Wednesday, February 03, 2010

Hasbro Gets Animated

Hasbro wades into the cartoon game.

Kathy Page is joining Hasbro Studios as VP of production following stints at Sony Pictures Television and Warner Bros. Television Animation.

Page will oversee the physical production of programming from Hasbro Studios, which will be developing content for broadcast on the Discovery/Hasbro joint venture The Hub that takes the place of Discovery Kids this fall. Page joins Hasbro from Sony Pictures Television where she served as VP of animation

A lot of the phone calls I've gotten in the last several weeks have been: What' up with Hasbro? I hear they're doing cartoon shows. Where are they going to be happening?"

Here's the whole chronology as I know it.

1) TAG animation writers, working on Hasbro animated shows, help us secure a contract with the company.

2) Hasbro begins to develop new shows out of its temporary Beverly Hills offices.

3) Hasbro looks for studio space; considers the Imagi offices in Sherman Oaks, but decides to move to Burbank's Media Center North next to the fabled Bob Hope Airport.

4) Film Roman employees tell me: "Hasbro is moving into the second floor of the building and redoing a lot of the space. We hear that the animation employees are going to be there on the floor with the executives."

So the hiring of Kathy Page to boost Hasbro into the cartoon biz, that's a good thing The more animation work in Southern California, the better I like it.

8 comments:

Ruben Chavez said...

Amen!

Anonymous said...

More work is better, but hiring Kathy Page means the same old same old. Too bad Hasbro couldn't be more innovative. At least they didn't hire Sharon Morrill

Anonymous said...

This is big news. A brand new company starting up and already union.
I wish them great success.

Anonymous said...

The same Kathy Page who was Tom Ruegger's secretary at Warner Bros? I guess she stayed in animation-good for her.

CHARLES said...

To Anonymous # 2,
I've worked with Kathy on many projects and she has always been very fair to the artists. I think your comment is unfair, she has to work with what a studio will give her as a budget. It's nothing personal on her part, it's just the part of the business that no one likes but has to be attended to.

Edward said...

Kathy was always more us than them in the Reugger Stoner days. I liked working with her. Hope she does well.

Anonymous said...

She's an ineffectual middle management yahoo, who knows little to nothing about animation.

Anonymous said...

What I hear is that Jeff Kline deserves full credit for the studio going union - that it was part of his deal. Nice to have a producer on the side of the creative folks!

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