SpongeBob Christmas special goes stop-motion

LOS ANGELES (AP) — How does “It’s a SpongeBob Christmas!” squeeze even more fun out of our porous little hero and the Bikini Bottom gang? By turning the animated characters three-dimensional for their holiday special.

In a tribute to classic fare such as “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” the “SpongeBob SquarePants” crew has been re-imagined as puppets and put through their comedy paces for stop-motion photography.

The story line as dreamed up by Tom Kenny, the voice of SpongeBob, and his musical collaborator Andy Paley: The denizens of Bikini Bottom are suddenly rude because of exposure to jerktonium, a plot by naughty Plankton to get on Santa’s (voiced by guest star John Goodman) nice list.

Plankton “wants to put everyone on their worst behavior when they should be on their best behavior, and zany mayhem ensues,” Kenny said.

“It’s a SpongeBob Christmas!” debuts 9:30 p.m. EST Friday on CBS, followed by an encore on the show’s home network, Nickelodeon, at 7:30 p.m. EST Sunday, Dec. 9.

The first-time foray into stop-motion is a welcome change for the 13-year-old “SpongeBob,” Kenny said.

“It’s fun that after all these years we can still do stuff that’s a little different. It’s like reinventing the wheel a little bit — if you can refer to a square character as a wheel,” he added, unable to resist the quip.

The actor looks back fondly on childhood memories of “Rudolph” from the Rankin-Bass studio and other stop-action projects. Even the TV commercial that put Santa on an electric razor subbing for a sleigh gets a Kenny shoutout.

Asked if young viewers might be fazed by seeing the familiar characters in a new guise, Kenny mulled the question before rebutting it.

“The characters act the same, the recording process is exactly the same. Our job is exactly the same. … There’s still plenty of the animated mayhem and anarchy that happens in the 2-D version of the show.”

Screen Novelties, the Los Angeles studio that produced the Christmas special, made a feast out of the job. In just one of their inventive approaches, filmmakers used fruit-flavored cereal to create a coral reef.

“I came to the studio and they had hundreds of boxes of cereal open and were hot-gluing it together,” Kenny recalled.

The Patrick Star puppet was covered in wool-like material and SpongeBob “wasn’t a sponge but some kind of weird material they found somewhere,” he said. “They’re like ‘MacGyver,’ always repurposing something.”

The TV special has a small element of recycling. Kenny calls it a testament to “a goofy little song” he and Paley wrote three years ago — “Don’t Be a Jerk, (It’s Christmas).”

“Bring joy to the world, it’s the thing to do. But the world does not revolve around you. Don’t be a jerk, it’s Christmas” is among its bouncy yet cautionary verses.

The tune is among a dozen included on the digital release “It’s a SpongeBob Christmas! Album,” most written by Kenny and Paley (a songwriter-producer who’s worked with artists including Brian Wilson and Blondie). Four songs are part of the special.

Music fans might want to check out the album for its craftsmanship. The veterans who play on it include harpist Corky Hale and harmonica player Tommy Morgan, both of whom have backed a roster of big stars, including Billie Holliday and Frank Sinatra.

The recording sessions proved an early holiday gift for Kenny.

“We’d spend a half-hour working and then make the musicians tell stories about who they played with,” he said.

___

Online:

http://spongebob.nick.com/

http://www.cbs.com/

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Do drunks have to go to the ER?

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – With the help of a checklist, ambulance workers may be able to safely reroute drunk patients to detoxification centers instead of emergency rooms, according to a new study.

Researchers in Colorado found no serious medical problems were reported after 138 people were sent to a detox center to sleep it off, instead of to an ER.

In 2004, according to the researchers, it’s estimated that 0.6 percent of all U.S. ER visits were made by people without any problems other than being drunk. Those visits ended up costing about $ 900 million.

“Part of the issue has been – as it is in many busy ER departments – there’s a lot of chronic alcoholics that are brought in by ambulance, police or just come in. Often they are brought in because they have not committed a crime or there is limited space in our detoxification center. So the majority were brought to the ER department,” said Dr. David Ross, the study’s lead author from Penrose-St. Francis Health Services in Colorado Springs.

Ross said the ambulance company where he serves as medical director created the checklist with the help of the local detox center, which provided limited medical care by a nurse, and the local hospitals to reduce the number of drunks without medical needs being sent to the local ERs.

They created a checklist with 29 yes-or-no questions, such as whether the patient is cooperating with the ambulance worker’s examination and if the patient is willing to go to the detox center.

The patient was sent to the ER if the ambulance worker checked “no” on any question.

The researchers then went back to look at the patients they transported between December 2003 and December 2005 to see whether or not any of them ended up having serious medical problems at the detox center.

During that two year period, the ambulance workers transported 718 drunks. The detox center received 138 and the local ERs got 580.

Overall, 11 of the patients who were taken to detox were turned away because there was no room, their blood alcohol level exceeded the limit, their family came to pick them up or they were combative.

Another four patients at the detox center were taken to the ER because of minor complications, including chest and knee pain. However, there were no serious complications reported.

“We really believe that we did not miss anybody with a serious illness and injury that didn’t go to the ER as they should have,” said Ross.

But the researchers write in the Annals of Emergency Medicine that their study did have some limitations.

Specifically, the researchers did not plan in advance to do a study when they were creating the checklist, which means their findings are limited to whatever information was collected at the detox center and ERs.

Also, the number of people who were sent to the detox center in their study is relatively small, so it’s hard to tell how many serious complications they’d see among a larger group of people.

“We tried to estimate how likely we would have been to encounter a serious event… We estimated at most we’d encounter three serious adverse events (in 748 patients),” Ross told Reuters Health.

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/QgPCT5 Annals of Emergency Medicine, online November 9, 2012.

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U.S. troops in Afghanistan celebrate Thanksgiving

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — It was Army Sgt. Keith Wells' first Thanksgiving Day away from his family and despite a cornucopia of food provided for the troops, his taste buds were craving his wife's macaroni and cheese back home.

"My wife's a foodie — you know the Food Network, cooking shows. Everything she makes is golden," Wells of Charlotte, N.C., said Thursday at a large international military base in the Afghan capital, Kabul.

The dining hall served up mac-and-cheese along with traditional Thanksgiving Day fixings. Wells was thankful for the good food, but he still missed his wife's home-cooking.

Huge hunks of beef greeted the estimated 2,500 diners as soldiers lined up in the dining hall. Red-white-and-blue decorations filled the room. Brochures titled "Learn about combat stress" served as table centerpieces.

There was roast turkey, sliced turkey, ham and rib-eye steaks. The troops were served steaming side dishes of dressing, corn, collard greens, yams and mashed potatoes and gravy that some lapped up with spoons. For dessert, there was a massive cake with a turkey etched in icing, pumpkin spice cookies and scores of pies.

A short walk from the dining hall, service members were playing a modified version of American football.

Parts of the scene could have come from a snapshot of any U.S. city: American guys in sweats tossing the pigskin, a scoreboard, a coin toss to start the game.

But on this military base, concrete barriers surrounded the field. The referees wore camouflaged shirts and the spectators carried rifles. The artificial turf was frayed and so dusty that when one player spiked the football, a puff of dirt rose from the field.

The players used a regulation football, but the game was a mix of football, soccer and rugby to fit the short field.

Some soldiers commented about the 11-year-old war that has claimed the lives of 2,029 American service members.

Army Chief Warrant Officer 4 Chuck Minton of Monroe, Ga., who has traveled extensively across Afghanistan, was optimistic. "It's been progressing here, getting better. The Afghans have taken over more missions," Minton said.

President Barack Obama pulled 10,000 troops out of Afghanistan in 2011 and 23,000 more this year, leaving about 66,000 American service members still deployed in the country. Nearly all international combat troops are to withdraw by the end of 2014 when Afghan forces will be fully in charge of securing the nation.

Army Maj. Rodney Gehrett of Colorado Springs, Colo., said he was surprised that the war was barely mentioned during the last U.S. presidential election — evidence that some Americans had tuned out the news from the front line a half a world away.

"The war in Afghanistan wasn't even brought up as a topic of conversation" during the election, Gehrett said. "It was a little surprising to me. Hopefully, that will change and people will realize that we still have troops here and they are fighting every day."

Army Sgt. Adam Draughn of Denver, Colo., said some people back home have the impression that the Afghan people don't want American troops in their country.

"Honestly, I think the biggest misconception in my opinion is that, you know, we actually are loved here," Draughn said. "The nationals do care about us. They do want us here to help them. We're not here uninvited."

Most of the holiday chatter, however, was focused on family.

Taking a break from the game, Army Capt. Robert Mikyska of North Aurora, Ill., pulled out a photocopied photo that was taken of he and his wife just before he deployed to Afghanistan nine months ago.

"Hi, honey!" Mikyska said, looking at the picture. "In a couple weeks, I'll be home. I can't wait to be back."

"My family's here," Army Spc. Ricky Clay, also of Monroe, Ga., said as he smiled and embraced his teammates on the sidelines of the football field.

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Greek PM presses for deal on loan

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Greece has reacted with dismay to the European Union‘s failure to agree to release vital rescue loan funds for the debt-ridden country, with the prime minister warning it was not just Greece’s future that hangs in the balance.

The delay prolongs uncertainty over the future of Greece, which faces a messy default that would threaten the entire euro currency used by 17 EU nations.

Prime Minister Antonis Samaras stressed that Greece has done what its creditors from the EU and International Monetary Fund required. “Our partners, along with the IMF, also must do what they have committed to doing,” he said.

He said that “it is not just the future of our country, but the stability of the entire eurozone” that depend on the success of negotiations in coming days.

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Academy Sues Over “Deer Hunter” Oscar Statuette

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – A possibly counterfeit Oscars trophy for the 1978 film has sparked a very real lawsuit.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has filed suit in U.S. District Court in Washington state over an Oscar statuette that “was either a genuine statuette or a very convincing counterfeit.”

If it’s real, the trophy was the one awarded to Aaron Rochin for his sound work on the 1978 film “The Deer Hunter.”

The Academy is suing Washington resident James Dunne, who sold the statue, and Edgard G. Francisco, who purchased it.

Dunne initially offered the statuette for sale on eBay in September but deleted the listing for fear that the Academy might discover it, according to the suit, which was filed last week. He later privately sold the statue of Florida resident Francisco for $ 25,000, the suit says.

The suit goes on to allege that after an appraisal, Francisco decided the statuette was fake and demanded a $ 15,000 refund. Dunne claims he provided a full refund. He also claims that he told Francisco that the trophy might not be authentic before he bought it.

Dunne told the Academy that he had either picked up the statuette at a moving sale or obtained it from a third party who got it at an estate sale.

After getting the refund, the suit says, Francisco threw the statuette away.

The Academy’s suit is two-fold: If the trophy was real, the Academy is seeking restitution for the loss of its property; if it was fake, the Academy claims that the pair infringed on the organization’s Oscars copyright.

The latter would seem to be the more probable scenario in this case. For one thing, the Academy says that the identification number for the statuette would place its manufacture in 1979, while the eBay auction billed it as a “Rare Pre-1950 Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences OSCAR Statue Award!”

The Academy is asking for unspecified damages, plus suit costs and attorneys’ fees.

(Pamela Chelin contributed to this report)

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Watch: Baby With Outside Heart Saved by Surgeons

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Tel Aviv bus blast shakes Gaza diplomacy

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A bomb struck an Israeli bus near the nation's military headquarters in Tel Aviv on Wednesday, wounding 10 people and complicating major diplomatic efforts to forge a truce between Israel and Gaza's militant Hamas rulers.

The attack came as U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton shuttled between Jerusalem and the West Bank to help piece together a deal to end Israel's weeklong offensive against Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip that has killed more than 130 Palestinians. Militant rocket fire into Israel has killed five Israelis. Clinton was due to travel later to Egypt, which is mediating in the crisis.

"What does it say about the future of the (truce) talks? I leave it to (the senior officials), but this doesn't add anything," Yitzhak Aharonovich, Israel's minister of internal security, told Army Radio.

The bus exploded around noon on one of the coastal city's busiest arteries, near the Tel Aviv museum, the district courthouse and across from an entrance to Israel's national defense headquarters.

The bus was completely charred, its side windows blown out and glass scattered on the asphalt. The wounded were evacuated and blood was splattered on the sidewalk.

"We suddenly heard a huge explosion and immediately knew it was a terror attack," said Nir Zano, 35. "I saw someone running in to carry out a woman who was injured."

Aharonovitch said the device was placed inside the bus by a man who then disembarked. The explosion took place while the bus was in movement, he said.

Police set up roadblocks across the city trying to apprehend the attacker.

"We strongly believe that this was a terror attack," said police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld. He said three of the 10 wounded were moderately to seriously hurt.

In Gaza, the Tel Aviv bombing was praised from mosque loudspeakers, while Hamas' television interviewed people praising the attack as a return of militants' trademark tactics.

No group claimed responsibility for the attack, but Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum welcomed it.

"We consider it a natural response to the occupation crimes and the ongoing massacres against civilians in the Gaza Strip," he told The Associated Press.

Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Silvan Shalom, who heard the explosion from his Tel Aviv office, called it "an escalation."

The cease-fire efforts come with thousands of Israeli ground troops massed on the Gaza border, awaiting a possible order to invade.

After meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem Tuesday night, Clinton conferred with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank on Wednesday morning and was due to travel later to Cairo, which is mediating in the crisis.

The two sides had seemed on the brink of a deal Tuesday following a swirl of diplomatic activity also involving U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon and Egypt's President Mohammed Morsi. But sticking points could not be resolved as talks — and violence — stretched into the night.

Israeli aircraft pounded Gaza with at least 30 strikes overnight, hitting government ministries, smuggling tunnels, a banker's empty villa and a Hamas-linked media office.

Dozens of civilians are among the more than 130 Palestinians killed in a week of fighting. Four Israeli civilians and a soldier have been killed by rocket fire — a toll possibly kept down by a U.S.-funded rocket defense system that has shot down hundreds of Gaza projectiles.

The Tel Aviv bus bombed Wednesday was relatively empty during the explosion, which explains the relatively low number of casualties. The bombing was the first in the coastal city since April 2006, when a Palestinian suicide bomber killed 11 people at a sandwich stand near the city's old central bus station. A bomb left at a bus stand in Jerusalem last year killed one person.

More than 1,000 Israelis were killed during the violent Palestinian uprising in the last decade in bombings and shooting attacks. More than 5,000 Palestinians were killed as well.

___

Associated Press writer Ibrahim Barzak contributed to this report from Gaza City.

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U.S. fiscal impact of great concern to Canada: Canada’s Harper

TORONTO (Reuters) – Any fiscal problems that would significantly slow the U.S. economy would be of great concern to Canada, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said on Monday.

The United States needed a credible medium-term fiscal plan, Harper said at a business forum in Ottawa, adding that he was following the U.S. fiscal debate with “great interest.”

(Reporting by Solarina Ho)

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Patrick Wilson, Rose Byrne to reprise roles for “Insidious” sequel

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – FilmDistrict, Alliance Films and Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions will bring “Insidious Chapter 2,” the sequel to last year’s hit film “Insidious,” to U.S. theaters on August 30, 2013, the companies announced Monday.

Patrick Wilson, Rose Byrne, Lin Shaye and Ty Simpkins will reprise their roles in the film, which “Insidious” director James Wan will direct from a script written by Leigh Whannell who also wrote the first film.

Jason Blum, who produced “Insidious,” is producing the low-budget sequel through his Blumhouse Productions. Brian Kavanaugh Jones, Oren Peli, Steven Schneider, and Charles Layton are executive producing. Production on the sequel is set to begin on January 15 in Los Angeles.

Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions acquired the U.S. rights to the film in conjunction with FilmDistrict. The film is being financed by Alliance Films. FilmDistrict will distribute the film theatrically in the United States, with Sony handling the majority of ancillary rights in the U.S.

Alliance Films will distribute in Canada, the U.K. (via its Momentum Pictures subsidiary) and Spain (via Aurum), and Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions will distribute in all other international territories.

Peter Schlessel, FilmDistrict’s CEO, said: “We are all very excited to see the next chapter of James and Leigh’s vision of the Further. It’s great to be in business again with Blumhouse, Alliance and Sony.”

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Rockets hold up aid for Gaza from Israel

TEL AVIV (Reuters) – Hamas rockets forced the closure of the main crossing point for humanitarian aid from Israel to Gaza on Tuesday, holding up the transfer of more than 100 truckloads of food and medical supplies including anesthetics, Israeli officials said.

Despite the fact its air force is bombarding the coastal enclave, Israel is trying to maintain the essential daily flow of basic foodstuffs into the Gaza Strip where most of 1.7 million Palestinians are dependent on aid.

A Twitter message from the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said that “120+ trucks of supplies from Israel are waiting at Gaza border crossing. Hamas is firing rockets at the crossing. Trucks can’t enter now”.

Israel says it launched its military offensive a week ago to halt increasing Islamist militant rocket fire on southern Israeli communities close to the Gaza Strip.

The Kerem Shalom crossing at the extreme south of the Israel-Gaza border, next to Egyptian territory, is the only freight passage into the blockaded territory.

No comment was available from Hamas. But a Palestinian liaison official said the crossing was closed after some mortar bombs landed at Kerem Shalom and work was suspended after just one hour of operations. The western-backed Palestinian Authority liaises with Israel on Kerem Shalom transfers.

For security reasons, it operates on a back-to-back system: trucks go in from Israel and offload within the protective concrete walls of the terminal, then trucks come in from the Gaza end and load up.

Since the start of the latest round of violence, now in its seventh day, Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), says it has let in 123 trucks loaded with food, medicine and fuel, including 43 that passed on Tuesday before rockets started to fall.

The rest of the transfer included 16 truckloads of medical equipment “specifically vital equipment, such as medicines, anesthetics and disposable medical equipment”, COGAT said.

The main Israeli fortified crossing-point at Erez was opened to permit the exit of 26 patients and their escorts into Israel in order to receive medical treatment, the authority added.

“While Israel is committed to providing continued assistance, it is subject to the limitations created by continuous rocket fire and attacks on the part of Hamas and other extremists groups in Gaza,” COGAT said.

“Rocket attacks endanger the staff manning the crossing and often hinder or prevent the transfer of goods,” it added.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) says 1.2 million Gazans rely on UNRWA assistance, which enters the territory via Israel.

“UNRWA will continue to provide food aid to more than 800,000 refugees in the Strip. Our schools are providing a place of safe shelter. Our health clinics remain open and ready to bring medical care to the children, the sick, and the elderly,” the agency said in its latest update on the crisis.

In relatively normal times about 130 truckloads of aid — mainly bulk staples — go through the Kerem Shalom crossing daily.

(Additional reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi; Editing by Giles Elgood)

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