AWN Headline News

Paris, France-based Salsa Distribution has acquired the Latin Americantelevision distribution rights to the half-hour television special GOGWANA.Produced by London-based AARGH! Animation Ltd. for S4C, and directed byDeiniol Morris, GOGWANA is based on THE GOGS, the Stone Age family depictedin the claymation television series. In the special, after an earthquakedestroys the Gogs' cave, the family goes in search of a new home, and,along the way, encounters pygmies, dinosaur air-balloons, and pygmy-piloted

Every fan who dreamed of building a car like Speed Racer's Mach 5 will beinterested to know that Speed's ultra-cool car is finally being built byLong Beach, California-based Focus on Cars, an automotive fabricationcompany that caters to the entertainment and advertising industry. The carwill be used to promote a nation-wide safety tour conducted by The ChildSafety Network (CSN) called CHILD SAFETY DAY AT THE RACES. The Mach 5 willprivately debut at the Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) Show -

New York City-based Oxygen Media, Geraldine Laybourne's media companyfounded to provide content for women, has named eight executive producers,seven of whom are new to Oxygen's team, to guide the development ofOxygen's growing online network, including building five new sites - Style,Sports, Teens, O2 Simplify, and womenshands - as well as expanding thepopular existing parenting site, Moms Online and Oprah.com. The new andexpanded sites will be rolled out this winter. Oxygen's online executive

Sony Pictures Family Entertainment's ROUGHNECKS: STARSHIP TROOPERS hasfallen behind schedule. Although the show is currently in syndication byBKN (Bohbot Kids Network), only nine out of forty episodes have beencompleted and several episodes have already been repeated with many morerepeats expected. Burbank, California-based Flat Earth Productions optedout of its fifteen episode production contract after completing only threeepisodes because they felt the schedule with the budget was overly

Animation-Books.com, in association with ANiMATO!, the animation magazine,has announced the results of an internet poll of the best animation booksof all time, and THE ILLUSION OF LIFE: DISNEY ANIMATION by Frank Thomas andOllie Johnston tops the list. While the list may be biased toward morerecent, easily available English publications, few would argue that this,for once, is a solid list, and every title belongs in one's animationlibrary. According to Animation-Books.com, "Polling for the

Macromedia, Inc., leading publisher of Web publishing tools such asDreamweaver, Fireworks and Generator, is offering a multi-city Generator 2Seminar and Training Series for Internet professionals seeking successfulonline solutions for e-business, e-commerce, financial services, news &information and advertising. Generator 2 delivers targeted, real-timegraphics and interactivity for Web sites that feature on-demand content.Attendees will learn how Ford Motor Company, Internet Shopping Network and

New York-based SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION has completed "Cold Start," a spotfor Prestone antifreeze, for agency Grey Advertising. Spontaneous used 3DStudio MAX to create the engine and antifreeze. Live-action footage wasproduced by New York-based Zero 2 Sixty.

Every year since 1991, the organization CARTOON, with the support of theMEDIA program of the European Union, selects one European short animatedfilm as the "Cartoon d'Or," or "best European animation film." This year'swinner, announced at the Cartoon Forum in Corboda, Spain (September 22-26),is MIGRATIONS by Constantin Chamski (France). The 4-minute CGI film isdistributed by France-based Heure Exquise! where it was also produced. Thisyear's other nominees were L'ARME DU CROCODILE by Eric Blesin (Belgium), EL

The Museum of Television and Radio in New York and Los Angeles hosts aretrospective of Hanna-Barbera's television series with a series of60-minute screenings. The series includes SCOOBY-DOO, THE FANTASTIC FOUR,SPACE GHOST, SUPERFRIENDS, JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS, MAGILLA GORILLA, TOPCAT, RICOCHET RABBIT, and YOGI BEAR. The new Spumco/Cartoon Network YOGIBEAR shorts have sparked a debate among fans regarding the quality ofHanna-Barbera's YOGI BEAR shorts in particular, and Hanna-Barbera's

Buena Vista's supernatural thriller THE SIXTH SENSE, with visual effects byDreamQuest, finished third for the second consecutive weekend at the USboxoffice, grossing an estimated $8.5 million over the weekend, for a totalof $221.8 million. No other animation related films finished in the top ten.

The third annual British Animation Awards is calling for entries from UKanimators. The awards will be announced on Thursday, March 9, 2000.Deadline for entries is December 1, 1999. For more information Tel. 0171383 4387; or Fax 0171 388 3782.

Seattle, Washington-based REALNETWORKS, a company specializing in Internetmedia delivery, has promoted THOMAS FRANK to chief operating officer andhired MARTIN PLAEHN as senior vice president of media systems. Frank, whojoined RealNetworks in January of this year, was previously senior vicepresident of media programming and publishing. Plaehn joins RealNetworksfrom Viewpoint Digital, Inc., a computer graphics company, where he wasPresident. . . UNIVERSAL PICTURES has promoted GREG SUCHERMAN to vice