studios Chairman, “We will nurture and grow these franchises with new stories.” If they can do it with the same verve and creative flair as Pixar more power to them […]

Not only have current issues facing The Walt Disney Company and its CEO Michael Eisner caught the entertainment industry’s attention but that of political cartoonists’ as well. Follow the “More” link to see Mike Shelton’s imaginative cartoon featuring Michael Eisner on a Disneyland-type ride swerving around and through Roy Disney, Pixar, and ComCast, which was […]

“The Walt Disney Company said Sunday that it has refused to let the daughter [Abigail Disney] of former board member Roy Disney, along with other individual investors, attend a two-day meeting for institutional investors and analysts planned to begin Wednesday in Orlando, Florida.” Go to The Big Cartoon DataBase for the full report.

According to the Big Cartoon DataBase the Disney Board has recently been discussing the issue of replacing CEO Michael Eisner. The discussions do not appear to be a crisis response to the Save Disney/Oust Eisner campaign spearheaded by former board members Roy E. Disney and Stanley Gold but the beginning of confronting the fact that […]

Broadway.com reports the sad news of the apparent suicide death of Jason Raize, who was the first to portray Simba in The Lion King on Broadway and also supplied the voice of Denahi from Disney’s Brother Bear. Thanks to Kristin for the alert.

Toon Zone has recently posted the content of a letter from Roy Disney and Stanley Gold to the Disney Board of Directors. Many of the points raised in it are not new but we get the impression they are very serious about their campaign.

Animation Insider has the scoop on the new Batman animated series coming soon. The series will focus on the young Bruce Wayne and his dual roles as trust fund playboy/uber-obsessed crime fighter as well as encountering many of his dastardly and fiendish nemeses (watch Mystery Men for the correct pronunciation of “nemeses”) for the first […]

Jim Hill Media updates with a first hand report by Chuck Oberleitner of Friday night’s Annie Awards held in Hollywood, CA. The public will see that Pixar won many more awards than Disney, but those who gain the insider’s view this article presents will see that animators and creators from each side are very respectful […]

Dalboz has provided links in the Animated News Forum to several posters to designed to generate awareness for Oscar nominees including two posters for Finding Nemo and one for Tokyo Godfathers.

Check out the opinion piece by Motley Fool Rick Aristotle Munarriz on the advantages to a merger between The Walt Disney Company, Apple Computers, and Pixar Studios with Steve Jobs at the helm of the superconglomerate. “Eisner isn’t ready to step out. Jobs isn’t ready to step in. That still doesn’t detract from the tantalizing […]

The Big Cartoon DataBase reports on an alternative Disney investor meeting set up by Walt Disney Company dissidents Roy Disney and Stanley Gold. This meeting will be held in Philadelphia one day before the official meeting of Disney stockholders and is intended to educate shareholders on how “the House of Mouse has lost its creative […]

Be sure to tune in to CBS News tomorrow morning, February 8 at 9:00 am ET and at 7:00 am PT, for a report on the state of animation. Animators J. J. Sedelmaier and Gary Baseman, and animation studio Pixar are scheduled to be profiled. Thanks to Animation Insider for the alert.

On February 10, Buena Vista Home Entertainment will be releasing Disney’s The Lion King 1½ as a direct-to-video title in America and later on in other parts of the world. This is quite possibly the grandest and most ambitious animated feature to be released directly to video and will go a long way in helping […]

The preview for The Lion King II: Simba’s Pride DVD on the Lion King 1½ DVD shows that the animated short One by One will be one of the DVD special features. This short was previously thought to be part of the upcoming third Fantasia movie. Does anyone have any more information on this?

Animated News’ Christian just got back from the Buena Vista Home Entertainment DVD Presentation held in Hollywood and can say that it was a fun, eye-opening experience. The primary purpose of the meeting was to celebrate the wonderful DVD format and showcase how three upcoming Buena Vista releases (Spy Kids 3D: Game Over, The Haunted […]

The official Disney site now has a page for the soundtrack for The Lion King 1½ with 30-second clips from each song in RealPlayer or QuickTime format.

Jim Hill Media updates with three new articles today. The first one is all about “the Walt Disney Company’s attempts to get some positive press going in the wake of the Pixar contract debacle.” The second article “discusses what the Walt Disney Company could possibly do in order to turn around its somewhat toxic reputation,” […]

Animation Insider reports that there may now be new cartoons on the way based on Sabrina, Josie and the Pussycats and other characters from Archie Comics. “IDT Entertainment recently purchased a substantial branch of Archie Comics Entertainment, which gives them a respectable amount of distrubution and production rights; that amount of which, IDT plans on […]

Kristin has alerted us to an interview at Out Now! with Ruben Aquino, supervising animator of Denahi for Disney’s Brother Bear, who has also worked on such Disney classics as The Little Mermaid (Ursula), Rescuers Down Under (Jake the kangaroo mouse), The Lion King (adult Simba), Pocahontas (Chief Powhatan), Mulan (Captain Shan), and Lilo & […]

Jim Hill Media has got three thought-provoking new articles today. The first article is all about the dilemma the Disney company is finding itself in over the Oscar nomination that Destino recently received. Second is an article by Jackson King about the ins and outs of collecting antique animated toys. And the third article is […]

Hot off the cyberpress from Buena Vista Home Entertainment are several new images from Disney’s upcoming “interquel” The Lion King 1½. The first one is similar to an image posted a while back with Simba and Timon and Pumbaa sleeping, but this time with Simba all grown up. The second one shows the jungle buddies […]

Variety.com’s most recent e-mail newsletter reports “Brother Bear drew $560,000 on 29 in Hong Kong (second-highest debut by a traditionally animated pic behind Mulan) and $450,000 on 87 in Poland (BVI’s third best opening after Nemo and “Signs”). Bear has collected a dandy $41.3 million in 16 countries, highlighted by Mexico’s $12.4 million and Korea’s […]

Kristin alerts us to an article at The Orlando Sentinel website about some of the effects of Disney shutting down their Florida animation studio. “Disney’s current leadership can sputter all they want about the nature of animation evolving, about how they’re not “killing” anything, about the need to slash costs to boost a deflated stock […]

Check out Animation World Magazine for their exclusive interview with Gary Baseman, the creator of Disney’s TV series and recent feature film, Teacher’s Pet. There’s a lot of emphasis on cartoon history and the issues involved in bringing something to the big screen that was originally designed for the small screen.

Just got a chance to see the Klein/Newton Annie Award Nominee Boys Night Out and can say that I wholeheartedly agree with Animation Blast’s Amid Amidi’s appraisal that it is a “cartoonist’s cartoon.” The feature is a dark comedy about a stepfather who has to reluctantly watch his stepson while his wife enjoys a little […]

The complete list of songs appearing in the upcoming Disney interquel The Lion King 1½ was recently released by Buena Vista Home Entertainment. It appears to be an eclectic mix of all new material, each of the five principal songs from the first movie, and several songs “borrowed” from pop music, classical music, Broadway, and […]

Here’s the last three of the ten recently released pictures from the upcoming DVD release of Disney’s interquel, The Lion King 1½. All three are from the Virtual Safari 1.5, “Timon’s version of a theme-park ride, which includes spoofs on famous Disney attractions, including It’s A Small World and Haunted Mansion.” The second image is […]

Laughing Place reports on upcoming McDonald’s Happy Meals featuring Play-Doh toys that will center around Lilo & Stitch: The Series. There will be six different toys and each one will “feature an interactive figurine, a container of vibrant-colored Play-Doh and a two-sided coin stamp. From sprouting hair and hula skirts, to protruding Stitch tongues and […]

Here’s four more pictures from the new batch of The Lion King 1½ promo materials from Buena Vista Home Entertainment. First is a picture of Simba and Timon facing off in a slug slurping contest. This image should be of interest to Lion King fans as it features Simba in the adolescent stage that we […]

Buena Vista Home Entertainment has recently released ten more images from The Lion King 1½ . Some appear to be promo art and some appear to be screen grabs from special features on the upcoming DVD. Featured today are a picture of Timon and Pumbaa lamenting the loss of their bachelor buddy Simba, Timon’s Ma […]