Hallo From
Hoobland
FROM PUBLISHING
TRENDS (MARCH 2002)
There
was a certain fin de sičcle feeling at the Javits Center
during the week of Feb. 11 — it was the 99th annual
Toy Fair, after all — as the toy biz hit New
York City in suitably world-weary grandeur. Press releases
moped that the learning segment of the toy industry
was down 6% last year to $464 million, while the sports
segment plummeted 29%, to $1.5 billion. (Action figure
sales, wouldn’t you know, shot up 36%.) Perhaps in duck-and-cover
mode, many distributors followed the old DK by
barring their booths to any but retailers. Among the
newly exclusive was International Playthings,
the high-end toy distributor that sadly exited the book
business a few years ago, and Learning Curve,
which recently entered it via Friedman/Fairfax’s
licensed Lamaze baby books.
The Jim Henson Company, in the midst of its own
trials (it may be put on the block again, given parent
EM.TV’s financial woes), was plugging major deals
for The Hoobs, its joint production with the
UK’s Channel 4. The Hoobs, of course, come from Hoobland,
“a sunny, colorful, bouncy world,” and travel the universe
in their Hoobmobile, reporting their findings back home
to an enormous reference database called the Hoobopaedia.
The program will air on TV in Ontario shortly, with
Canada’s Spin Master Toys snapping up the toy
license for that territory. A massive line of Hoob products
has proliferated with the show, spanning books (Egmont
in Europe), scooters, bedding, stationery, puzzles,
toiletry products, and even yogurt. A shameless success
overseas (250 episodes were commissioned up front a
couple of years ago, and the series recently took home
the BAFTA “Best Preschool Live Action Series”
award), the enterprise has now signed 14 television
licenses and has put toy and publishing efforts in place
worldwide — everywhere except the US, that is. Now’s
your chance to hoobledoop, as they say.
Empire-building is also on track for the Eloise
line of toy and book paraphernalia launched by itsy
bitsy following Kay Thompson’s passing (she
had opposed expansion of the license). Simon &
Schuster has plunged right in with the sequel Eloise
Takes a Bawth, which was shelved after four years
of development when Thompson forced the withdrawal of
the three earlier sequels. In other matters, Klutz
appears to have finagled a knockoff of the popular Workman
Brain Quest series, under the title Klutz
Kwiz and including a computer-like “gizmo” offering
multiple-choice answers. The device snaps together with
decks of grade-specific questions. Word has it the new
ones aren’t selling, which may explain why no one’s
filed a trade dress lawsuit.
And while most publishers pushed the playtime aspect
of their program, Amy Epstein’s new publishing
company The Straight Edge promised to help your
child “win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in
2036.” The books are retellings of classic children’s
stories (Goldilocks, The Three Little Pigs)
complete with cutouts of the characters and props allowing
the child to retell or “creatively change the story.”
Let’s just hope the young creators never have to tangle
with the Margaret Mitchell estate.
©2002
Publishing Trends
