A Classic Series, Retooled and Swingin’
Stuart Elliott
The New York Times
January 16, 2008
IN 1967, when the cartoon series “George of the
Jungle” was introduced, cigarette commercials still ran
on TV, DVD meant Dick Van Dyke and video was a word in
the titles of series like “Captain Video” and “Video
Village.”
Not only has television changed in four decades, so too
has the audience that watches cartoons. Both those
realities are being addressed by the Cartoon Network
cable channel and its partners when they introduce on
Friday a new version of “George of the Jungle.”
The 21st-century George and his show are being promoted
on their own Web site (georgeofthejungle.tv), where
visitors can watch clips, listen to the theme song and
retrieve digital trinkets like wallpapers, buddy icons,
screen savers and downloadable desktop mascots.
The George-centric Web site, created by Special Ops
Media in New York, is in addition to material on the Web
site of Cartoon Network (cartoonnetwork.com), where
visitors can play a game called Swingin’ Kingdom.
To help build viewership for the new series, the
original series is being released on DVD on Feb. 12. A
video game, “George of the Jungle and the Search for the
Secret,” will follow a month later. And employees at the
Applebee’s restaurant chain will wear stickers
advertising the show and give away free activity books
to young customers.
The show, too, is being retooled. This time, George and
his friends are teenagers instead of 20-somethings.
There are additional characters, including another lead
female. The animation is Flash rather than pen and ink.
And the vintage theme song is reworked to sound more
contemporary.
It still, however, ends with the admonition “Watch out
for that tree!”
The changes are indicative of the significant shifts in
the media and marketing landscapes in the 41 years since
“George of the Jungle” made its debut on ABC. (Disney
produced a live-action movie version of the series in
1997 and a sequel, made for video, six years later.)
“Kids are consuming media across all types of
platforms,” said Dennis Adamovich, senior vice president
for marketing at Cartoon Network in Atlanta, part of the
Turner Broadcasting System division of Time Warner.
•
“The best way to reach out to every kid in America,” he
added, is to consider television just one way to
publicize the show, along with the Internet, the
Applebee’s promotion, the DVDs, the online and video
games, commercials in movie theaters, spots on radio and
commercials on the screens in 43 cities that compose the
CNN Airport Network.
And more is to come, including podcasts and episodes
that could be watched on video-on-demand services on
local cable systems.
“It’s all about playground currency,” said Nicole Blake,
senior vice president for marketing at Classic Media in
New York, a division of Entertainment Rights that teamed
up with Jay Ward Productions, the creator of the
original “George,” for the revival.
“Kids use entertainment as currency on the playground,”
Ms. Blake said. “It’s their version of the water
cooler.”
“Our goal, through our multitiered marketing program, is
to generate excitement and buzz for the new show among
kid ‘influencers,’ who will pass it on to their
friends,” she added.
Classic Media and Ward are partners in a joint venture,
Bullwinkle Studios, that is producing the new series for
Cartoon Network along with Studio B Productions, a unit
of DHX Media of Canada. A Canadian cable network,
Teletoon, began running the new “George of the Jungle”
last year.
Cartoon Network is giving the show what in retailing is
known as a soft launch. First came “A George of the
Jungle Christmas” on Dec. 21, offering a preview of the
new look and characters. Then viewers got a sneak peek
at the first episode of the new series last Friday,
after a showing of the 1997 movie.
The regular time slot for the new series is 7:30 to 8:30
p.m. Fridays, with two 30-minute episodes back to back.
Cartoon Network has placed an initial order of 26
episodes.
“This is the first new animated series of Ward
characters in 40 years,” said Tiffany Ward, president at
Ward Productions and Bullwinkle Studios in Costa Mesa,
Calif., as well as an executive producer of the new
series.
“To say we’re thrilled is understating it,” she added.
Ms. Ward is the daughter of Jay Ward, who produced
cartoons with classic characters like Bullwinkle J.
Moose, Rocket J. Squirrel (better known as Rocky) and
Dudley Do-Right, a stalwart Mountie. He subsequently
made commercials for products like Cap’n Crunch cereal.
George “is such a great character,” Ms. Ward said of the
jungle gymnast, who was created by her father and Allan
Burns as a spoof of Tarzan.
“My job, my legacy, is to keep these characters alive
and out there,” Ms. Ward said. “Good cartoon characters
are eternal, but you need to refresh them because kids
are maturing faster.”
Ms. Ward has made “a couple of pitches” to networks and
marketers, she said, about bringing back characters that
accompanied George in the 1967 series: Tom Slick, a race
car driver, and Super Chicken, a, well, superhero
chicken.
•
There are plans with DreamWorks Animation, Ms. Ward
said, for a film version of the adventures of two
characters that appeared on “Rocky and His Friends” and
“The Bullwinkle Show”: Mr. Peabody, a talking dog, and
his naïve pet boy, Sherman. The film is scheduled for
2010, Ms. Ward said; in addition to the two “George of
the Jungle” films, there have also been movie versions
of Dudley Do-Right (1999) and Rocky and Bullwinkle
(2000).
Sharp-eyed viewers of vintage episodes of “Rocky and His
Friends” and “The Bullwinkle Show” from the 1950s and
1960s may notice in the closing credits references to an
old advertising agency, Dancer Fitzgerald Sample, long
since absorbed by the Saatchi & Saatchi unit of the
Publicis Groupe.
In those days, TV networks scheduled programs if
agencies could persuade marketers to sponsor them. In
this instance, General Mills, a client of Dancer
Fitzgerald Sample, agreed to buy the commercial time —
and characters like Rocky and Bullwinkle would appear in
the spots.