And this isn't even a joke. Prepare yourself for Meerkat Manor: The Video Game, as Discovery Communications and Activision join up to make games out of Discovery's nature television shows. No financial terms were disclosed, nor any system announcements or genre types, but the games are expected to flow in the fall of '08. We're hoping Meerkat Manor will be an FPS, but chances are it'll be a sim-style game.

Discovery's CEO said the company is trying to move away from being a "cable company" and into becoming a "content company." That seems to be the trend with other cable juggernauts as MTV is in the process of their $500 million spending extravaganza and Turner turns GameTap into an all-purpose gaming site from its smaller games-for-pay beginnings.

Update: the source article has been updated with revised details.

If you missed Discovery Channel's video game documentary's first episode last week, try extra hard not to miss episode two. Rise of the Video Game is actually a pretty solid documentary (so far) with the right interviews, research and b-roll to make an entertaining and informative hour of television. Rock, Paper, Shotgun puts it best by saying, "Rise Of demonstrates a depth of research and work that lifts it above the usually banal, patronizing rubbish that television normally produces on the subject."

A good general overview of games before the rise of Nintendo made for a great first episode. The second episode is scheduled for tomorrow at 8PM (with a few repeats sprinkled over the next week) and chronicles consoles and PCs bringing video games to a larger audience in the home. This episode will feature EA founder Trip Hawkins, adventure game guru and Psychonauts creator Tim Schafer, and Leisure Suit Larry creator Al Lowe. Hm, 3DO, the golden age of adventure games and Larry -- tragedy, triumph and sex. Sounds like a good hour of television.

Tonight the Discovery Channel begins its five-part series Rise of the Video Game. Part one goes from the 1950s to the early '70s. Dang, this thing should be on The History Channel. A new episode will premiere every Wednesday at 8PM. Discovery also has a poll on its site for the show to vote on "classic" games. Obviously the fanboys have taken over as New Super Mario Bros comes in first place over Pac-Man and Space Invaders.

The documentary definitely seems to be taking a highbrow approach to video games. So, go set your DVRs now if you'll be out or too busy watching Kid Nation (Lord of the Flies lite) or America's Next Top Model (Go Heather!).

FiringSquad reminds us that when we're not busy playing the video game or writing mean things about the video game, we should be watching a documentary about the video game and the rising thereof. Being the fickle and narrow-minded individuals that we are, it's fair to say it's just about the only thing on the Discovery Channel we'd care to see rising, even if they did write it as one word.

The first episode in the five-hour long mini-series, which delves into the game industry's history and its significant contributors, airs Wednesday, Nov. 21 at 8PM, with subsequent episodes following on the Wednesdays thereafter.

Despite not having a Halo movie to direct, Neill Blomkamp continues to make live action short films for Microsoft about the UNSC's struggle with aggressive Covenant forces in the minutes before Master Chief arrives on Earth. The combat is close and erratic, and the production value is noticeably improved over the previous two videos, and the violence has also substantially increased.

We're really digging Blomkamp's style, but honestly we're not sure how well it would translates into a feature-length film -- it almost seems better suited in the short-clip format we've been privy to. Right now the only place we know of to see the video is at the Discovery Channel's website; let us know if you find an embeddable version. Update: YouTube version embedded after the break. Thanks, nelson!

[Via X3F]

There's a couple showings left of Discovery HD's Gamer Generation special coming up, so set your TiVo Series 3 and your generic DVRs to record, and see what insight this latest documentary has to offer about gamers that hasn't already been said.

Depending on where you live, and if your satellite/cable provider carries the Discovery HD Theater channel, there are two more showings today, and again on Saturday, January 13th. TV listings are showing it as "Part One," so hopefully this will be an ongoing series or special, but right now information about this, and a frustrating amount of HD programming, is hard to come by.

Let us know if you happened to catch it, and what you thought about it. That is, if you are able to find it ... just like The A-Team.

Take a close look at this commercial for the American Choppers Christmas special, embedded after the break. Notice anything odd (and game-related, of course).

Yep, that's a GameCube controller coupled with a slimline PlayStation 2. Did they even consider that the input plug for the GCN controller is almost the same width as the console? Wouldn't it be more of a hassle to, when searching for props, to instigate such a mash-up?

In the fictional family's defense, they weren't expecting the cast to walk through their door. Life Lesson #64: always have a console, with coordinated controller, handy for when bikers show up unannounced.

At least they're not holding the controller upside-down.