Cartoon Network had a big year in 2008 with Total Drama Island, television’s first animated competitive reality series. The Flash-animated finale episode scored the #1 telecast in the network’s history among tweens 9-14 and it was the most-watched kids 6-11 telecast since Sept. 8, 2000. On the heels of this success, CN has aquired the rights to Stoked (inset) – a new 26×22 Flash-animated series from Fresh TV, the same team behind TDI. All of the animation for both of these shows is produced at Fresh TV’s sister company Elliott Animation. Cartoon Network Asia also grabbed 52 episodes of Alphanim’s Toon Boom-animated series Matt’s Monsters. Here’s the title sequence for that show:

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Total Drama Island, a new Flash-animated series created by Tom McGillis and Jennifer Pertsch, begins airing on Sunday July 8th on Canada’s Teletoon network. This reality show spoof series comes from Fresh Animation and is being animated by Elliott Animation with big help from CHF regulars Todd Kauffman and Mark Thornton, otherwise known as Neptoon Studios.

You can watch this same trailer on the Total Drama Island website where users can create customized avatars, play 26 unique games, and read a weekly email tabloid magazine tailored to each player.

And now here’s a :30 second promo that’s been airing on Teletoon.

For even more on TDI, head over to the blog.

I spent two days at Comic-con in San Diego this past weekend, and witnessed one of most intense people-crushes I’ve ever seen. Ticket sales were actually halted on Saturday, with attendance estimates ranging from 125,000 to 150,000, up from 104,000 last year. As you can see in the photo below, the concept of a ‘personal space bubble’ was hard to come by.

I was hunting down as many Flash animation names as I could, and using this event as a barometer, I can safely say Flash animation is a healthy industry. I met:

- One of the founders of independent animation company Net Hat Co
- the two chiefs of Titmouse Studio, Chris and Shannon Prynoski who premiered Metalocalypse
- Bob Boyle, who showed an episode of upcoming Jetix show ‘Yin Yang Yo!’
- George Elliott, founder of Elliott Animation, who are animating ‘Yin Yang Yo!’
- Jorge Gutierrez and Sandra Equihua, the creators of Nickelodeon’s ‘El Tigre’
- Tom Fulp (photo) of Newgrounds and The Behemoth, who was showing of his new 2D platform game ‘Castle Crashers’
- Brooke Burgess, whose ‘Broken Saints’ series is out on DVD August 1st
- The guys behind ‘College University’ and ‘Dr. Shroud’

I’ve also posted about 20 photos from my San Diego adventure over in the Message Boards.

‘Yin Yang Yo!,’ a new Flash-animated comedy created by Bob Boyle, the Producer of ‘The Fairly OddParents,’ has launched their first episode on the web. A full, 11-minute episode titled ‘Dojo Oh No,’ can now be seen over at the Jetix website, streamed as a Flash video.

As reported here at CHF back in June, the show was animated at Elliott Animation in Toronto. Elliott was also home to the Flash-animated pilot for ‘Total Drama Island.’ Joining Bob on the Executive Producer front was Steve Marmel. Evan Steacy acted as Animation Director, Todd Kauffman as Assistant Director and Mark Thornton as Character Design Supervisor. Lead Animators Christos Katopodis, Keith Oliver and Jeff Size all should be proud of the final product – the show looks and moves wonderfully.

Bob Boyle will be in San Diego next weekend screening ‘Yin Yang Yo!’ for the Comic-con audience. If you’re in the neighborhood, stop by Room 2 at 1:30 on Saturday July 22nd, where he’ll be joined by Steve Marmel and show director John Fountain.

As reported back in April, various studios from around the world have been invited to create a series of 15 three-minute ‘Habbosodes.’ The effort is headed up by Sulake, the company behind Habbo Hotel, a massive virtual environment with over 3.6 million users. The ‘Habbosodes’ project will resolve with the release of a compilation DVD, that will eventually spawn a TV series.

To date, 5 studios have announced their involvement in the project – Bardel Entertainment, Trapeze Animation Studios, Neptoon Studios (in conjunction with Elliott Animation), Noodlesoup Productions and New Zealand’s Huhu Studios. The Neptoon gang recently posted a sneak preview image of their project over at The Drawing Board message boards.