NORAD is already tracking Santa Claus and his airborne reindeer team as it heads south from the North Pole and ignores boring Canada to give delightful Christmas presents to all the good American boys and girls. Fortunately, the U.S. Air Force apologized for that anti-aircraft missile that almost nicked Dasher. They sent a fruit basket and everything.

The point is that you don't have much time to snag holiday toys for your TV fan friends and those few kids you actually like. Fortunately, there still some popular toys out there that can serve multiple gift giving purposes.

The I Love Lucy Barbie from Mattel (right) sells for $45, so it might be more appropriate for an adult toy collector (an adult who collects TV-related toys, I mean). But, a Barbie is a Barbie, and few girls would turn one down -- even if it features Lucy Ricardo auditioning for a part in Ricky's show at the Copa.

Director Stephen Sommers might want to discourage the production of animated lead-ups to his feature films. They keep outdoing the movies they're supposed to set up for audiences.

Before his Van Helsing reached theaters in 2004, Universal released Van Helsing: The London Assigment. Written by Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens, the animated half-hour was clever and action-packed. Van Helsing? It was not clever and action-packed.

Now, the DVD release of G.i. Joe: Resolute, an 11-episode series of animated shorts that originally aired on Adult Swim before the release of Rise of Cobra, brings a cooler and more visually compelling "Yo, Joe!" to screens.

I don't know how many of you caught the G.I. Joe movie this past weekend that is based on the cartoon and toy franchise of the 80's. I didn't, but even without seeing it, I think this sketch from Funny or Die called The Ballad of G.I.Joe is far better. Even the costumes are more accurate (if a little, but not much, cheesier).

Of course, there are quite a few television and movie celebrities making up the cast: Tony Hale, Olivia Wilde (pictured as the Baroness), Alan Tudyk and Julianne Moore, to name a few. And whatever you do, stick around for the end of the song to see a special guest star that SHOULD have been in the movie.

I remember watching the cartoon while I was a young lad, and it seems obvious that the creators of this cute sketch knew the show, possibly even more than the people who made the movie. Video is after the jump.

G.I. Joe and Transformers climbed to their lofty perches atop Hollywood's food chain from their iconic beginnings on 80's television.

Now, IDW Publishing is helping to bridge the gap between those classic 80's shows and their 21st Century big screen adaptations with new series of digital comic books based on the adventures of Snake Eyes, The Baroness, Optimus Prime and Megatron.

Made especially for online devices like iPods and the iPhone, these digital comics should be a welcome site for hardcore fans of the original TV hits as they're not blown away by the CGI-driven movie adaptions. Yes, the animation of those after-school cartoons was about one frame every four minutes, but they had such purity and charm to their morality plays.

With childhood animated icons such as Transformers and G.I.Joe getting the movie treatment (sadly done by Michael Bay), Atom Films put together an animated montage of hypothetical '80s characters (cartoon and otherwise) if they were redone by current directors. I think the sketch would have a little more impact if they did it live-action for each segment rather than animated, but I could be in the minority opinion.

I'm not sure which one is my favorite. The Smurfs done by Peter Jackson is certainly up there. Teddy Ruxpin by Wes Anderson is also a hoot. There are a few that aren't mentioned in the video that I think should have been mentioned:

• Strawberry Shortcake
• Rainbow Brite
• Gummi Bears
• The Snorks

Which franchises have I forgotten? And which directors do you think can cover these franchises? Which directors would piss on the memory of them and utterly obliterate them?

Video is after the jump.

G.I. Joe is my favorite 1980s action-adventure cartoon. So naturally I was crushed when I heard that hackmaster Stephen Sommers (Van Helsing, The Mummy) was directing the big screen adaptation, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra. But now I'm actually looking forward to the thing.

Sure, Snake Eyes is wearing slacks, Cobra Commander looks like a frakkin' Troma reject, and the movie has way more Channing Tatum and Marlon Wayans than I can handle, but check out this cool new French trailer:



First off, I love that this French trailer starts out with the Eiffel Tower getting nuked and someone telling the president, "The French are pretty upset!" Then we're introduced to the Delta 6 "accelerator" which, thankfully, is a high-tech power suit that turns boring old Channing Tatum into a super-charged flying cyborg.

(S02E07) Transition. This whole episode felt like a transition from one place to another. Not really very exciting or interesting, just kind of there.

The big news was Roxie getting The Hump Bar reopened as Betty's Bar and Grill. For Roxie, it was all about the process, which included getting the place fixed up while Trevor is starting to pull away because he's managed to get the General to send him back to his unit in Iraq.

I don't know; Trevor is getting what he wants because he acted inappropriately on the TV show. In real life, he would have been reprimanded. Trevor was really happy about being able to complete his duty, but it's going to be really hard on Roxie. You can see it coming.

Anyway, it was refreshing to see Trevor and Roxie having some fights. They are married, you know.

G.I. Joe is just one of many adaptations of '80s toys/animated series that have been on deck for the last few years. There was of course Transformers, followed by rumors of bigscreen versions of He-Man and Thundercats. Now, however, the live-action G.I. Joe movie is official.

Writer/director Stephen Sommers (The Mummy) will helm the project, which will envision the G.I. Joe team as an international collaboration of military forces battling the evil Cobra, as opposed to the America-centric gang most of us remember from the '80s cartoon. Fans can also expect favorites like Duke, Snake Eyes, Scarlett, Destro and Cobra Commander in this new flick. The movie could hit theaters by summer of 2009.

To honor the release of the Transformers movie, I thought today would be a good time to reminisce about the original heyday of the vehicles and weapons that were 'robots in disguise'. Of course, I am talking about the 1980's, when Transformers cartoons ruled the weekday afternoon airwaves.

Oh, what a glorious time that was for the tween set! Running home from school, dropping our books on the kitchen table, then plopping ourselves down in front of the television to watch Transformers, G.I. Joe, Thundercats, and M.A.S.K. right before our parents called us to the table for dinner. Sure, we ended up not doing our homework. Okay, our grades slipped. Yes, we had to repeat 9th grade a few times. Still, it was a time we would never forget!

So, you're now in that limbo period between the parade and Thanksgiving dinner where there isn't really much to do (well, except watch football. Blech!). So, you need something to occupy your time before you dig into that turkey with all of the trimmings. Boy, do I have that something for you!

Our friend iZ Reloaded (not his real name, I'm pretty sure) has compiled an extensive list of 1980's cartoon introductions that you can find on YouTube. There are seventy-five listed and they run the gamut, from Saturday morning fare like Pac-Man, Smurfs, and Dungeons and Dragons to syndicated classics like G.I. Joe, Transformers, He-Man and My Little Pony. Also included are intros to cartoons that I barely remember or never even saw, such as Potato Head Kids, Starcom and The Raccoons.