Butt-Ugly Martians to Land on Nick

Creatures from the Red Planet are preparing to invade Nickelodeon.

Viacom Inc.'s children's network will become home to Butt-Ugly
Martians
, the CGI-animated series that played big in the United Kingdom,
Nov. 9.

Nick will bow the skein at 7 p.m. in the time slot the network uses to
introduce new animated fare, according to a spokesman. Butt-Ugly Martians
will then settle into a noon time slot Sundays.

Butt-Ugly Martians launched in February 2001 in the United Kingdom on
CITV. The action-adventure-comedy series garnered a 33 percent share of the
kids' audience on CITV, leading to the network repeating the first 13 episodes
this past summer, according to the show's producers.

The series -- backed by an impressive list of licensees, including Hasbro
Inc. and Scholastic Inc. -- is a Just Entertainment production in association
with Mike Young Productions and DCDC in Hong Kong.

Set in the year 2053, the series features three Martian heroes --
B.Bop-A-Luna (Charlie Schlatter, Diagnosis Murder), 2-T-Fru-T (Rob
Paulsen, The Mask) and Do-Wah-Diddy (Jess Harnell, Animaniacs) --
who land on Earth at the behest of the evil leader Emperor Bog.

However, enamored of our planet's pop culture, the Martians have no intention
of taking over and instead relay progress reports about their conquering
efforts.