iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Ryan W. Mead @rwmead.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Liberty Bibberty was constructed by Jim Henson’s Creature Shop, and a 2014 article on Buzzfeed pointed out the entire cast deteriorated with the exception of Baby Sinclair’s head. And amazingly, a naked Liberty Bibberty looks for all the world like Baby Sinclair’s head.

A Baby Sinclair head from the Jim Henson Productions series Dinosaurs. It is still intact but shows noticeable cracking around the eyeballs and nose.

An image from Jim Henson’s Creature Shop’s Instagram page of a “naked” Liberty Bibberty, a round yellow mascot for Liberty Mutual.

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Ryan W. Mead @rwmead.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Why is the CEO of Dell married to a Disney animatronic

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Ryan W. Mead @rwmead.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

The LA Times also had a very nice article on #HeyArnold’s 30th anniversary, which reveals that Craig Bartlett in currently in talks to write both a graphic novel and a novel adaptation of unproduced spinoff “The Patakis” for Paramount Global Publishing!

latimes.com

'Hey Arnold!' at 30: Why a cartoon about a boy with a football-shaped head endures

When the Nickelodeon animated series premiered Oct. 7, 1996, its offbeat, lyrical and sometimes painfully honest portrayal of childhood in the city set the show apart.

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Ryan W. Mead @rwmead.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

In honor of the 30th anniversary of #HeyArnold, Republic Records and Nickelodeon have digitally released an album of Jim Lang’s music from the show previously only available as a vinyl record from Enjoy the Ride Records!

youtube.com

Hey Arnold! The Music - YouTube

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How David Ellison’s Skydance Outwitted Everyone

In 2023, Warner Bros. almost bought Paramount. Would the result have been better or worse than the Skydance that officially exists as of today? How the Ellisons beat Netflix and wooed the government to allow a Paramount/WB merger with no strings attached:

hollywoodreporter.com

An inside story of the billionaires, ultimatums, frantic texts and hush meetings behind the $111 billion deal bringing together Warner Bros. and Paramount. The megadeal twists and turns even had David...

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Also included are “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” with additional vocals by Jennifer Hudson and “Holiday Road” (otherwise known as the theme to National Lampoon’s Vacation) with additional vocals by Kermit and Fozzie.

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Now that's a holiday wish we can make happen. 🎸✨ #DisneyWorld #TheMuppets #MissPiggy

Miss Piggy and Cyndi Lauper promote the “Obligatory Holiday Overlay” for Disney World’s Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster. Lauper joins the Electric Mayhem for “Silver Bells”:

youtube.com

YouTube video by Disney Parks

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Retired NHL star P.K. Subban is a producer (which comes from the same team that did a live-action version which aired in the States on Discovery Kids) and also lends his voice as the Screech Owls’ coach. The NHL will handle sales and distribution in the U.S. and Scandinavia.

Written by Roy McGregor (“the Wayne Gretzky of hockey writing”), “The Screech Owls” is a series of novels for children about a hockey team who manages to get themselves involved in your standard Hardy Boys/Scooby-Doo adventure business from ghosts to jewel thieves.

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P.K. Subban To Star In 'Screech Owls' Animated Ice Hockey Series

The National Hockey League is getting into the kids’ entertainment business, co-producing with prominent Canadian media houses Shaftesbury, Sphere Media, and Boat Rocker an animated adaptation of “The Screech Owls”:

deadline.com

P.K. Subban will exec produce and star in an animated version of ice hockey series 'Screech Owls' for the NHL, CBC, Radio-Canada and TFO.

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Academy and Prime Video Announce Historic, Multiyear Deal to Exclusively Stream the Emmy Awards Globally

TV’s most prestigious awards are no longer on TV: the Primetime Emmys will air on Amazon Prime for the next six years. There will be no paywall, so the ceremony will still be able to be viewed for free.

televisionacademy.com

In a groundbreaking six-year agreement, television’s highest honor moves to Prime Video.

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Probably best known as the film in which a soldier named Wilhelm gets killed by a Native American’s arrow. The sound he makes as he dies has since been named in his honor.

A new preschool series for PBS nationwide is being developed by Fred Rogers Productions in collaboration with the ELA. Entitled “Fredosaurus Rex”, it is still in early development but is inspired by a statue in Pittsburgh of a dinosaur wearing the iconic red sweater of Mr. Rogers

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Nine PBS receives $11M in Ready to Learn funding for literacy initiative

Health and Human Services has started administering Ready to Learn grants that the DoE halted last year, and St. Louis’s PBS is planning an Everyday Literacy Alliance, an attempt to raise U.S. literacy rates before fourth grade (at 30% by one report):

current.org

The award follows the Department of Education’s cancellation of about $23 million in Ready to Learn grants last year.

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It’s ironic that Eddie Deezen became famous for having a distinctive voice, because his personality unfortunately exactly matches how you’d expect someone with a voice like that to act in real life

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I recall a few years ago Eddie Deezen went viral (and not in the good way) for a Facebook post he made about a waitress he was horny for who had the audacity to take a day off when he visited and for some reason the woman who played Zuzu in It’s a Wonderful Life defended him

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I guess sort a thing is sadly inevitable, but there’s also a sort of irony in it as Shout! was founded by the same people who founded Rhino Records after selling it to Warner Bros. and it faced the same fate - a label devoted to niche novelty that gradually lost its identity.

Ryan W. Mead @rwmead.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

The AV Club itself has sadly been long past its glory days, but they occasionally still manage to write some bangers, including this one about how Shout! Factory has gradually become a victim of private equity and the slowly encroaching mass market it was founded to be a counter to.

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The occupation of the national radio stations by enemy forces is one of the lesser-known incidents of the Emu War of 1932

Ryan W. Mead @rwmead.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Koth was one of the writers on the Garfield strip and also received credit alongside Jim Davis on U.S. Acres, and that style of writing somehow fits for the Looney Tunes. Despite the revised strip getting traction, it ended in 1990, though reprints appeared in the DC comics.

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Ryan W. Mead @rwmead.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Doing some research on Looney Tunes ephemera, I discovered that although the comic strip “Bugs Bunny” ran for years, it gained no attention until Kathleen Helppie-Shipley and Darrell van Citters revamped it in 1988 to be more like the cartoons. Brett Koth wrote, Shawn Keller drew

Three examples of the Bugs Bunny comic strip by Koth and Keller, as reprinted in Animato #20.

The first strip shows Bugs being startled by kissing sounds from Daffy Duck: “Wow, Daffy! Who’s the lucky girl?” Daffy turns around, revealing he is holding a mirror and kissing his own reflection: “Huh?” Bugs: “Skip it”.

The second shows Wile E. Coyote operating an “Acme Radio Controlled Punch Bowl” - which punches him in the face with a giant boxing glove.

The third features an indignant Daffy: “Look at this big magazine article on you…just because you’re turning fifty! How come *I* didn’t get and article written about *ME* when *I* turned…ahh…err…ummm…” Bugs: “Ehh, HOW old did you say you were?” Daffy: “Twenty-nine…now shut up.”

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Plus: The rape case and porn, cornrow canceling, and more...

“There has to be an answer if GenAI can be considered sentient in some religion somewhere” only makes it more obvious the techbros putting everything into it are treating it as a pseudoreligion in itself

reason.com

Anthropic vs. the pope

The creators of Claude spoke to numerous religious leaders, including the Pope and a prominent rabbi, to argue that GenAI had a soul, with the rabbi countering that if it did then it basically counts as a modern form of slavery since humans are forcing them to do their bidding

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“We really have no idea what’s going to happen when we stick two legendary studios, each with their own irreplaceable legacy, together where they never belonged, so we’re just going to call the whole mishmash Skydance and play it by ear”

Ellison continued, "We chose this name for a few important reasons. First and foremost, as we bring Paramount and Warner Bros. together, we wanted to preserve what has made each of these studios iconic. Both have distinct identities, extraordinary legacies and brands that have resonated with audiences for generations. We never wanted a new corporate identity to diminish, alter or overshadow either one. Instead, we wanted a name that would give the combined company an identity of its own while allowing Paramount and Warner Bros. — and all our extraordinary brands - to remain in the spotlight."

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In a debate which sounds like it could have come out of The Simpsons, residents played an AI-generated video stating they hear 1,000 screams a day, while a Universal rep offended those in attendance by suggesting “we could solve this tomorrow if you all want to wear noise-cancelling headphones”.

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Universal Studios Promises New Sound Barrier To Reduce Coaster Noise

Residents of Los Angeles’s Toluca Lake neighborhood, including a descendant of Walt Disney and a composer who can no longer compose, attended a town hall meeting over an unusual subject: the screams coming from Universal Studios’s new roller coaster.

deadline.com

Universal Studios Promises New Sound Barrier, More Research, To Mitigate Screams From New Coaster

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YouTube video by Wagnarock (Dimitalus)

One last ran ran ru from Donald McDonald, whose name has officially been changed in Japan to Ronald McDonald as of October 1 to match the international outlets:

youtu.be

Ran Ran Ru

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Mattel attracts takeover interest from Authentic Brands Group, source says

With Mattel’s former CEO leaving to run the combined Paramount-Warner Bros., Authentic Brands, the owners of multiple clothing brands and the licensing rights to Elvis, Marilyn Monroe, and the Care Bears, seeks to acquire the toy giant for at least $6bil: www.reuters.com/legal/transa...

reuters.com

Mattel has been approached by Authentic Brands Group for a takeover that could value the Barbie maker at around $6 billion or more, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters on Thursday.

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Ryan W. Mead @rwmead.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Paul Reubens’s belongings will be auctioned off next month. A lot related to Pee-wee and the Playhouse, of course, but also some nearly-wases (he was almost the voice of Monkeybone) and who-knews (who knew he was a huge fan of Thunderbirds and Ultraman?)

juliensauctions.com

Paul Reubens' Big Auction

Come on in and pull yourself up a chair! Julien's is honored to present Paul Reubens' Big Auction - a once-in-a-lifetime event celebrating the li...

Ryan W. Mead @rwmead.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Unlike the animated Tales from the Cryptkeeper, Secrets of the Cryptkeeper’s Haunted House was not a children’s adaptation of the HBO show and/or the EC comics as this article claims; rather, it was a game show similar to American Gladiators or Legends of the Hidden Temple.

Ryan W. Mead @rwmead.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

At last, we have created the machines from Mike Rianda and Jeff Rowe’s animated comedy The Mitchells vs. the Machines

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Ryan W. Mead @rwmead.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

The impressive cast includes: Maurice LaMarche as Egon (original cast member) Laura Summer as Janine (original cast member) Phil LaMarr as Winston Jonah Ray as Ray Rob Schrab as Peter Kevin Mangold (Slimer puppeteer for Frozen Empire) as Slimer Derek Mears as The Boogieman

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Ryan W. Mead @rwmead.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

On October 3, Saturday Morning Cartoons United and Sony’s Ghostbusters Give Back will present a live reading of “The Boogieman Cometh” for The Real Ghostbusters’s 40th supporting the Starlight Children’s Foundation, which will also be livestreamed ($15):

calendar.dynastytypewriter.com

Giving Back with The Real Ghostbusters: A 40th Anniversary Celebration

at Dynasty Typewriter

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I just found out about the “Chester Cheetah thinks PepsiCo should be named CheetosCo and now all the products are arguing that they’re more important than Pepsi” campaign and it’s somehow dumber than “Why isn’t The Laughing Cow laughing anymore?”

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And even THAT is an incredibly specific technicality! All I Want For Christmas is You ONLY counts as the previous record holder only by counting 7 years of non-consecutive re-entries, which is like a sports team measuring an unbroken winning streak by ignoring every loss.

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The actual issue is that most people’s introduction to Choosin’ Texas - including myself - is not as a song but as the answer to a trivia question, how most of the mainstream media chose to cover it: “Which song broke the record for most weeks at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100?”

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There have been multiple successful country artists who crossed into the mainstream music culture! Dolly Parton! Billy Ray Cyrus! Garth Brooks! Lil Nas X! Ella Langley is not one of them - at least not yet.

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