POSTED BY STUART LEVINE

Crix got an advance look at the upcoming Cartoon Network skein "Star Wars: The Clone Wars" and while this wasn't your typical "Star Wars" crowd that would jam a multiplex on an opening night, the reaction to the episode was a solid thumbs up.

I'll put it right out there that the entire "Star Wars" franchise has never been my thing and I don't share in the fanaticism of others, but upon viewing it would be hard to argue that the fan base won't tune in.

Cartoon has yet to set a premiere date, but 22 episodes will launch in the fall.

So what takes place in the episode? Well, Gen. Yoda is wielding his light saber like a seasoned pro against the army of Asajj Ventress. And when he's not deflecting bullets, he's using his powers -- aka the Force -- to defeat the bad guys. Want more? Here's Brian Lowry's full review.

Supervising director David Filoni (pictured below) talked about using what's already been learned in the six films and bringing that to television.

"We know Yoda is powerful, but how is that developed? How does he use it? We can go into more detail you couldn't do in the live-action films, which are focused on Anakin," he said. "Here the Clones have more personalities and it's important to get that point across to audiences and kids."

One character featured in the episode not seen on the bigscreen is Ventress, a disciple of Count Duku, who cuts quite an animated figure.

"He's training her to be on the dark side and she's getting more powerful," Filoni explained. "We want to make her deceptive and sexual. She's a forbidden fruit walking among the Jedi. She's sensuous, like a serpent."

Filoni says he doesn't see the "Star Wars" mythology ending anytime soon, with children absorbing the phenomenon from their parents.

"Every time I go to Toys R Us, kids are picking up light sabers and wanting to go to a galaxy far, far away," he said. "I hope those fans watch this and listen to Yoda."

An interesting development within Cartoon Network was overshadowed by the slew of other announcements unveiled at the cabler's upfront presentation last week.

Rob Sorcher, Cartoon Net's newly appointed chief content officer, is spearheading a development initiative they've dubbed the "Cartoonstitute." Sorcher (pictured left) wants to get a bunch of original development in the works pronto (insert a Hanna-Barbera zoink and pat-a-pat-a-pat-a-pat sound of running bare feet here), and so he's carving out a space with the Burbank-based Cartoon Studios facility for an artists colony that he hopes will harvest funny fruit in the near future.

Cartoonstitute will be run by two veteran Cartoon Net producers, Craig McCracken, of "Powerpuff Girls" and 'Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends" fame, and Rob Renzetti ("My Life as a Teenage Robot"). Sorcher aims to put six artists to work full-time on pilots and short segments for the channel immediately, under the guidance of McCracken and Renzetti. As many as 30 more artists -- some already in-house at Cartoon, some new to the toon net tent -- will be brought in to pitch in and/or develop their own ideas at any given time, particularly when they're on production hiatus from other Cartoon Net shows.

Sorcher was part of the early Cartoon Net exec team in the mid-1990s and rejoined the channel in January after six years at AMC. He wants to generate 150 bits of programming for Cartoon Net during the next 20 months. It's an ambitious target, and a sign of how eager the new programming chief is to inject new characters and fresh yuks into Cartoon. The mission, as Sorcher sees it, is to create a "think tank" for animators. A productive think tank.

"I wanted to put a swift development track together," he says, "but the other side of it is thinking about long-term development and what it takes to get a successful cartoon series. I know that a lot of it comes from setting out the conditions where artists and writers can really succeed at doing that. We started thinking about how to create an environment where this kind of creative thinking can happen."