Cuphead is inspired by arcade titles of the 80s and 90s, but its visual inspiration comes from classic animated movies and cartoon shorts of the 1930s. All 50,000 frames of animation were drawn on paper and inked by hand, and each level’s background is a watercolor painting. The game’s soundtrack is made of over three hours of orchestral, big band jazz music recorded live. The only thing that matches the attention to detail and authenticity is the game’s difficulty, which we’ve described as “tough-as-nails gameplay.”

Like the game, the trailer released today holds true to the 1930s style. Stop Motion Department used many of the same techniques as animators of the era, including using wooden heads, leather hands and primary shapes common in children’s toys from the 1930s. The trailer was animated without computer programs and shots were used as-is, without corrective editing. Stop Motion Department used drawn-out charts and metal gauges to record the position of each puppet and filmed the trailer using “C Mount” lenses from the 1930s.

“The whole process was designed top to bottom to feel like the cheery, slightly creepy films and toy advertisements of the 1930s, and we couldn’t be happier with how it turned out,” Studio MDHR co-director Chad Moldenhauer said in a blog post.

Regardless of where you play the game, the trailer is a delightful addition to the Cuphead world.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars wrapped up its final season on Disney+ a couple of months ago, but there’s another animated series in the works from a galaxy far, far away. Star Wars: The Bad Batch will premiere on the streaming service next year.

The cavalry has arrived! @StarWars: The Bad Batch, an all-new animated #DisneyPlus Original Series from Lucasfilm, will debut in 2021. Get all the details: https://t.co/w7EU4Y4q91 pic.twitter.com/coXSfQuv7S

— Disney+ (@disneyplus) July 13, 2020

It’ll follow the Bad Batch (surprisingly enough), a group of experimental clones who debuted in The Clone Wars. Each of them has a unique skill, “which makes them extraordinarily effective soldiers and a formidable crew,” according to a Star Wars blog post. The Bad Batch will tackle missions as mercenaries while they seek a new purpose “in the immediate aftermath of the Clone War.”

CBS has expanded its Star Trek offerings on its All Access streaming services with an offbeat animated series. Star Trek: Lower Decks focuses on the lives of the least important crew members aboard one of the least important starships, the U.S.S. Cerritos. Set in 2380, it follows ensigns Mariner, Boimler, Rutherford and Tendi (voiced by Tawny Newsome, Jack Quaid, Noël Wells and Eugene Cordero) as they tackle jobs ranging from saving planets to taking out the holodeck trash.

The show sprung from a CBS deal with Star Trek: Discovery co-creator and showrunner Alex Kurtzmann, and will be guided by Rick and Morty veteran writer Mike McMahan. Lower Decks won’t be quite as risqué as the R-rated Rick and Morty, but Kurtzmann said it would lean “slightly more adult.”

Connected starts as a story about a dad upset that his kids spend too much time on their devices. He attempts to change that by taking them on a family road trip, but things change quickly when robots turn evil and technology as a whole seems to revolt.

What makes Connected more interesting is that it’s being produced by Christopher Miller and Philip Lord, who both worked on The Lego Movie and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. It’s directed by Michael Rianda, the creative director behind Gravity Falls. Connected will build on the Into the Spider-Verse animation tech and offer a “more sophisticated take on tech than ‘phone bad,'” Miller said in a tweet.

Wanna see a groundbreaking animation art style? A hilarious, emotional story? A more sophisticated take on tech than “phone bad”? Or just the antics of a walleyed pug?
All that & more are in CONNECTED.
From Gravity Falls Director @michaelrianda & produced by @philiplord & me! pic.twitter.com/TBFYTwCNyg

— Christopher Miller (@chrizmillr) February 20, 2020

Connected will arrive in theaters on September 18th.

Aimed at preschoolers, Ghee Happy will feature characters like Ganesha, Saraswati and Kali. “I’m so excited and lucky to be able to create a preschool series that introduces the great pantheon of Hindu Deities, not just into a beautiful and colorful series that is truly entertaining and original to my kiddos, but to families around the world,” Patel said.

We can expect a lot from the show, given Patel’s previous work on Pixar films like Monsters Inc., Ratatouille, Cars, Toy Story 2 and both of The Incredibles movies. He’s also behind the short animated film Sanjay’s Super Team, which was nominated for an Academy Award and an Annie Award. The only bad news is that it will take a couple years before Ghee Happy is ready and available on Netflix.

While a lot of the exclusive content Disney has lined up for Disney+ will be available for launch, Clone Wars fans will have a few more months to wait. Today at the D23 Expo we learned that the next season of the animated show will be available for streaming in February 2020. Meanwhile, Disney dropped off the first trailer for its live-action Star Wars show, The Mandalorian, that will premiere with the service on November 12th.

Without an updated Clone Wars trailer, we’ll just point you back to the one from the announcement of its return that appeared last year.

Disney:

Kathleen Kennedy announced that the highly anticipated new season of “Star Wars: The Clone Wars” will stream on Disney+ in February 2020. The Emmy® award-winning animated series will be returning with twelve all-new episodes and will mark the return of classic characters Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi and fan-favorites Ahsoka Tano and Captain Rex.