Reviews

This was near the beginning of the Pixar studio's life. The brilliantly done computer animation -- somewhat a novelty at the time -- was particularly good at giving emotions to otherwise lifeless objects. Here, a unicycle conveys feelings through the animation and music in a magical way.

This award-winning short made artistic use of light sources and personification while still proving that CGI was a viable medium. This short paved the way for a number of other projects and won critical acclaim at the Tourney of Animation in Europe in the late 80's. As they say, the rest was history after their success snowballed into Toy Story, Monsters Inc, Finding Nemo, and the 2006 hit Cars.

This is a funny pilot that was done for Fox but never aired since Fox rejected the concept. A search for the Awesometown video on Google or another search engine will lead you to 20 minutes of fun in this quirky show. It was apparently intended to be a 30 min show featuring the boys listed here. Their budding comic genius sparkles here in the perpetually perky and perfect every town, USA. The occasional introduction of reality into the sketches makes for great comic tension. It is certainly worth a look. You'll leave wanting more episodes and you will hum the Awesometown songs all day.

While the concepts are simple, the sketches are well done. Just Two Guys Having a Good Time and Castaways are memorable, but it's the theme that makes it great.

This appeared on PBS in some markets in the US after originating on the BBC in the UK. This is a series that blended reality TV with real spy intelligence and the fantasy of being a spy. The show challenged the 8 participants to carry out increasingly difficult assignments as spy training. There was no million dollar reward at the end, just the satisfaction of knowing that you have what it takes to be a spy.

The assignments were given in each episode by former intelligence workers, like one man from the CIA, which lent realism to the assignments. Participants were asked to leave if they violated some of the codes of conduct or if they could not adequately complete a task. No one was "voted off" and you were kept guessing if anyone would leave the show on a given week or if multiple people would leave. The plot lines were ingenious. The production quality was good, but the show was shot more like a gripping documentary than a game show. The show is very addictive. This is well worth watching if you can hunt down a copy of it.