AWN Headline News

On Saturday May 13, 2000, the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences handed out their Daytime Emmy Awards for technical achievement. Many of the awards handed out featured animated series like big winner ROLIE POLIE OLIE for best special class animated program. The 3D animation series beat out ANGELA ANACONDA, BATMAN BEYOND, DISNEYS MICKEY MOUSEWORKS and THE SYLVESTER & TWEETY MYSTERIES for the honor. BLUES CLUES lost to BILL NYE THE SCIENCE GUY in the childrens series writing category and lost to BEAR IN THE BIG BLUE HOUSE in the childrens series directing category.

Will Vinton Studios has named Maria Grosso as their new executive VP of development at the new Los Angeles office. The former development exec at Warner TV and Universal will work closely with Tom Turpin, president and CEO of Will Vinton Studios, on formulating new TV, film and new media programming. "Maria brings the perfect experience base to expand our producing activities," Turpin said. "The ability to bring unique and distinctive stories to the marketplace is what were after.

On May 11, 2000, The Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences (AIAS) held the 3rd Annual Interactive Achievement Awards. The event was hosted by comedian Martin Short and saw other celebrity presenters like Harry Shearer (THE SIMPSONS), Ahmet Zappa (MTVS WEB RIOT) and Delroy Lindo (CIDER HOUSE RULES). Rapping up the first day of the E3 Conference, the 2000 Interactive Achievement Awards were presented with the support of Intel, Alias/Wavefront, GameWeek, Sonic Foundry and Webster Interactive.

Lolee Aries has been appointed vice president of production, Nickelodeon Animations Studios. At Nickelodeon, she will oversee the day-to-day production on all of Nickelodeon Animation Studios in-house projects including current series SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS, HEY ARNOLD!, CATDOG, ANGRY BEAVERS, OH YEAH! CARTOONS! and the upcoming series CHALKZONE, THE FAIRLY ODDPARENTS and INVADER ZIM. Aries will also focus on the digital production process and boosting the utilization of in-house talent. Aries joins Nickelodeon from Film Roman, where she served as VP of production.

Three of animation's top producer/artists on BATMAN, THE X-MEN and THE REAL GHOSTBUSTERS, as well as such comic book classics as SPIDER-MAN, CONAN and TARZAN, have joined Stan Lee Media, Inc. (SLM). Will Meugniot, Larry Houston and Thomas McLaughlin, who have overseen programming for such major studios as Fox, Warner Bros., Sony and Saban, will be steering SLM projects in development as well as THE 7TH PORTAL Web animation franchise.

Slaying the competition at the U.S. box office, DreamWorks' GLADIATOR easily finished in the top spot. The Roman action epic, with primary special effects by Mill Film Ltd., grossed a Goliath US$34.82 million, which is nearly the combined gross of the rest of the top ten films. GLADIATOR dethroned two-week box office champ U-571, which fell to second. The Universal World War II submarine story grossed another $7.77 million bringing its total theatre receipts to $49.59 million. Despite horrid reviews from about every source, THE FLINTSTONES VIVA ROCK VEGAS managed to finish in third place.

On Sunday, May 7, 2000 the 31st annual ASIFA-East animation festival was held in New York City. The event packed the auditorium with animators and animation buffs. The overflow of the audience was sent to a second theater to watch a simulcast of the winning films. The event holds four categories for students, commercials, sponsored films and independent films. The big winners were Nickelodeon, taking home three awards in the sponsored category, and Acme Filmworks, which won three awards in the commercial category.