News

Awesome news for Instant Star Fans: "The Instant Star 3 DVD is now confirmed for January 19, IS4 to come in March" confirmed cause it came from Stephen Stohn's twitter. (AKA the Executive Producer for Instant Star & President of Epitome Pictures) Also here's an interview with Laura Vandervoot (aka Sadie Harrison) about her new show "V."

Glee is receiving an award for diversity. Apparently the show is also inspiring Glee clubs to start popping up in high schools across the country. And the soundtrack has hit #4 on Billboard's Top 200 chart.

More episodes have been ordered for The CW's One Tree Hill (They'll have a full 22 episode season,) Melrose Place (5 more episodes ordered, total of 18 so far,) and The Vampire Diaries (9 more episodes, total of 22.) In more Melrose Place news - Ashlee Simpson-Wentz and Colin Egglesfield were "dismissed" from the show, reportedly because their characters were too dark. And just in case you were wondering, Jessica Simpson thinks the show is crap (except for the parts with her sister, of course.)

There's been some news about the casting of TeenNick's new show Gigantic. The cast includes some real-life kids of celebrities like Meryl Streep's daughter, Grace Gummer, and Gia Mantegna, daughter of Joe Mantegna (aka that guy from "Criminal Minds" or Fat Tony on "The Simpsons".) We should start seeing the show in early 2010 on TeenNick.

I have to say, I really like the graphics on HALO Awards related stuff - very sleek, modern, shiny.
The HALO Awards have their own page on the site now, (good news - we'll be able to nominate people next year.) Also a Message Board, longer promo, and a quiz (look my HALO is my voice! Which is kind of funny, I guess this means the quiz is pretty accurate?)

Also there's a new blue. I'm sure Blue Man group is totally freaking out right now. And so are the Smurfs.  And the people who work on Blue's Clues. And - OK stopping now.

News via Snarkyteen

So, If you've seen the New York Times interview with Nick Cannon (see it on Nick Cannon's site here,) you might have noticed he's got a briefcase (no word on if it was stolen from Deal or No Deal) with a logo for the Halo Awards - reportedly a special that awards teens that make a difference in their communities/world. The award event ha been rumored to be scheduled for December - perhaps it's the big announcement being made during tonight's new episode of Degrassi?

+ Though that announcement could also be for the TV show "Gigantic," that's been in the works for The-N/Teen Nick for years, but seems to have gotten rolling only recently. Seeing as they had a casting call for it earlier this month.

+ New movie inspired by the music of "School Gyrls" the girl group signed to Nick Cannon's record label.  He talks about it to Access Holloywood here.

There's more info on the band's myspace page. They don't have any songs up, but there are plenty of Youtube videos that have snippits various songs. (I'll leave music critiques to you.)

+ The Glee Cast got bumped from the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade - but their music sales on iTunes have been doing pretty awesome.

+ Disney plans to revamp their stores in to mini-theme park like experiences - and they're getting Steve Jobs & crew to help with it. While I occasionally despise Disney for some of their crappy programming, their interest in building tweeny empires out of their stars/shows, and the whole your-princess-movies-give-girls-unrealistic-expectations-about-love/boys/hair/relationships/animals/the functions of common household objects - these stores do sound pretty cool.

Promo for The-N's "Rebrand"

Name change, rebrand - whatever the hell it is, there's a promo for it here.
The-N's ordered 13 episodes of the show "Gigantic" about a bunch of teens with celebrity parents (and strange names.) It's rumored to debut early 2010. You can watch a promo and the pilot on the Stop Following Me Productions website. (Now if they'd only air "What Goes On" ...)
The Degrassi Goes Hollywood Movie premieres... in a few hours.
+Degrassi Freebies in iTunes - an episode of Degrassi Jr. High (look at Joey, in Jr. High, with HAIR!) - Also some behind the scenes stuff from the Degrassi Movie.
+The Degrassi Goes Hollywood Soundtrack is also out - in iTunes and on Amazon
+Alexz Johnson has a new website, with the deets on what's up with her album
+*Probably true rumors* Instant Star Seasons 3 and 4 will be coming out on DVD, possibly as early as this Fall. Instant Star Greatest Hits Album (or Season 4 soundtrack, not sure if they're one in the same) will be coming out this fall - September. All rumors courtesy of what I've heard about Stephen Stohn's Twitter account. From what I've seen of it, most of the rumors seem verified by him (and he would know, he worked on IS and his wife created the show.) I just didn't have the time to go through all of his tweets. (Though if you're a stickler for the truth, feel free to go through them yourself)

In The-N.com world...
+You can get a free Secret Avatar from Beyond the Break by taking a "How Deep is your Knowledge of this Show?" quiz.
+You can make your avatar invisible by clicking on every boy avatar on the 2nd page of body options, then clicking on #21, then choosing a hairstyle and *Poof* Invisible Avatar!
+In honor of the new Degrassi Movie - Spirit week is on and 2 sets of previously retired Secret Avatars have been released. The very first "Degrassi" set aka "Degrassi Season 2" and the more recent "Degrassi Season 8" set. There's a list of what all of the Degrassi Secret Avis look like here.