LOS ANGELES -- Prancing penguins. Rascally rodents. Sociable squirrels. Saber-toothed tigers. The Hollywood hills were alive with talking critters in 2006, possibly the biggest year ever for movie animation.

With the barrage of ads for flicks about cute, fuzzy wildlife and other cartoon creations, are audiences having trouble telling one from the other, and more importantly, are they getting overloaded by animation?

''There's definitely an overload, and I think everyone recognizes that,'' said George Miller, director of the latest animated adventure, the Warner Bros. penguin romp ''Happy Feet,'' which opened Friday.

In the decade since Disney and Pixar's ''Toy Story'' revolutionized the industry with computer-generated images instead of hand-drawn cartoons, first DreamWorks with ''Shrek'' and then other major studios leaped into the animation business.

Ten years ago, Hollywood released as few as three or four animated movies a year, with Disney the only steady player. This year, 16 films are expected to be eligible for the Academy Award for feature-length animation, only the second time in the six-year history of the animated Oscar that there were enough movies for a full field of five nominees, rather than the usual three.

''Happy Feet,'' the story of a penguin ostracized because he can't sing like his brethren but who can dance up a storm, features a voice cast led by Elijah Wood, Nicole Kidman, Hugh Jackman and Robin Williams. If the movie meets industry expectations and becomes a holiday hit, it should lift overall domestic revenues for this year's animated films well above $1.2 billion, according to box-office tracker Exhibitor Relations.

That would beat Hollywood's previous best of $1.18 billion for 2004's animated movies, which included the blockbusters ''Shrek 2'' and ''The Incredibles.''

But no animated film in 2006 came close to the $300 million and $400 million returns of the all-time leaders, ''Shrek 2,'' ''Finding Nemo'' and ''The Lion King.''

Next year looks huge -- though familiar -- again for animation, the schedule fronted by ''Shrek the Third''; another rodent tale, ''Ratatouille,'' from Disney-Pixar; a big-screen take on TV's ''The Simpsons''; and another penguin comedy, ''Surf's Up.''

Source: http://www.msn.com
POSTED BY DAVID GERMAIN



####