Steve Stanford
CEO, Icebox.com

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Showtime just went shopping for a new animated series, and the search ended in an unexpected place: the Internet. Landing on a website called Icebox.com, the cable network snapped up Starship Regulars, a zany cartoon about the sad-sack crew of an interplanetary warship. Welcome to the future of television production.

Just months after Steve Stanford and a trio of Hollywood producers launched Icebox, the site is poised to create America's first mass-appeal Web-based entertainment. The Internet is many things to many people, but to Stanford, founder of International Creative Management's New Media Group, it's the ideal incubator for movies and television shows. By operating in cyberspace, Stanford says, Icebox "removes the friction from the process" of creating new programming. In Hollywood, there's usually more than a year between the time a pilot is approved and the day it airs. Operating in the antibureaucratic world of the Internet, Icebox can get a series up in months. It is also cost-effective: Icebox's animation costs about one-tenth of what the networks spend.

Best of all, Icebox offers freedom. With a roster of 75 writers, hand-picked from shows like The Simpsons and Futurama, it's already produced a remarkable collection of edgy, irreverent cartoons. Hard Drinkin' Lincoln portrays Honest Abe as an alcoholic lout who lolls around the house in his underwear. Hidden Celebrity Webcam pretends to reveal embarrassing episodes at the Streisand residence and chez Cher. (These are "not intended in any way to be malicious," says a disclaimer. "Mean, yes; but not malicious.") It is doubtful that any of this material would ever have made it past formula-loyal network executives. Icebox is creating a new kind of entertainment that can't be seen anywhere else. How much further will it go in 2001? And will it — gasp! — actually make money? Stay tuned.

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PHOTOGRAPH FOR TIME DIGITAL BY MICHAEL GRECCO
PHOTO-ILLUSTRATION FOR TIME DIGITAL BY WILLIAM DUKE (inset)

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