Will Sega outshine everyone on E3?

[pzirm]

Must be a reason why a Terminator 3 is in the making now isn't there?

Oh, I get it. That's so kids will run to their mommy's and say "I want a Toyota". Ok, whatever.

[ May 30, 2002, 12:48 PM: Message edited by: pzirm ]

[pzirm]

Your entire argument is lame as to why adults wouldn't watch the movies. Most movies are fantasies, fairy tales- made up stories that have no basis in reality whatsoever.

So Toyota is marketing to 12 year old kids banking; no hoping, that they'll buy a car in 5 or 6 years? LOL. That is your lamest explanation yet. Toyota would not waste money marketing to a minority audience or the few adults that watch cartoons as you put it. Not without something in return.

[ May 30, 2002, 03:28 PM: Message edited by: pzirm ]

[pzirm]

Bedtime story, fantasy, it's all the same thing.

If Toyota wanted to market to future potential buyers, they would advertise on MTV where teens 16 and 17 would only be driving in a few years.

Advertising to a 6 year old is not smart marketing IMHO. And the Hispanic example os complete different and irrelevant.

[ May 30, 2002, 07:36 PM: Message edited by: pzirm ]

[SomeGuyYouDontKnow]

^You should see it its pretty good.

[pzirm]

Here something for you to chew on:

Only yesterday they had a big thing about this on CNBC. SpongeBob Square Pants is one of the most watched shows on Cable Tv and Nicolodean is the number 2 watched network on CTV. SpongeBob Square Pants is such a big hit that analysts are forecasting a 500 million profit from toys and merchandise. Double the estimates from only 4 months ago.

Read this:

Fri, Apr 12, 2002
Fun For All: SpongeBob SquarePants is soaking up adult viewers, too

By Bettijane Levine
LOS ANGELES TIMES

HOLLYWOOD

We are at the Goo Lagoon, a sunny strand of shore beneath a flowered sky in the underwater town of Bikini Bottom. Our hero, SpongeBob Square-Pants, is too weak to compete in the weightlifting contest. But he's too naive to know it. So he flashes his gap-tooth grin, optimistically pumps his spindly limbs - they're barely strong enough for his rectangular yellow sink-sponge body - and confronts this challenge as he does all others: squarely.

Alas, he cannot hoist the twig, which is weighted with a single marshmallow at either end. Worse yet, he rips his square, brown pants while trying. And so begins another episode in the excellent undersea life of America's newest cult cartoon hero.

About 50 million viewers watch SpongeBob SquarePants every month. About 30 million of them are children (the target audience is ages 2 to 11). The little yellow guy recently surpassed Rugrats, becoming No. 1 in kids' TV ratings. But what of the other 20 million spongeheads - adults who say they compulsively tune in to this invertebrate cast of honest, upbeat, innocent characters? (SpongeBob and his starfish friend, Patrick, once took a free balloon without asking and then turned themselves in for stealing.)

The cartoon dreamed up for kids has turned out to be a kind of brain balm for stressed-out grown-ups, folks who are tired of swimming with the sharks, of dealing with red alerts, job wars, Enron. People who'd like to get away from it all - at least from the neck up.

Tales are surfacing across the country of adult SpongeBobians who feel a need for daily therapy with the little yellow fellow. In San Francisco, painter Megan Archer, 31, and her artist friends are "really into SpongeBob" for his "cool look," for the music and the story thrust. "It's silly and simple. It deals with feelings. Someone may be mad and they don't know why they're mad, and so they all try to figure it out together. They're like one big happy family."

The show airs four times a day, so SpongeBob fans have ample choice of when to send their brains on vacation. Those who want an extended holiday can veg out for hours with Nickelodeon's occasional SpongeBob marathons - the longest so far has been seven hours.

Though many adults got hooked on SpongeBob all by themselves, others were reeled in by kids and soon fell into a multigeneration viewing pattern. A divorced father in Southern California, for example, enjoys the show on weekends with his 12-year-old son and 60-year-old father. In New York, attorney Andy Borden watches with his 6-year-old son, Matthew, and then they sometimes call Matthew's 40-year-old SpongeBob-fan aunt, who lives in Illinois, to discuss the episode. "It's a way for them to bond long distance. The plot is what a child can relate to, but it's bizarre enough to tickle adult funny bones," Borden said.

Since SpongeBob's image recently started appearing on merchandise - from small cuddle toys for toddlers to air freshener for adults - it has racked up impressive figures. So far, $500 million worth of T-shirts, key chains, stickers, video games and software has sold nationwide. SpongeBob is also perking up sales for companies that have licensed his image on fast food, breakfast cereal and ice-cream containers. In the works: a feature-length SpongeBob movie.

Cyma Zarghami, Nickelodeon's New York-based executive vice president, said that it took about 16 months for the SpongeBob phenomenon to take full hold. The first episode aired in 1999 as the network's first original Saturday-morning kids' series.

The big question for industry types who would like to emulate SpongeBob's success is the same one some adults ponder as they watch: What's so compelling about these silly sea creatures who live, walk, drive, sing and talk in an environment that defies all laws of physics? What's so lovable about a sponge who lives in a pineapple, adores his job as an underpaid fry cook and strives only to do it better each day?

Professor Robert Thompson, the director of the Center for the Study of Popular Television at Syracuse University, said that watching SpongeBob is like having "a really nice aquarium in your living room - with voices and action."

"It's so gentle and soothing to watch," he said. "It's a kind of time machine that transports parents back to when they watched TV in their footie (pajamas). It has the look of a classic old show and a certain innocence and wholesomeness of attitude that is clearly a throwback to a simpler time."

I need not argue my case any further. A cartoon series that's aimed at 2-11 years olds has a whopping 20 million dedicated adult viewers watching every single month. Nearly half of the cartoons viewing audience. How is this possible when a "miniscule" amount of adults enjoy cartoons?

I really want to hear you talk this down without looking like a complete idiot. It was only Friday that CNBC was interviewing the President of Nicolodean (they re-ran it yesterday) and the guy who was interviewing the CEO was raving about how SpongeBob is a huge hit among adults of all ages. He himself knew every SpongeBob episode in existence (there are only 25 of them (amazing that reruns after re-runs can garner such ratings) and he even said he was absolutely hooked to the show.

So Shane, if 20 million viewers can tune in monthly o watch a silly show like SpongeBob, why can't a few million adults enjoy Zelda?

[pzirm]

So CNBC was lying then? And Nicolodean's President didn't know what he was talking about? Such tripe. That article of yours is shallow. It can't stand up to the words that came straight from out of Nicolodean's own CEO. Nearly half of SpongeBob's viewing audience is adults and that's a fact. You just can't admit it because you don't want to give Zelda it's due respect.

[pzirm]

Whatever. That article was straight from the Los Angeles Times. A reputable magazine like the LA Times would not print false information. Furthermore, CNBC and the President of Nicolodean would not openly misinform people in such a manner.

BAD NEWS AT BIKINI BOTTOM

By DON KAPLAN

April 16, 2002 -- IT looks like the most-watched kids' show on TV, "SpongeBob Squarepants," is on the verge of drying up.

Steve Hillenburg, the show's creator, executive producer and head writer, says he's quitting when his deal with Nickelodeon is up later this year. But since Hillenburg sold all of his "SpongeBob" rights to Nickelodeon years ago - in exchange for seeing his concept make it onto TV - the show could theoretically go on with out him.

A Nickelodeon spokesman confirmed that the future of the show - which is seen each week by about 3 million kids - is up in the air.

"I definitely need a break," Hillenburg told the Los Angeles Times. "I want to try something new."

Nickelodeon could continue to produce new episodes without Hillenburg, as it did years ago another one of the channel's animated show's "Ren & Stimpy," a move Nickelodeon staffers acknowledge probably contributed to the show's demise.

Hillenburg thinks that once he leaves, it's not likely that the network would continue the show without him.

"I think they respect that my contribution is important," Hillenburg said. "I think they would want to maintain the original concept and quality."

Nickelodeon sources said yesterday that the programming execs have admitted they made a mistake with "Ren & Stimpy" and probably won't do the same to "SpongeBob."

Hillenburg said there's still 20 unseen episodes of the show that should keep it fresh though most of this year.

The show, which has been on the air since 1999, follows the adventures of a yellow sink sponge and his friends who live in the underwater town of Bikini Bottom.

The show has become a major hit with both kids and adults and resulted in a merchandise line that has generated about $500 million for Nickelodeon.

"I think the network wants to make a 'SpongeBob' movie," Hillenburg said. "I also want to make a movie. I wouldn't want to try and work on the series concurrently with the film."

It's not an unusual time to stop working on "SpongeBob," Hillenburg said. Many animation shows end at around 60 episodes. Some resume production at a later date. Nickelodeon's earlier mega-hit "Rugrats," stopped at 65 shows.

"Then they made a movie, and after that they came back and made more episodes for TV. That could eventually happen with ‘SpongeBob' too," Hillenburg said, "although I really have no idea what I'll do."

Straight from Nickelodeans website. Apparently, they believe that adults are watching SpongeBob.

[ June 02, 2002, 04:08 PM: Message edited by: pzirm ]

[pzirm]

This a Time Magazine article: (You know the Times, don't you?

The Arts/Television
Soaking Up Attention
SpongeBob SquarePants, indomitable invertebrate, floats to the top of the sea of kids' programming
BY JAMES PONIEWOZIK


NICKELODEON

Monday, Dec. 17, 2001
In America, if you want to be successful, you go to college, study hard and pack your head full of arcane knowledge. Then you head for Hollywood and learn to tell plankton jokes. That, anyway, was the route to fame and fortune for Stephen Hillenburg, an avid surfer, scuba diver and marine-biology teacher fascinated with tide-pool life. After he later went to art school and became an animator, he decided to base his debut cartoon, loosely, on the creatures that he had made his life's study. Very loosely. His star: a talking sponge who wears a tie, flips Krabbie Patties at a submarine fast-food joint and resembles a slice of Swiss cheese more than his real-water counterparts.

Hail SpongeBob SquarePants: delightfully biologically incorrect and the new invertebrate king of children's television. Launched in 1999, his sweet, surrealistic, self-titled Nickelodeon cartoon recently unseated the long-reigning Rugrats as the most popular kids' show on TV, attracting an average of 10 million kids ages 2 to 11 (and more than 5 million adults) each week.

Not bad for a complete nerd. Hillenburg says he conceived SpongeBob as an offbeat, dweeby child-man in the mold of Pee-wee Herman. (Hillenburg, who wears a funky surfer haircut at age 40 and hangs sea-life mobiles outside his office, fits the offbeat, dweeby child-man profile a bit himself.) Like Pee-wee, the squeaky-voiced sponge lives in a colorful, goofy wonderland--inside an undersea pineapple in the town of Bikini Bottom. "I wanted to create a small town underwater where the characters were more like us than like fish," Hillenburg says. "They have fire. They take walks. They drive. They have pets and holidays." Of course, there are a few differences. In Bikini Bottom, no one thinks it's strange that the town villain, the megalomaniacal Plankton, is a one-celled organism, or that SpongeBob's boss, a crab, has a daughter who's a whale (literally).

Like Pee-wee's appeal, SpongeBob's lies in his innocence. He's the anti-Bart Simpson, temperamentally and physically: his head is as squared-off and neat as Bart's is unruly, and he has a personality to match--conscientious, optimistic and blind to the faults in the world and those around him. He never seems to notice that his cynical neighbor and co-worker Squidward (an octopus) drips contempt toward everything SpongeBob does, or that his best friend Patrick Starfish is a certified nitwit. Kids are drawn by the show's loopy slapstick, grownups by its dry (so to speak) wit: "I order the food, and you cook the food," Squidward tells SpongeBob, describing their jobs at the restaurant. "We do that for 40 years, and then we die."

That dual appeal is a sign of a welcome change in animation. Cartoons have bridged kids' and adult entertainment since the heyday of Walt Disney and Chuck Jones, but the field went through a long creative slump in the '70s and '80s, as programmers churned out Saturday-morning knock-offs made mainly to shill toys (My Little Pony) or repurpose sitcom characters (The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang). Today cartoons have undergone a renaissance, as kids' channels such as Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network have given their animators the freedom of auteurs. Smarter and more idiosyncratic, these animators have created shows like Cartoon Network's The Powerpuff Girls that have become not just hits but cultural icons. "It harkens back to the old days at Warner Bros., when guys were creating Daffy Duck and Bugs Bunny, and they had free rein," says Powerpuff creator Craig McCracken. There's still plenty of toy-driven junk, particularly in the anime-action category, but cartoons have also become more diverse (with new entries like Disney Channel's African-American The Proud Family) and ambitious (Cartoon Network's epic Samurai Jack).

Of course, there's still cashing in to be done--SpongeBob has lent his image to Target, Burger King and Nabisco Cheese Nips, and a SpongeBob movie is in the works. But, Hillenburg says, the art comes first. "I could get more money from a [broadcast] network," he says, but "I was interested in doing the show the way I wanted." Now that creators like him can do that, it is, in the world of cartoons at least, a great time to be a kid, a grownup or--best of all--a little of each.

Time Magazine.

[pzirm]

SpongeBob is a kids show the emphasis well always be kids.

[pzirm]

Kids networks
taking on adult airs

Cartoon Net and Nickelodeon nab older viewers

By Elizabeth White

The turf war between the Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon is starting to involve the adults, as both networks had successes last week among adults 18-49 and adults 25-54, especially during primetime and late night hours.

Nickelodeon has been targeting adults 18-49 with its Nick-at-Night sitcom rerun lineup, which airs from 9 p.m. to 5:30 a.m. on most days.

During primetime last week, "The Brady Bunch," "Family Ties" and "Cheers" made Nickelodeon the ninth-highest-rated network among adults 18-49 and the tenth highest among adults 25-54.

An average of 488,000 adults 18-49 and 467,000 adults 25-54 tuned in to the network during primetime last week.

In total day numbers, Nickelodeon was the sixth-highest-rated network among adults 18-49 and the tenth highest among adults 25-54, with 417,000 and 389,000 viewers in each respective demographic.

That audience was made up of both Nick-at-Night viewers and adults watching the weekday morning Nick Jr. block with their kids. According to Nickelodeon, adults 18-49 comprise one-third of the Nick Jr. audience.

The Cartoon Network, which says 30 percent of its audience is over the age of 18, launched "Adult Swim," a three-hour block of adult cartoons, this past September in order to attract a larger adult 18-34 audience on Sunday and Thursday nights.

While the network says the six hours of adult programming aren't enough to significantly affect weekly ratings, last week the Cartoon Network ranked eighth among adults 18-49 in total day measurements.

More specifically, last Sunday’s "Adult Swim" hours were up 357 percent in adult 18-34 delivery, 187 percent in adult 18-49 delivery, and 155 percent in adult 25-54 delivery, versus the same time period a year ago, when repeats of the Cartoon Network’s Saturday morning block occupied the time slot.

Last Sunday’s "Adult Swim" attracted 352,000 adults 18-34, 431,000 adults 18-49 and 235,000 adults 25-54.

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