AWN Headline News

Quiet Man founder Johnnie Semerad handled the visual effects on the new GE Weathermate spot. Beneath the glow of fireworks, a group of workers applies GE Weathermate and a competing product to respective halves of the Atlantic City boardwalk. The next morning, the portion treated with Weathermate is ready for the crowds and the competitors half is still wet and fuses a boys sandals to the wood. "The first thing we had to do with the Weathermate spot was add fireworks and enhance the background," says Semerad.

* Sunday, October 29, 2000. Milan, Italy.

MIFED, the Cinema and Television International Multimedia Market, is a leading market for independent audiovisual productions. MIFED 2000 will focus on new marketing strategies to develop alliances and co-productions. For more information contact Elena Lloyd at: MIFED/E.A. FIERAMILANO, Largo Domodossola, 1, 20145 Milan, Italy; Tel.: ++39 2 48012912 48012920; or Fax:. ++39 2 49977020.

MessageBay, Inc.s VoiceAnimations.com has added a text-to-speech feature to its lip-synching animation Website. The new feature allows Web surfers to create Personal Puppetgram e-mails by typing in the text instead of having to use a microphone to add the voices. Visitors can even control the speed, pitch, accent and gender of the selected voice. Then using the VoiceAnimations plug-in, the text is lip-synched to a variety of different animated characters.

Corus Entertainment Inc. has announced the acquisition of Nelvana Limited in a cash and stock deal worth CA$554 million (US$372.5 million). Corus will pay 60% of the $554 million in cash and the rest in Corus Class B non-voting shares. "The opportunity to acquire an outstanding Canadian content company with exceptional international credentials presents itself very rarely," said John Cassaday, president and CEO of Corus.

* Thursday, October 26 Sunday, November 5, 2000. San Luis Obispo, California, U.S.A.

* Thursday, October 26 Saturday, October 28, 2000. Oakville, Ontario, Canada.

* Tuesday, October 17 - Sunday, October 22, 2000. Leipzig, Germany.

* Wednesday, October 25 Thursday, October 26, 2000. Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Stan Lee Media has bought the rights to CONAN THE BARBARIAN from Conan Properties Inc. for US$4.3 million in stock. Lee plans to turn CONAN into a Webseries. Currently, SLM is creating two other new Web series: one based off of Gene Roddenberrys STARSHIP and the second about futuristic cops. SLM currently produces Web action series 7TH PORTAL, THE ACCUSER and BACKSTREET PROJECT. Stan Lee Media is a publicly traded Web-based superhero-type content producer, started by comic book legend Stan Lee, the co-creator of SPIDER-MAN and THE HULK.

On Monday, September 11, 2000, the family that owns the rights to Alvin and the Chipmunks filed a US$105 million lawsuit against Universal Studios, claiming it failed to license products adequately based on the cartoon characters. According to the lawsuit filed in State Superior Court in Los Angeles, members of Chipmunks creator Ross Bagdasarian Sr.'s family claim that Universal executives told them that the studio would make Alvin, Theodore and Simon "a cornerstone" of the company's licensing efforts.

The WB TV network has decided to pick-up its newest toon, BABY BLUES, for a second season. The channel has ordered 13 more episodes of the series, which debuted in late July. The toon has preformed well in a tough Friday time slot for the WB and is one of the highest rated comedies the network has ever had. BABY could serve as the WBs quick replacement series if any of its new live-action comedy series dont work out. BABY is based off the newspaper comic strip of the same name and features the voice talents of Mike O'Malley, Julia Sweeney and Nicole Sullivan.