The Borrowers/Tinkerbell hybrid

Lampies

Producer: Red Balloo Productions, London

Co-production partner/distributor: HIT

Premise: Lampies live in lamp posts, Christmas trees and traffic lights, happily illuminating the world and working against the dark forces of The Roons, who wish to cast humanity into, well, darkness.

Status: in development

Demo: four to 10

Style: 2-D animated

Format: 26 x 15 minutes

Budget: US$4.7 million

Broadcaster: BBC 1

Delivery: September 2000

A superhero crossed with Men in Black

Gate Crasher

Producer: Mainframe Entertainment, Vancouver

Premise: This action-adventure comedy, based on a comic book series by New York-based Wizard Press, features a boy who is part of a clandestine organization that prevents alien

invasions of Earth by visiting other worlds. ‘It’s about a young college boy with a bit of a

slacker mentality. He is a person with incredible powers who can’t get his own life together.’

-Dan DiDio, VP of creative affairs, Mainframe.

Status: looking for co-pro partners and casters

Demo: boys seven to 17

Style: CGI

Format: 13 x half hour

Budget: US$425,000 per episode

Delivery: September 2001

What happens when Dr. Doolittle goes to the Arctic

Nunavut

Producer: Tube Studios, Montreal

Premise: The depiction of traditional Inuit life before snowmobiles and satellite TV is at the heart this series. Inuuk, a seven-year-old Shaman-in-training, has the ability to talk to animals.

Status: in development with CBC Television and Tele Quebec

Demo: six to 10

Style: 3-D animated

Format: 26 x 13 minutes

Budget: US$2 million

Delivery: 2001

HIT takes a Hot bath

and launches a neurotic fox

Plug

Producer: Hot Animation, London

Co-production partner/distributor: HIT, London

Premise: What happens when your bath toys get together behind your back and party? Plug is the submarine leader of the tub toy gang that includes a Hawaiian shirt-clad frog and a shark who is afraid of his own shadow. The toys frolic on their own before and after the children’s bathtime, but not during, so the kids never know what their magic toys are up to.

Status: in development

Demo: preschool

Style: stop-frame animation

Format: 26 x 10 minutes

Budget: US$300,000 to US$350,000 per half hour

Delivery: February 2001

Fox

Producer/distributor: HIT, London

Premise: Based on the book series by James Marshall, the toon centers around Fox, who ‘never feels quite right in the world-he’s in a kind of prepubescent anxiety syndrome,’ explains Kate Fawkes, managing director of productions at HIT. ‘When Fox grows up, he might turn into Woody Allen-but we have to save him before he goes completely neurotic.’ Fox feels more sophisticated than he really is, and gets into all kinds of trouble because of it.

Status: in development

Demo: five to eight

Style: 2-D animated

Format: 26 x 15 minutes

Budget: US$300,000 to US$350,000 per half hour

Delivery: April 2002

Teletubbies meet furbies

Wubbies

Producer: Spin Productions, Toronto

Premise: When a little boy named Wilbur blows bubbles, he is transported into the Wubbies’ world, where furry, day-glow creatures teach him handy everyday lessons, like the importance of putting things away in their proper places. Spin is banking on its specialized CGI fur rendering technique to set Wubbies apart visually from other preschool offerings. Wubbies is the commercial animation studio’s first foray into kids production.

Status: in development, looking for partners and casters

Demo: preschool

Style: CGI

Format: 13 x half hour/39 x six minutes

Budget: US$3 million to US$6 million

Delivery: fall 2001

Inspired by a literary classic. . . and a video game

Hans Christian Andersen

Producer: Egmont Imagination

Partners: in co-production negotiations with Ireland’s Magma Films and Munich-based EM.TV & Merchandising

Premise: Old standbys like The Ugly Duckling, The Emperor’s New Clothes, Thumbelina and The Little Match Girl are offered up in time for the 200th anniversary of the author’s birth, in 2005. The series won’t deviate from the original in terms of setting or time period, but will be updated for today’s kid audience through the use of modern narrative and humor.

Status: in development

Demo: family

Style: 2-D animated

Format: 26 x half hour

Distribution: shared between EM.TV and Egmont

Budget: US$375,000 to US$400,000 per half hour

Delivery: spring 2002

Skipper and Skeeto

Producer/distributor: Egmont Imagination, Denmark

Co-production partner/distributor: Animation Services, Hong Kong

Premise: Based on a same-name CD-ROM by Ivanoss Interactive of Denmark, this series is about a mole and a mosquito problem-solving team.

Status: in production

Demo: preschool

Style: 2-D animated

Format: 26 x 13 minutes

Budget: US$250,000 per half hour

Delivery: first 13 episodes by fall 2000, the rest in 2001

In praise of the global village, toon style

Animated Tales of the World

Premise: Twenty-six films from 26 countries, dubbed into 25 languages-this colossal toon endeavor bows at MIP-TV and includes films like Taiwan’s Aunt Tiger and Bad Baby Amy from Australia.

‘It is not Disney, it is not adopting Hollywood cultural values. It is a series of dissent.’-Christopher Grace, executive producer of Animated Tales of the World.

Partners: Television Nationale du Burkina, Moscow’s Christmas Films, La Cinquième, KRO, RTE, Channel 4, NRK, ART, PTV and others.

Support: Dorling Kindersley will publish a book in 2001, and BMG will publish accompanying music. Royalties go to The Children’s Television Trust International to fund similar projects.

Broadcasters: various

Status: first 13 episodes to air in fall 2000, second installment by fall 2001

Demo: family

Style: 2-D and 3-D animated

Format: 26 x 15 minutes

Distributor: S4C International, Cardiff, Wales

Budget: US$350,000 per episode

Jurassic Park on steroids

DinoZaurs

Producer: Sunrise, Japan, Saban Entertainment (English version)

Premise: Based on master toy licensee Bandai’s action figures, genetically enhanced dinos become DinoZaurs, the greatest fighting machines of all time. Their task-to defeat the DragoZaurs and save the world. The DragoZaurs have come back to settle an old score; 65 million years ago, they had their butts kicked by dinosaurs and, unfortunately, the battle’s side effects included the destruction of Earth.

Broadcaster: Fox Kids Network, air date to be determined

Status: post production

Demo: six to 11

Style: anime

Format: 26 x half hour

Distributor: Saban has worldwide rights, excluding Japan

Budget: US$350,000 per episode

Elementary, Dr. Who

Flint the Time Detective

Producer: TV Tokyo and Sanrio Company, Japan, Saban Entertainment (English

version)

Premise: Flint travels through the ages in order to preserve the Tapestry of History. Along the way, he must rescue the Time Shifters and subvert the evil plots of his archnemesis Petra.

Broadcaster: premiered on Fox Family Channel last month

Status: completed

Demo: two to 11

Style: anime

Format: 39 x half hour

Distributor: Saban has worldwide rights, excluding Japan

Budget: US$350,000 per episode