IF EVER anyone's hero status could be said to be accidental it is Homer Simpson's. When news of the Simpsons phenomenon first reached Britain in the late Eighties we were given to understand that the hero was the spiky haired young upstart Bart, who showed his disrespect through catchphrases like "eat my shorts" and "don't have a cow, man".

The grandaddy of screen monsters is back in town. James Mottram talks to the actor Jean Reno about playing number two to a giant digitised lizard, while Joseph Gallivan asks whatever happened to good old rubber puppets

`South Park' carries its own health warning: `Not to be viewed by anyone.' By Jasper Rees

WHEN the actors providing the voices of The Simpsons cartoon series threatened to go on strike earlier this year unless they got hefty pay rises, the news made headlines around the English-speaking world. It gave viewers the chance to put faces to the names they regularly see on the credit sequences and to realise how versatile those performers can be, since they often lend their talents to several characters.

A NIGHT at what was billed as the world's first digital opera - the British premiere of Monsters of Grace, from the Einstein on the Beach team of Robert Wilson and Philip Glass - began when we were presented with a pair of 3-D glasses along with our tickets on arrival at the Barbican theatre. Nifty things, specially designed by l-a-Eyeworks (and note that classy lower case prefix), the specs presented a problem straight away. Did you wear them with the white or the blue side facing outwards, and did it matter? Once in our seats, the Barbican's Arts Director Graham Sheffield came on stage to put us right (it was white side out), and ran through the technical specifications rather like Q in a Bond film. Then he got us all to pretend we were already watching the screen so that the too- good-to-miss photo opportunity - an update of Weegee's famous pic of a 3-D movie audience from the 1950s - could be recorded for posterity and maybe the weekend arts pages.

South Park is dominated by round-faced little people with ecstasy-dilated pupils; it's a world where Wizard of Oz Munchkins have become hooligans. With the parent-troubling warning - "The following programme contains coarse language and, due to its content, it should not be viewed by anyone" - this cartoon strip from America follows in the satirical mode of The Simpsons, King of the Hill and Daria. With $25m in merchandising already spent, South Park has found the right formula for Nineties icons in this group of offensive juveniles: Cartman, aka the fat one; Kyle, the Jewish one; Stan the vomit king; and Kenny the dead. Cred must be given to a show that gets George Clooney to take a challenging part as a gay dog, and has Robert Smith from The Cure wanting a part. Animation has always been violent (Tom & Jerry were never put in the dock). The only shadow on the horizon is that a feature-length film looms; let's hope it is better than Beavis & Butthead do America.

South Park, the US cult cartoon, is ready to rattle Britain. Meg Carter reports on the string of subversive animation shows to hit American screens

The latest US import takes toilet humour to new depths. Vanessa Thorpe on the 'adult' cartoons that kids can't resist

If you're tired of the Teletubbies, get ready for South Park, the sickest and funniest cartoon ever made in America. Its creators, Paul McCann discovers, get their sense of humour from Monty Python - so will the British get the joke?

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The quirky tales of Wallace, the inventor, and Gromit, his long-suffering canine sidekick, have captured a niche market for British talent. Almost single-handedly, Nick Park, 37, the characters' inventor, has blazed the 3D animation trail in this country. But now he has a rival. Make way for Gogs, courtesy of young, animators from north Wales, Deiniol Morris, 33, and Michael Mort, 25.

There's a battle raging in Hollywood. The studios have gone crazy for animated blockbusters. There's just one problem: finding enough animators to make them. Peter Guttridge reports