History Channel To Air Special on Star Trek

The History Channel will air a documentary narrated by Leonard Nimoy (Spock) next month about the Star Trek phenomenon. Produced to celebrate the franchise’s 40th anniversary, “Star Trek: Beyond the Final Frontier” features interviews with many of the stars and crew from the four spinoff series, at look at the fandom, and its cultural impact.

Spirk Suggests: Serenity

Fans of the sci-fi and horror genres know who Joss Whedon is. The creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and it’s popular spinoff Angel for the WB and UPN had a loyal following built on Joss and his team’s ability to tell stories. When Fox came knocking asking Joss to create a TV show for their network what he presented them with was a hybrid sci fi/western combination called Firefly. From there Fox did everything they could to make the show’s failure a guarantee. From refusing to air the two hour pilot to moving the show around different nights and different times Firefly was doomed to failure without ever being given a chance. After a handful of episodes the series was canceled.

Fans of the show were up in arms. How could Fox do this? How could they not even give Joss and company a chance to show what they could do? A few months later Fox released Firefly as a boxed set and had to be amazed at the way the set sold. It sat at the top of the charts for months, people were giving them as gifts and the word began to spread. This was a damn good show and well worth watching! The storyline was amazing, the characters complex and loveable the villains reminiscent of the Empire from the original Star Wars Trilogy. The cry was loud and it did not go unnoticed.

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Kiss Cool Creatures

Here are some very surreal computer animated commercials for breath mints from Europe:

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Samurai

“Samurai” is a gentle spirited colorfil mini-film created as part of an advertising campiagn for General Electric. The plot of the short “tells a tale of a pint-sized samurai faced with a seemingly impossible challenge as proposed by a behemoth Emperor and his wicked minions.” The short was produced by Three Legged Legs, the LA-based animation collective comprised of Greg Gunn, Casey Hunt and Reza Rasoli.

You can watch the entire short film here.

Found via Cartoon Brew.

Hello Kitty iPod Docking Station

It’s just what every Hello Kitty fan wants, the KT4560 Hello Kitty Stereo Clock Radio (seen above) also allows kitty fans to dock their pink iPods! It also easy to take that additional cat nap with that ultra big snooze button that’s easy to press with the most sleepy of paws.

Kitty device located via Engadget.

Scooby-Doo creator Passes Away

Iwao Takamoto had an amazing life, he was born in 1925 in Los Angeles and his family was from Japan. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor his family like many Japanese-Americans, was sent to an internment camp. It was there that Takamoto received basic illustration training from a couple of friendly co-internees. Takamoto got his big break after the end of the war when he was hired as an assistant animator by Walt Disney Studios in 1947:

Scooby-Doo creator dies at 81

“Iwao Takamoto, the animator who created the cartoon canine Scooby-Doo as well as characters on such shows as “The Flintstones” and “The Jetsons,” died Monday after suffering a massive coronary, a spokesman said. He was 81. Takamoto died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, where he was being treated for respiratory problems, said Gary Miereanu, a spokesman for Warner Bros. Animation.

Takamoto designed Scooby-Doo, his equally famished and cowardly master Shaggy, and their pals Velma, Daphne and Fred in the late 1960s while working at the Hanna-Barbera animation studio. The Great Dane’s name was inspired by an improvised line at the end of Frank Sinatra’s “Strangers in the Night”.”

Mighty Mouse shills for Colgate

This classic 1954 “dental cream” commercial features none other than Mighty Mouse:

Spirk Alert: Halloween

Last fall Rob Zombie (House of 1,000 Corpses, The Devil’s Rejects) was given the green light to write and direct the next installment of the horror franchise Halloween. Rob wasn’t intrested in doing a sequel to what has become a dead horse. Instead he is going back and retelling how Michael Meyers came to be. Over on the ‘offical Halloween movie blog’ on Myspace Rob has been slowly releasing the cast list for the new movie this is what he has so far.

Dr. Loomis – Malcolm McDowell-This suprised the hell out of me but I think it will end up being a good choice.
Young Michael Myers – Daeg Faerch
Adult Michael Myers – Tyler Mane-Best known as Sabretooth in X-Men he’s a large presence and should fit the role well
Deborah Myers – Sheri Moon Zombie-Well yeah, Sheri is in everything Rob does.
Mason Strode – Pat Skipper
Cynthia Strode – Dee Wallace Stone
Ronnie White – William Forsythe-Another Devil’s Reject he’s going to play the abusive boyfriend to Sheri Moon Zombie’s Mama Myers.
Big Joe – Ken Foree-Yet another Devil’s Reject Cast member a veteran actor who will allways be linked to the original Dawn of the Dead in my mind.
Nole Kluggs – Lew Temple
Ismael Cruz – Danny Trejo

Many of the main characters have yet to be announced including: Laurie, Annie, Lynda, Judith, Sheriff Brackett, Kendall Jacks, Grant Clark, Principle Erics, Councilman Edwards, Lindsey Wallace, Tommy Doyle, Deputy Charles, Dr. Koplenson, Barbara Florentine and Morgan Walker

As a fanboy of the horror genre and a huge Rob Zombie mark I can not wait for this movie.

Richard Carroll is an avid movie viewer and all around fanboy. You can probably find him at his computer playing Guild Wars when not watching,writing, reading or roleplaying something (Oh and then there’s the real world and work). Check out some of his written works at www.ficofthedead.com. A website in need of a webmaster to ensure it gets updated. (Any takers? Anyone? *grins*)

Did we already kill some Martians?

According to a geology professor the Viking space probes that visited Mars 30 years ago may have found alien microbes and inadvertently killed them:

Scientist: NASA found life on Mars – and killed it

“Given the cold dry conditions of Mars, life could have evolved on Mars with the key internal fluid consisting of a mix of water and hydrogen peroxide, said Schulze-Makuch. That’s because a water-hydrogen peroxide mix stays liquid at very low temperatures, or -68 degrees Fahrenheit, and doesn’t destroy cells when it freezes. It can suck water vapor out of the air.

The Viking experiments of the 1970s wouldn’t have noticed hydrogen peroxide-based life and, in fact, would have killed it by drowning and overheating the microbes, said Schulze-Makuch. One Viking experiment seeking life on Mars poured water on soil. That would have essentially drowned hydrogen peroxide-based life, he said. And different experiment heated the soil to see if something would happen which would have baked Martian microbes.”

Star Wars Graffiti

Also don’t forget to check out the Flickr group!

Found via smidigt.se.

Lemming City

Here are two cute new animated commercials from Europe designed by BUG Studio in Norway:

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Ghost Rider: From Comic to the Big Screen

Below is a new video from the Ghost Rider blog for the upcoming film:

The new film will be out February 16th this year!

If the Simpsons Looked like Anime

“Space Coyote” has come up with a great illustration of all of the Simpsons characters drawn in anime style.

Banga!

Banga is an orange flavored fruit beverage from France. This vintage commercial from 1980 features six island girls and their pet monkey singing the praises of their favorite drink:

Inventor of Instant Noodles Passes Away

It’s a sad for fanboys the world over, Momofuku Ando the inventor of instant noodles has died in Japan. But on the positive side he often ate his noodles and lived to the age of 96, although I don’t think that still qualifies ramen as “health food”:

Inventor of instant noodles dies

“Mr Ando was born in Taiwan in 1910 and moved to Japan in 1933, founding Nissin Food Products Co after World War II to provide cheap food for the masses. His most famous product, Cup Noodle, was released in 1971.

Mr Ando said the inspiration for his product came when he saw people lining up to buy bowls of hot ramen noodle soup at a black market stall during the food shortages after World War II. He developed his first instant noodles, Chicken Ramen, in 1958.”

In honor of Momofuku Ando here’s a fun blog on instant noodles to check out…

A Stop Motion Version of Web 2.0

This is a very clever stop motion commercial for thefirstpost.co.uk, an English online daily magazine:

Creepy Cryptics

There’s a great interview with Ben Roman over at Comiccon.com on his new comic book series the Cryptics, published by Image Comics. The interview is a great read, but what stands out is the fresh look of the comic itself.

Bat-blog is Batastic!

In the real world having an obsessive compulsive disorder is a bad thing, but if you run a blog, it’s a great thing! And Bat-blog is a great example of this, it’s a daily dose of everything Batman. The site does a great job of showing off a wide variety of toys, videos and anything else related to Batman:

tomztoyz.blogspot.com

Afro Samurai Appears Tonight

Afro Samurai is on tonight at 11pm on Spike TV. So I dropped by ther website to look at the first few minutes of the show, and I have to say that the quality of the animation is A+for a television series. However I wasn’t that impressed with the writing or the editing of the story. I think my problem is that I tend to associate Samuel L. Jackson with a ‘Pulp Fiction sense of humor’ so I tend to be let down if the plot takes itself a bit too seriously. But of course being the fanboy that I am I’ll be DVRing the first show tonight, and then watching at least two out of the five episodes before I give up…

Frylock on Film

It’s looks like the Aqua Teen Hunger Force is heading to theaters in March:

‘Aqua Teen’ to bigscreen

“Adult Swim’s feature version of surreal animated series “Aqua Teen Hunger Force” has been set for a March release by First Look Pictures with an opening of more than 800 playdates. The 86-minute pic, written, produced and directed by co-creators Matt Maiellaro and Dave Willis, marks First Look’s initial theatrical foray into animation as well as Adult Swim’s first feature under the Williams Street banner.”

Comic Art Community

Comic Art Community is a website that features an open gallery that allows users to upload artwork (and the selection is quite amazing) and also has a comic arts auction section as well. Shown above are images from Emily the Strange, Scarlet Traces, and Blood of Saints.

Sailor Moon Super Dance Lesson

“We hope you’ll want to dance with us!” If you want to dance like Sailor Moon here’s an instructional video:

The funny thing is that I don’t recall them dancing much in the animated television series…

Japan-Only Transformers Movie Trailer

This trailer contains additional shots not seen in the American trailer (and it also has Steven Spielberg speaking in Japanese at the start):

New Ninja Turtle Snaps

Well one things is for sure, with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and the Transformers film coming out t’s loking like 2007 is going to feel very much like the 80s! By the way for more Ninja snaps IESB.net has a gallery of over 150 images…