Community is known for its off the wall plot lines and clever marketing, and the new promotional campaign for NBC’s cult favorite will not disappoint. Your favorite characters from Community will be getting animated for three promotional shorts designed to drum up interest in the show’s March 15 return to NBC’s schedule.

The announcement was one of many made during Community‘s PaleyFest session on Monday. For those of you unfamiliar with PaleyFest, for a quarter century they have held a festival at the Paley Center for Media in LA, which celebrates the best of television with the creative teams who make the breakthrough programs. It allows for interaction between the creative television community, television stars and their fans in a panel type environment.

The shorts, titled Abed’s Master Key, will debut on March 7 on Hulu, Hulu Plus and NBC.com. They were written by Dave Seger (Channel 101) & Tom Kauffman (Lil Wayne’s Big House).

For those Community fans who can’t wait for March 7th, here’s a preview after the jump:

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The Lorax is the big winner of the box office this weekend, bringing in a massive 70.7 million. This is a monumental number and further proof that the concept of prime seasons being the only way a film can make bank is dead.

We are now in the thick of the ‘Spring Movie Season’ which for the last few years has yielded some of the most successful and surprising films of the years. The staggering numbers for The Lorax also represent a bit of a coming out for Universal’s animation house Illumination Entertainment, which previously won a lot of people over with the very fun Despicable Me.

The impressive haul also marks a new high water mark for Dr. Seuss adaptions, topping the previous high of 55.1 million raked in by How The Grinch Stole Christmas. The film is likely to have a decent run as well with few marquee kids films on the immediate horizon, and mixed reviews that do tend to skew a bit towards positive.

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There are three very high profile groups that are making stop-motion animated films these days. 2012 is a marquee year for the art form as all three are releasing high profile films.

Odds on favorite to be the best of the bunch is ParaNorman by the people who brought us the tremendous Coraline a few years ago. We have seen a couple teasers so far for this movie, but now we have a brand new full trailer to really sink our teeth into.

In case you are unaware of what ParaNorman is about, here is the synopsis:

In ParaNorman, a small town comes under siege by zombies. Who can it call? Only misunderstood local boy Norman (voiced by Kodi Smit-McPhee), who is able to speak with the dead. In addition to the zombies, he’ll have to take on ghosts, witches and, worst, of all, grown-ups, to save his town from a centuries-old curse. But this young ghoul whisperer may find his paranormal activities pushed to their otherworldly limits.

This one is very high on our radar, and looks to be one of the best animated films of the year.

The movie is set to be released this august and you can check out the full trailer after the jump.

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The story of The Lorax has never felt right to me. Either the Once-ler is the most short-sighted whatsit in the world, next to the Lorax himself (or at least the forest creatures), or the entire tale is a buried parable on the importance of stable property rights. Given Seuss’s general lack of subtlety when making a political point, the latter probably isn’t the case. In any event, why does no one preserve the Truffula trees? If the Once-ler owns the forest, and his business is based on the Truffula trees, why on earth would he practice clear-cutting?

He, like pretty much every other private timber company that owns the forest they log, has an incentive to preserve the forest (unless he’s renting it from the creatures, but that doesn’t seem to be the case) – clearly the Once-ler needed to fire his business planner. Or, once the land had been deforested, should have sold it and the seed to another logging concern.

Heck, they’d probably seek him out, since Truffula trees are a hot commodity, and there’s a lot of Thneedians; we already know that one of the characters is a budding entrepreneur, it’d be a lot easier and a lot more profitable for him to replant the forest than find a way to sell air. Evidently the Thneedians don’t understand marginal utility, but that’s okay, what gets me is how Seuss (and the movie) stacks the odds in his favor.

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If you like this sort of thing then you will be excited to see the first teaser for Universal’s Despicable Me 2 has arrived. The first one was fun and this looks to be more of the same.

Plus, the first one made over $525 Million globally, so you should have expected to see a sequel as soon as possible. It’s only going to take about two years. Look for Despicable Me 2 to hit theaters on July 3, 2013.

Yeah, that’s more than a year away but things tend to get started earlier in the process these days to help build that important “brand awareness.” Although, with all that money in the bank from the first movie, the awareness is already pretty high.

Still, you can never be too careful these days. Enjoy.

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I heard the Animated Shorts were better than the Live-Action Shorts, so why not check them out? I love animation, but, unfortunately, the selections were seldom my cup of whatever. The bulk (and by that I mean “all but two”) were computer-generated, which is something I don’t flat-out dislike but get really tired of. Animation presents so many possibilities, and yet most of these squander the opportunities. Why even bother if you just want to make it look like real life?

Likewise, many of the jokes come from a slight exaggeration of real-world physics. For example, in Nullarbor (not nominated, but on the program), one character’s car is destroyed. We see him sitting in the chassis. Pause. The motor comes crashing down. Full stop when it hits the ground. Next!

Similarly, many of the shorts are just ugly (but we’ll get to Mr. Morris Lessmore in a moment). Ugly can be great, but I don’t think it’s intentional, from the plodding dreariness of Dimanche to the utter banality of Mr. Morris. Only one short seems to make fun of that, and it’s not even nominated. But yap, yap, yap. Let’s move on.

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The titan of quality that is Pixar might have stubbed it’s toe last year with the release of the sub-par Cars 2, but that doesn’t change the fact that they are still riding a nearly two decade long winning streak. Creatively, their mandate of doing what isn’t expected has paid off in droves.

What makes Brave such an interesting next step for Pixar is the fact that it is the first film with a female lead who is for all intents and purposes a princess. That’s right, this is a classic Disney princess fairy tale, but done the Pixar way. Fans of Disney and Pixar have reason to be very excited at that prospect.

Disney has just released a third trailer for the film, but instead of just hyper cutting more footage to beautiful music, they opted for an extended scene that does a brilliant job of summing up the general conflict of the movie. You can tell immediately that this film has that Pixar charm we all know and love.

Check out the new trailer after the jump.

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2012 is going to be a big year for stop-motion animation, with three high profile stop-motion animated features invading cinema’s throughout the year. The most notable of this bunch is Tim Burton’s next feature, Frankenweenie, which is a feature length, animated adaptation of Burton’s own 1982 short film.

Frankenweenie tells the tale of young Victor, a boy who loses his beloved dog Sparky and reanimates him with the power of electricity. If it was not obvious up to this point, the film is an homage to the Frankenstein movies and novel.

One thing that the poster clearly presents, but is still probably lost on most people, is that the film is shot in black and white. This is a bold creative decision for any film, and one Burton used to great success once before in Ed Wood.

However, it is still a tremendous risk for a stop-motion animated film, a genre that is usually noted for it’s ability to present vibrant and extraordinary visuals. Even Burton’s own Corpse Bride used color to great effect in illustrating the differences between the world of the living and the world of the dead.

The film is set for an early October release, just in time for Halloween! You can see the full poster after the jump.

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Later this year, Nickelodeon will be reinventing the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon much in the way that IDW Publishing reinvented the TMNT comic line. While the core characteristics of the Turtles will remain intact, the creative teams behind these versions have gone in two very different directions. While IDW has gone for a more gritty and realistic (well as realistic as mutant turtles can be) version of the shelled foursome, Nickelodeon is going the other direction with a more kid friendly version much in the way the comics and cartoon series diverged over twenty years ago.

At Toy Fair, the Flickcast got to see some of these latest Turtles designs up close and personal. The first thing people will notice actually isn’t the turtles at all but the redesigns on Shredder, Splinter and April. Shredder’s redesign looks like it has some drastic anime inspired influences behind him. He has been beefed up in terms of muscles and has more exaggerated spikes on his armor than ever before. The same goes for the Foot Soldier’s who now have incredibly creepy white with red polka dotted eyes.

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There are very few things Pixar could do that would get me more excited to see one of their films. Between the overall popularity of Toy Story, Up, The Incredibles and tons more, there is very little the animation studio can do that would be considered a bad move (Owen Wilson vehicles not included).

With that said, it’s hard to believe they’ve found a way to speak to their audience even more with their upcoming video game parody film, Wreck-It Ralph, but it looks like they just might. Here’s the official synopsis of the film. Consider it Donkey Kong from the gorilla’s perspective.

Wreck-It Ralph (voice of John C. Reilly) longs to be as beloved as his game’s perfect Good Guy, Fix-It Felix (voice of 30 Rock’s Jack McBrayer). Problem is, nobody loves a Bad Guy. But they do love heroes… so when a modern, first-person shooter game arrives featuring tough-as-nails Sergeant Calhoun (voice of Jane Lynch), Ralph sees it as his ticket to heroism and happiness. He sneaks into the game with a simple plan—win a medal—but soon wrecks everything, and accidentally unleashes a deadly enemy that threatens every game in the arcade.

Ralph’s only hope? Vanellope von Schweetz (voice of Sarah Silverman), a young troublemaking “glitch” from a candy-coated cart racing game who might just be the one to teach Ralph what it means to be a Good Guy. But will he realize he is good enough to become a hero before it’s “Game Over” for the entire arcade?

As if the concept of several video and board games being parodied in a Pixar film isn’t enough to guarantee your $10, the studio has recently released some images that will give us an idea of how this video game-based world will look. Take a look after the jump, and catch Wreck-It Ralph in theaters this November.

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The Hollywood Walk of Fame is a lot like the Golden Globes. It is an honor in and of itself, but it is often awarded to someone whose project has a large advertising budget. This causes many cynics out there to feel it has no merit at all, but at the end of the day it is an honor and is part of the fabric of Hollywood.

The 2,459th star to adorn Hollywood Blvd is officially going to The Simpsons creator Matt Groening. Just in time for the 500th episode airing in two weeks, Groening will be honored with a star devoted entirely to him. A previous star honoring the Simpsons themselves already lines the famed street, close to where Groenings own star will soon be located.

Groening has forever left an indelible mark on society.   Voted the “Best Show of the 20^th Century” by Time Magazine, the [Simpsons] has left a path of catch-phrases (Homer’s “D’oh!” and Bart’s “Eat my shorts”) and societal commentary. It has also given birth to a theme park ride and United States postage stamps, personally designed by Groening. He served as producer and writer during the four-year process of the long-awaited hit feature film The Simpsons Movie, released in July 2007.  

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Coming a few weeks before the major DVD and Blu-Ray release of DC Animated and Warner Premiere’s latest release, Justice League: Doom, comes yet another awesome clip, to continue the story that left us off in the last one.

Last time, the Royal Flush Gang just got a special visit from Batman as they were attempting a routine diamond robbery. Now, we’re getting a bit more of the full team, as the rest of the Justice League shows up to take down the gang.

It’s moments like this that make you wonder why heroes as powerful as Superman or Green Lantern bother with dramatic entrances and quips when, in that time, they could have sent those villains to the moon by now. It’s one thing for Spider-Man or Batman to have quips or one-liners, but Superman? Come on…

Take a look at the clip after the jump and decide for yourself. Grab the flick on DVD and Blu-ray on February 28th.

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