NB: Joe Barbera, American Idol, and The Prisoner
Cartoon Legend Joe Barbera Passes Away at 95
Tom and Jerry. The Flintstones. The Jetsons. Scooby-Doo. These are the cartoons that I and scores of other people grew up watching on a regular basis. The animated classics were brought to the world by the creative team of Hanna-Barbera, individually known as Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera. On Monday, December 18, 95-year-old Barbera passed away of natural causes at his home in Studio City, California. In addition to seven Academy Awards for a series of Tom and Jerry cartoons and eight Emmy Awards, Barbera leaves behind a legacy of bringing joy and a sense of wonder to countless children and adults since 1940, the year that the Tom and Jerry predecessor Puss Gets the Boot first debuted. This gift will surely endure for as long as his numerous animated productions continue to exist; in other words, forever.
American Idol Surprise in Store
The mega music hit doesn’t return to the small screen until January 16 next year, but already the people behind Fox’s ratings killer American Idol are preparing to wow viewers halfway through the forthcoming sixth season. According to the New York Daily News, Idol executive producer Cecile Frot-Coutaz won’t reveal the exact nature of this mid-season event. She just wanted to make sure we knew that “it,” whatever “it” may be, is heading our way. A little hype never hurt, no matter how premature.
British Cult Series The Prisoner Remaking It to AMC
If you’ve never had the pleasure of experiencing the disconcerting 1967 British TV show The Prisoner, boy have you missed out. An odd and oddly intriguing mixture of suspense, science fiction, action-adventure, and drama, the brief seventeen-episode series told the story of an unnamed and newly resigned British government agent (creator, producer, writer, director, and lead actor Patrick McGoohan) who was abducted just as he was about to go on vacation. When the agent, now renamed Number Six, awakes, he finds himself in the mysterious “Village,” a prison pseudocommunity inhabited by other individuals with no names, just numbers, all supposedly security risks with too much knowledge of sensitive information, whatever that may be. The leaders of The Village surveil their prisoners around the clock and seem interested in only one thing—finding out why Number Six resigned from his job. As the tenacious Number Six, who cannot remember his previous life, relentlessly resists giving in to his captor’s desires, he becomes obsessed with escaping and finding out who is in charge of this surreal predicament.
Fans of the cult favorite can get happy now that basic-cable station American Movie Classics has announced their forthcoming remake of the series, currently scheduled to premiere in 2008. I’ve marked my calendar already for the return of one of television’s most compelling series ever.
Photos courtesy of KOMO, Fox, and ITC
