Gene Fowler’s got a new studio, Loogaroo, and a new cartoon – The Insatiable Mr. Banks. He created this Pink Panther-inspired series, partnered with Just for Laughs and then Mick Harrison joined on to help with story and storyboarding. Animation was handled by Jason McArthur, Tavis Silbernagel, Andy Coyle, Jon Weldon, Ian Brenneman and Ryan Keizer.

Andy Coyle recently posted the updated Space Knights title sequence on his blog. The project, which was initiated at Fatkat, was selected to be part of The Detour on TELETOON Pilot Project, as we announced here almost exactly a year ago. The team produced 2 episodes that comprised the pilot, and Coyle and his friends Jon, Tavis and Pat worked on this intro.

[We've removed this video for now - we'll update you when it's available again]

Nick Cross (The Waif of Persephone), has been hard at work on Angora Napkin, the girl-band he created along with Sheridan College-grad, Troy Little. The Flash project actually began as a graphic novel, which was published only 5 months ago (on sale for $19.99), and back in 2008 the Canadian network TELETOON announced the project would be part of The Detour pilot project. Below is a montage that Cross and Little whipped together to keep us busy while the pilot continues cooking. It’s nearly a 100% digital production, focusing on strong poses in favor of “slick modern-looking animation.”

Alright – here we go again.

Last week, Seth MacFarlane, the creator of Family Guy and American Dad, was on The Howard Stern Show on Sirius Satellite Radio to promote The Cleveland Show. The conversation eventually steered towards Stern’s own latent cartoon ambitions. You see, back about 5 years ago, Stern was cooking up a series for Spike titled Howard Stern: The High School Years. Well into development, Howard ran into some budget problems. Spike reportedly wasn’t interested in paying $800,000 or a million per episode for traditional animation – ala Family Guy – so they started down the Flash route, or what Stern calls “cheap shit animation.” In last week’s interview, MacFarlane remarked on this production choice and subsequently pissed all over Flash (listen here – around 8:00):

There’s something so sanitized when they do it with Flash. There’s still no machine that can substitute for hand drawn. Some people like it. I have the same visceral reaction that you do. It just feels very cold.

To illustrate how ridiculous this comment is, I direct your attention to a Flash-animated project – one that MacFarlane may recognize:

How cold! How sanitized! The animators must have been replaced by robots! That was Up Late With Stewie & Brian, which was produced in Flash by Flinch, Zeek and Fatkat back in 2007.

There’s not accounting for taste, as it’s a personal thing, but Seth has bumbled into the same old mistake so many others have made – he blamed bad painting on the brush. It’s quite apparent that Seth hasn’t seen the volumes of excellent work produced with the Flash thoughtout the years. Go watch Superjail! or some of the work we highlighted in the Flash Animation 10, and you’ll agree it’s not the tool that’s sanitizing anything.

You can actually see the test Stern is referring to. In November of 2003, Mark Marek met with Stern and subsequently produced some animated tests, hoping to land the directing gig. He posted the results on his site, which don’t look all that bad to me.

Big thanks to Dave Redl (Family Pants) for the story tip.

The Fatkat crew in Miramichi, New Brunswick have been hard at work on a new Flash-animated series that is set to start production later this year. It’s titled Leo & the Pisa Gang, and it was created by Winfried Debertin – the guy who created the European series Little Amadeus. So the show had that decidedly European look, but it’s produced almost “traditionally” in Flash. The demo below was produced by Robbie Anderson and directed by Tavis Silbernagel.