Bullwinkle J. Moose and Rocky the Flying Squirrel aren’t dead yet. It may seem like they haven’t seen much action lately, but that could soon change thanks to a new deal between Jay Ward Productions and the family entertainment group Wildbrain.
Under the new arrangement, Wildbrain gets distribution rights to the entire Jay Ward library (that’s 788 half-hours of super chickens, time-traveling dogs and fractured fables), as well as the rights to produce new content, which they say they’re looking into. Ward’s daughter Tiffany Ward and his granddaughter Amber Ward will oversee all new projects.
Wildbrain, if you don’t know, is a big Play-Doh mound of expired animation studios from decades past. What was once DiC is in there somewhere, along with Studio B, Nerd Corps, England’s Ragdoll Productions and a few others. It’s the result of a number of buyouts over the years that went under one umbrella with the cold name DHX Media (later changed to Wildbrain as that name sold better).
Wildbrain’s CEO, Eric Ellenbogen, was previously involved in getting the Dreamworks Peabody and Sherman film made, and worked directly with the Wards on that project. “I’m thrilled to be teaming up with Eric again,” said Tiffany Ward in a released statement. “Our past partnership with Bullwinkle Studios was prolific and successful, and now that Eric is at the helm of a creative powerhouse like WildBrain, I’m excited to work with him and his fantastic team to broaden the legacy of my father’s work to new generations of kids and families.”
What’s confusing to us is that it was once reported Bullwinkle Studios was bought wholesale by Dreamworks, meaning the characters should now be property of NBC Universal and shouldn’t be available for a company as dinky as Wildbrain to mess with. Or did they sell them off? Why is the Variety article so vague about this?
We don’t know how it’s happening, but it is. Long story short, WildBrain will be producing new cartoons with Ward’s characters sometime in the future.
