Variety is reporting that Spike TV, the self-styled 'men's network,' has ordered its third original animated series.  The network has greenlit the production of six episodes of This Just In, a new animated series from writer (and stand-up comedian) Steve Marmel, who is currently co-writing the feature film version of Nickelodeon's The Fairly OddParents.  Marmel's new series for Spike TV will be produced using flash animation techniques, which will make it possible to write and produce the series in just one week.  The reason for all the haste---This Just In will feature three best friends sitting around a riffing on the day's top new stories.  Marmel told Variety that if the series were on this week the characters would be talking about President Bush's visit to Iraq, Michael Jackson's legal difficulties, and Paris Hilton's video career.

Although Spike TV's two other animated series, Stan Lee's Stripperella and Gary the Rat have been universally panned by critics, the network is evidently happy about their ratings and appears to be determined to make animation a staple of its programming -- and in This Just In, which sounds like an animated version of the Daily Show crossed with a Letterman monologue, Spike may have found a show with a chance to appease the critics while drawing in the coveted young male demographic and demonstrating animation's ability to 'cover' current events.