FROM DIC
ENTERTAINMENT AND THE LEGENDARY CREATOR OF SPIDERMAN, X-MEN, AND THE HULK
COMES . . .
STAN LEE'S SUPER WORLD
A NEW WORLD OF SUPERHEROES BEGINS
FALL 2004
ONLY FROM THE INCREDIBLE WORLD OF DIC! International Television: Pat Ryan 818.955.5429/
Consumer Products: Nancy Bassett 818.955.5615
CYNTHIA TURNER'S CYNOPSIS
Kids! 01/05/04
Good morning. It's
Monday, January 5, 2004,
and this is your early morning
Kids!
briefing.
Upcoming Premieres:
Cartoon Network launches the second season of Teen Titans
this Saturday, January 10, 9p, which includes a new Teen Titan Terra,
a young girl with the power to move mountains. The series is based
on the DC Comic of the same name. Special celebrity guests include
Wil Wheaton as the voice of Aqualad.
Disney Channel premieres its new animated series Dave the
Barbarian, Friday, January 23, 5:30p. Set in the Middle Ages,
(prior to the Renaissance not prior to the AARP card) the show is about
Dave a reluctant Barbarian and his family as they do battle to protect
themselves their land. Dave the Barbarian is produced by Disney TV
Animation and comes from creator/writer/Executive Producer Doug
Langdale. The series will feature special guest voices including
Joan Rivers, Melissa Rivers and James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich heavy
metal band Metallica.
Kids’ WB! launches the new Astro Boy animated series
(25 episodes) Saturday January 17, 8:30a. Also launching this week
on Saturday, January 17, 11:30a is season four Static Shock (26
episodes), the series also airs M-F 3:30p, according to a Comics
Continuum report.
MTV will air The Diary of Gideon in Iraq, January 14,
10:30p. The special follows MTV New correspondent Gideon Yago’s two
week trip to Baghdad where he spoke to both American soldiers and some of
Iraq’s young people. Check out MTV.com for more information.
The BBC has decided to drop the on air mentions of
Coca-Cola, its new music chart sponsor, according to BBC
reports. At the beginning of December, Coca-Cola announced it had
entered into a two-year promotional deal with the Official UK Charts
Company, to sponsor the music charts on the BBC’s long-running and
recently re-vamped youth targeted TV show Top Of The Pops as well as on
Radio 1 Countdown. The move was highly criticized with increased
demands for a government crackdown on junk food promotions. The BBC
is working with the Official UK Charts Company to reach a solution to
this issue.
Sony Pictures Television International's anime channel Animax
began its rolling launch across Asia last Friday, January 1st,
beginning with Taiwan, where the network will be distributed by
Unioncom. Sony hopes to reach more than 1 million cable and
satellite homes within its first month. The launch will add Hong
Kong on January 12, distributed by Galaxy, Hong Kong Broadband, and
PCCW’s NOW Broadband TV, and regions of Southeast Asia beginning January
19. Based in Singapore, Animax Asia will be the first 24-hour
network outside of Japan dedicated to animé. Animax debuted in
Japan in summer 1998 in partnership with Sony Pictures Entertainment and
four key animé studios: Toei Animation, Sunrise, TMS Entertainment and
Nihon Ad Systems. Animax Asia will target kids, teens and the young
adult audience with four two hour programming blocks according to Anime
News Network: 5-7p will feature shows for kids including Cyborg Kuochan,
Princess Sarah and Nobody’s Girl (this block is the only dubbed block,
the rest will feature the shows in their original Japanese); 7-9p is teen
targeted with series including Ultra Maniac, DT Eightron and GTO; the
9-11p titled Mega Zone will showcase anime series that have not aired
outside of Japan including Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. The
11p-12a hour is titled Super Maniax and includes Lamu the Invader Girl
and Stratos 4.
Warner Bros Consumer Products has assigned the rights to its DC
Comics Batman and Justice League franchises to Play Along (the
folks behind the Britney Spears doll and others) for the creation of a
line of construction sets that will be designed and developed by Art
Asylum. The new building set, titled C3, will be based on and
around Art Asylum’s Minimate block figure line. The C3 line is
slated to be available in stores fall 2004. Art Asylum will base
the design of the first Batman line on art from the classic comic books,
with subsequent lines derived from the creative on the upcoming Batman
movies and forthcoming new animated series; the Justice League C3 toys
will be modeled on the current animated series (Cartoon
Network).
The US release date of Howl's Moving Castle, the next feature film
from noted anime director Hayao Miyazaki’s (Spirited Away, Castle in the
Sky, Kiki’s Special Delivery), has been shifted from July 2004 to a
November 28, 2004 release. The movie is based on a
children’s novel of the same name, by author Diana Wynne Jones has been
in production at Japan's Ghibli Studios, per a Yahoo! Japan report.
The delay is attributed to a variety of production
delays/approvals.
2003 Top Ten Basic Cable Ad
Supported networks, Total Day and
Primetime Rankings among
K2-11
in thousands (000)
12/30/02-12/28/03: Kids 2-11 Total
Day (000) Kids 2-11
Primetime 8p-11p (000) NICK/NAN:
899 CARTOON
NETWORK: 1058
CARTOON NETWORK: 659
NICK/NAN:
1044
DISNEY CHANNEL*:
642 DISNEY
CHANNEL*:
1036
TOON
DISNEY:
104 TOON
DISNEY:
134
ABC
FAMILY:
77 ABC
FAMILY:
93
NOGGIN/THE
N:
57 ANIMAL
PLANET:
84
TLC:
44
ESPN:
82
BET:
43
TLC:
78
ANIMAL
PLANET:
40
BET:
72
ESPN:
37
MTV:
65
MTV:
37 Source: Disney from Nielsen Media Research Data
*Disney Channel is not an ad supported cable network, unlike the others
in this listing.
2003 Top Ten Basic Cable Ad
Supported Networks, Total Day and
Primetime Rankings among
K6-11
in thousands (000)
12/30/02-12/28/03 Kids 6-11 Total Day 6a-6a
(000)Kids 6-11 Primetime 8p-11p (000) NICK/NAN:
696 DISNEY
CHANNEL*:
809
DISNEY
CHANNEL*:
422
NICK/NAN:
682
CARTOON NETWORK:
380 CARTOON
NETWORK:
635
ABC
FAMILY:
56 ABC
FAMILY:
65
TOON
DISNEY:
45 TOON
DISNEY:
56
BET:
28
ESPN:
55
ESPN:
26
TLC:
53
TLC:
26 ANIMAL
PLANET:
53
MTV:
26
BET:
48
ANIMAL
PLANET:
26
MTV:
45 Source: Disney from Nielsen Media Research Data
*Disney Channel is not an ad supported cable network, unlike the others
in this listing.
2003 Top Ten Basic Cable Ad
Supported Networks, Total Day and
Primetime Rankings among Tweens
9-14 in thousands (000)
12/30/02-12/28/03: Tweens 9-14 Total Day 6a-6a
(000) Tweens 9-14 Primetime 8p-11p (000) DISNEY
CHANNEL*:
369 DISNEY
CHANNEL*:
722
NICK/NAN:
348
NICK/NAN:
504
CARTOON
NETWORK:
292 CARTOON
NETWORK:
469
MTV:
92
MTV:
155
ABC
FAMILY:
83 ABC
FAMILY:
109
BET:
50
ESPN:
86
ESPN:
46
BET:
75
TLC:
36 COMEDY
CENTRAL:
69
COMEDY
CENTRAL:
33
TLC:
69
ANIMAL
PLANET:
26
DISCOVERY:
55 Source: Disney from Nielsen Media Research Data
*Disney Channel is not an ad supported cable network, unlike the others
in this listing.
While you were out…oh no wait, that was me ....
French kids’ book author, Franck Le Calvez filed a lawsuit
against Disney and Pixar over the characters and story in
the Disney/Pixar animated movie Finding Nemo, claiming that
Finding Nemo is ‘similar’ to his children’s book Pierrot the Clown Fish
that was published a few years ago. Not surprisingly Disney and
Pixar maintain that their idea is original. The case comes in front
of a French court in February.
FAO Schwarz, the toy store that filed for bankruptcy twice
within the space of eight months in 2003 - Well in the very last days of
the year, FAO thought they had a buyer for 34 of its 38 Right Start
stores, in the Hancock Park Associates (who had helped to bail them out
the first time around last year) for the price tag of more than $6
million. Within days the Bankruptcy judge overseeing the case
rejected the bid due to concerns about Hancock Park’s financing.
Simultaneously, FAO announced the sale of its FAO Schwarz name, FAO
Schwarz internet and catalog businesses as well as the NYC and Las Vegas
stores for $20 million to VGACS Acquisition Inc., a unit of D.E. Shaw
Laminar Portfolios LLC, an investment and technology venture
corporation. VGACS plans to reopen both stores.
The animated series Yakkity Yak, co-produced by Studio B
Productions and Kapow Pictures, has been sold to Nickelodeon channels in
the US, UK, Australia, Latin America and Europe. Nickelodeon will
debut the series on Nick UK, Latin America and Europe early this year.
Scholastic News and NBC News announced their
partnership will work together to cover the kids perspective on the 2004
Presidential Election. NBC will occasionally feature reports from
some of the members of the Scholastic Kids Press Corps, a group of 10-14
year olds across the country on its new programs including Today Show,
MSNBC, MSNBC.com and NBC’s O&Os. The Scholastic Kids Press
Corps will interview NBC's journalists who are reporting on Decision 2004
and for their first assignment the children of the Democratic
candidates. All of these interviews along with other election
related articles will be featured Scholastic News Online and in
Scholastic's classroom magazines, Scholastic News (grades 1-6), Junior
Scholastic (grades 6-8) and The New York Times UPFRONT (grades 9-12).
Videogame developer Majesco Sales Inc. announced that it has
entered into an agreement with Nintendo to create a series of
video cartridges that will allow consumers to watch full screen, color
video on their Game Boy Advance systems, for distribution
throughout North and South America. Majesco will achieve this by
using its video compression technology that “incorporates standard
'DVD-style' player controls,” and presently allows viewing of about 45
minutes of video on a single cartridge, and with a 90 minute cartridge
currently in development. Majesco expects to have 12 video titles
when the line hits retail outlets in spring 2004. Gamepro.com notes
that Am3 introduced a similar device called Advance Movie Adaptor, which
stores 24 min. of video, for the GBA in Japan this past October.
Am3’s device uses a ‘modified Smart Media card’ that allows users to
download video onto the cartridge. Majesco recently merged with
ConnectivCorp.
Pokemon USA, Inc. and Wizards of the Coast, Inc., a
subsidiary of Hasbro, announced that they have agreed to resolve the
lawsuit filed this past October by Wizards of the Coast over the
Pokemon trading card game, without further legal proceedings. The
resolution includes all of those named in the Wizards of the Coast breach
of contract suit; The Pokemon Company, Nintendo of America Inc., the US
distributor of Pokemon trading card games, and two Pokemon USA employees,
who were previously employees of Wizards of the Coast. Terms of the
resolution were not released.
In the meantime, Hasbro revealed that it plans to shutter 85
stores operated by Wizards of the Coast, Inc., including Game
Keeper and Wizards of the Coast stores. Hasbro explains the
closures as an opportunity to refocus Wizards’ efforts on its core
business, which is card game development. Wizards of the Coast is
best known as the creators of role playing card games such as Magic: The
Gathering and Dungeons Dragons. Hasbro purchased Wizards of the
Coast, and its recent acquisition The Game Keeper, Inc., in 1999 for $325
million.
The newest AFLAC Insurance Company commercial, this time featuring
the Looney Tunes along with the AFLAC Duck launched on January 1,
during a college bowl game. Previous AFLAC commercials (there have
been 16) have featured the simultaneously annoying and memorable quacking
duck with the likes of Yogi Berra, Wayne Newton and Chevy Chase.
The ad was created by the Kaplan Thaler Group in partnership with Warner
Bros. Consumer Products.
Weekend Box Office Estimates
for kids/tweens/teens rated G, PG or PG13, January 2-5, 2003 Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (New
Line) PG13 $30.7m-3 wk total $292m
Cheaper by the Dozen (Fox)
PG
$21.9m-2 wk total $86.0m
Something's Gotta Give (Sony)
PG-13
$12.5-4 wk total $81.7m
Paycheck (Paramount)
PG-13
$10m-2 wk total $38.8m
Mona Lisa Smile (Sony)
PG-13
$8.7m-3 wk total $50.2m
Peter Pan (Universal)
PG
$8.5m-2 wk total $33.8m
Calendar Girls (Disney)
PG-13
$4.6m-3 wk total $7.1m
Stuck on You (Fox)
PG-13
$2.8m-4 wk total $30.7m
The Haunted Mansion (Disney)
PG
$2.6m-6 wk total $70.5m
Big Fish (Sony)
PG-13
$2.5m-4 wk total $8.4m
Source: BoxOfficeMojo.com
As in previous years, this January Cynopsis: Kids!
will provide its NATPE Children's Syndicated Program Guide listing of NEW SERIES coming to market in preparation for this year's conference in Las Vegas. If you have information you'd like listed for a NEW strip or weekly series, please send it to me at
(with NATPE listing in the subject line), and provide the name of the series, live action or animated (as well as style of animation), target age group, #/eps, distributor name/phone/booth or suite number, terms (cash, cash+, barter split), and frequency. Because of space, no OTOs, specials or quarterly shows are included in the listing. For new adult targeted programming, please send your information to Cynthia Turner for the Cynopsis NATPE Syndicated Program Guide at
(NATPE Listing in the subject line). Also, no specials or OTOs. Please have your information in no later than January 9, 2004. Please, NEW series only.
A MESSAGE FROM CYNOPSIS Kids!
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Today's Trivia Question: Who is Princess Riva? (To answer the trivia, click hereand please remember to include your name, company, city and time zone. Only the second four from each time zone will appear in tomorrow's kudos list.)
Later -- Gwen
Gwen Billings for Cynthia Turner's Cynopsis Kids!
Publisher/Editor Cynthia Turner
01/05/04 5:51am Free Subscriptions-- SubjectKids! Searchable Archivewww.Cynopsis.com Cynopsis Kids! Ad Sales 203-526-8978 Submit Press Releases to Gwen Billings at
Copyright Cynthia Turner 2003
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