Minnie Links

Cal Arts is getting a new endowment ... and it doesn't come from the House of Big Round Ears:

Nickelodeon, home to "SpongeBob SquarePants" and "Dora the Explorer," is establishing an endowed scholarship program at the California Institute of the Arts' School of Film/Video for students of animation.

"We want to do all that we can to support fledgling talent," said Brown Johnson, Nickelodeon's president of animation ...

Interviews for Fox Networks' new animated entry Sit Down, Shut Up, rolling out April 19th, are now arrowing across the media.

Sit Down, Shut Up revolves around the dysfunctional faculty at a high school in a small fishing town in Florida. The teachers there work hard, too -- work hard at doing anything other than teaching.

"Why did we decide to do it as an animated show?" [said creator Mitch Hurwitz]. "Oh, money. Not that we're worried about the state of broadcast television per se -- we're feeling pretty good about that, actually -- but we saw the original show as being very daft, very broad. There was a character who grew breasts during the course of their pilot episode. And we just thought animation would make the perfect fit."

Former TAG shop steward Kevin Geiger reviews Global Animation:

The global animation industry lies mainly in the U.S., Europe, Japan and South Korea, with China and India rising to prominence. Nevertheless, one may point to almost any country in the world for notable developments in animation within the last decade ...

As a major animation exporter, Japan has a precise industry chain and a mature operating mechanism. Japan’s animation industry ranks highly in the national economy, and the output value of Japanese animation products exceeds that of steel. Anime has a market value of nearly $2.5 billion USD in the United States alone, with global merchandising worth almost $5 billion USD. South Korea is second only to the U.S. and Japan in the output value of its animation industry, which has become one of the six “pillar industries” in South Korea’s national economy ...

To end: The tub-thumping grows steadily as release date approaches:

...Cute, round kid; grumpy old grandpa balloon salesman; a house that floats away while tethered to a ton of balloons? South American jungle adventures? The promise of a heartfelt, odd couple story? Yes, please ...

And we soon find out if Wall Street is right or wrong about Up.

Happy weekend.