AnimationFix: Your regular round-up of the latest animation news, from HitFix reporter Emily Rome
Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny are teaming up. So to speak.
Warner Bros. Animation is producing a series with Disney XD for the first time. While WB live-action projects air on a number of networks, WB animated series have mostly aired on what was then The WB and Cartoon Network (also under the umbrella of Time Warner).
Titled Right Now Kapow, this new animated sketch comedy series features a literally colorful cast of characters named Dog, Moon, Ice Cream, Candy, Diamond, and Plant. Their physical features are pretty much exactly what you”d expect… if you”re expecting something a bit weird.
Image credit: Disney XD
A release about Right Now Kapow went out to press today, describing it as “delightfully silly, weird, and frenetic” and announcing the series premiere date, Monday, September 19, with half-hour episodes airing on three consecutive nights through September 21.
Many of the voice cast members are from the realm of stand-up comedy and improv, including Emily Maya Mills (Key & Peele) as Diamond, Michael Blaiklock (Comedy Bang! Bang!) as Dog, and Baron Vaughn (Grace and Frankie) as Moon.
The creative team behind Right Now Kapow comes from the sketch comedy world: Executive producers Marly Halpern-Graser and Justin Becker both wrote for Mad (the Cartoon Network animated sketch comedy series, not to be confused with Madtv).
Check out the trailer and poster for Right Now Kapow below:
Image credit: Disney XD
More AnimationFix:
• Finding Dory to swim back into theaters: Pixar”s massively successful summer sequel, which has already earned over $930 million worldwide, will be back in more theaters again to cash in on the traditionally slow Labor Day weekend. Finding Dory is making an encore appearance in over 2,900 theaters today. This puts Kubo and the Two Strings up against Disney•Pixar in the stop-motion movie”s third week in theaters, another roadblock to the financial success the Laika film has had trouble achieving. Kubo hasn”t tanked by any means, but it has been earning less than Laika”s three previous features, though the movie does have an “A” Cinemascore that should still give the movie some word-of-mouth support.
• Cartoon Network series Mighty Magiswords gets a premiere date: This show has made the leap from very shortform digital presence to cable television. Mighty Magiswords launched earlier this year with 15-second shorts on platforms including the Cartoon Network Anything app, and now it”s set for a series on Cartoon Network. A September 29 premiere date was announced this Wednesday. Created by Kyle A. Carrozza (The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water), Mighty Magiswords is a comedy adventure about a brother-sister team of warriors.
• Disney to celebrate its icons returning for Moana: The House of Mouse”s next feature marks the return of Ron Clements and John Musker, the celebrated directors behind The Little Mermaid and Aladdin. Those two films and four more from the duo will get screenings at Hollywood”s El Capitan Theatre for a “Countdown to Moana.” Clements and Musker will be in attendance at a few of the screenings for the series announced today.
• Netflix series from indie filmmaker Joe Swanberg gets an animated promo: Though the show itself is not animated, Swanberg”s Easy got introduced to the world with an animated teaser trailer that went online yesterday. The anthology comedy series is “about sexual evolution,” and that”s promoted throughout the animated teaser below: