Barbra Streisand is lampooned in Mondo Media's The God and Devil Show. Mondo Media has managed to establish and maintain a strong presence as a major producer and syndicator of Web entertainment. © 2000 Mondo Media.

Gone may be the lavish days of Internet expansion but animation on the Web soldiers on. Three years ago, the dreams dreamed were of a perfect round-the-clock audience in a perfectly new market. Creatively, this came true in an explosion of Flash produced fare. But the business of Net entertainment proved mercurial -- crashing downward as fast as it had scaled up just moments before.

It’s hard not to feel like we’ve been depressingly blown backwards -- until we remember that this has all been just a beginning. The animation going up on the Web today is as exciting and viable now as it was at the outset….and many of the companies profiled on these pages two years ago have been steadily advancing -- albiet at a much slower and quieter pace -- in their continuing efforts to blend animation, emerging technology and new media ideas in fresh and interesting fashion.

John Evershed, CEO and co-founder of Mondo Media, has seen artists' interest in working on the Net wane since the dotcom bust.

Those who have weathered the melee of Net mania have done so by staying adaptable, adjusting the scope of their businesses and realistically looking for cash-flow opportunities in the off-line worlds. Their roads to staying above the fracas have been individual and imaginative, as evidenced by the companies we followed up with below…

Mondo Media
From the start, San Francisco-based Mondo Media's Internet plan was to become a dominant producer and syndicator of entertainment on the Web, eschewing the costly lure of becoming a destination site itself. That successful, multi-tiered business model has kept them up and running. With an established 14 year track record in award-winning design, entertainment and digital production services, Mondo Media, led by CEO and co-founder John Evershed, has been able to maintain focus on leveraging their character-based animation across multiple media fields.

Mondo Media's Happy Tree Friends found a home this year on MTV's Downloaded. The production also served as a basis for Mondo Media's first foray into DVDs and merchandising. © 2000 Mondo Media.

In their heavy production days, the company churned out hit after hit with Web series such as The God and Devil Show, Thugs on Film and Like, News -- using these ‘Mondo Mini Shows’ to create and feed an online distribution set-up they dubbed The Mondo Network, which remains strong and active today. Although production has diminished considerably, some new episodes are still going live and most importantly, the company now has an established library of over 3,000 minutes of broadcast quality animation with which to pursue licensing and merchandising possibilities worldwide.

In fact, several of their properties have already enjoyed off-line success: episodes of Thugs on Film have aired on BBC America, and their wacky Happy Tree Friends debuted on MTV’s Downloaded special just last year. Based on audience feedback from their Website, Mondo chose Happy Tree Friends as their first foray into DVDs and merchandising, introducing those materials for sale this summer. That series will also be featured prominently in this fall’s Spike and Mike’s Sick and Twisted Festival, while in yet another ancillary deal, a bit from one of the Webisodes can be seen in Jennifer Aniston’s The Good Girl feature now in theatrical release.