Young Justice, Jesse McCartney
Pop star Jesse McCartney is proving he's not just another pretty face by expanding his voice-over résumé. The 23-year-old heartthrob has already racked up several video game credits and provides the high-pitched squeals of Theodore in the Alvin and the Chipmunks movies. Now he's now suiting up as Batman's crime fighting apprentice, Robin, in Cartoon Network's Young Justice. The new series (which had a sneak preview in November and now airs weekly), features a team of second-generation heroes from the pages of DC Comics, including Superboy, Aqualad, Kid Flash and Miss Martian (who is the focus of this week's episode, "Welcome to Happy Harbor").
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Bud Greenspan
Universal Sports has announced plans for a nine-night celebration of legendary sports filmmaker Bud Greenspan, who passed away on Christmas Day at age 84 after battling Parkinson's disease. Greenspan is best known for his series of documentaries chronicling the Olympic Games, many of which are rarely seen anymore and are not currently available on DVD.
The tribute, which Universal Sports is dubbing "Nine Nights of Glory," begins Saturday (Jan. 1, 9/8c) with the iconic 16 Days of Glory: Los Angeles '84. "Bud Greenspan ...
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Firebreather
Cartoon Network has much to be thankful for following big ratings over the long holiday weekend. The premiere of new series Young Justice and the CGI-movie Firebreather both drew big audiences.
Young Justice, which introduces a team of teenage superheroes from the DC Comics universe, pulled 2.55 million viewers for a special one-hour preview on Friday night. That represents a...
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Young Justice
It's not easy being a superhero sidekick. They get no respect, what with overbearing mentors who never think they're ready for the big time. But in the new Cartoon Network series Young Justice, when a new generation of crime fighters is told to cool its heels, they won't take no for an answer. Robin, Kid Flash, Aqualad, Superboy, Miss Martian and Artemis finally get their chance to save the day, but they must do it in the shadows...
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Batman Beyond Complete Series
The futuristic cartoon Batman Beyond may have been ahead of its time when it premiered in 1999, but the under-appreciated series is currently having a bit of renaissance with a pop culture comeback. Repeats of the animated show — which featured teenager Terry McGinnis taking over the role of the Dark Knight, with an elderly Bruce Wayne as his mentor — air daily (at 7:30am/6:30c and 5:30pm/4:30c) on the new network The Hub.
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Marion Jones
America loves a comeback story and few can compete with the tumultuous rise, fall and return of Marion Jones. Once a media darling, the disgraced Olympic sprinter lost the five medals she won at the 2000 Summer Games after admitting she used performance-enhancing drugs. When Jones had previously lied about that to federal investigators (as well as her role in a check-fraud case), she was sentenced to six months in prison. After a difficult incarceration that included a demoralizing seven-week stint in solitary confinement, she was ...
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ESPN
It's not all about LeBron James and Brett Favre at ESPN — at least not next week. The sports giant is rolling out a series of Veterans Day-related programming to honor veterans and troops and to celebrate the link between the military and sports.
"America's Heroes: A Salute to Our Veterans" begins with Saturday's College GameDay (Nov. 6, 9am/8c, ESPNU and 10am/9c, ESPN), which will feature a profile of Indiana University defensive end Kevin Bush, who returned to college football after serving two and half years in the U.S. Army, including a stint in Iraq.
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The Avengers
After dominating movie theaters for the past decade with blockbusters featuring Spider-Man, the X-Men and Iron Man, Marvel Comics is now starting to focus on television. The popular kid-targets series The Super Hero Squad Show begins its second season on Cartoon Network this weekend (Saturday, Oct. 23, 6:30am/5:30c), and news broke last week that a new live-action Hulk series is being developed for ABC.
On Wednesday night DisneyXD premieres the new animated series The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, bringing together iconic Marvel characters...
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Tower Prep
Cartoon Network's latest venture into live-action is its most sophisticated series yet. A mix of teen angst and intricately serialized storytelling, Tower Prep is set at a mysterious, isolated school where kids with special powers are kept against their will — ostensibly to learn how to master their abilities. "This was an idea that always intrigued me ever since I went to boarding school some years back," says series creator Paul Dini, a popular comic-book writer and animation producer (Batman Beyond), who spent a year as a writer on Lost. "I wanted to take what is ...
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Green Lantern
Here's your first look at Green Lantern: The Animated Series, coming to Cartoon Network in 2011. Warner Bros. Animation, which is producing the show, will preview the upcoming DC Comics adaptation for fans at this weekend's New York Comic Con at the Jacob K. Javits Center on Manhattan's West Side.
Executive producer Bruce Timm — whose infinite credits include the beloved animated series starring Batman, Superman and the Justice League — will headline the panel on Saturday at 2:30pm, alongside producer Giancarlo Volpe (Star Wars: The Clone Wars) and producer/story editor Jim Krieg (Ben 10: Alien Swarm). Following the panel...
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