Reading Room

Books are proving to be
fertile ground for producers looking for a bright idea that will capture the
imagination of kids around the world.

October 2006

By Mansha Daswani

In a market as crowded as
the kids’ business is, there’s not much that can top the benefits of launching
a property with built-in brand awareness. And much like toys and video games,
books and comics offer just that for producers of children’s programming, along
with a wealth of story lines from which to draw inspiration.

This is perhaps most
evident in Japan, where the entire an-ime industry owes much of its success to
manga—Japanese comic books. “Nearly all of our properties are manga
based,” says John Easum, the executive VP of VIZ Media, the U.S.-based Japanese
content giant that has fared well with properties such as Inuyasha and Naruto. “A large majority of the animated content that comes out of Japan
does have its roots in manga. It comes down to the power of manga and the
publishing companies. Manga is one of the fastest-growing categories in
publishing in North America today. In Japan, the presence of manga is
overwhelming; it’s really ubiquitous in the daily existence of Japanese
society.”

Noting that a leading
comic book, such as VIZ Media’s own Shonen Jump, can sell between two million and three million
copies a week in Japan, Easum says that manga can provide a bevy of market
research before a pilot even has to be produced. Publishers “collect reader
responses on an ongoing basis,” Easum says. “If a story has proven itself to be
immensely popular, the rights-holder will say, this is a great concept for an
animated series; let’s take it to the next step.”

SCREEN POTENTIAL

In the absence of that
sort of market research in the rest of the world, producers must rely on other
rationales as to why a book property deserves a television adaptation. “There
has to be a reason” for it to exist, asserts Deborah Forte, the president of
Scholastic Entertainment, which has built its business on developing television
properties based on the wealth of material available from its parent company,
publishing giant Scholastic. “Books and literacy are at the core of everything
we do, and that gives us something of a unique perspective. It gives us an
abundance of content to look at, but it also is very instructive in that you
learn very fast that not all good books make good media. The media experience
has to be different and complementary. There is no reason to do it if it’s
exactly the same.” The key, Forte says, is that a television adaptation must
“take advantage of the idea of a moving picture and audio to tell a story,
which you don’t have with a book.”

For the German producer
Greenlight Media, SimsalaGrimm’s
reason to be was clear—the worldwide recognition of fables by the
Brothers Grimm. The series has been licensed into more than 120 territories
since its 1999 launch. “These fairy tales reach across all languages, countries
and cultures and are known by all generations,” explains Katja Wagner, the
brand and license manager at Greenlight Media. “It was important for us to pick
this up and adapt it to a TV format.”

The same was the case for
Universal Studios, which secured the television and film rights to Curious
George, whose books, penned by
Margret and H.A. Rey, have sold more than 25 million copies since first hitting
shelves in 1941. The animated feature was released this summer, and the series
launched on PBS in September. “This is the first [Curious George TV series] that will have this kind of exposure,”
says Ellen Cockrill, the senior VP of animation at Universal Studios Family
Productions. “Margret and H.A. Rey had really tight reins on this character,
with very strong opinions about what could and couldn’t be done with it.
Eventually it wound up at Universal for theatrical development, and eventually
it got to a TV show. It was a slow process.”

With the show finally on
the air in the U.S., and being licensed internationally by NBC Universal
International Television Distribution, Cockrill is confident that kids around
the world will be taken with this enduring publishing icon. “He’s a timeless
character that is a lot of fun to watch,” she says. “He’s like a kid on a
permanent Saturday with very little supervision. He gets himself into all kinds
of hilarious misadventures but uses also his curiosity and his perseverance to
get himself out of those situations. The fact that he isn’t a speaking
character will make it something that children all over the world will be able
to enjoy.”

SOLID FOUNDATION

Kiddinx Media also had a
well-established base to work from with Bibi Blocksberg, which started as an audio-book series before
spawning magazines, books and a string of merchandise. “We have sold more than
8.5 million magazines to date and more than 650,000 books,” says Andrea
Bannert, the director of television and merchandising at Kiddinx. “And we sold
42.2 million audio stories on cassettes and CDs.” Airing on ZDF and Ki.Ka since
1999, the show, about a young witch, has notched up deals in several markets,
including Austria, Norway, Taiwan, Thailand, Russia, Ukraine, Slovakia and
Slovenia.

At Canada’s Spectra
Animation, the chance to do a TV version of Toopy and Binoo, which had more than 30 books released to acclaim
and notable sales in French Canada, couldn’t be passed up. “The author came to
Spectra Animation with the idea of producing a TV series,” says Michèle Dal
Cin, the director of international sales and licensing at the company. “We went
to Treehouse TV, they loved the idea and we went into production.”

The show has been licensed
into more than ten markets, including Latin America with Cartoon Network, and
France, Italy, Korea and Singapore, among others. Spectra is aiming to sign on
the U.S., the U.K. and Germany this year.

Spectra is also working on
Amos Daragon, a fantasy action-adventure
show for boys 8 to 12, with M6 in France. “There’s a series of 12 books,” Dal
Cin says, noting that the TV show will serve as a prequel to the books. “They
are a phenomenon in Canada. They’re going to surpass the 1 million mark, and
the publishing rights have been sold to about 18 territories around the world,
including Japan.”

There are other things
that jump out at producers, regardless of where a title may be on a bestseller
list. For example, the award-winning bestselling series Toot & Puddle, by Holly Hobbie, “really speaks to the core
mission of National Geographic,” says Donna Friedman Meir, the president of
National Geographic Kids Entertainment. “We talk about our mission as being
able to excite kids to explore their world. Toot and Puddle really embody that
mission, because Toot is the world explorer and Puddle is more of the backyard
adventurer.”

At CCI Entertainment,
co-chairman and CEO Arnie Zipursky found himself enchanted with a British book
series entitled Harry and His Bucket Full of Dinosaurs. “I felt really strongly that this had wonderful
potential, just on its premise,” Zipursky says. “When you’re identifying what’s
going to work in the world of television, it’s obviously about telling stories.
This is a beautiful premise of a 4-year-old boy with his bucket full of
dinosaurs.” Airing on Cartoon Network’s preschool block Tickle U in the U.S., the show has also performed well in
several other markets, including the U.K., Germany and Australia.

ORIGINAL SIN

When working from picture
books, producers must determine how closely they are going to abide by the
original illustrations. Indeed, a wrong turn here can affect the chances of a
show’s success. When children internalize the characters in their own minds,
they own them, explains Scholastic’s Forte, and when a third party represents
those characters, sometimes it can miss.

In the case of manga, the
visual interpretation tends to stay close to the original. As VIZ’s Easum
notes, “Manga lends itself well to adapting itself to a storyboard.”

Likewise, Scholastic did
little to change the nature of its popular big red dog, Clifford. “You have to
respect your source material and you have to understand what is sacred about
it,” Forte explains. “We would never mess with Clifford. Clifford is who he is;
we didn’t make him a superhero. We didn’t make him magic. He can’t sing and
dance. But we can certainly take Clifford and put him in an environment and
create a community for him that makes him shine and be a viable television
personality.”

Mike Young Productions,
which animated Clifford for
Scholastic, has had ex-perience bringing another very unique series of books to
life on the small screen. ToddWorld,
based on books by the artist and author Todd Parr, is a place where a kid can
dance with a porcupine, buy ice cream from a hippo or eat macaroni and cheese
in the bathtub. The vivid colors in the books and the visual design of the
characters and locations not only lent themselves very well to television, they
have been almost identically matched in the TV version. ToddWorld also picks up on several of the messages of the
books, including friendship and tolerance. ToddWorld has so far been sold to the BBC in the U.K., Ki.Ka
in Germany, France 5, ABC Australia, TVO in Canada and Discovery Kids in the
U.S. The first season of 52 11-minute episodes is complete and a second series
is in production.

Universal had two
different sources to draw on for its Curious George production. “We knew we wanted to create a hybrid
between the film that was being developed at the same time, and the books,”
Cockrill says. “We knew fans would come to the TV show from both avenues, so we
wanted to create a look that would honor both, so it would be a seamless
experience for those viewers.”

As in the case of Scholastic’s
Clifford, Universal was
reluctant to alter George’s nature—which posed a few challenges in the
development process. “We have a main character who does not speak,” Cockrill
explains. “And he has five friends who don’t speak either. That was a huge challenge.
We did a lot to make that work. First of all, you have to be very precise with
the animation and with the acting to get things across. We have a wonderful
narrator, William H. Macy, which is very much in the tradition of the book.
He’s an observer but he has that wry comedic sense that really adds a wonderful
layer to the story. Through him we can see what George is thinking, just as we
do in the books. We also use a thought-balloon device occasionally, so you can
see what George is thinking.”

National Geographic too,
appreciated the nature of its original material with Toot & Puddle. “Hollie’s illustrations are absolutely stunning,”
Friedman Meir says. “The New York Times called it a modern-day classic. There is the classic beauty to it,
but at the same time it’s very contemporary. There’s a lot of wit, and it’s
just a smart, beautiful series.”

National Geographic is
planning to also remain true to the Lottie’s World books, which it is currently developing into a TV
series. The show follows the adventures of a “quirky chicken and a duck who are
the best of friends in a little sleepy seaside town,” Friedman Meir says.
“We’re pitching it as a traditional, old-fashioned preschool show.”

THE RIGHT LOOK

CCI, together with
producing partners Collingwood O’Hare, knew that for Harry and His Bucket Full
of Dinosaurs, the look of Harry needed to stay the same. “His brown shaggy hair
with bangs, the facial structure, the body shape, are definitely based on the
original,” Zipursky says. “The color palette has changed. We warmed it up, we
made it softer. One of the early animation tests was to do it in 3-D animation,
which did not suit the property. We’re doing it in classic 2-D. But the
dinosaurs have changed. They’re softer and show more emotion and are more accessible.”

CCI also created a new
setting, Dino-world, for Harry and his friends to inhabit. “It’s a wonderful
world to tell all these stories in and to work out all these dilemmas that
Harry is dealing with as a 5-year-old boy,” Zipursky says. “We’ve created
personalities [for the dinosaurs] and they’re all parts of Harry’s personality,
which is how kids connect to the show emotionally.”

Beyond Distribution is
launching the new preschool book-based property Milly, Molly at MIPCOM. “We’re staying as close to the art as
we can,” says executive producer Ron Saunders. “We wanted to keep the look and
feel, particularly the ink wash. We’re very happy with the result. There’s no
doubt that the books have come to life.”

Other properties, however,
require a looser interpretation. Greenlight Media took liberties with the
Brothers Grimm books, introducing two characters, Yoyo and Doc Croc, to serve
as narrators of the classic fables. “With the help of the two new heroes we
were able to compile the individual tales into a series,” Wagner says. “Yoyo
and Doc Croc are two new, more modern characters that lead the viewer through
all the stories. We were able to retain the character of the fairy tales while
still relating them in a newer, fresher, sassier way.”

Forte at Scholastic found
she had to be particularly creative when adapting Goosebumps, a book series about kids and their supernatural
encounters, for television. Instead of following the advice of broadcasters who
suggested the property be developed into an animated series, Scholastic opted
to go the live-action route. “The idea behind that material was that kids read
the books and saw themselves, the normal average kid, where something
extraordinary happens to them,” says Forte. “You can’t buy into that premise if
you’re seeing an animated character.”

Despite initial hesitancy
from the broadcasters, Goosebumps
has proven to be one of Scholastic’s most successful properties, Forte says.

In other instances, a book
property ends up just providing a kernel of an idea. “We recently optioned a
book series called Adventures in Color, and it has no characters in it but it is visually stunning,” says
National Geographic’s Friedman Meir. “There was an amazing visual style that
combined photography and illustration and this great narrative voice. From
there we’ve developed a full set of characters” for a series currently still in
development.

TELLING TALES

While producers in general
stay close to the visual look of their source material, there is fairly more
wiggle room when it comes to story lines. In the case of SimsalaGrimm, “it was Greenlight’s intention to retain the
classical plot as much as possible,” says producer Michael Henrichs. “The
abundance of fairy tales allows us to sustain the brand over a long period of
time in multiple projects. Notwithstanding [that intention], the stories are
[retold] as the adventures of Yoyo and Doc Croc.”

Furthermore, Henrichs
continues, the series had to avoid some of the darker elements of the original
tales. “It was only logical to avoid violence. For example, we don’t burn any
witches or demonize any animals. Each episode should be fun for children and
should fire their imaginations. We don’t want to frighten them.”

At Universal, Cockrill and
her team had just six original Curious George books to draw from. “We mined
them quite a bit,” she says. “We’ve come up with [some] stories based on those
original six books. What we’ll do is, for instance, in the classic books,
George will ride his bike and then he’ll go to the zoo and he’ll do a number of
things. In [the TV series] we make a full story out of each one of those
[activities].”

Universal was also keen to
enhance the educational nature of Curious George, given its home on PBS Kids. “His curiosity was
such a great jumping off point for creating a curriculum in science, math and
engineering, which is what we did,” Cockrill says.

The producers of Beyond’s Milly,
Molly had more than 70 books to
derive story lines from, according to Saunders, who notes that the series’
author, Gill Pittar, reads every script. “We’ve remained true to the underlying
intent of the stories we adapted,” he says. “We really wanted to stay as close
as we could” to the original.

The Toot & Puddle book series has been available for a decade, but
only one new book is released per year. The title Toot & Puddle: I’ll Be
Home for Christmas was the basis
for National Geographic’s single 45-minute special of the same name.
“Two-thirds of the movie fills out what is set up in the book,” says Friedman
Meir. “The book really is act three. The story had to be blown up for a
45-minute special.”

For the series, which is
still in development, however, it will be minutiae in the books that the
producers will focus in on. “What may be a small two-inch illustration in the
book may inspire a whole [episode],” Friedman Meir says. “Just a postcard on
the wall. There’s a beautiful one of Toot riding decorated elephants in India.
There’s the Toot in India [episode].”

In the case of CCI’s Harry
and His Bucket Full of Dinosaurs,
however, “the only thing we took from the original book was the premise, that
these dinosaurs are real,” Zipursky says.

The tremendous success of
manga poses its own set of challenges for anime producers. “One episode of
animation can represent four volumes from the manga,” VIZ’s Easum observes.
“Networks commit to 52 episodes, and if that is successful then you’re in the
can for 104, and then you’re adding blocks of 52 or 26. So the animation surpasses
the manga. That happened for us with Inuyasha. In that case, there’s no rule of thumb that
applies, but typically the author will endorse the producers to create original
stories. They may be stories that go outside the scope of the manga or make a
slight tangent. So a couple of years into a series, the manga and the series
can veer off from each other. [But when] the animation does not overtake the
manga, the animation stays very true to the flow and story arc” of the
original, Easum says.

THERE AND BACK

Once original story lines
are developed for a television series, rights-owners then have the opportunity
to launch tie-in books, opening up an entirely new revenue stream. Such was the
case for Scholastic with Clifford the Big Red Dog, which also spawned another TV series, Clifford’s
Puppy Days.

Greenlight believes its
characters Yoyo and Doc Croc have achieved enough market awareness that a
separate series of books is certainly an option. “Yoyo and Doc Croc have since
assumed such an independent profile that we want to place them more strongly in
the forefront in the future,” Wagner says. “Grimm is no longer the only brand
name.”

CCI has already secured a
tie-in publishing deal for Harry,
with Random House in the U.S. And Spectra’s Toopy and Binoo will see four new episode-based books hit the
shelves in Canada later this year. The new books also mark the property’s
English-language publishing debut in Canada. With the television show now
reinforcing the property’s brand awareness in Canada, Spectra has begun rolling
out a range of other merchandise. “We have two DVDs that are scheduled to
launch in November,” Dal Cin says. “Internationally, we are in discussions with
a major international toy company. As soon as we place the series in key
territories, our focus will be home video, publishing and toys, specifically
plush, because the series has adorable characters.”

With 104 5-minute episodes
available in season one, a series of 78 2-minute educational interstitials, and
six half-hour themed “mini-movies,” Dal Cin says, Toopy and Binoo also features a website that offers original
content and games. “It transforms Toopy and Binoo into an educational and multiplatform property,”
she says.

The television success of Naruto on Cartoon Network in the U.S. has helped
transform the manga into the leading Japanese comic in the U.S., according to
VIZ Media’s Easum. VIZ Media is now rolling out DVDs and is working with Mattel
and Bandai on action figures, plush toys, vehicles, play sets, role-play games,
puzzles, electronics and more.

Bibi Blocksberg has been a tremendous property for Kiddinx Media.
According to Bannert, 3.1 million home-entertainment units have been sold, as
well as 823,000 PC games. Further, she says, “we have Game Boy and Game Boy
Advance games. We have puzzles. We have a Bibi Blocksberg musical on tour,
which has attracted 250,000 people in the German-speaking territories. We did
two live-action feature films, with more than 3.3 million [cinema attendees] and we are working on the third movie.” Other consumer products based on Bibi
Blocksberg include clothes and
bedding.

With
all the merchandising potential of book-based properties, it’s no wonder that
CCI is now developing its own book series that will, Zipursky hopes, spawn a
television production. The company has commissioned a book entitled Daisy
Jane and the Fairy Tree, based on an internally developed idea about a
young girl who, Zipursky says, has a recessive fairy gene. “Every several
generations someone in the family gets the fairy gene. [Daisy Jane] has these
magical powers and of course she gets into trouble with them, but she’s
completely well intentioned. We’ve hired a writer and we’re working with a
literary agent out of New York.”

For Zipursky, the move
into book publishing was a logical one. “There’s such a wonderful tradition of
children’s book-based properties having a very long shelf life.”