Toon Zone has the announcement from Cartoon Network that Paul Condolora has been promoted to senior vice president and general manager for Cartoon Network New Media. At his new post, Condolora will continue to report to Mark Norman, senior vice president of business operations for Cartoon Network U.S. and Boomerang.

At the blog Better Than Fudge, an excerpt from The Charlie Rose Show reveals that Oscar-nominee Catherine Keener has a role in Spike Jonze’s adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are, as the mother of the main character, Max. The interview further reveals that The Jim Henson Company is making puppets for the production.

Ford’s official website offers the humorous commercial in which Kermit the Frog explains why it is easy being green.

Latino Review is where the first two television spots for Ice Age 2: The Meltdown may be located, in high-resolution QuickTime glory.

About.com via Route 66 News provides a glimpse of the upcoming Mattel toy line inspired by Disney/Pixar’s summer picture Cars, explaining the bells and whistles to be found with some of the items.

Ain’t It Cool News has a positive early review of DreamWorks Animation’s Flushed Away, with only light spoilers involved.

From Disney’s Investor Relations Newsletter, Ultimate Disney learns that the Dumbo: Special Edition DVD is still slated for June 13th, the same day the Disney Channel’s popular High School Musical will arrive in stores. On the other hand, the release date for Leroy & Stitch, once due in April, has been moved to June 27th. […]

According to an interesting article from The Central Chronicle, India is on track to becoming a leading outsourcing destination for the animation industry. Adding to this suggestion is the fact that a recent survey by Anderson Consultancy stated that the Indian animation industry could earn near $15 billion by 2008.

Wired Magazine briefly breaks down some of the computer generated magic to be found in past and upcoming features such as Sin City, Jarhead, King Kong, Munich, Ice Age 2: The Meltdown, V for Vendetta, and X-Men: The Last Stand.

TV Shows on DVD has collected yet another assortment of animated DVD news. First up, the site has the lowdown on the Curious George DVD exclusive Wal-Mart currently offers, as some people have been curious concerning what the disc holds. It turns out that the DVD presents three episodes of the new Curious George television […]

Don Knotts, most famous for his role as Deputy Barney Fife on \\The Andy Griffith Show\\, died Friday night of pulmonary and respiratory complications at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Beverly Hills, according to the {{link http://www.cnn.com/2006/SHOWBIZ/02/25/knotts.obit.ap/index.html AP}}. He was 81 years old. Knotts was no stranger to animation voicing characters in several tv shows and […]

A month long ice festival in Fairbanks will be featuring carvings from the upcoming Ice Age 2: The Melt Down among its ranks this year. Yahoo! News reports that John Leguizamo, voice of Sid will be flying in to assist Gov. Frank Murkowski in the ceremonial ice ribbon cutting using blow torches on a stage […]

IGN has a great 4-page article today on a behind-the-scenes tour of Disney’s vast animation archives “for an inside look at the studio’s illustrious (and illustrated) legacy of hand-drawn classics.” Check it out!

SquarejawHero at the Animation Nation forum has pointed out a Japanese trailer for Studio Ghibli’s next project Gedo Senki, or Tales from Earthsea – found on the French Catsuka.com website and brought to us via Ain’t It Cool News. The file is a zipped download, and contains the trailer in RealPlayer format. Tales from Earthsea […]

The Magic Roundabout, known as Doogal to North America, opens in 2,318 theaters today, courtesy of The Weinstein Company. Despite not being screened for critics, the film’s page at Rotten Tomatoes has still gathered a small collection of reviews, currently presenting a Tomatometer score of 67%. How will Doogal do at the box office? Box […]

Found at Wikipedia is another tidbit for the Disney rumor mill, with this news centering on the casting for Chris Sanders’ American Dog. According to the website, the voices of John Cusack, Russell Crowe, Bernie Mac, Kirsten Dunst, Kathy Najimy, Tommy Lee Jones, Bruce Greenwood, Hugh Grant, Woody Harrelson, Philip Baker Hall and Sarah Jessica […]

In the Business Week article “Disney Builds a Better Mousetrap,” Ronald Grover speculates on Disney CEO Robert Iger’s ideas for leading the Mouse House with a digital strategy. What is Grover’s verdict? “Sure, it may occasionally stumble, but Disney’s willingness to venture into the new world of digital will likely pay off in the long […]

Jim Hill Media indicates that the animated portions of Disney’s upcoming princess-out-of-fairy-tale picture Enchanted will be traditionally animated, with the work being completed by James Baxter Animation. As for traditional animation’s return to Walt Disney Feature Animation, Jim Hill writes, “The way I hear it, if traditional animation does come back at Walt Disney Studios, […]

The sequel to Disney’s premiere computer animated feature, Chicken Little, has been cancelled, reveals a post at Animation Nation. In the meantime, the official site for Chicken Little’s DVD debut has opened, as pointed out by Justin Williams in the Animated-News Forum.

Yahoo! Asia News reports that on Wednesday, the Fukuoka City Public Library announced it has restored the first animated film created in Japan following World War II. Publicly debuting in 1948, the 48-minute Princess of Baghdad had been missing for numerous years. To celebrate the movie’s restoration, the Fukuoka City Public Library will show Princess […]

With Sci-Fi Wire, Zooey Deschanel reflects on her experience as a voice actress for Sony Pictures Animation’s 2007 project Surf’s Up. “It’s awesome, because they bring us in [together]. I think it’s the first animated movie where they bring all the actors in all together. Usually, you record your parts separately,” says Deschanel, who plays […]

Preparing for next week’s release of the Lady and the Tramp Platinum Edition DVD, Ultimate Disney continues its series of screenshots from the 2-disc set, offering seven more pics from the package.

The Numbers has put together a brief look at this year’s race for the Best Animated Feature Academy Award. The information includes several links to synopses and movie data as well as a look at previous Oscar appearances by the current nominees. The site also is running an Oscar competition featuring a Curious George prize […]

On February 15th, the Chinese government issued a vague notice banning films and TV shows that mix animation with live-action. The AP through Breitbart.com reports that the ban is an attempt to minimize western influences on the Communist nation’s children as well as “promote the development and prosperity of the cartoon industry in China.” While […]

The Orange County Register’s Gadgetress Tamara Chuang has posted a review and pictures at her blog about the trailer for the Keanu Reeves vehicle A Scanner Darkly, a movie that is itself set in “the O.C.” The film uses “interpolated rotoscoping . . . to create a haunting, highly stylized vision of the future.”

For your daily nostalgia fix, check out four classic Maypo commercials from the 1950’s and 1960’s, as mentioned at Cartoon Brew. The commercials were produced with the explicit intention of killing off a poorly selling cereal product. Ironically, the campaign was so successful that sales of Maypo brand oatmeal went through the roof.

Scott from Now Playing Magazine has informed us of new DC Toy Fair photos that have been posted online which feature figures from the Fantastic Four animated series, figures from classic Warner Bros. cartoons, and figures “inspired” by Cartoon Network’s Clone Wars series.

AICN has some information on Lilo and Stitch director Dean DeBlois’ coming live action Disney film The Banshee and Fin Magee. “The story centers on a little boy who is an outcast and is always pretending to be a ghost. He comes into contact with a real spirit who is being pursued by an evil […]

\\Stuart Little 3: Call Of The Wild\\ debuts on DVD today, moving from live action (with some CG characters) to this fully CG animated version which uses toon shading to create a 2D feel. In his third outing, Stuart can’t wait to spend his entire vacation canoeing, hiking and finding his inner scout. But, there […]

At the fourth annual Visual Effects Society awards ceremony, John Lasster was honored with the Georges Melies Award, a lifetime achievement award. The accolade was presented to Lasseter due to his “pioneering, significant, and lasting contributions to the art and science of the visual effects industry.” At Jim Hill Media, Chuck Oberleitner offers pictures and […]