'Simpsons' creator: In 2-D animation, eyes have it
Los Angeles-Matt Groening, creator of "The Simpsons," says one thing drives him crazy about the computer-generated imagery (CGI) used in hi-tech animated movies these days.
"It's the eyes," he told a Television Critics Association panel here. "The characters in CGI have human eyes. That's why I like the 2-D animation we use. Our illustrators draw a circle and put a dot in the middle. Now that is an animated eye."
Groening also said there will be a second "Simpsons" movie, but not to get in line yet.
"It will happen at some point, but I have no idea when," he said. "The first one took us four years - mainly because we don't like to work any harder than we usually do."
* The producers of Fox's new "Secret Millionaire," where rich people live like poor people for a week and then give them money, tried very hard to distance it from Oprah's "Big Give."
On the Oprah show, people competed to give away money most effectively, and at the end, a winner was declared, leading to complaints about exploitation.
"Secret Millionaire," said producer Greg Goldman, "is not a game and not a competition. It's a social experience" in which millionaires also learn lessons from their week among the poor.
* Timothy Olyphant, a new cast member on FX's "Damages," said he always figured there was "a really strong chance" David Milch would never film the ultimately canceled "Deadwood" finale.
Asked about the difference between filming "Damages" and "Deadwood," Olyphant said, "When these guys talk, I understand what they're saying."
* Kurt Sutter, creator of FX's new outlaw biker drama "Sons of Anarchy," said Katey Sagal's matriarch character may rule her criminal clan like Ma Barker, but that his inspiration for the role was Shakespearean.
"I wanted to put a layer of 'Hamlet' on top of this drama," he said. "Katey plays the Queen Gertrude character."
* The producers of FX's "Damages" declined to say if Ted Danson's Arthur Frobisher character lives or dies this season. Danson will return, though the producers said it could be just in flashbacks.
Danson said he hopes Frobisher lives. Asked if it has been more fun to play this evil attorney or his womanizing bartender Sam from "Cheers," Danson said, "In my 30s, the womanizing bartender. Today, this is far more fun. I've never had carte blanche to be as narcissistic. Except in life."
* One of the ways Fox's new sci-fi series "Fringe" will relieve the tension of its dark storyline is with a series of quirky little visual signatures.
One of those signatures is a cow. But discerning viewers will note that between the first and second episodes, it's a different cow. That's because the first episode, the pilot, was shot in Toronto and when filming shifted to New York, agricultural regulations prohibited Fox from bringing the cow along. So an American cow was cast.
