Fox plans to get a lot more animated

The Critic… Futurama… Mission Hill… Dilbert… God, the Devil and Bob… More and more failed animated primetime series haunt our television dreams… yet Fox is putting more eggs into its prime time animation basket for one… no, make that two billion big reasons:

In seventeen years of primetime domination, The Simpsons has made Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp $2 billion. And Family Guy is approaching the ten million dollar mark.

With that pocket change as incentive, Fox has two animated primetime pilots in the works, many more in development, and is reviving a favorite that a few months ago was given up for dead:Saturday Night Live‘s smartest contributor teams with its dumbest veteran for Animals, a suburban spoof from the point of view of four-legged creatures (sounds like Over The Hedge meets Brian from Family Guy). The series comes from SNL‘s TV Funhouse guy Robert Smigel and Adam Sandler’s Happy Madison productions, which means Rob Schneider will probably be getting some voice work.

American Dad writer Dave Hemingson gets another shot at nasty comedy with Two Dreadful Children, centered on genius fraternal twins born into a “redneck family.”

And with all the money Fox is raking in with cartoon DVDs, licensing, merchandising and international sales, Variety reports that it’s even resurrected King of the Hill, set to return in January.

While Fox has been the only network outside the cablers to succeed with primetime toons, CBS is also getting into the act. Later this season, Les Moonves and company will debut the American version of the U.K. series Creature Comforts from Aardman, creator of Wallace & Gromit.

–Tabloid Baby