Sky Dancers (Abrams/Gentile & Gaumont),based on the popular girl's toy.

At the National Association of Television Programming Executives (NATPE) convention last month, key television executives from around the world congregated in New Orleans to wheel, deal and negotiate. And one trend was clear: animation is the hottest ticket in town! Kids shows, adult satires, feature films and even network logos have all gone to the toons!

DIC Entertainment's Robby London feels that the animated market is quite competitive, noting that, "producers are obliged to take any action to make their project stand out from the crowd." To that end, DIC's show is Mummies, a half hour weekly series which is being executive produced by Ivan Reitman of Ghostbusters fame.

"Animation is a unique art form with its own reason for being," said Sachs Entertainment's Barbara Schwecke. Right now, she sees the surge being led by the major studios and their decision to build their own animation facilities. While at NATPE, Sachs wanted to sell a third season of Bananas in Pajamas, which is being reformatted to 15 minutes and paired with a Random House show, The Crayon Box. Sach's half hour weeklies, New Adventures of Zorro and Kewpie have been sold to WPIX/New York.

E is for Education!
Many syndicators with kids product stressed the unlimited possibilities of animation can adequately blend with the limitations of Federal Communications Commission guidelines. Summit Media Group's Shelly Hirsch feels that "FCC-friendly doesn't necessarily mean standing in front of a desk. The intention is to inform and educate--and animation is a tool." Summit was at NATPE with the youth-appealing, FCC-friendly Mr. Men, Oscar's Orchestra (part of Summit's "Just 4 Kids" weekly 90-minute program block, that also includes classic stories called Enchanted Tales) and the new adult weekly from Japan, Sushi TV.

Bohbot Entertainment's Karen Lee Brown feels that US producers need to tone down the violence if they want to strike pay dirt in international markets, which is why they are offering the new weekly kids show, Dangerous Dinosaurs. While there's "enough action to intrigue kids, the heroes usually don't want to use weapons." Instead, Brown has opted for what she terms "nonimitative violent action," with plenty of tail-thrashing and growling, but few guns.

MG/Perin has had a lot of success with their first foray into animation. "We've had an excellent response from our stations to our new fully animated educational series, Chucklewood Critters. " The show, which is currently in production, has been sold to the BBC as well as to stations in the US.

Co-Production Land
Animation is also very big in international markets. "There is a lot of demand--more than we can produce," explained Claude Berthier, chief executive officer of Marina Productions, who was at the conference to promote The Princess of the Nile, an FCC-friendly series set in ancient Egypt.

Since their introduction, Gaumont Multimedia's highly successful Dragon Flyz and Sky Dancers (both produced by Abrams/Gentile Entertainment) have sold in over 70 territories worldwide. The series, developed from the number one selling toys in the USA, have recently been sold to RCTI in Indonesia, and Dragon Flyz has gone to Fox Kids Network in the UK. Gaumont's Mickie Steinmann was also excited that the company had just sold Home to Rent, which already airs in France and the UK, to air on Fox's Saturday morning lineup. Rock star Iggy Pop is working on the theme music for the show. Gaumont has also entered into the enchanting world of magic with its latest animated series, The Magician.