Category: Kids

Ben Lyons will take over the reigns from Roger Ebert and Richard Roeper to star in the next generation of the series alongside Ben Mankiewicz.

In My Family‘s Got Guts, each episode will feature two teams of four players (two adults and two kids from the same family) who gather to compete against each other in multiple rounds of events. In the final round, the families face off on a new updated 3D, a version of the original Guts‘ Aggro Crag fantasy mountain. The team with the most points going into the Crag round wins a time advantage, but the team who wins the Crag round wins the game.

FoneStarz will distribute the content of Cartoon Network, Boomerang and Adult Swim.

Turner branded ringtones, games, wallpapers will be available to Vodafone,T-Mobile and O2 subscribers in both UK and Ireland.

Additionally, customers can directly download content from Samsung’s Fun Club in UK and FoneStarz’s DTH platform, Kazzip.

The announcement was made by Disney Channels Worldwide president Rich Ross. For the 19 Jetix channels and six Toon Disney branded channels and programming in all other parts of the world, any potential re-branding decisions will be made on a case by case basis at a later date.

Ross said, “Disney Channel is a huge business serving kids all around the world, and it‘s especially successful with girls, and our goal with Disney XD is to have that same success ratio with boys. Disney XD will showcase great stories and empowering characters with Disney‘s brand credibility and a cool creative factor that will set it apart from the pack.”

Disney XD will be the seventh brand in the kid-driven, family inclusive TV and radio business of the US media conglomerate. The global portfolio encompasses Playhouse Disney, Disney Channel, Radio Disney, Disney Cinemagic, Toon Disney and Jetix.

Disney XD programming will reflect the boy demographic‘s fundamental values of accomplishment, learning, discovery and growth, and will be differentiated by Disney-branded live-action movies, new and library animated programming and original programming developed with the leader in sports entertainment, ESPN. These initiatives range from original programming to newly packaged X Games content.

The Disney XD launch schedule will include Aaron Stone. This is an adventure series about a teenager who is enlisted to become the real life version of a legendary, crime fighting online game character. The series stars Kelly Blatz, David Lambert, JP Manoux and Tania Gunadi.

Mongoose and Luther is a comedy about two best friends who set their sights on becoming world famous skateboarders. The stars are Hutch Dano, Adam Hicks, Daniel Curtis Lee and Ryan Newman. Hero and Not is an animated short-form series produced in Italy by Studio Bozzetto andCo

RoboDz is a comedic 3D, CG-animated and live action short form series.

How do you say goodbye? The series helps children understand and deal with saying goodbye in different situations. From the expression of “seeing you later” to Uncle Salie preparing to leave Takalani to Kami mourning her mother, the series gives children the tools they need to help with parting from near and dear.

The new season continues to follow a holistic approach to children’s early learning and development by covering educational objectives across the domains of literacy, numeracy, and life-skills. The educational objectives are informed by the National ECD Curriculum.

“We believe that children‘s learning and development is much stronger at a young age when they build on what‘s familiar – therefore providing content in the mother tongue is an educationally sound practice. In season 5 we focus more on the marginalised languages such as Tsonga to increase our audience reach. Takalani allows children to dream and provides first class innovative content that allows children to celebrate their childhood through learning, loving, playing, laughing and realizing their potential,” said SABC head of children’s genre Charles Owen.

“Takalani,” which means “be happy” in TshiVenda, conveys the spirit of happiness and innocence. Takalani Sesame is brought to the children of South Africa through a partnership with SABC Education and Sanlam.

Initial support and funding was provided from the American people through the United States Agency for International Development in support of the South African Department of Education.

Takalani Sesame is produced by Kwasukasukela under the creative direction of Sesame Workshop in collaboration with the South African partners.

7Seas‘ online games include Math Fun which teaches mathematical fractions for kids. In this game, the player has to collect the correct fraction equivalents to the given hints. Another game Vikram Betaal is based on the Indian story of King Vikramaditya and the ghost Betaal. In this game, the player has to puzzle out the arithmetical queries to make Vikram enter to next levels.

Further, four games are developed related to vocabulary development in English. The first game is Word Grill. The goal of the player is to fill the squares with letters, forming words by referring to the clues given. Word Quest is another funny educational game that develops vocabulary and the power of exploration in kids.

Map Making is an another educational as well as appealing game that enhances the knowledge of physical country maps in players. The player has to drag the states and Union Territories and drop them to plot at their correct places.

All these games, which are full of knowledge and playfulness, are available on the company’s portals www.onlinerealgames.com and www.neodelight.com. 7Seas Technologies MD L.Maruti Sanker says, “We intend to develop more funny and educational games for children.”

Nick Jr. at the Movies is a movie programme for preschoolers and their caregivers that aims to offer “action-filled”, and “song-filled” adventures from television episodes of Go, Diego, Go!; Dora the Explorer; The Backyardigans; and The Wonder Pets! Also, all these episodes have been reformatted for large screen projection.

Also, including the “sing-along” music videos and interstitials from Nickelodeon‘s preschool brands ‘Nick Jr.‘, the program will be available nationally in 12 states.

National Amusements president Shari Redstone says, “With the introduction of Nick Jr. at the Movies, families will have even more entertainment choices at our theatres, yet another step toward the goal of transforming our theatres into community entertainment destinations.”

Nickelodeon Recreation executive VP Howard Smith adds, “We‘ve found from talking to families that they are looking for fun opportunities to get out of the house and enjoy age-appropriate movie-going experiences with their kids. We‘ve formatted some of the best ‘Nick Jr.‘ adventures for the big screen so that kids and their caregivers can experience their favourite characters in a whole new venue.”

“Scooby-Doo has enchanted generations of audiences for nearly 40 years and, as evidenced by box office, DVD sales and television ratings, the franchise today is stronger than ever. We‘re delighted to extend the Scooby-Doo legacy into another live-action film, and bring these characters to a greater legion of fans in an all-new movie,” said Nielsen.

The film will be directed by Brian Levant (Are We There Yet?, Snow Dogs, Jingle All The Way) while Brian Gilbert (Wrong Turn, Skinwalkers, The Deaths of Ian Stone) is producing it and Altiere Brothers (Dolittle Goin‘ Hollywood) is writing it.

The original series, Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!, was created in 1969 for Hanna-Barbera studios.

“This contemporary take on ‘Scooby Doo‘ is a an anchor component of our new push into movies, our great partnership with Warner Premiere and the overall expansion of CN programming efforts,” said Sorcher.

His appointment is effective from 11 August. He will be responsible for cross-media exploitation of BBC‘s portfolio of children’s brands.

Russell will also work towards strategic relations with CBBC and CBeebies and strengthen the relationship with joint venture partners like Ragdoll and Penguin.

Most recently, he was business development director at Sparrowhawk Media Group, now a part of NBC Universal.

It is due to repay HK$2.5billion ($325 million) of loans in September.

But the two sides cannot agree on how it should be refinanced.

Losses at Hong Kong Disneyland decreased during the three months ended June 28, 2008, Disney said in the stock exchange filing.