Remember when the Cartoon Network team produced new Powerpuff Girls animation in Flash? Inevitably, the discussion veered towards whether the software ruined the project. (the blogger calmly unclenches fist) If CHF has a mission, it’s to dispell this kind of talk, and illustrate that it’s not the software, it’s the artist. If the artist sucks, ergo the animation will likely suck, and vice versa. Flash is meerly a brush and a canvas.

So…. we move on to The Drawn Together Movie: The Movie!, which will release direct-to-DVD in April 2010. Six Point Harness recently put the finishing touches on the project, which was animated in Flash right here in Hollywood. The TV episodes were never about the animation, so we’re not talking about recreating The Lion King here, but nevertheless there will likely be discussion about how the move to Flash has somehow soured the visuals. I personally think it looks great, and I’d argue that the production values have gone up a notch. More importantly, what do you think?

You’ll have to wait until March 2010 to see the premiere of Ugly Americans, but last night Comedy Central aired a clip during the South Park finale. The show, which is set in an NYC filled with demons, robots, zombies, and assorted creatures, was created by David M. Stern and Devin Clark. The animation is being directed by Augenblick Studios (Superjail) and with animation produced at Cuppa Coffee. Here’s two clips:

The Demon Chick

Sneak Peek

Stephen Colbert’s Flash-animated series Tek Jansen has kicked off the new year with a freshly baked episode. Beginning’s First Dawn: Episode Three, premiered on The Colbert Report on January 5th, and it was produced by Flickerlab. [video is apparently only viewable in the US]

Kyle Carrozza watched his web short become a TV short this summer on Comedy Central’s Atom TV, a 2am block that airs Monday nights. Ralph and Bichael in Ralphy Panda and the Half Baked Ditz was submitted to Atom.com via their Upload Showdown competition, and the 1:30 minute film was off to the network. Here’s the fast-paced adventures of two red pandas:

A couple weeks back, ABC News’ Robert Krulwich paired up again with Flash animator Odd Todd to illustrate the news. The segment was titled An Animated Look at the Credit Crunch was then picked up by John Stewart in his Daily Show segment Clusterf#@k to the Poor House – Financial Crisis Cartoons, both of which you can see below:

The coverage of Odd Todd’s work starts at 3:28.