In this report, Playback looks at the people and forces involved in the development of three new Canadian kids’ programs and the marketing and merchandising thrusts behind those and some other kids’ properties.

Inside:

Development diaries:

The Charlie Horse Music Pizza p. 24

Zoboomafoo p. 27

Mr. Men p. 29

Treehouse TV p. 26

Wimzie update p. 30

ACT awards approach p. 30

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The preschool sitcom series Wimzie’s House is set for a major licensing rollout with significant tv time on pbs in the u.s. as the foundation and book publishing and home video components as the initial building blocks for the ‘slow-build’ asset development.

Montreal’s Cinar Films, the show’s producer, owns the property outright.

Cinar distribution and marketing vp Louis Fournier says the company has adopted a long-term franchising strategy.

Cinar Licencing is also focusing on two additional series, Are You Afraid of the Dark? and The Little Lulu Show.

‘Statistically, 65% of all character-based licensing for kids originates out of the u.s. You need the notoriety platform. The pbs label is the key,’ he says.

The show’s licensing agent in the u.s. is Erica Gourd of Lindberg Licencing, New York. Gourd also handles Mark Brown’s Arthur, another top-rated Cinar series broadcast on pbs. The Canadian licensing agent is The Sandie Hatch Agency. The show’s American literary agent is Wendy Hashmall of The Lazear Agency in St. Paul-Minneapolis.

A publishing deal could happen within the next few months, while Fournier is personally negotiating with home video distributors. A master toy licence is yet to be signed.

The full rollout will ultimately include books, home video, apparel, plush toys and dolls, puzzles and games, cd-rom and other interactive properties, and possibly special game accessories like a monster puppet hairdressing and styling kit. Wimzie coin-operated rides in American shopping malls also appear to be on the agenda.

The origins of Wimzie’s House (La Maison de Ouimzie) go back three or more years when broadcasters Radio-Canada and Radio-Quebec (today Tele-Quebec) were looking for a suitable replacement for the long-standing hit preschool series Passe-Partout, itself a local licensing (books and albums) success.

Cinar was approached when the French-track broadcasters ‘soon realized it costs a lot of money’ to produce a kids’ series.

Because of the high production costs, about $150,000 per half-hour, Cinar decided the show had to have international appeal if quality standards were to be met.

At that point, Patricia Lavoie, a Cinar vp and the show’s producer (and ‘Wimzie’s spiritual mother’), was brought in, as were consultants like Gerald Lesser, Chris Cerf and Norman Styles, prominent individuals associated with Children’s Television Workshop projects and the early days of Sesame Street.

3D Design of New York was signed to design the show’s wild and woolly puppet monsters. Art direction and set design elements followed and the first pilot was taped in late 1995 or early 1996.

The series went to air first on Radio-Canada, Tele-Quebec and cbc last October.

‘I worked for a good two years on placing the series in the u.s. and finally came to a deal in the spring of ’97 to launch the series on pbs,’ says Fournier.

The show was launched on pbs this fall and is carried (on both daily and weekly feeds) by 300 tv stations representing 94% of American households. u.s. press coverage has helped the prelicensing launch, too, including a Sunday section cover story in The New York Times (Oct. 5).

With ’97 production wrapped, 112 half-hour episodes are now available. In Europe, Wimzie’s House has been licensed by Super rtl in Germany, Channel 5 (weekends) and Nickelodeon in the u.k., and Canal j in France. Fournier says a deal is also in the works with a French terrestrial broadcaster.