Sesame Workshop's Pinky Dinky Doo

TV Kids Weekly, June 13, 2006

NAME OF THE PROPERTY: Pinky
Dinky Doo

ORIGIN: Pinky blossomed from a collection of playful bedtime
stories, which became the Pinky Dinky Doo
book series, currently available in stores.

CREATORS: The Pinky Dinky Doo
series was created by Jim Jinkins, the president and co-founder of Cartoon
Pizza, and was nurtured through collaboration with the nonprofit organization
Sesame Workshop.

EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS:

Jim Jinkins, President, Cartoon
Pizza

David Campbell, CEO, Cartoon Pizza

COMMISSIONING BROADCASTER: In the U.S., Pinky Dinky Doo airs on NOGGIN, the commercial-free, educational network
for preschoolers. During the month of May, Pinky Dinky Doo was the channel’s top-rated show.

Internationally, the series is
broadcast by ABC in Australia—where it is ranked the number-one
children’s show in the country—CBBC in the U.K., Cartoon Network in Asia,
CBC in Canada, Discovery Kids Latin America and Nickelodeon in France, and it
continues to roll out to other leading broadcasters.

TV SHOW: The series of 26 half-hour episodes—also available as
11-minute episodes—centers on a 7-year-old girl named Pinky who uses her
imagination to solve everyday problems and loves telling stories. Through
Pinky’s adventures, children gain a better understanding of the basic elements
that make up narrative and are encouraged to create their own stories. Each
episode contains two 8-minute stories and three minutes of games that reinforce
storytelling tools, story structure and vocabulary.

TV SALES: Pinky has been sold
in more than 25 territories worldwide.

MAJOR TOY LICENSEES: Gund will be introducing stationery, journals and plush
next spring, encouraging children to use their imagination and create their own
silly stories, just like Pinky does!

OTHER PRODUCTS: Books published by Random House. Currently, there are six Pinky
Dinky Doo titles on store shelves. These
include Where Are My Shoes?, Polka
Dot Pox, Back to School is Cool, Shrinky Pinky, Pinky
Stinky Doo and Think Pink. Eight more books are in the works.

STRATEGY FOR ROLLOUT: The stationery, journals and plush that Gund is creating
will be showcased at the Licensing Show in New York next week. Sesame Workshop
expects products will be on shelves in the U.S in the spring of 2007. “We truly
believe that we’ve got a wonderful brand and one that has life that will go
beyond a few seasons,” says Maura Regan, the VP and general manager of global
licensing at Sesame Workshop. “The books and the television series really hit a
chord with young children because the storytelling and the whole idea of making
up stories is so engaging. The books are really charming and they are the
perfect vehicles for setting children up for a lifetime of learning and
reading, which is the arguably the foundation of all sorts of bigger and better
things.”

Providing children with building
blocks towards literacy was one of Jim Jinkins’ goals when he created Pinky
Dinky Doo, although the genesis of Pinky
was borne of a desire to entertain his children. “After all these years of
making stuff for kids, I was not purposely trying to develop a TV show,” says
Jinkins, who is the president and co-founder of Cartoon Pizza, a New York-based
animation studio. “I was just telling bedtime stories to my two kids. At the
time it was a 5-year-old and a 3-year-old who asked me to make up some bedtime
stories. My goal was to make them giggle and make the stories silly.”

That was how Pinky came about.
“Fortunately I wrote down some of those original made-up stories. At the time I
had not thought of them being for TV, I just didn’t want to forget them. And
those turned out to be 14 books for Random House and so far those books are
based on those original bedtime stories and the first handful of episodes of
the TV series are based on those original bedtime stories.”

The goal in each episode is to
entertain but at the same time give children the tools they need to help learn
and be confident with words. “If you can engage in storytelling and reading,”
says Sesame Workshop’s Regan, “it only goes up from there!”

— Anna Carugati

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