Cartoon Network is readying three new animated series for 2003 as it steps
up original-series development to help lure more viewers.
Like the fickle teens that view MTV: Music Television, kids and tweens crave fresh programming.
Cartoon executive vice president and general manager Jim Samples said his
channel simply hasn't had enough.
"Two new shows per year just isn't enough," he said. "Kids have a voracious appetite for new shows."
To correct its slide and fuel development, Cartoon is leaning both on its
in-house production lab, Cartoon Network Studios, as well as corporate cousin
Warner Bros. Animation.
Two of the new series for 2003 -- Duck Dodgers, where Daffy and friends
play futuristic characters, and Teen Titans, a batch of teen superheroes
guarding a West Coast city -- come from Warner Bros.
The third, Low Brow -- a show that borrows from Japanese and American
animation styles about a giant robot and the people out to control it -- comes
from Cartoon Network Studios.
Cartoon is creating a new strand of animated Star Wars shorts, Star
Wars: The Clone Wars, which will begin airing later this year.
Cartoon is teaming up with Star Wars creator George Lucas' film company
to create about 20 of the three-minute shorts.
They'll tell the story of the Clone Wars that occurs where Star Wars:
Episode II -- Attack of the Clones leaves off.
The project is led by Genndy Tartakovsky, who created Cartoon's popular
Samurai Jack and Dexter's Laboratory series.
