Weekly E-News, Issue #154, March 28, 2006

DIC Reacquires Children's Properties

DIC Entertainment reacquired the rights to an extensive slate of animatedchildren's properties from The Walt Disney Company and Jetix Europe fortelevision, home entertainment, and consumer products. As part of the deal, DICnow will control various marketing and distribution rights for 750 half-hourepisodes of brands previously produced by DIC, including Care Bears, InspectorGadget, Heathcliff, Dennis the Menace, The Littles, and more.

Art-of-Living Expert Launches Collection

Katie Brown partnered with The Companion Group on the launch of a Katie BrownCollection of outdoor entertaining, lighting, and gardening accessories.Brown's trademark, 'Cook, Nest, Grow,' will play a pivotal role in thebranding, allowing cross-merchandising strategies across several productsegments. The collection will be in-store by spring and summer 2007. GlobalIcons brokered the collaboration, the first in Brown's licensing extensionprogram.

Playboy Springs Up with New Upscale Line

Playboy will launch the 'Playboy Intimates' white label, an upscale line ofcamisoles, corsets, bras, and panties with signature Playboy embroideries andpatterns detailed with embellishments and the iconic Playboy Rabbit Head. Thecollection is available in white, black, turquoise, coral, pink, and deepscarlet and will be sold at Mixona, the Playboy Concept Boutiques, The ForumShops in Las Vegas, and in the trendy Fashion Walk area of Hong Kong in spring.Other luxury retailers include Henri Bendel in New York, Miss Victoria inBrazil, and Sogo in Hong Kong.

HarperCollins Secures Rights to Landy Series

HarperCollins Publishers acquired world-English language rights to three booksby screenwriter Derek Landy. The series will begin with 'Skullduggery Pleasant,'a comic-fantasy-adventure in which a young girl teams up with the wisecrackingskeleton of a dead magician to defeat an ancient evil. The book, audio, ande-formats will be published in the U.S., UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand,and India.

New Line Cinema Readies Program for Inkheart

New Line Cinema is launching a licensing and merchandising campaign for itsnext trilogy, Inkheart, due in fall 2007. Inkheart is the first installment ofthe children's fantasy trilogy by Cornelia Funke and stars Meggie, a12-year-old girl whose father, Mo, has the power to bring characters from books tolife when read aloud. 'Inkspell,' the second book in the trilogy, debuted inOctober 2005.

Champion Works Out New Licensing Deal

Champion is exercising its licensing muscle, creating a line of home exerciseequipment in a partnership with Lamar Health, Fitness & Sports. The line ofclub-quality workout equipment includes treadmills, elliptical trainers,upright bikes, and recumbent bikes.

Crazy Frog Inks Deals Like Crazy

The Annoying Thing aka Crazy Frog is making leaps and bounds in consumerimpressions with the latest being music videos on Cartoon Network. Theproperty's licensee list is growing, as well, with the help of Al Ovadia &Associates. New on board are Vivid Imaginations for plush; Fame Jeans Inc. andDream Apparel Group for apparel; One of the Boys for apparel and bathaccessories; It's Outrageous and Vending Supply Inc. for gift and novelty;Calego for back-to-school, footwear, and accessories; and Pressman for boardgames.

Phat Fashions Teams with Fashion Delivers

Phat Fashions is underwriting Fashion Delivers' 'Design Our T-Shirt Contest,'with participants (ages 18 and over) encouraged to create a T-shirt design witha theme of 'Unity.' The winner will be judged on staying true to the theme, aswell as exemplifying Fashion Delivers' mission and logo. The winning designwill be featured on 4,800 limited-edition Phat Fashions T-shirts availableexclusively through Fashion Delivers and Phat Fashions. Proceeds will bedonated to Fashion Delivers, which provides products from all parts of thefashion and related industries to victims of natural disasters. Details onentering the contest are available online at

.Entries must be postmarked by April 28. Winners will be announced June 15.

VIZ Media to Lead Efforts for Manga Property

VIZ Media, LLC, was named master licensor of Shonen Jump's Bleach in theAmericas, Europe, and Oceania by worldwide licensors TV Tokyo Corp. andShueisha Inc. As part of the deal, VIZ Media will create a rollout strategythat will leverage the strong manga (graphic novels) and entertainment brandsinto a broad licensing and marketing program. Bleach's TV broadcast andlicensing partners will be determined shortly. Bleach is the story of anaverage 15-year-old, Ichigo Kurosaki, who was born with the gift of seeingghosts. When his family is attacked, Ichigo becomes a Soul Reaper, dedicatinghis life to protecting the innocent and helping tortured spirits find peace.

In other news, VIZ Media launched Shonen Jump's Naruto anime series on DVD withon-shelf presence due March 28.

Execs on the Move

DIC Entertainment named Cynthia Modders senior vice president of worldwideconsumer products. Nancy Fowler, who previously headed up the department, nowwill serve as senior vice president of business development, consumer products.HIT Entertainment appointed Jennifer Zivic director, soft lines, and VeronicaHart director, hard lines. Nickelodeon & Viacom Consumer Products promotedTrudi Hayward to senior UK licensing director, and appointed Deborah Batten tothe newly created role of UK retail marketing manager, Nickelodeon & ViacomConsumer Products EMEA. Paul Conley was named vice president, Digital Media, AGProperties.

Bologna Bound

Bologna Children's Book Fair runs through March 30 at the Bologna Fair Centrein Bologna, Italy. Don't miss Licensing Days scheduled for Wednesday, March 29,with LICENSE Editor-in-Chief Joyceann Cooney moderating a publishing paneldiscussion and separately presenting 'Licensing by the Numbers: LicensingTrends.' Other sponsored presentations include 'Children's Publishing and theLifecycle of Licensing'Three Case Studies' presented by Kate Klimo, vicepresident, publisher, Random House/Golden Books for Young Readers, Tuesday,March 28. LIMA and LICENSE are sponsors of the Bologna Children's Book FairLicensing and Film Rights Centre. Visit

for moreinformation.

Licensing 2006 International Show and Conference Registration Is Open

Save $100 on exhibit hall registration by registering in advance for the mostimportant licensing event of the year taking place

June 20 to 22

at the

Jacob

Javits Convention Center in New York.

Or save hundreds of dollars on early LicensingUniversity Conference registration. For updates, conference details, up-to-dateexhibitor listings, hotel information, and online registration, visit

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Upcoming Industry Events

LIMA UK Introduction to Licensing Spring Seminar and LIMA and FriendsSpring Fling,

May 25, No. 4 HamiltonPlace, London,

Submit Licenses Granted & Available Now Online

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to fill out the verification form and submit your licenses granted or availablenow. Highlights from each month's online submissions will be published inLICENSE magazine. Any questions, contact Alyson Grala at (212) 951-6743 or viae-mail:

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For more information on licensing news and features, visit LICENSE magazine'sWebsite,

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