Strum Along With SpongeBob

If music be the food of love, then SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS fans are going to adore his latest incarnation. Nickelodeon U.K. has awarded a license to John Hornby Skewes & Co. to produce SPONGEBOB-branded electric guitars, ukuleles, and other real musical instruments.

JHS, a leader in the worldwide distribution of musical merchandise, instrument amplification and pro-audio equipment, which already has a SPONGEBOB ukulele, and Junior acoustic guitar in the market, will be expanding its SPONGEBOB range during 2008, with a Junior electric guitar, a full size electric guitar outfit, and two cool new SPONGEBOB ukuleles, all decorated with colorful images of our undersea hero.

One ukulele and one of the guitars will be adorned with images of the character's face showing the many moods of SpongeBob. The other ukulele shows our smiling hero with his friends in his undersea habitat. The second guitar will show SpongeBob in guitar-hero pose alongside the words "Make it loud" and "Screamin' SpongeBob."

The first two instruments, initially launched in November 2007 to JHS's retail music store trade customers, will be supplemented by the launch of the new products in June 2008, and will appear in music retail stores throughout the U.K. and Eire, and online at the Nick Shop, in July.

This licensing partnership continues the extraordinary growth of the SPONGEBOB brand in the U.K., where it is one of the top-selling properties for kids aged 6 to 12 years. There are more than 88 licensees producing SPONGEBOB products in the U.K.; 20 new licensees were contracted in 2007 alone.

SpongeBob's licensing success reflects his enormous popularity on screen. SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS is the number one downloaded kids TV episode on Sky TV mobile in the U.K. and one of the U.K.'s most downloaded shows on iTunes Store. In addition, SPONGEBOB THE VIDEO GAME has sold over one million units in Europe.