From the Huffington Post

Maybe Keith Olbermann doesn’t have the geeky warmth of Conan O’Brien, but that doesn’t make him any less worthy of his own grass roots movement, right? And as wunderkind illustrator Mike Mitchell proved with his indelible “I’m With Coco” image, nothing unites people against NBC like a great avatar.

With that in mind, we unveil the new battle flag of #TeamOlbo. One can only hope that such a groundswell of support inspires Olbermann to spend the next 6 months to a year delivering his Special Comments in 140-character, non-competitive increments.

“The Star Wars Holiday Special”
“The Nightmare Before Christmas” (not so obscure)
“Claymation Christmas Celebration”
“Batman Returns” (not sure why this is even on their list)
“Christmas Comes to PacLand”
“Santa Claus Conquers the Martians”/”Santa Claus” (1959)
“Futurama” (holiday episodes)
“Pee-wee’s Playhouse Christmas Special”
“Gremlins”
“The Year Without a Santa Claus”/”‘Twas the Night Before Christmas”
“He-Man and She-Ra: A Christmas Special”
“A Wish for Wings that Work”

“A Wish for Wings that Work” is based of Berkeley Breathed’s Outland comic strip. It featured voice talent from Robin Williams and Dustin Hoffman.

Looking over the list, I’ve seen 3-4. I wish I could forget 2-3. I’d be curios to see the “Star Wars Holiday Special,” but I’m afraid it would ruin whatever warm feelings I had for the franchise before Lucas came out with the prequels.

Charles Schulz was long viewed as a man plagued by anxiety, self-doubt and fear of rejection. Yet when it came to the production of “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” Mendleson says, Schulz was the epitome of confidence and assured cool.

After the initial call to Mendelson, Coca-Cola and McCann Erickson were going to make their decision in one week’s time. Translation: In an era when Western Union was their fastest form of written communication, Mendelson and Schulz had only a few days to cobble together an outline.

Sanchez also claimed that reps from the network had promised her substantial compensation from merchandising and residuals, but later cut her out and underpaid her for her work.

The dispute got ugly, with Balestriere threatening to reveal embarrassing details about Nickelodeon. Since then, the dispute has grown more quiet until Friday.

“After discussion, the suit has been withdrawn,” says David Bittler, a spokesperson for Nickelodeon. “We have always felt, and continue to feel, that Caitlin is a very talented performer. Our intention was always that Caitlin complete the episodes on which she worked and we are pleased that she has agreed to do so.”

After the war, Anderson went to work full-time for Terrytoons, in New Rochelle, N.Y. Movie attendance was at an all-time high, but Anderson was excited about the infant medium of TV. “I began to think there was a way to do comic strips for television with just enough movement to sustain interest and having a narrator tell the story,” he explained. “You use a narrator so the characters don’t have to act everything out.” In 1948 he dreamed up Crusader Rabbit, the first cartoon series made for TV. “I asked Uncle Paul if we could develop some animated characters for television,” he told John Province of the online cartoon-history site Hogan’s Alley. “He said if the studio had anything to do with television, 20th Century Fox might cancel his releases. They clearly saw TV as a threat. He told me, however, that if I wanted to tackle it on my own, then Godspeed.”

Anderson returned to Berkeley and mentioned the project to Ward, who had started a career in real estate. Ward loved the notion, and from 1949 to 1952, using a studio apartment and a duplex garage as their studio, they made 195 short episodes of Crusader Rabbit, which ran originally on NBC and then in syndication. Ward handled the business end, Anderson the creative side. He directed and supervised the scripts and animation – what little animation there was; the show was essentially storyboards with bare-minimum movement.

”The Simpsons are one of the few TV programmes for children left in which Christian faith, religion and questions about God are recurring themese,” said Occhetta.

”The family say a prayer before their meals and, in their way, believe in the afterlife”.

In his paper, Occhetta focuses on a 2005 episode in which Bart enrols at a Catholic school after being expelled from Springfield Elementary, which leads to Homer converting to Catholicism.

H/T: Comics Riff

According to a statement issued by the lawyers representing Sanchez and her parents, the suit claims that Nickelodeon “took advantage of a hard-working teenage girl” and “charges that Caitlin and her parents were pressured into signing an unconscionable contract with convoluted, vague and undefined terms that allowed producers of the Nickelodeon hit to exploit her.”

The complaint, which was filed Wednesday night, claims that Sanchez is “due millions in promised compensation for merchandising, re-runs, promotional work and recordings.”

According to CNN, the studio maintains that Caitlin’s voice changed (as did the previous voice talent) and was no longer able to play the part, but in addition to her compensation for the Dora roll they also offered her other work with the studio because they enjoyed working with her.

*Spoiler alert* Matt showed an act from the upcoming Halloween special – which I’ve described toward the end of my notes. Skip the last two bullet points if you don’t want to get tipped off on what to expect.

• The evening with Matt Groening is about to begin. Talked to Tom Gammill last night about what to expect. Should be a fantastic night.
• Here’s a scoop. Tonight we’ll see storyboards of the Banksy Simpsons opening that DIDN’T get approved.
• Tom and Matt are now out on stage after a hilarious 2 minute Simpson montage.
• Tom: Your dad is a cartoonist? Matt: Yeah. Tom: What advice did he give you? Matt: Animation is for suckers. Hire out the hard work.
• Tom: Did your dad encourage cartooning? Matt: I grew up with a lot of cartoon books. I got to use his pens and pads of paper.
• Tom: Who are your influences? Matt: Searle. Biggest one was Charles Schulz. Life in Hell has a character with shirt with the squiggly shirt
• Matt went to the same school as Mel Blanc (but not at same time). Dan Castellaneta is the Mel Blanc of our time.
• Dan has also written some episodes and even pitches show ideas in the voice of the characters. Matt: “And we put them in”
• Matt Groening: Cartooning used to be a nerdy thing, and a boys club and now there are women cartoonists.
• Matt Groening: “The best drawn characters are the ones that you can identify in silhouette.”
• Now Tom and Matt are talking about the gneiss of The Simpsons. “Thanks to the Fox Network for being there are the right time.”
• Matt Groening: Back then animation was viewed as for children’s thing. Nobody was doing anything smart and funny for adults.
• Tom Gammill: The early writers were all disgruntled night time comedy writers who were fed up with primetime programming.
• Matt Groening: “Fox, believe it or not has policies of decency, and we went ahead and broke everyone of them”
• Now showing a montage of all the comic tributes and references in the The Simspons.
• Tom: When did you know that The The Simpsons was big? Matt: Groening: When someone graffiti’ed “Bart Simpson” on the side of my house
• Matt Groening: Fox executives didn’t understand Futurama. They wanted something like The Jettsons. It’s now on Comedy Central.
• Tom: the original writers of Futurama were all guys with advanced degrees in math and science. They seriously would do math problems for fun
• Now talking about Banksy. Al Jean and Groening both saw Exit through the Gift Shop and Al wanted Banksy to do a couch gag.
• Al Jean and Groening contacted Banksy. A couple of days later the storyboard came back. Al immediately said: “We can’t do this.” Al didn’t think Fox would allow it, which made Matt all the more excited to do it.
• Both Al Jean and Matt Groening loved the Banksy coach storyboard, but worried Fox would never broadcast it.
• Matt Groening: No unicorns were harmed in that scene. Fox was great to run the Banksy opening.
• Tom: Can you go into a restaurant and pay for it with a drawing on a napkin? Matt: No. I’ve gotten some free appetizers.
• Audience Qs: What is your favorite episode? Matt: The Grimey one were we find out what it would be like to work with Homer.
• Q: Favorite movies. Matt: “Third Man” “Schulz gets the blues” “Sita Sings the Blues” “The king of Kong” and “The story of Anvil”
• Q: Was itchy and scratchy influenced by Tom & Jerry? Matt: Big fan of Tom & Jerry. Itch and Scratch are very much a tribute to violent cat and mouse shows.
• Q: if were stuck on an island with a The Simpsons character who would it be? Matt: Lisa. She’s the only one that will get to leave Springfield
• Q: Thank you for giving me the opportunity to sit on the couch with my kids and listen to them laugh at your show Matt: You’re a bad mother!
• A view of Matt Groening and Tom Gammell
• The Fox Network wanted to run more advertising so the The Simpsons has had to move to a 4 act show.
• Q: What is your favorite couch gag and why? Matt: I liked the Banksy one because it was so unpredictable.
• Matt’s showing us an act from an upcoming Halloween special. It’s a parody of the Twighlight movies.
• The Simpsons halloween spoilers: Milhouse turns into a poodle; Yogi Bear cameo; Appearances by Sesame Street Count Dracula, count Chocula.