Playing an ape through motion-capture technology might be daunting to some actors. Not Andy Serkis. He's been through the motion-capture process before, playing Golem in the 'Lord of the Rings' series. He's even played an ape before, acting as Kong in 'King Kong.' Thursday on 'The Early Show' (weekdays, 7AM on CBS), Serkis talked about the particulars of motion-capture acting and his latest role, playing the chimpanzee Caesar in 'Rise of the Planet of the Apes.'

What I love about acting is the art of transformation," he said. "I'm inside of Caesar when I'm playing Caesar. There's no question. I mean, it's ... there is a period of, you know, subsuming yourself completely into the role, and then there's a deep decompression period afterwards. And you have to be able to do that."

The same company that created the characters on film for 'Avatar' created the chimps and apes for 'Rise,' studying the skin and fur of the animals to faithfully recreate that on the screen. The 'Early' report said to look forward to more of that kind of technology working its way into the movies. It may be time to remake 'Every Which Way But Loose' with Serkis as Clyde.

Recently, when I shared my view about a certain Dell computer commercial, some of you thought I was a moron. Okay, we'll call it a difference of opinion. However, just to show you that I'm not a grumpster, allow me to extol the virtues of the Macy's commercial that celebrates this iconic American department story that's been around for over 150 years.

What makes The Magic of Macy's so much fun is that it doesn't tell you why the place is legendary, it shows you why. All those film clips from movies and television, years before anyone was using mentions like these for commercial purposes, underscore how much a part of pop culture Macy's was.

(It still is, to some extent, but the days of one brick and mortar store dominating the business landscape are long gone.)

Road Runner, that Coyote's after you. Road Runner, if he catches you your through. -- Theme to The Road Runner Show, which premiered in the fall of 1966.

Showtime! After years of playing around on Saturday mornings to find the right mixture to bring in the young viewers, the networks took the bull by the horns in the fall of 1966 and ushered in the Golden Age of Saturday morning cartoons. No less than 11 new cartoon series appeared during the 1966-67 season. Many of them were action and superhero-oriented thanks to the popularity of ABC's live-action Batman series.

The 1966 season also began the domination of Saturday mornings by two animation studios -- Hanna-Barbera and Filmation. For Hanna-Barbera this would be the second year of original Saturday morning programming. For Filmation this would be the first of many years producing fairly entertaining and slightly better animated fare that featured more action and adventure and less in the way of talking animals.

So, if you have your bowl of Cocoa Puffs in front of you, let's see what you were watching back in 1966.

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Turner Broadcasting just inked a deal with NBC Universal that puts a bunch of movies, including this winter's King Kong, on its networks in 2008. Not sure if the NBC network had the first right of refusal on that movie, but you would think so.

Along with King Kong, Turner also bought the rights to air these movies in 2008:

• The Ice Harvest, starring Billy Bob Thornton and John Cusack;
• Doom, starring The Rock;
• Two for the Money, starring Al Pacino and Matthew McConaughey;
• Prime, starring Meryl Streep and Uma Thurman.