*Buchanan joins United Media

Jennifer Buchanan, formerly Marvel Entertainment Group’s regional director of international licensing for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, has joined United Media in New York as director, international licensing.

Buchanan will continue to develop and expand United Media’s licensing programs in Asia, the Middle East and Pacific Rim countries. She will also be responsible for expanding new markets.

Prior to Marvel, Buchanan was director of licensing at Toy Biz.

*Playmates hops onto Kangaroo

Playmates has signed on as the master toy licensee for Saban Entertainment’s The All New Captain Kangaroo, which debuts the weekend of September 13 in national syndication.

Saban is finalizing licensing deals across all major categories including apparel, publishing, interactive, stationery, party goods and footwear.

*Golden Books smartens up

Golden Books Family Entertainment has introduced Smart Pages for preschoolers and Extra Smart Pages for kids over age five, interactive books for children that use a new ‘printed sound’ technology. The sound is embedded in the pages using a special conductive ink. Young readers touch symbols located throughout the book to hear characters speak.

Disney’s Hercules: Zero to Hero and Hercules, The Heart of a Hero, are the first Golden Books titles with the ‘in the page’ sounds. The publishing house will support the books with a merchandising and advertising campaign throughout the U.S.

Additional titles for fall release include Star Wars, Battling the Empire, My School is Cool and Richard Scarry’s The Gingerbread Man.

The children’s book publisher has also established a new business unit called Golden Value Books and Special Markets. The division, which will operate independently of the core publishing house, will focus on creating value lines and pursue specialty publishing channels like book clubs, direct mail and electronic retailing.

*Corrections

In the August 1997 issue of KidScreen (‘French animation going strong,’ page 37), the Centre National de la Cinžmatographie was incorrectly spelled as the Centre National de la Cinžmagraphie. Also, ‘A Salute to Fred Gaffney,’ page 26, incorrectly listed Gaffney International Licensing as the licensing agent for Garfield.