Category: Kids

“Disney‘s High School Musical4 with new lead actors would return to the television in 2010 and will feature a story built around music and dance filled love triangle and rivalry with a cross-town school,” said Disney channel worldwide president Gary Marsh.

The first two High School Musical movies have been seen by over 300 million viewers in more than 100 nations, including India, China and Russia.

High School Musical1 drew an audience of 7.7 million in 2006 and the second part doubled the viewership to 17.2 million in 2007.

High School Musical 3 was first to be released in theatres in 2008 and made more than $40 million in its opening weekend and sold $250 million in tickets worldwide.

Peter Barsocchini who has penned down earlier three movies, will again write for the High School Musical4. But it is unclear whether director Kenny Ortega will direct the movie.

Said Nick India GM and VP Nina Elavia Jaipuria, “This is yet another initiative from Nick to connect with and constantly engage the gen next through powerful characters and multiplatform extensions that delight them.”

‘Tak’ is a member of a jungle tribe and an assistant to a sage, until one day he is endowed with the ‘power of juju’. This gift is bestowed upon him by the magical and mystical spirits who are known as the ‘Jujus’. With his newly acquired abilities, Tak can cast spells, travel to the juju kingdom and summon the powerful and very peculiar jujus at any time for advice.

Based on Nickelodeon‘s upcoming episode airing in April, SpongeBob vs. The Big One, the new SpongeBob SquarePants cooking game offers a menu of innovative dishes that can only be prepared SpongeBob-style.

SpongeBob vs The Big One: Beach Party Cook-Off is available at a retail price of $29.99 and is also expected to be available in Europe and Australia later this month.

With more than 25 different cooking activities, players will learn how to cook SpongeBob-style, which will include new and unique culinary techniques such as “skipping,” “painting,” and “slingshooting”.

Loaded with voice-overs from Tom Kenny, the official voice talent of SpongeBob, the game also features wireless cooperative gameplay that will unlock additional ‘Sponge-tacular’ recipes.

Last year, DQE and The Moonscoop had walked into a strategic alliance with an aim to capitalise on the individual business networks and production expertise of both the groups.

Part of that strategic deal, Tara Duncan is the fourth TV series to be produced by the two companies together. Animated TV series Casper’s Scare School was the first co-production project to roll out of from the Moonscoop and DQ Entertainment partnership stable.

DQE Group chairman and CEO Tapaas Chakravarti said, “The functionality of our partnership with The Moonscoop has been proven once again. Together we will produce animation for television productions as well as feature films. We are also jointly exploring producing Indian content in live action as well as animation to further extend our relationship with Moonscoop.”

Tara Duncan is based on the best selling book by Sophie Audouin-Mamikonian and is a chidren’s fantasy series touted as Harry Potter’s little French sister. Tara is a young girl, who discovers by chance that she is a “sortceli?re” (those who can bind fates) with very powerful capacities.

“This deal is in logical progression of our ongoing relationship with DQE. We have successfully collaborated on Casper and the Fantastic Four TV series. We hope that Tara Duncan will be yet another successful partnership. Each of our companies brings something unique to this agreement which we think will ultimately benefit not only our companies, but our broadcast and licensing partners, as well,” added The Moonscoop CEO Nicolas Atlan.

The other animation films that will be showcased at the fest include Grégoire Sivan’s Premier Voyage, Nicolas Deveuax’ 7 tonnes 2 (7 tons 2), Le Château des autres and Entre deux miettes (Between two crumbs).

Most of the films screened at the fest will be approximately 7-minute long.

Says Diamond Comics chairman and managing director Gulshan Rai, “Our characters can be used in stationary products, bubble-gums, candies, ice-creams, shoe industry, cycle industry and also on school children oriented products like school bags, T-Shirts, tattoos and transfer stickers.”

“The potential of Indian character licensing, especially, Diamond Comics characters, is great as people can easily recall these characters. We see tremendous potential in Indian character licensing industry and have aggressive plans to harness the same,” adds License India business head Anupama Bindra.

Walt Disney Television International India associate director programming Devika Prabhu said, “We aim to bring laughter and fun in kids lives in line with our programming philosophy whenever possible. With Hungamalogy as a stress buster, we hope to introduce a mad fun aspect to exams and encourage kids to enjoy them as much as they enjoy other aspects of school.”

Hungama TV plans to felicitate the ‘Hungamalogy‘ topper all through April by treating them to ‘Hungama Fun’, organised in Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata and Ahmedabad. The top scorers will get an opportunity to watch Hungama TV programs on big screen along with their favourite Hungama TV characters.

The Jonas Brothers from New Jersey will perform at the event in Los Angeles and will also compete for the Favorite Music Group award. They will also participate in a contest called ‘Nickelodeon Kids‘ Choice Jonas Jam Sweepstakes’.

Last year, the Jonas Brothers had won the Favorite Music Group award.

Eight contestants will be selected for the final round and will be then sent on a boot camp in Essex where they will be trained vocally by ‘Any dream will do‘ vocal coach, Zoe Tyler, along with dance classes by professionals.

Finally, the eight will be reduced to four and then viewers will decide on the winner.

The kit will contain colours, slime and various other ingredients needed to play the festival.

The initiative also invites kids to send their ‘messy‘ holi pictures to the network wherein the ‘messiest picture‘ will be put up on the channel‘s website for one entire month.