It's about time!

At long last, Cherry Jam is part of Strawberry Shortcake's section of AGKidzone.  I'm assuming that they put off adding her until this week because in this past episode, she decided to make Berry Bitty City her home for good.  It's not like they had a lot of extra work to do that kept them from adding her.  Clicking on her just brings up a profile blurb, aim icon, a non-existent coloring page (I assume it'll surface eventually) and her music video. For all I know, the video might have been on the site earlier, since every time I checked, I only bothered looking at the front page, assuming that, as the newest video, would be the very first one.  But no, now that it's on the site, it's the last video, on page two.  Why?  Who knows?  At any rate, the music video has been up on The Hub for a couple of weeks now (in better quality), and even SSC's youtube had it before AGP put it up (assuming they only put it up this week).

The Hub's Naughty or Nice

Just as they did last year, The Hub is giving viewers the chance to vote for who's the nicest and naughtiest characters from their shows.  This year, however, it's set up like a tournament, with the pool of candidates dwindling the closer we get to Christmas.  They're also starting way earlier this year than last.

I feel bad for Chris, since the way things are set up, he's vs. Pinkie Pie, and there's just no way he can win that. At least Dan is vs. McLeish, which makes him a shoo-in to move on to the next round.

Dan Vs. This Game

Dan Vs. finally has a game on The Hub, aptly titled Dan Vs. This Game.  It's a side-scroller with just three levels, each based on a different episode of the show.  While it isn't too difficult in theory, I had a hard time beating it simply because of all the enemies making my computer lag.  That, and jumping is not as easy as it should be.  Just trying to get from one platform to another slowed me down considerably.  But even so, it took less than an hour to play the whole thing.
Still, I enjoyed playing it, even if level three's super-lagging got on my nerves.  The level transitions are fun, and level themes work well with the show's style.

The Hub Mashup Promos

The Hub continues to be awesome promo-wise, with a couple of new commercials that mix characters from the most popular shows, such as Strawberry Shortcake's Berry Bitty Adventures and Transformers Prime:



And Dan Vs. and My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic: (gotta watch it on the site, but if they upload it to youtube, I'll add it here):

"My car!"

"...bedazzled..."

Keep being awesome, The Hub Promos!

Lite Sprites - The Cartoon

In a rather strange move, Lite Sprites only gets 11 minutes for its special, which I guess is a sign of the times, but still strikes me as odd.  The special also has an official title, so I guess it's more of a pilot.

Shine On
The special opens with Prisma using her color wand to make multicolor marshmallows, and then call up "glimmer" the other Sprites to remind them about their upcoming slumber party.  Oh, it's one of these.  Geh.  So yeah, the girls have wands that not only spread color, but act as cell phones, apparently?  Each of the Sprites takes a moment from their work (or in Astra's case, snoozing), to confirms their plans, though Bleak refuses to commit to actually showing up.  Prisma also reminds Astra not to fall asleep, but of course that's just what she does.

Cut to that evening, with all the girls, even Bleak, gathered to celebrate the new moon.  Prisma calls on Astra to light up the sky with stars, as not doing so will let the shadows take over Lite-Topia.  Since this is only an eleven minute special, Astra is ready to comply.  And apparently she has to keep doing this through the night, as Prisma brings up the second matter of business, keeping Astra awake all night.  Okay, if it's so important for Astra to stay up at night, then how come she wouldn't let the girl catch her z's during the day?  Regardless, no sooner are the words out of Prisma's mouth than Astra falls asleep again, which Bleak, our resident snarker it seems, blames on how dull this "party" has been so far.
Meadow's in charge of fun and games, so she pulls out what she considers to be the most fun thing ever: magazine quizzes!  Bleak is not convinced, especially when the first one is "Reveal your inner lipgloss!"  The other girls are into it, though, and clamor for another, which Meadow readily provides: "When did your BF become your BFF?"  For these girls, it's a no-brainer: the day they found their light wands!  Bleak points out she wasn't actually there, but that turns out to be only half true, as Meadow decides to recount the story for them.

It started with them all (minus Prisma) at the Lite Tree, just as they are now, and she had just told a most hilarious joke.  As she remembers them all laughing uproariously, Bleak cuts in to remind her of what really happened: nobody got the joke.  At all.  Brooke continues the story with the entrance of Prisma, who had just had a crazy dream.  They were all there, making Lite-Topia just the most colorful thing you'd ever seen with awesome wands.  Bleak was quick to point out that it was just a dream, but when Prisma reveals that her dream started with them drinking peach nectar, just like they were then, the other girls were hooked.  Prisma continued to tell them about her dream, and how they went to a waterfall, and wouldn't you know it, Brooke was planning to show them a waterfall that day.  Convinced of her psychic powers, Prisma called for them to all visit the waterfall, and the girls quickly followed her lead.  Except for Bleak, who just rolled her eyes.
Down at the waterfall, Prisma spotted some colors from her dream behind it, and Brooke, by way of falling out of a tree and getting tangled in a vine, found a secret passageway inside.  Deep inside, they came to a fork, and it seems Prisma's dream didn't include which one of the two they took.  While the girls wondered what to do, Meadow imitated a game show host, and started to glow.  Which was in Prisma's dream, so off they went, finally ending in a crystal cavern.  There they discovered the wands, hanging from the ceiling, and since she dreamed it, Prisma goes right ahead and grabs one.  This knocks the others down right into the hands of the waiting sprites, but since Bleak wasn't there to grab hers, it instead cracked the ground and caused an earthquake that caved-in the entrance.  Definitely not part of Prisma's dream.

Back in the present, Prisma blames herself for getting them all stuck, but remembers that this is the part where Bleak saved the day.  It turned out that while Bleak was just hanging out at the Lite Tree, the earthquake shook open the opening of a passageway leading to the crystal cavern.  Hearing the other sprites' voices coming from the hole, Bleak leapt into action, climbing down the stairs, and found the other sprites completely unaware the stairs behind them.
In the present, she insists that this was nothing, and when the other sprites persist in hailing her as a hero, she turns to the story towards Astra, who was the one who brought along the extra wand for her.  With everyone safe and sound, Prisma remembered the next part of her dream, and thus the girls put their wands together with a call of "Shine on!" (Um, why?) and blammo, Lite-Topia was suddenly way more colorful than before.  Each girl waved her wand for a flash of light, but Bleak's instead made a zapping sound, making the others think it didn't work.  But for Bleak, it worked just fine, stealing the color from the door.
Best day ever, now that Bleak thinks about it.  With the story wrapped up, the other girls realize that Astra hasn't fallen asleep once.  Unlike Prisma's pet butterfly, which gorged itself into a food coma.  Which is hilarious, of course.  Astra refreshes the stars and even creates some aurora borealis for good measure, closing out the show.

Misc. Screenshots
Bleak steals color
Meadow shows off her breakdancing moves

So yeah, that's basically it.  For what it is, it's pretty good, though there are a few niggling things that keep coming to mind.  Like what was the point of making the main plot of the special a flashback?  I mean, 40% of the show was just getting the girls into position.  Why not not just have the story start where the flashback does, and use the extra time to do more showing and less telling?  (I'd be all for actually seeing Brooke fall out of the tree, rather than just hearing one of the girls mention it.)
Another thing that bothers me is bringing up the whole "shadows will take over if Astra falls asleep" thing.  Mostly because it turns this special from a cute little toy commercial into a bundle of wasted potential.  Who cares how the girls got their wands?  Show the shadows trying to take over!  Are the shadows sentient creatures, or just a force of nature?  What kept them at bay before the girls got their wands?  Don't get me wrong, the special works as is (again, for what it is), but if you're not going to pay off the mention of shadows, then don't bring it up at all.  Keep Astra up because it's a slumber party, or because the stars need extra help without the moon, but don't tease the viewers.
Speaking of the shadows, I find it interesting that they're (apparently) the antagonists in this world, and not Bleak.  After all, from the doll descriptions, she seems to fit that bill, being a rebel color-stealer.  Instead, she's one of the main girls, considered a friend, even if she'd rather be doing something else.   She's also what makes this special worth watchign, at least for me.  I tend to prefer the characters who, when living in a Sugar Bowl, buck the usual characteristic of everyone being nice and friendly (unless they're a villain), and being rather cynical.  Bleak pretty much echoed my thoughts during the most targetting-the-demographic parts of the special, and while I know I shouldn't be too hard on a special that is, after all, airing during the Hub's preschool block, it still amused me to have at least one character being sarcastic toward the others' never-ending upbeat attitudes.
Animation-wise, the special actually looks pretty good.  The girls suffer from basically being the same shape with different hair, but that really only stands out when you look at still images.  The voice acting is decent, but Meadow, Brooke, and Astra's VAs don't quite have a handle on their voices, making the characters sound slightly different from scene to scene.  None of the VAs have done much else (if anything), so that probably has something to do with it.

Lite Sprites - The Toys

Chalk this one up to the Hub.  As I was scrolling through the schedule page, checking for any new info, I noticed that Maryoku Yummy was sharing its timeslot with something called Lite Sprites.  Having never heard of this, I did a quick search and discovered that it was a set of toys that got an animated special.  The general gist of the toys is that they're dolls that can light up with color.  Not only that, but you can take colors from everyday objects and transfer them to the dolls, and the dolls can share that color with each other and their various playsets.  It kind of reminds me of Glo Friends, with a dash of Rainbow Brite and Star Fairies.
The story behind the dolls is that they're in charge of keeping their home, the land of Lite-Topia, full of color.  Each one of them is in charge of a different area, with names to match.  Prisma is the unofficial leader, in charge of color in general, Astra is in charge of the night sky, Meadow has all the plants, and anything watery falls to Brooke.  Bleak is actually a rebel sprite, who prefers to zap away all the colors the other sprites work so hard on.  This translates to her doll being able to "steal" the color of the other dolls, and if you try to give her a color, it fades away in seconds.  Which is actually pretty cool.
The dolls themselves look a little funky, but I know that if these had been out when I was a kid, I would have been all over them.  But does the animated special do the dolls justice?  Stay tuned.

Dan Sings!

The Hub has a new summer promo, and it just blew my mind. Not because of the actual song, but because the very first lines are sung by Dan (aka Curtis Armstrong)! There's also Pinkie Pie and Megatron (from the new Transformers cartoon):

Kinda makes me hope for a musical episode of Dan Vs. in season two.

The Hub Knows About Internet Stuff

So it seems that The Hub is putting out a new kind of ad campaign, first noted when they posted a short parody of Katy Perry's "California Girls" on their website, and then sent a sneak peek of the extended version to Equestria Daily, complete with a Bronies shout-out:

And now they're promoting the addition of Jem and the Holograms (the original 80's series, not a remake) by having Randall (of Honey Badger Don't Care fame) give it the Abridged Series treatment:

Frankly, it's not that funny, but I like the direction the Hub seems to be taking. Are more internet-meme-inspired promos on the way?

Merry Christmas!

Hope you folks had a nice Christmas.  I spent a lot of it on the road, but it was all worth it in the end.  However, this means that I didn't get to see the results of The Hub's Naughty or Nice-a-thon, but I heard that Fluttershy won for Nicest and Megatron (of the new Transformer series) got Naughtiest.

Hubworld: Naughty or Nice?

This Christmas, The Hub is having a contest to see which characters from their line-up are the nicest or naughtiest, with the winners getting a marathon on Christmas Day.  You can choose from seven characters in each category, though you can vote more than once.  Characters relevant to this blog include Twilight Sparkle, Fluttershy, and Strawberry Shortcake for niceness, and Nightmare Moon for naughty.  What makes this contest slightly different from any other character poll is that you can choose how naughty or nice a character on a scale of one to ten.
Although The Hub has promised a marathon for the winners, I'm guessing that what they probably mean by that is a marathon of episodes featuring these characters, and this contest just picks the order.  But we'll see come Christmas.

The Hub on Gaia - Strawberry Shortcake's Hat

The Hub has a promotion on Gaia now where if you watch a clip from the new SSC series, you get Strawberry's hat for your avatar.  So cute ^_^  I wonder if The Hub will do this for any of their other shows?

The Hub On Demand is up

For those of you who have On Demand as part of your cable package, The Hub already has a channel set up.  Right now it's just a sneak peek, but you can catch two episodes of Maryoku Yummy.  I'm guessing that once the channel debuts officially, they'll start to put up recent episodes of their higher profile series (as Cartoon Network On Demand does) after they air.
The Maryoku episodes include two segments already shown on AGPbrands.com ("No Left Feet" and "The Biggest Wish").  Strangely, though "No Left Feet" was already shown as being coupled with "Ookas Just Wanna Have Fun," it's now seen with "Ready Set Glow."

Hubworld is Go!

So, on Monday The Hub's site officially opened...kind of.  While going to the main page still shows the preview site, clicking the headlines takes you to a Page Not Found page on the actual site, where you can read show descriptions, watch videos, and play games.  Strangely, the character page for Berry Bitty Adventures leaves out Raspberry Torte and Plum Pudding.  Most of the games are crossovers from Hasbro's site, but there's a very fun Adventures in Ponyville game that showcases the upcoming animation style.  (It'll be more fun once you can actually save your progress.)

Speaking of My Little Pony, Hasbro updated its page on Monday as well, so that it's all G4, all the time.  The main attraction of this update, IMO, is the new opening theme, which is very catchy, and gives us our first look (listen?) at the voice actors for the main ponies.  A press release from Discovery's site already revealed the VAs:
Tara Strong as Twilight Sparkle (which we already knew)
Ashleigh Ball as Applejack and Rainbow Dash
Tabitha St. Germain as Rarity
Andrea Libman as Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie
Cathy Weseluck as Spike
There was a press release on the same site for Pound Puppies, which doesn't seem to have too much in common with its predecessors (Pound Puppies without Cooler is hardly Pound Puppies at all!), but earns points for having John Di Maggio as one of the dogs.
And while I'm talking about Hub news, faithful reader Max Jordan sent me an e-mail with the first day's (and the next day) schedule, which the Hub is calling Sneak Peek Sunday.  Despite the sneak peek starting at 10, the channel will apparently officially open at 6:00 am EST, as per the link sent by Max.

The Hub Updates

Just the other day, The Hub updated its teaser site.  It's still pretty much a teaser, but now it has some actual content, in the form of summaries of upcoming series, plus a preview video.  Here are some relevant screenshots:

The video has clips from more shows than are listed on the site, since to go along with the channel's 10/10/10 opening date, there are ten show synopsizes posted.  (Click the images below to read the whole thing, or just go to the official site.)

 Not sure how I feel about Pound Puppies joining the ranks of Updated 80's Property, but I'll give the show a shot.

Update:  A new image and slightly different synopsis for My Little Pony has been put up:

Those eyes are most definitely bigger, but props for the first look at Princess Celestia in cartoon form.

Coming Soon: The Hub

A few months ago, Hasbro announced that it and Discovery were creating a new TV channel, and recently, more definitive news has begun to leak out.  The channel is called The Hub and is launching on October 10th, but what is most relevant to my post here is that one of the announced shows is the new My Little Pony series, subtitled "Friendship is Magic."  I wasn't really going to post just for that, although I have heard that according to show runner Lauren Faust, the series will have villains and boy ponies, which has caused most of the older fans to rejoice.
The real reason I'm posting, though, is one of my readers sent me an e-mail to let me know about the channel, and included some info that's not in the article I linked, such as the channel's programming starting at 1 PM Pacific time (4 PM Eastern), and other programs including R.L. Stine's The Haunting Hour, a new version of Pound Puppies, and the CG Strawberry Shortcake, which I am assuming is Berry Bitty Adventures.  I don't know where the reader got this info, or how much of it is true, but I figured I'd pass it along.
Update: Here's an article that talks about the previously unmentioned shows, and yes, the Strawberry Shortcake series is Berry Bitty Adventures.  Also, Maryoku Yummy finally has a home!