The new family movie "Ice Age: The Meltdown" is written for laughs. But some people might also see it as a serious message about the dangers of climate warming.

The film brings back the animated animals from the two thousand
two hit movie "Ice Age." The main characters are a wooly mammoth
named Manny, a sloth named Sid and a saber-toothed tiger named
Diego.

In the first movie, Manny, Sid and Diego faced the dangers of the coming prehistoric freeze. This time they are threatened by floods from the melting of the Ice Age.
At first, the animals love the water. Later, when they discover the threat, they must warn everyone else and find a way to save their valley.
MOVIE SOUND: "It's all part of my 'Accu-weather' forecast. The five-day outlook is calling for intense flooding followed by ... THE END OF THE WORLD!"

The world of cartooning has changed a lot since the days when Walt Disney drew his
characters by hand. Animated cartoons are especially labor-intensive. Animators create a sense of movement through a progression of many images. Each image is a little different than the one before it. Today many animators, including the ones who made the "Ice Age" movies, get help from computers.

But Walt Disney's work still influences modern cartooning. He started his company in
nineteen twenty-three. He had his first big success five years later. He combined animation with sound in the nineteen twenty-eight film "Steamboat Willie."

"Steamboat Willie" was the first movie to star Mickey Mouse. Later came other famous Disney characters, including Donald Duck.
Donald Duck is over seventy years old now, but you could never tell by looking at him. To animate something means to give it life. Animated characters can live forever -- or at least as long as they stay popular.

Another form of cartooning is the comic strip. Comic strips are a drawing or a series of drawings that present a situation or tell a little story. Comic strips are usually good for a laugh or at least a smile.
American newspapers commonly publish a page or more of them each day. These are usually black-and-white drawings. Sunday funnies are often published in color.

Readers of all ages enjoy the comics in the newspaper.

On television, cartoons used to be thought of as mainly for children. But times have
changed. For example, Cartoon Network says one-third of the people who watch its
programs are over the age of eighteen. So it offers special late-night programming called "Adult Swim." These cartoons are meant to appeal to what it calls "a grown-up sense of humor and other adult sensibilities."
One of the shows, "The Boondocks," is based on a newspaper comic strip.
"The Boondocks" is the story of Huey and Riley, two young African-American boys. They come from a rough part of Chicago, Illinois. Now they live with their grandfather in a mainly white community. The characters are known for their sharp observations about life there, and life in general. Huey speaks his mind like a revolutionary.

"The Boondocks" often deals with issues of race and social justice. The strip is more political
than most comic strip readers are used to. Some think it is great; others think it goes too far.
"The Boondocks" appears in about three hundred fifty newspapers. Aaron McGruder is the
cartoonist who created it. He has been taking a break from the print version since March,
and does not plan to have new ones until October. "Every well needs refreshing," he says.