Cartoons and Animation

Five TV shows that were canceled much too soon

Futurama has been cancelled...again. Fans are keenly aware that the show was nuked back in 2003 by Fox, then brought back by Comedy Central after it bought the rights to the four movies in 2007. But this season will reportedly be the last one, with the series finale airing on September 4. Yes, Fut ... More >>

Toon In

The Stick of Truth hopes to be the first great South Park game

As if South Park, Colorado, doesn't have enough problems (Canadians, Gingers and the fearsome Jewpacabra among them), Cartman, Stan, Kyle, Kenny and the whole South Park gang will soon lay waste to the hapless burg in the upcoming video game South Park: The Stick of Truth. See also: - 10 video game ... More >>

Dethklok

Tuesday, November 20, Fillmore Auditorium, 303-830-8497.

Animator Genndy Tartakovsky still goes it alone

GI Joe Fest 2012 canceled!

The vicious international terrorists of COBRA could never stop GI Joe, but he's finally met his match, at least temporarily. This year's GI Joe Fest -- an annual film festival of stop-motion animation starring everyone's favorite military action figure -- that was scheduled for Saturday, September 2 ... More >>

In honor of Book of Mormon, here's a pop history of religious satire

"I believe that ancient Jews built boats and sailed to America/I am a Mormon, and a Mormon just believes," sings Elder Price in Matt Stone and Trey Parker's iconic musical, The Book of Mormon. And while the theological irreverence of a song like "Spooky Mormon Hell Dream," or the existential send-up ... More >>

The Book of Mormon really is that good

Review photos: The Book of Mormon is a godsend!

The Book of Mormon finally arrived in Denver, freighted with a massive weight of hype, slick marketing, praise and excitement for this musical created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone, both Colorado natives. The show had sold out within hours last January, with friends posting photographs of themselves ... More >>

Book of Mormon's Matt Stone and Trey Parker: Not the time to joke about Aurora shooting

It's been a tough few months for Colorado, and homestate heroes Matt Stone and Trey Parker know it. On Tuesday, the South Park creators talked to press at the Ellie Caulkins Opera House about their latest success, the hugely popular and distinctly brazen comic musical The Book of Mormon, which opens ... More >>

Videos: Trey Parker-Matt Stone's The Book of Mormon on Tony awards, 60 Minutes

Talk about staying power. This week, 60 Minutes aired immediately before the Tony Awards -- but rather than conduct an interview with a new nominee, the venerable program rebroadcast a September interview with Colorado alums Trey Parker and Matt Stone. And then, the awards themselves kicked off with ... More >>

Super Nerd Alert

Q&A: Charlie Murphy is invading Comedy Works March 1-3

Charlie Murphy is returning to Denver with Charlie Murphy's Acid Trip Tour for a three day stint at the Comedy Works in Larimer Square. Westword recently spoke with Murphy to see what he enjoys most about comedy.

Reader: Seeing The Book of Mormon and South Park doesn't make you an LDS Church expert

​Our post about the I'm a Mormon billboard campaign in Denver has spurred some intriguing theological back and forth. Here's the take of a reader who places what she sees as discrimination against Mormons in a historical context, using the name of someone who's already history.

Gio Toninelo, the man behind GI Joe Fest and Pond Patrol, on movies and miniatures

This photo is basically blowing my mind right now.​In the small (literally) but fascinating world of people who make art using GI Joes, Gio Toninelo is pretty much a god. The founder and curator of GI Joe Fest, an international GI Joe-centric stop-motion film festival that branched out of Denv ... More >>

Animation, epilepsy and all the things you can do with LEGOs

Whoa, shit just got crazy meta.​There are a lot of things that LEGOs are known for: building elaborate worlds and models with small blocks, providing meticulous, mildly OCD adults with a pastime, getting caught in the throats of small children. But it's that second subset that's creating a leg ... More >>

Janice Hahn attack ad filmmaker fine with liberal media branding his clip racist (VIDEOS)

Video below.​Last week, we noted the weird cameo by convicted Greeley gang-banger Christian Hanson in an allegedly racist attack video aimed at Janice Hahn, a California candidate running for Congress in a special election taking place tomorrow. Afterward, we heard from filmmaker Ladd Ehlinger ... More >>

Beavis and Butt-Head and four other '90s shows that deserve a revamp

​Ever since MTV announced in February that Beavis and Butt-Head would return to television, we've been getting more and more stoked for the comeback of these cherished cartoon cretins. In anticipation of the re-do, which is slated for this summer, we take a look at four more '90s TV shows that ... More >>

Bill Plympton on surrealism, seediness and doing the job himself

Bill Plympton has actually eaten all of these things.​Although he's been nominated for a couple of Academy Awards, Bill Plympton has always been a little too weird for the mainstream. His surreal animation, in which human forms are stretched, kneaded and punched to their breaking point, is fre ... More >>

The ten best children's shows not meant for children

​We miss Saturday mornings sometimes, when we would run downstairs filled with sugary cereal and spend the day watching cartoons and "educational programming." Even though these days we're well aware of the alphabet (some of us, at least -- mostly those that don't comment articles on the inter ... More >>

The Book of Mormon gets 12 Drama Desk noms: South Park creators getting respectable?

Matt Stone.​Eighteen years ago this week, Westword published my interview with CU students Trey Parker and Matt Stone about their in-progress film Alferd Packer: The Musical. Did I predict in that piece that they'd someday create an acclaimed Broadway show? Sadly, no -- but the South Park crea ... More >>

John Suthers, attorney general, channels South Park to stop underage drinking (VIDEO)

​Imagine my surprise the other night when, in the midst of enjoying an episode of Friday Night Lights on Hulu (Clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose!), a commercial popped on featuring Colorado Attorney General John Suthers. And not just any John Suthers -- an animated John Suthers straight out ... More >>

Tonight: Adult Swim's weird carnival comes to Boulder

This could be you.​Adult Swim has always been Cartoon Network's flawless answer to the demand of nostalgic man-children everywhere to be served bizarre, absurdist deconstructions of the entertainments they liked when they were actual children (look at the website and tell me that's not what th ... More >>

Reader: Jason Sheehan should have fit right into smug Seattle

South Park is no Seattle...or Philadelphia.​The news that Jason Sheehan is leaving the Pacific Northwest to return to the East Coast and a job at Philadelphia Magazine inspired numerous comments that indicated Sheehan may be long-gone as the Westword food critic, but will never be forgotten. A ... More >>

Medical marijuana hearing nods to "Drugs are Bad, M'Kay" South Park ep? (VIDEO, PHOTOS)

Video below.​Yesterday's judiciary committee hearing about HB 1250, a medical marijuana infused-products bill, took some unexpected twists. The legislation, which initially sought to ban all MMJ edibles, has now evolved into a packaging bill. But in arguing why it's necessary, sponsoring Repre ... More >>

Hulu's Best in Show sets out to determine the best show on TV

​Hulu's latest thematic bundling of its online TV content takes the form of a bracket trying to determine the best show on TV. It's a great idea, generally, but it depends on fan voting. So, get excited for the finals showdown between Glee and Modern Family. As with all brackets, it's most exc ... More >>

Gas exploration and five other things the residents of South Park have been upset about

Leading the charge against El Paso Corp.?​Even when you're talking about the real actual place called South Park, which is not really a town, but rather a 1,000-some square-mile area of grasslands southwest of Pikes Peak, the phrase "gas exploration" sounds like a set-up for a Terrance and Phi ... More >>

Comedy Central's Comedy Awards: Due recognition or sideshow?

​Comedy Central announced an awards show devoted to comedy today. It will be called The Comedy Awards and will air simultaneously on Comedy Central, VH1, Spike, TV Land and Nick at Night on March 26. On one hand, comedy does tend to get boned in the other major awards, particularly the Oscars ... More >>

ThunderCats's new look: Why so serious, Lion-O?

​Once upon a time, cartoons were silly. Consider the original Batman series of the 1960s, a show so jokey it had villains named both The Laugher and The Giggler and starred a not-exactly-ripped-but-still-wearing-spandex Adam West playing the world's most block-headed straight man -- even Tim B ... More >>

Two-year-old spoof of "What What (In the Butt)" garners copyright infringement suit

According to an official statement from Brownmark Films, the company, best known for the above completely idiotic video and Internet phenomenon from 2007, has decided to file a lawsuit against Viacom International, Comedy Partners, Paramount Pictures Corporation, MTV Networks and South Park Digita ... More >>

Ken Buck & Michael Bennet, South Park-style: Who's the douche and who's the turd sandwich?

​KOA's Mike Rosen accused AM 760's David Sirota of being humorless after Sirota circulated a Rosen line from a debate about crashing a plane into a thus-far-unbuilt mosque near Ground Zero -- a joke, according to Rosen, but one that still led to MSNBC's Keith Olbermann branding him the worst p ... More >>

Duff beer, brontosaurus ribs and gummiberry juice: top five cartoon foods we wish were real

We're glad spoo isn't real. ​There are quite a few cartoon foods we're glad aren't real: spoo, for example, a substance described as "meat jello," that's made an appearance on not one, but two cartoons. Other disturbing foods found in cartoons include the sawdust-y "powdered toast" from Ren a ... More >>

Corpsetimer at the Larimer Lounge

It Just Needs a Little Love: A Charlie Brown Christmas

Touch of Evel

The Worst Peanuts Special Ever

Down South

Visiting South Park with the man who would be Butters.

Aqua Teen Hunger Force

ATHFCMFFT is 87 minutes of pure art -- with fries.

Chriscross

MC Chris's rap career gets a boost from Adult Swim -- or is it the other way around?

The Metamorphosis

Boy turns bug in this redemptive kiddie-lit adaptation.

Danger Doom

The Mouse and the Mask (Epitaph)

MC Chris

Wednesday, October 26, Rock Island, 303-572-7625.

Say Cheese

Wallace and Gromit make their long-overdue feature debut.

Viva Latinos!

PBS series is previewed at Starz

Flick Pick

Spirited Away

Off Limits

Good grief

Best Cartoon Bands

The Apples in Stereo and Dressy Bessy

Bless the Blockhead

How A Charlie Brown Christmas almost wasn't, then became a tradition

Building the Perfect Beast

Special-effects wizard Phil Tippett--creator of Starship Troopers' murderous bugs--envisions the digital future.

Double Dribble