Raggs

TV Kids Weekly,
November 21, 2006

NAME: Raggs

ORIGIN: The series is based on an original idea
by Toni Steedman, the founder of the U.S.-based company Raggs Llc.

CREATORS: Southern Star Entertainment and Raggs
Llc

TV SHOW: Raggs is a television show for preschoolers
consisting of 65 half-hour episodes. The program is full of fun and music,
starring a group of five dogs that perform together in a band. It is populated
by life-size suited characters but also contains specially created animation
segments, concert performances, kids talking about their world, a wildlife
segment and film clips of children at play.

The series’
main character is Raggs, the puppy of the pack and the leader of the band.
Trilby is the super sporty fashionista of the band. She loves her music,
fashion and sports in equal measures. Razzles is the go-growl-grrrl, and in
human age is a couple of years older than Raggs.

Razzles is the
most logical, ordered and organized of the dogs.

In contrast to
Razzles’ orderliness and organization, Pido is a laid- back surfer dude who is
totally happy to take life as it comes.

B.Max might be
in a wheel chair but he is definitely an alpha dog. There’s no problem too big
for B.Max to overcome, no puzzle too tricky to solve and nothing that’s broken
that can’t be fixed, rebuilt or repaired.

EXECUTIVE
PRODUCERS: Noel Price,
the executive producer of Southern Star Pacific; Toni Steedman, the creator of
Raggs; and Catherine Payne, the chief executive of Southern Star International.

COMMISSIONING
BROADCASTER: Seven
Network Australia, where Raggs airs from Monday to Friday at 9 a.m.

TV SALES: Raggs has sold to RTE in Ireland and
Southern Star International, which owns the international distribution rights,
is close to closing deals in number of additional territories.

MAJOR TOY
LICENSEES: There are
plans to release plush toys and a full range of activity items.

OTHER
PRODUCTS: DVD and live
shows.

STRATEGY
FOR ROLLOUT: The
series Raggs came
from a property created by Steedman, who created a musical band consisting of
dogs that performed at shopping malls in the U.S. “She made some DVDs of the
dogs’ performances and found that the show that she had devised hit a mark with
preschoolers in the U.S. and she thought about developing a television series
based on these characters,” explains Noel Price, the executive producer of
Southern Star Pacific.

“She then met
with Southern Star and we all saw what we thought was a preschool series that
had lots of potential,” continues Price. “We went forward and co-produced the
first series of 65 half hours last year and now we are making a second series
of 65 half hours, which is currently in production.”

Price admits
the preschool market is very competitive, but feels that what sets Raggs apart from other shows aimed at two-
to five-year-olds is its music and storytelling technique. “The dogs are a band
so music does feature prominently in the show, but each episode is interwoven
with a narrative thread that is based on a particular theme, so it combines
story telling with music in a way that doesn’t exist in any other preschool
program,” he says. “Plus, there’s the appeal of the dogs—we’ve spent a
lot of time and taken them from shopping center walkabout characters to quite
sophisticated animatronic characters to give them a lot more emotional
flexibility [and expression].”

In the series,
the day-to-day life of the dogs reflects that of a preschool child. Every
episode includes exploring, discovering, problem solving and learning through
play, which is in keeping with the preschooler’s world.

“The dogs are
very colorful bunch of characters,” explains Price, “who drive the narrative
from the point of view of preschoolers confronted with problems and they have
to solve them, and enjoy the music as if they were big preschoolers themselves.
The show is also a bit irreverent in that the dogs can be quite naughty as
preschoolers can be, not in a nasty way, but they can be a bit thoughtless and
a bit self-centered, and they can be preoccupied with looking at things from
their very limited personal point of view. It’s all about them having to learn
that they have to be part of an overall collective. And while they are all
individuals, they have to share in group responsibility as well. While they are
naughty, they do draw lessons from their naughtiness.”

For now,
Southern Star is focusing on selling the series internationally and
establishing its presence in the preschool market. The second series, in fact,
is being developed with international broadcasters in mind. “We are creating
the half hours in such a way that they can be divided into two programs, or
have some components trimmed and some aspects of it can be localized,” says
Price.