Mattel, FUNimation On Board Cookie Jar’s Spider Riders

LOS ANGELES, June 16: Ahead of Licensing Show, Cookie Jar
Entertainment has announced the appointment of Mattel as master toy licensee
for the new series Spider Riders, while
home video rights have gone to FUNimation Entertainment.

The series, which falls under Cookie Jar’s action-adventure
brand Coliseum, launches in the U.S. on June 17 on Kids’ WB!, following
successful premieres earlier this year on Teletoon in Canada and TV Tokyo in
Japan.

Mattel will manufacture and market action figures and accessories,
role-play, vehicles, activity sets and more, and FUNimation will roll out DVDs
as well as content for portable devices.

Announcing the new deals, Cookie Jar’s president and COO,
Toper Taylor, noted, “One of few properties today actually being animated by a
studio based in Japan, Spider Riders is a bold and exciting new action brand. We look forward to
Mattel and FUNimation bringing the action-adventure Spider Riders characters into the homes of
kids in entertaining and innovative ways.”

Spider Riders is a co-production of Cookie Jar Entertainment and the
Japanese advertising agency Yomiko and animation studio Bee Train. It comes from the award-winning
Japanese director Koichi Mashimo and is based on the Cookie Jar Entertainment
book Spider Riders—Shards of the Oracle, published by Newmarket
Press.