The present-day Cookie Jar logo
|
|
In-Name Unit of DHX Media | |
Industry |
Television Animation Puppetry |
Predecessor | Cinar |
Successor | DHX Media |
Founded | 1976 (as Cinar) 2004 (re-branded as Cookie Jar Group) |
Headquarters |
266 King St. West, 2nd Floor |
Key people
|
Co-founder & CEO: Michael Hirsh Co-founder & President: Lesley Taylor |
Products |
Cookie Jar TV Cookie Jar Toons Cookie Jar Kids Network KidsCo |
Divisions | Cookie Jar Entertainment Cookie Jar Education Cookie Jar Consumer Products Horn Rims Productions |
Subsidiaries | Copyright Promotions Licensing Group |
Website | www |
The final logo
|
|
Company | |
Industry |
Television Animation Puppetry |
Fate | Scandal, Renamed "Cookie Jar Group" in 2004 |
Predecessor |
FilmFair DIC Entertainment |
Successor | Cookie Jar Group |
Founded | 1976 |
Defunct | 2004 |
Website | www |
266 King St. West, 2nd Floor
Toronto, ON M5V 1H8, Canada
International offices
London, United Kingdom
Paris, France
Burbank, California, United States
DHX Cookie Jar Inc. (doing business as Cookie Jar, and formerly known as Cinar) is a Canadian producer of children’s entertainment, consumer products and educational materials. Cookie Jar Group is one of the world’s largest independent children’s entertainment, consumer products and education companies with ownership and licensing rights to some of the most recognizable character brands. It is headquartered in Toronto, with offices in Burbank, California, Paris, London, and Tokyo among other places. in 2012 it merged with DHX Media and became DHX Cookie Jar Inc.
In its previous incarnation as Cinar (pronounced Sen R and stylized as CiNAR), the company enjoyed an illustrious existence that ultimately ended in a scandal which, over a decade later, would result in criminal charges, convictions, and fines for co-founder Ronald Weinberg, and three other suspects. Cinar was an integrated entertainment and education company involved in the development, production, post-production and worldwide distribution of family entertainment programming and educational products.
After their 1976 meeting in New Orleans, future spouses Micheline Charest and Ronald A. Weinberg organized an event for a women's film festival, and worked at distributing foreign films to US theatres. The couple moved to New York City and formed Cinar, a film and television distribution company.
In 1984, Cinar changed their focus from media distribution to production and moved operations to Montreal, where they concentrated on children's television programming (including Animal Crackers, Emily of New Moon, Mona the Vampire, and The Wombles), as well as the English and French dubs of the anime series Adventures of the Little Koala and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and the Spain-originating TV series The World of David the Gnome, and the English dub of Ultra Seven. As a production company, Cinar was also involved in the work of Are You Afraid of the Dark?, The Busy World of Richard Scarry, Madeline, The Real Story of Happy Birthday to You, The Adventures of Paddington Bear, Space Cases, The Shoe People and its most famous work, Arthur, Zoboomafoo, Caillou and Plumo. The firm became a public company in September 1993. By 1999, Cinar boasted annual revenues of $150 million (CAD) and owned about $1.5 billion (CAD) of the children's television market. In 1993, Cinar bought the rights to all the shows owned and made by British animation company FilmFair, which was formerly Central TV's animation division since 1987, and closed it in 1998. In February 1999, Cinar acquired the film library of Leucadia Film Corporation.