Bear with us here, as if you just watch the following trailer, you may be a bit confused as to what it actually has to do with the furry fandom. You'll just have to take our word that there is actually a fairly important, fun furry character in this series, despite the fact she's in less than a second total of the trailer. (If the video below isn't visible, try this link.)

Star Trek: Lower Decks is the eighth television series (if you count streaming series as such) and the second animated series in the long running Star Trek franchise. The first three seasons of the show are available from the Paramount+ streaming service; the fourth season will begin airing September 7. In a tribute to the original animated Star Trek series's catperson alien Caitian crewmember Lt. M'Ress, Lower Decks's supporting cast includes Dr. T'Ana.

The Great Wolf Pack ®: A Call to Adventure is a 45-minute 2D animated mini-movie produced in 2022 by Great Wolf Resorts, an American chain of family-friendly hotels featuring indoor waterparks. Most of the animation was outsourced to Mexico, directed by Chris Bailey and written by Kent Redeker. The IMDB page mentions an additional writer I couldn't find in the closing credits, M.J. Offen.

The movie is for young kids and can pretty much be skipped. There's a group of young animal friends in the forest: Violet the wolf and Sammy the squirrel (action girls), and Oliver (a raccoon tinkerer who always talks using the most loquacious and unnecessarily wordy vocabulary), who are joined by newcomer Wiley (the coyote wolf), and finally Brinley, a young bear with self-confidence issues, who of course gets chosen as the Special One by a spoon-wielding spirit and is given the Magical Rock to guide them on their quest.

The Amazing Maurice (trailer) is a 93-minute UK-Germany computer-animated film released in late 2022. Directed by Toby Genkel and Florian Westermann, the screenplay by Terry Rossio (Shrek, and many others) is an adaptation of the 2001 children's fantasy novel The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents by Terry Pratchett.

"One day, when he was naughty, Mr. Bunnsy looked over the hedge into Farmer Fred's field and it was full of green lettuces. Mr. Bunnsy, however, was not full of lettuces. This did not seem fair."
-- from Mr. Bunnsy has an Adventure

Set in Pratchett's Discworld comedic fantasy universe, The Amazing Maurice is the story of a cat (Maurice, voiced by Hugh Laurie) and a group of rats who have acquired speech and intelligence. Together they travel from town to town with a young human musician named Keith, running a pied piper scam. Maurice wants them to make as much money as possible, but the rats would like to move on and find a place where they can live in peace and harmony, finding inspiration in their revered text, Mr. Bunnsy has an Adventure.

Lackadaisy, from Iron Circus animation, based on the webcomic by Tracy J. Butler, has put out a teaser trailer for a first season of episodes. This season of episodes will be crowdfunded through BackerKit, which has currently reached the million dollar total donations mark, which is enough to fund the full goal of five episodes.

The comic Lackadaisy (sometimes known as Lackadaisy Cats) tells the story of the titular speakeasy in a fictionalized version of St. Louis, Missouri during the Prohibition Era of United States history. The cast is comprised entirely of fictional cats, so it is furry. The crowdfunding campaign is prominently mentioning it's 2011 nomination for an Eisner Award in the category for Best Digital Comic, but it also has won the Ursa Major Award for Best Graphic Story. A pilot episode of the show was released earlier this year to YouTube.

Welcome to the July edition of Digging Up Positivity! Time flies when you are having fun and fruit flies like a banana. This episode is filled to the brink with charities, because boy, you lot have been busy! Our guest is one of the most known mice from the Netherlands: Miesdo Mouse.

We have a few announcements and if you like the British furs, you DEFINITELY want to watch till the end of the video. From now on you can become a member of this channel and usually you can see the episodes a wee bit earlier just like my other supporters. But of course, you know the deal: Like and subscribe. I would love to spread the positive goodness from this fandom a bit further thanks to your help!

And now, on with the charities, because boy, there are a lot of these this month:

How about a trailer for a movie that comes out early next month this time?

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem is seventh theatrical movie to star the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and either the fourth or fifth cinematic continuity, depending on whether you count 2007's TMNT as a continuation of the first three Ninja Turtle movies or not.

The studio behind the furry Secret Life of Pets and Sing duologies, Illumination's next movie after their super-successful Super Mario Bros. Movie (well, at the box office, anyway; less so with critics) will be a movie about ducks called Migration.

With the (very delayed) release of episode 8 of Helluva Boss to YouTube June 24, the first season of the show is now officially over. With eight episodes released, beginning Halloween 2020 (plus a pilot episode released November 25, 2019, which will be part of this ranking even if it's not officially part of this season), the show is the creation of Vivienne "Vivziepop" Medrano, and is produced by SpindleHorse Toons.

Set in a version of Hell, the main cast consists of Brandon Rogers as the titular "boss", imp Blitzø (the "o" is silent), leader of demonic assassination business Immediate Murder Professionals, or I.M.P.; Richard Steven Horvitz and Vivian Nixon as Moxxie and Millie, a married couple of imp employees; Erica Lindbeck as Loona, his hellhound adopted daughter and I.M.P.'s receptionist; and Bryce Pinkham as Stolas, a member of Hell's ruling class who serves as a sort of silent backer for I.M.P. while also becoming romantically entangled with Blitzø.

The show's second season is up to its fourth episode, out of twelve, and a third season has been confirmed. Currently, Helluva Boss is only available on YouTube, though completely for free; there are no rumors or even much desire for a physical media release.

This episode of Digging Up Positivity we feature charities, animation, and this time our featurette is a short documentary about Kitwana, lion, role model, and more. Do stay until the end to find out who has won that Thabo T-shirt from my Artwork Tee store. But first, lets hop into the charities.

Welcome to the first Digging Up Positivity of 2023! Of course we start off with a bunch of charities, animation news, and our guest of this month is a staple from the virtual furry scene: BioGodz, we will discuss his new projects and how he got into the wonderful world of virtual reality!

But first things first, lets hop into the charities:

Right on time! A couple of years ago we told you about a new animated TV series headed to the Disney Channel in 2023 — and now here we are. Animation World Network has this news: “Disney-Branded Television announced that Kiff, their nutty new animated buddy-comedy about optimistic squirrel Kiff and her chill bunny bestie Barry, will premiere Friday, March 10, on Disney Channel and Wednesday, March 15, on Disney+. Kimiko Glenn (Orange Is the New Black) stars in the titular role of Kiff, whose thirst for life takes her on countless adventures through their city alongside Barry, voiced by H. Michael Croner (Craig of the Creek). From creators and executive producers Lucy Heavens and Nic Smal, the series follows Kiff and Barry as they navigate school, relationships and their often-eccentric community in Table Town, a world where animals and magical oddballs tackle day-to-day life together.” We’ll see it all this spring!

image c. 2023 The Disney Channel

Cartoon Brew recently pointed us at a new upcoming animated film called Leo, being created for Netflix by Adam Sandler and his production company. “Netflix describes the film as ‘a coming-of-age animated musical comedy about the last year of elementary school – as seen through the eyes of a class pet. Jaded 74-year-old lizard Leo has been stuck in the same Florida classroom for decades with his terrarium-mate turtle. When he learns he only has one year left to live, he plans to escape to experience life on the outside, but instead gets caught up in the problems of his anxious students – including an impossibly mean substitute teacher. It ends up being the strangest but most rewarding bucket list ever…’ Leo’s animation is being produced by Netflix Animation and Animal Logic (The Lego Movie, DC League of Super-Pets)”. Look for it streaming on November 22nd.

image c. 2023 Netflix

The results of the eighth once in a decade Sight and Sound "Greatest Films of All Time" poll were released last year, which kind of puts my list in its place. The number one movie there was Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles; haven't seen that one yet. Catchy title, though! Hey, my top pick for 2017 did make top 100 (in a five way tie for last)! Well, let's see how influential my picks for this year are in 10 years for the next poll.

So, this is a year end top ten list of my picks for favorite movies of the year. Pretty simple premise, and I've written what counts and what doesn't before, and this is the internet, so I can just link to older lists if you want the nitty gritty details. I don't need to rehash them. Though Flayrah is a furry site, this is not a furry list. However, I will pick out my favorite furry movie of the year, which was Turning Red this year, as well as a Cutest Vixen Award, just for fun. This year's prestigious CVA goes to Diane Foxington, a.k.a. the Crimson Paw, in The Bad Guys. It was an overall pretty good year for movies, so much that I actually feel like giving away a few honorable mentions, listed here in no particular order other than alphabetical; Beast, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Everything Everywhere All at Once, Three Thousand Years of Longing and The Woman King. Also, shoutout to Prey, which was streaming exclusive, and which I didn't consider for the list, but was worth a shoutout anyway.

Well, let's get to the list proper. The film's title and posters link to IMDB or a Flayrah review for more information than the short blurb here could give you. Enjoy!

2023 has started off, but before we get too far in I wanted to take a look back on the short animations that I think are worth your time to look at from 2022. As there are quite a bit of items in the recommended list on the Ursa Major site, I decided to go through and watch them and curate them into 11 items I think do what they do really well and are well worth consideration for nomination.

The videos here are all short, only one of them breaks the 20 minute mark. The reviews will contain spoilers so be sure to watch the embedded feature prior to reading my thoughts on them if you would like to experience them for yourself.

Be sure to take some time and enjoy the hard work these artists put into these works. Also check out the other items in the recommended list if you have time as there are some interesting items that I thought were good, but there are too many to write about extensively.

Let's start at the beginning.

Before Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, even. How about DreamWorks Animation's new studio bumper? It's a bit ostentatious, even a bit overly pleased with itself. Maybe goes on a little long. But, then again, what studio bumper doesn't, nowadays? But, being a celebration of DreamWorks past triumphs, it's interesting to note what franchises were chosen to be spotlighted.

Right out the gate, the Bad Guys are getting quite a vote of confidence, despite being the new guys with one movie under their belts. So I think it's safe to say we're getting a sequel. Also for furries, the Kung Fu Panda series is featured, and we already know that's got a fourth movie coming. The How To Train Your Dragon series is also represented by Toothless, despite the fact that the last movie came to a very decisive story end. It's one of the more acclaimed franchises of DreamWorks, so it has to show up, and even if there are no more movies, smaller screen spinoffs are still happening. There are also appearances by the Trolls and Boss Baby franchises, but they aren't furry, so who cares?

There are some notable absences, however. Despite featuring four movies, the Madagascar franchise is ignored. Spirit, you know, the one with the horse? That somehow managed two movies, but is apparently not an ongoing concern. And obviously, the Shrek franchise is prominently featured, but the star of the movie we're about to actually start reviewing is not. Maybe he'll show up in the bumper for movies he's not the star of?