Cannes, France: London, Eng.-based Decode Entertainent partner Neil Court says a few Japanese and Americans failed to show up at this year’s MIPCOM program market, but Decode had a ‘jam-packed week’ pitching new preschool and tween projects to potential presale buyers.

Anticipating the presale success of The Zack Files, Decode screened a pilot of the new live-action tween series Why Not?, developed in association with WB Kids with a plan to produce 13 half-hours for next fall. ‘There is nothing more desirable right now than tween live-action series,’ says Court.

Decode also showed up with Blob Heads, another live-action/CGI tween series developed with WB Kids. It’s been presold to all Nickelodeon stations outside North America and to Canal J in France. Negotiations are underway with a Canadian broadcaster and a German broadcast coproducer. It’s the wacky tale of morphing space aliens on a mission to planet Earth and is budgeted in the US$325,000 a half-hour range. CGI is by C.O.R.E. Digital of Toronto.

Decode is tying up financing on Sav-ums, a 26 half-hour ‘creatures teach technology’ preschool series coventured with the Dan Clark Co. in L.A. The company also reports the start of production on 125 new episodes of the preschool series The Hoobs (for a total of 250 episodes sold to Channel 4, TVOntario, Radio-Canada and others), coproduced with The Jim Henson Co.

Court says a theatrical feature film is the next big step for Angela Anaconda, a genuine worldwide hit franchise. It’s in the ‘prospecting’ stage with strong merchandizing potential, an undetermined but moderate production budget, and the likelihood that Decode will continue to hang on to the self-financed property’s equity.

One of the big question marks in the Decode business outlook, and in that of other Canadian kids producers, is the fallout of Disney’s takeover of Fox Kids.

Decode and Fox have been doing two or three deals a year, and although Decode and Disney share good relations, they have not actually signed any business to date. Disney’s so-called conservative management has to deal with disgruntled shareholders. The company possesses a huge program library and is considered to be the most vertically integrated of all the U.S. studios.

Court sees an end to the massive oversupply in international kids production, with current production levels moving ‘down to where they should be.’

-www.decode-ent.com

Leo Rice-Barker