On a Mission for Family-Friendly Fun

Fun World Media recently made its international debut with a catalogue of family-oriented content.

The recently formed production and distribution outfit Fun World Media made its official launch to the international market at last month’s MIPCOM. Longtime producer, entrepreneur and CEO of Fun World, Joseph Merhi, assembled a team of seasoned entertainment execs and creative visionaries to be part of his new venture, which has a mandate to provide high-quality family-oriented programming. The projects the company is set on presenting have to have great storytelling, be well-written, and, most of all, have to be fun, according to Andrew Schreiber, the company’s president of sales.

“When I first started talking to Joseph about coming on board and joining him [in his venture] we didn’t have a name yet; we tossed around all kinds of different names, but the idea was we want to make sure that our product is fun to watch and fun to produce, so we came up with Fun World Media,” Schreiber explains. “This all started not only around the concept of doing that kind of programming but there was a specific property in mind when we got going. Joseph took the very bold step of, before even talking to a broadcaster, buying a studio in Las Vegas and committing to producing a 26-episode series and actually shooting.”

The project Schreiber is speaking of is The Jadagrace Show, a tween comedy that follows the adventures of a multi-talented girl named Jadagrace. “It’s all built around this phenomenal 12-year-old girl. She’s really fabulous. She was discovered by Berry Gordy, who’s got a bit of a track record; a few of his people kind of hit big: Michael Jackson did OK…Stevie Wonder did OK…,” jokes Schreiber. “He really knows his talent, and he’s convinced that she’s going to be a megastar. She sings, she dances and she’s actually one of our producers on the show—a very bright little girl. There’s no other show out there quite like what our show is.”

The series is presented as a show within a show, with Jadagrace playing a fictionalized version of herself. In the series, Jadagrace, with the help of her best friend, Ashley, gets a music video of herself onto the Internet, where it catches the attention of a music producer who’s in need of a hit. The trio then pitch the idea of a TV series revolving around Jadagrace to a network, and when it gets picked up she becomes the star of her own variety show.

Also on the slate are two series set for filming in 2012. Time Chasers tells the story of married archaeologists who uncover an ancient alien time machine that winds up in the hands of their three children. My Dad’s a Superhero follows two suburban dads who work normal jobs by day, but at night put their martial arts skills to work as costume-clad crime fighters. When their kids uncover these secret identities, the children blackmail them into joining in the adventures.

Fun World’s catalogue also includes the family movie The Game of Life, with a cast that includes Tom Sizemore, Heather Locklear, Tom Arnold and Beverly D’Angelo. “It’s a departure from the series that we’re doing because it’s a much more serious subject; it’s a much more dramatic story, but it fulfills our basic requirements. There’s a strong need for that kind of dramatic programming that’s well-produced, which we certainly think this is, so even though our focus as producers is on series, here’s an example where that’s not the case. It’s a feature film. We’ll certainly be looking to do more of those.”

Schreiber says Fun World will look to continue ramping up its catalogue while staying true to its core mission all the while. “Right now our focus is more tween, but that’s not set in stone, we could do younger. It’s always with the emphasis that it’s family-friendly entertainment and live action, because we hear all over the industry that there is great demand for quality live-action, family-friendly, kid-friendly television series, so that’s what we aim to do.”