About a month ago, we brought you news of the first new character to be revealed from Disney’s upcoming Toy Story 3. His name was Mr. Prickelpants, and he was a porcupine in lederhosen, voiced by Timothy Dalton. As if the characters couldn’t get any better than that, we just got word of the next four to be revealed.

Disney has even gone as far as to give descriptions of each new toy, staying in the context of the Toy Story Universe. Each of our favorites are still back, including Tom Hanks as Woody, Tim Allen as Buzz, Wallace Shawn as T. Rex, and John Ratzenberger as Piggy Bank.

Check out each of the descriptions, with exclusive new pics, after the jump. Catch Toy Story 3 in theaters and IMAX across the country on June 18th.

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Back at Comic-Con in San Diego last year we heard some interesting news that the raunchy animated series, Drawn Together, would be getting a direct-to-DVD movie release. We, of course, tried to get as much information on the project as we could, and came up with nothing.

For those who didn’t catch the Comedy Central series while it was on, it was about a group of classic cartoon stereotypes that get thrown into a reality show house, a la Big Brother. From there, things got pretty outrageous, from mass murder, to racism, to bisexual hot tub sex and more. It was pretty impressive that they were able to top the likes of South Park and Family Guy in a matter of 3 seasons.

Now, we’re finally getting a glimpse at what could be the most outrageous animated film of all time since Bambi Vs. Godzilla, as the first teaser trailer for the film has been released. The trailer doesn’t really give us much to go on, but it keeps hope alive that the project is still happening, and is approaching sooner than anticipated.

Check out the new trailer after the jump, and be sure to catch all of the seasons of Comedy Central’s Drawn Together on DVD and Blu-ray.

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I guess it’s only natural that one of the most successful podcasts out there (and if that sounds like a dubious distinction, the BBC reported that in 2006 The Ricky Gervais Show podcast had received a staggering 8,000,000 downloads) would get its own show…though for reasons I’ll go into in a bit, I’m not entirely sure why.

The new HBO show, which premieres February 19^th but is currently available for free download on iTunes, features flash animations of Office and Extras creators Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant antagonizing their co-host Karl Pilkington for his inane and often outlandish beliefs.

Episode #1 opens with Gervais and Merchant systematically debunking Pilkington’s assertion that technology reached its peak sometime around the turn of the 19^th Century. “What about planes?” Merchant counters, “they let you go on holiday all over the world.” “No,” Pilkington shoots back, “because you go to places where if you don’t get a shot beforehand, you can die.”

Next Pilkington proposes a biological “advance” that would allow older women to have children the moment they died. “Who would take care of them?” Merchant usefully asks.

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Moviefone has gotten access to a new still from the upcoming Disney/Pixar Animation film Toy Story 3 showing the whole gang in their new setting. The immediate thing that sticks out to me is the cinematic scope that the image gives us – possibly inherited from the steps forward that PIXAR has made in its recent films, such as Wall-E and Up, where they’re presenting a more realistic, if still stylized, reality.

It could also be part of the effect of the movie being shot for 3-D, so it’s giving us that deeper sense of space and immersion into the environment. Wanting to see what the differences are in look, and possibly style, that director Lee Unkrich might be bringing to the series, I looked up these other stills/production shots from the previous two movies in the Toy Story franchise.

See if you can tell a difference and see the progression in these images after the jump. Also, check out the larger photo from Toy Story 3 as well.

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He has been the face behind 20,000,000 units in video games sales. He was a simple scientist who fought his way through the disaster at Black Mesa and went on to become the face of the resistance against the Combine empire.

He was recently voted by the readers of Gamespot.com the Greatest Video Game Hero of All Time (even beating out Mario in the finals). He is Gordon Freeman of Half-Life and he has been able to do all of this without ever opening his mouth.

One of the key characteristics of Gordon Freeman, aside from being the “Free Man” as the aliens in Half-Life like to refer to him, is that he is also the “Every Man”. He was not a war hero. He wasn’t a super-powered being. He was a person doing his job when a terrible accident occurred and set the events of his life in to motion to lead him to a path of greatness.

Without ever being given a voice, players were given the chance to fill in the blank spots in dialogue during the game with what they felt would be their own responses.

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It’s no secret that we all get giddy for LEGOS around the Flickcast office. Whether it’s playing Lego Batman in our spare time, reviewing Lego Rock Band for the site or watching “8-Bit Trip” for Fan Film Fridays, Legos hold a special place in our hearts. It’s also no secret that we love ourselves some video games here and it is impossible to say you love video games if you don’t love Halo.

Now, six years in the making comes a trailer combining two things we love the most. No, Traveller’s Tales and Bungie are not pairing up to release Lego Halo for the XBox 360 but we are getting the next best thing. Using the magic of stop motion animation, a lot of free time and a passion for the two properties, Alex Kobbs has created a twenty-five minute long homage to his two most beloved properties with “Battle of the Brick: Built for Combat”.

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Charles Dickens purists, fear not. Robert Zemeckis remains faithful to the beloved tale, all the while putting his own spin on the story. This version is a little more exciting,  and a lot more sinister than previous outings (it also happens to be in 3D),  but I loved it.

I don’t think I really need to spend much time on the plot. Everyone knows the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, the original curmudgeon who hates everyone and everything and is just downright unpleasant. One Christmas Eve, he is visited by four ghosts;  his former business partner Marley;  the ghost of Christmas past, the ghost of Christmas present, and the ghost of Christmas future.

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Though we’ll have to wait until November 8th for the next new episode of Family Guy, we here at The Flickcast have got a special sneak peek at the episode, entitled “Brian’s Got a Brand New Bag”.

In the episode, Brian gets into a fender bender with an attractive young woman, falls for her, and goes to her house to retrieve her information. When he gets there, he gets shot down but immediately finds the girl’s mother as interesting. Things pick up from there.

There will be no episode this Sunday or next Sunday due to something called “sports,” but the show will be back with a full season after that, including the second part to the Family Guy Star Wars spoof entitled “Something Something Something Dark Side.”

Check out four new clips of the next episode after the jump, and be sure to keep it here for more on the show!

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Back in February, during a panel with legendary artist Neil Adams, he explained that the future of comics is in animation. Nobody really understood what that meant, but now with Marvel and DC releasing animated film after animated film, we are now starting to get the picture.

Shortly after Marvel announced their first two projects in the world of Anime, the first trailer for another adapted storyline has hit the web. In this story, originally written by Zak Penn, Hulk is exiled to an alien planet, where he is taken as prisoner and forced to fight in a series of gladiator-style games. The jade giant eventually becomes ruler of this world, and goes to war with Earth, which is where World War Hulk the comic picks up, but there is no word on what impact that story will have on this film.

Check out the very first trailer for the animated Planet Hulk film below, which hits DVD shelves February of 2010.

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There’s lots to see and do at the upcoming Anime Expo in Los Angeles. The expo, a production of the Society for the Promotion of Japanese Animation, showcases the best in anime and manga, serves to foster trade, commerce and the interests of the general public and animation and comics industry.

The event, which is the largest of its kind on North America, goes from July 2 through July 5, 2009 at the Los Angeles Convention Center. Be sure to check out some video of the group after the break.

Here’s some info about the show, and its guests of honor, from the official press release:

Visual kei fans get ready for a musical explosion as Moi dix Mois rocks Anime Expo® 2009 as an official Guest of Honor for the nation¹s largest anime and manga convention. Moi dix Mois is a sound project headed by Mana, the consummate guitarist and leader of Malice Mizer which is on indeterminate hiatus.

In addition to writing music and lyrics, Mana does all of the computer programming and arrangements for his songs. Mana¹s strikingly electrifying and unprecedented musical creation is the result of his remarkable talent to combine the diametrical opposites, such as the classical and the avant-garde, the elegant and the delirious, or the creative and the destructive.

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