AtomFilms to Launch Paramount-Produced Weekly Show

Paramount Television Group, Paramount Digital Entertainment and Claude Brooks' C To The B Productions have joined forces with AtomFilms to produce a Web production entitled "Forty and Shorty."

The Flash-animated series, dubbed "edgy and twisted" by its creators, has the green light for 26 initial Web episodes, each two to three minutes in length. They will be released exclusively online via Atom's Web site each Wednesday, beginning July 26.

"We are excited to work with both Claude and Paramount to be the exclusive online environment for this new innovative series," said Eric Calderon, development executive for AtomFilms. "AtomFilms will leverage its market leading community to incubate this series and to develop the first-ever studio-to-Internet development relationship."

"Forty And Shorty" spotlights two 13-year-old misfit friends, one black and one white, who live across the street from each other -- one in the ghetto, the other in a trailer park. Among the supporting cast is Mr. Forty, Forty's cranky father; Grandma, Mrs. Forty's racist mother; Mrs. Shorty, a white trailer park tramp; and Sniffer, Shorty's poop-and-boogers baby brother.

Commenting on the creative freedom that the Web affords, co-creator Claude Brooks said: "I've been given the chance to do something edgy, irreverent and fun. Where else could you do something like this?"