Nick is readying to bow four new toons for the six to 11 set beginning in the fall and Q1 2001. All 13 x half-hour 2-D animated series, Invader Zim, Chalk Zone, As Told By Ginger and The Fairly Oddparents come with total budgets running between US$450,000 and US$550,000 per ep.

Invader Zim is an original Nick production created by comic book writer/illustrator Jhonen Vasquez. The series explores the life of an alien sent down to spy on earth. Zim goes off to elementary school ‘disguised’ as a student. He sports an Elvis-like wig and his skin is a little on the green side. A kid called Dib is no idiot-he figures out the dirt on Zim and is determined to expose him.

Chalk Zone, produced in-house, charts the course of 10-year-old Rudy Tabootie after he gets his hands on a piece of magic chalk. Rudy enters another world through the chalk board, where everything that has ever been drawn and then erased is magically brought to life.

As Told by Ginger, produced by Klasky-Csupo, revolves around sixth-grader Ginger Foutley, who is on a quest to be cool. Ginger is torn between her childhood friends and breaking out beyond the safety of what she has always known into a more sophisticated realm, where there are mixed-sex parties, gossip, crushes and popularity to pursue.

The Fairly Oddparents, another Nick original, transforms a kid’s imagination into reality. Ten-year-old Timmy has the ability to conjure two people to help him out of sticky situations. The Oddparents lend a hand when a babysitter gives Timmy attitude, and try to fix it so he can have only ice cream for dinner.

And new to the international market, MTV Networks is launching Little Bill at MIP-TV, an animated show for pups created by Bill Cosby (based on his book series). The preschool entry, which bowed State-side on Nick in November, follows a five-year-old’s adventures as he explores his world, and contains two pro-social stories in each of its 26 half-hour eps, designed to help little kids solve

problems.