Vancouver: Fifty percent of production at Vancouver’s Atomic Cartoons is Flash animation for the Internet and almost half the 30 employees are at work on Web productions.

Key to that volume is a coproduction deal with Seattle-based honkworm.com to produce 13 five-minute episodes of Dog in a Box with Two Wheels. At press time, Atomic was on the fifth installment.

The story – hardly politically sensitive – is about a jaded dog that becomes a disabled crime fighter after his legs are blown off by a senior citizen.

The main character was created by Atomic and honkworm.com has developed the story and supplies the voices. Stylistically, the series is inspired by Ren & Stimpy and old Warner Bros. cartoons, says director/partner Trevor Bentley. Budget-wise, the Flash-based productions are much less expensive than traditional animation. Dog in a Box is part of a 30-episode order from honkworm.com that might include other titles, says Bentley.

You can check out the shorts on honkworm.com and atomiccartoons.com.

Atomic has also picked up an order from mondomedia.com to do 10 five-minute episodes of its Thugs on Film series, which was previously done in-house. Thugs, inspired by Siskel & Ebert type shows, involves two animated film critics who review current films.

On the traditional animation side, Atomic will wrap six months of production on Pelswick, a 13-episode, half-hour series for Nelvana, says Atomic partner Rob Davies, a recent Emmy Award winner for his direction in the series Steven Spielberg Presents: Pinky, Elmyra & The Brain. Pelswick, a Saturday morning cartoon, is about the life of a kid in a wheelchair.

Atomic recently wrapped its work on a few episodes of The Oblongs for Warner Bros. and it also has a service contract to do some episodes of Zeta, a spin-off of Warner’s Batman series

*First story gets second producer

At vtv, aboriginal affairs magazine show First Story has been renewed for the fall, but not with the producer who won the recent Leo Award for best information series at the helm.

Jeff Bear, the creator of the series when vtv went live in 1997, didn’t have his contract renewed, says station gm Jon Festinger, who declines to provide other details. Taking over the next season of 26 half-hours is Tatiana Housty, who is also host of the show.

Also renewed and buoyed by improving ratings is national talk show Vicki Gabereau, which will do another 100-plus hours for broadcast starting this fall.

National chat show Mason Lee on the Edge, yet another program that launched with vtv, is returning for up to 30 half-hours.

VTV News at Five, VTV News at Six and VTV News Late Night are all returning in last year’s formats along with VTV Breakfast (which airs weekdays 6 a.m. to 9 a.m.) and 30 Canuck hockey game broadcasts.

While in-house production continues, independent production made for vtv is less successful. Youth-oriented variety series V (Badry Moujais, producer) won’t be picked up for a second season, and variety program The Jim Byrnes Show (PS Films) won’t return for a third. At press time, local personality program Pacific Profiles (Troika Productions) wasn’t holding its breath for renewal for a fourth season, either.

*Let the games begin

At CBC Vancouver, regional director Rae Hull’s tireless advocacy for the local industry has paid off with a national half-hour dinnertime news show with Ian Hanomansing as host – an impressive feat given that Mother Corp. is making its massive cuts to news. Details of the new news show – that may involve the host doing five live shows a day – were being worked out at press time.

On the variety front, however, CBC Vancouver will air (tentatively) Oct. 7 the first of six half-hour episodes of Improv Comedy Games, by creative producer Richard Side and PS Films. Eight cast members contribute to the comedy by pitting their improvisational skills against one another.

*Giant undertaking

Discovery Channel and The Learning Channel in the u.s. will premiere the documentary Giants – The Mystery and the Myth by Vancouver film producer Alex Hamilton-Brown (Hamilton-Brown Productions) July 13.

The hour-long program – which chronicles the myth and fact of giants throughout history – took the producer around the world. Footage was captured in Russia, Israel, Jordan, Britain, Canada and the u.s.

‘Like most people, I believed giants were the stuff of fairytales and mythology,’ says Hamilton-Brown. ‘But the more I researched the more I began to realize there might be some truth behind these old legends of giants.’

Goliath, for instance, was apparently a remnant of the Rephaim people referred to in the Old Testament, says the producer.

The program features graphic digital work by Northwest Imaging & fx.