Formerly | Chapman Productions Limited (2001-2004) [1] |
---|---|
Industry | Television production |
Founded | 16 February 2001[1] |
Founders | Keith Chapman Greg Lynn Andrew Haydon |
Defunct | 25 August 2017[1] |
Fate | Dormancy, assets acquired by DreamWorks Animation |
Successor | DreamWorks Classics |
Headquarters | , England |
Brands | Fifi and the Flowertots Roary the Racing Car Little Charley Bear Raa Raa the Noisy Lion |
Chapman Entertainment Limited was a British television production company founded by Keith Chapman and Greg Lynn and based in London. The company focused on producing content aimed at pre-school audiences.
The company was founded by Greg Lynn in London in 2001, together with Keith Chapman and Andrew Haydon, a former managing director of John Reid Entertainment, an artist management company. The company was created for the purpose of exploiting both the intellectual property rights of Chapman's creations and also those of interested third parties. [2]
The company is structured to allow greater rewards and input to property creators. This developed from Chapman's own frustrations at his lack of involvement with his Bob the Builder character. He created the character in the early 1990s and struck a deal with HIT Entertainment which saw them develop the character. The project was handed over to HOT Animation, specifically Jackie Cockle and Curtis Jobling, who took the basic title and premise of the show and ran with it, developing the project in-house from a blank canvas. The resulting show was commissioned by the BBC Children's department.
On 1 September 2004, the company entered into a distribution deal with Target Entertainment, where the company would handle distribution rights to Fifi and the Flowertots outside of North America and the United Kingdom, which Chapman would continue to handle. [3] The global launch of Fifi and the Flowertots began in May 2005 with its initial run on Five's Milkshake! and Nick Jr. The show has been sold into over 100 territories worldwide. Fifi and the Flowertots features the voices of Jane Horrocks and more. [2] [4]
In May 2007, Chapman Entertainment launched their second show, Roary the Racing Car on Five's Milkshake! and Nick Jr. The idea for the show was suggested by Brands Hatch employee David Jenkins and features the voices of comedian Peter Kay and more with racing driver Sir Stirling Moss as the narrator. [4] [5]
On June 5, 2008, the company announced that they would open a standalone studio in Altrincham, Cheshire, with the second series of Roary the Racing Car to be the first show produced within the studio. [6]
On 30 September 2009, the company announced the pre-sales for Little Charley Bear and Raa Raa the Noisy Lion to CBeebies in the UK, with HIT Entertainment functioning as the former show's distribution agent. [7] [8]
In July 2011, Chapman Entertainment announced the departure of their MD Greg Lynn ahead of massive company redundancies, "soaring costs and challenging trading conditions" were listed as the reasons for the redundancies. [9] [10] The following month, the company announced that they had placed itself up for sale, blaming poor toy sales as the main cause. [11]
On 28 February 2012, Chapman's distributor Target Entertainment was placed under administration by its owners Metrodome. [12] Chapman secured a new non-US and UK distribution deal with Cake Entertainment for its entire catalogue the following month. [13] In November 2012, Chapman Entertainment announced the company being placed into administration, again blaming poor toy sales as the main cause.
In September 2013, DreamWorks Animation acquired Chapman Entertainment's content library. The acquisition added to DreamWorks' growing library of family entertainment brands that also included properties gained when it acquired Classic Media in 2012. The Chapman programs are now distributed through DreamWorks Distribution, DreamWorks Animation's UK-based TV distribution operation. [14] The company went dormant after the library was acquired, and was fully dissolved in August 2017.
As of today, Chapman's shows in the United States are currently available on Peacock, NBCUniversal's streaming service.
Bob the Builder is a British animated children's television series created by Keith Chapman for HIT Entertainment, and ran from 12 April 1999 to 31 December 2011 in the United Kingdom through the CBBC strand and later CBeebies. The series centres on the adventures and escapades of a general contractor named Bob who owns a team of anthropomorphised construction vehicles that go about their day helping out the residents of Bobsville; later featuring Sunflower Valley and Fixham Harbour in later seasons. They are also joined by work colleague Wendy, alongside their neighbours and friends.
Cosgrove Hall Films was a British animation studio founded by Brian Cosgrove and Mark Hall, headquartered in Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester. Cosgrove Hall was a major producer of children's television and animated programmes/films, which are still seen in over eighty countries. The company was wound down by its then owner, ITV plc, on 26 October 2009. It was mainly known for its series Danger Mouse, The Wind in the Willows and Count Duckula.
HIT Entertainment Limited was a British-American entertainment company founded in 1982 as Henson International Television, the international distribution arm of The Jim Henson Company, by Jim Henson, Peter Orton, and Sophie Turner Laing. Orton alone took over the company in 1989 after learning Henson intended to sell the company to The Walt Disney Company. HIT owned and distributed children's television series such as Thomas & Friends, Fireman Sam, Bob the Builder, Pingu, Barney & Friends, and Angelina Ballerina.
Ragdoll Productions Limited, or simply Ragdoll, is a British television production company founded in 1984 by Anne Wood, who had previously worked for Yorkshire Television and TV-am. It is located in Bloxham, Oxfordshire, and has produced a number of children's programmes, most notably Pob's Programme, Teletubbies, Rosie and Jim, Brum, Boohbah, Tots TV, and In the Night Garden..., most of which are now owned by WildBrain.
DreamWorks Classics is an American entertainment company owned by DreamWorks Animation, a subsidiary of Universal Pictures, a division of NBCUniversal, which in turn is a subsidiary of Comcast. Founded as Classic Media in 2000 by Eric Ellenbogen and John Engelman, The studio's library consists of acquired intellectual property catalogs and character brands, as well as the licensing rights for various third-party properties. In 2012, Boomerang Media sold Classic Media to DreamWorks Animation, who rebranded the company as DreamWorks Classics. DreamWorks Animation became a subsidiary of NBCUniversal in 2016.
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Milkshake! is a British children's television programming block on Channel 5 and is currently aimed at children aged 2 to 7.
Keith Vincent Chapman is a British television writer and producer, best known as the creator of children's television programmes Bob the Builder, Mighty Express, Fifi and the Flowertots and Paw Patrol.
Roary the Racing Car, stylised as ROARY: The Racing Car, is a British preschool animated television series created by David Jenkins and produced by Chapman Entertainment for Five and Nick Jr. It aired from 7 May 2007 to 29 September 2010. The series was animated by Cosgrove Hall Films for its first two series, while Chapman took over animation production for the last two series. It follows the adventures of Roary and his racing car friends at Silver Hatch racetrack.
M2 is a Hungarian television channel owned and operated by Duna Média since 2015. It is also transmitted in high definition.
Little Charley Bear is a British CGI-animated television series created by Daniel Pickering. Narrated by James Corden, Little Charley Bear takes viewers on a journey into the world of let's pretend, where anything is possible. Little Charley Bear made its television debut in January 2011 on CBeebies. The show has been sold into more than 80 territories.
DreamWorks Pictures is an American film studio and distribution label of Amblin Partners. It was originally founded on October 12, 1994, as a live-action film studio by Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg, and David Geffen, of which they owned 72%. The studio formerly distributed its own and third-party films. It has produced or distributed more than ten films with box-office grosses of more than $100 million each.
Cake Entertainment Limited is an independent company specialising in the production, distribution, financing and development of kids’ and family entertainment brands.
CHF Entertainment was an animation studio formed in 2011. It was the reincarnation of the animation company Cosgrove Hall Films which closed in 2009 after 33 years. Brian Cosgrove and Mark Hall formed and ran the original Cosgrove Hall creating over 1000 episodes of animated programs such as Danger Mouse, Cockleshell Bay, Count Duckula, Lavender Castle and The Wind in the Willows, and produced Fifi and the Flowertots, Postman Pat, and Roary the Racing Car. They won a number of awards, including six BAFTAs and two international Emmys.
Wish Films is an animation and live-action studio, established by Will Brenton and Iain Lauchlan in 2006. It is the predecessor to Tell-Tale Productions, which was formed in 1994, first producing live shows, and later went on to produce TV shows.
Numberblocks is a British animated television series for preschoolers that debuted on CBeebies on 23 January 2017. The programme was created by Joe Elliot and produced by Alphablocks Ltd with Blue Zoo. It was commissioned by the British Broadcasting Corporation, with Larkshead Media and Learning Resources holding merchandising rights.
Studio Liddell Ltd. is a British computer animation and imagery production studio based in Manchester, UK. It was founded in 1996 by Ian Liddell, Jon Liddell, and Andrew Jones. The company began by producing imagery for advertising and technical purposes and later successfully expanded into children's television creating shows such as Cloudbabies, Ranger Rob, and working on Roary The Racing Car, Let's Play, Raa Raa The Noisy Lion, and Fifi & The Flowertots. In recent years the company has also expanded into Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality technologies.
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