B-52's To Get Animated

06/03/1999 4:00 PM, Yahoo! Music
Stephen Peters

(6/3/99, 1 p.m. PDT) - The B-52's, whose loud outfits, trademark beehive hairdos, and quirky dance music made them one of the most animated acts to emerge in the modern pop era, may soon be adding another colorful chapter to their 20-year-plus career with their own cartoon show.

Stone Stanley Productions, a Los Angeles-based company whose credits include MTV's Loveline and the upcoming Comedy Central series The Man Show, announced today that it has signed the Athens, Ga.-based group to a development deal for a new animated series.

"Working with the B-52's is sure to make for colorful and interesting storylines," Stone Stanley exec Scott Stone told Variety.

While the new show will put the band in the company of other real-life acts who have gone on to cartoon immortality, including the Beatles, the Osmonds, and the Jackson Five, producers told Variety that they hope the series will be more of a cross between Josie & the Pussycats and the campy, live-action Batman show from the 1960s.

It will, however, incorporate songs from the B-52's catalog and feature members Fred Schneider, Kate Pierson, Keith Strickland and Cindy Wilson playing themselves.

News of the project should come as no surprise to those who have followed the band's eclectic career in recent years, which has included a cameo appearance as the B.C.-52's in the 1994 live-action version of The Flintstones and vocal contributions to a song from the soundtrack of the 1998 animated feature The Rugrats Movie (LAUNCH, 10/7/98).

"For better or worse, we're very different from other bands, and we can't really be lumped into other categories," Pierson told LAUNCH during an interview last August. "We're a new wave band, but we have dancing and glitzy clothes; we fall into a lot of different categories, from glitter-rock to disco to pop to rock to humor. It's very different--not necessarily futuristic or ahead of its time, but unique."

To read a B-52's feature, click here.

-- Stephen Peters

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