It seems like Toon Boom is making some real headway biting into the Flash animation marketshare in the TV realm. The latest high-profile property I’ve spotted is TBS’ Neighbors From Hell, which airs Mondays at 10/9c. It’s from both 20th Century Fox TV and DreamWorks. The adult-oriented show has had mixed reviews, but it looks stylish. I’d argue that the Adobe team has been ignoring the animator segment of their business, so it wouldn’t surprise me one bit if Toon Boom picked up the resulting slack. I’m assuming this series was physically animated in South Korea, and that’s the part of the equation that should change. Flash helped bring more production back to North America. The animation was handled by Bardel in Canada.

Has anyone else seen Toon Boom cutting into Flash’s marketshare?

Here’s a promo:

And here’s a behind-the-scenes featurette that shows supervising director John Rice using Storyboard Pro:

Using dialog from the Nicolas Cage film The Family Man, Harry Partridge has crafted one of the more unusual animated shorts you’ll see this year. It’s titled Nicolas Cage Wants Cake, and I suspect you’ll fight to get this out of your head for the rest of the day.

How do you make cancer fun and interesting to children? Yikes – that sounds nearly impossible. Apparently Emma Lazenby (Mother of Many) wasn’t quite so doubtful, as you can see in this 5-minute educational film titled One of a Kind – A Guide to Radiotherapy. The often charming little film was designed and directed by Lazenby and animated by Alex Potts, Ginny Robertson and Matthew Walker. It was a co-production from both ArthurCox and Aardman Animations. (for those in North America – “radiotherapy” is otherwise known as “radiation therapy”)

Last Thursday night at the Midsummer Night Toons 2 event in Manhattan, attendees were treated to a number of animated shorts – including the second episode of Joe Cappabianca’s The Adventures of manCHILD. This dialog-free episode, titled The Jungle, throws us into an unknown land filled with peril and bizarre creatures.

With the World Cup officially starting today, I’d like to point you to a new football-flavored animation. Not To Scale’s Steve Scott directed this new spot for FIFA’s 20 Centres For 2010 effort, which aims “to create 20 Football for Hope Centres to promote public health, education and football in disadvantaged communities across Africa.” It’s Flash animation mixed with live-action footage.