Sunbow Productions

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Sunbow Productions is an American animation studio, founded in 1981 and owned up until 1998 by Griffin-Bacal Advertising in New York. The first animation efforts by Griffin-Bacal were producing the animated commercials for Hasbro's G.I. Joe toyline. The success of the animated commercials led partners Tom Griffin and Joe Bacal to form Sunbow Productions. One of Sunbow's most well known productions is the long running syndicated series The Great Space Coaster.

Sunbow is noted for many cartoons aired during the 1980s. Although it is not limited to Hasbro's various toyline products its reputation is tied to the many cartoon series tied to them. Its animation was initially produced by the Japanese animation studio Toei, supplemented by the South Korean animation studio AKOM later on. By 1988, many of the Hasbro toyline products failed to garner public interest and various internal struggles forced the company to end even popular series such as G.I. Joe and Transformers. It did not help that their two excursions into movies were box office failures forcing a third project, G.I. Joe: The Movie, to go directly to video instead.

In a bid to show that they are not just that "studio that makes cartoons from toys", Sunbow produced several cartoons through the early 1990s such as The Nudnik Show, The Tick and Conan: The Adventurer. Of these, only The Tick managed to gain popularity and critical acclaim.

On April 28, 1998 Sunbow Productions was bought by Sony Wonder, a division of Sony Music. Sunbow will remain an independent production company, and C.J. Kettler is still the president of the company. Sunbow was sold for US$10 million dollars in 2000 to TV Loonland.

Rhino Entertainment owned the home video distribution rights to the Sunbow catalog. However, with Sunbow recently absorbed into Sony outright, all future re-releases from Sunbow's library are handled by Sony.

Among the various series produced by Sunbow are:

• Cramp Twins (2001)
• Lion of Oz (2000)
• Mega Babies (1999)
• Salty's Lighthouse (1999)
• Deepwater Black (1997)
• The Brothers Flub (1997)
• The Adventures of Hyperman (1995)
• The Mask (1995)
• The Littlest Pet Shop (1995)
• The Tick (1994)
• Conan the Adventurer (1992)
• Dinosaurs (1991)
• Bucky O'Hare and the Toad Wars (1991) (Co-Production With Marvel Productions)
• The Nudnik Show (1991)
• Visionaries: Knights of the Magical Light (1987)
• My Little Pony and Friends (1986) (Co-Production With Marvel Productions)
• Inhumanoids (1986) (1986) (Co-Production With Marvel Productions)
• Super Sunday (1985) (1986) (Co-Production With Marvel Productions)
• Jem! (1985) (1986) (Co-Production With Marvel Productions)
• G.I. Joe (1983) (1986) (Co-Production With Marvel Productions)
• Transformers (1984) (1986) (Co-Production With Marvel Productions)
• G.I. Joe: The Revenge of Cobra (1984) (1986) (Co-Production With Marvel Productions)
• G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero (1983) (1986) (Co-Production With Marvel Productions)
• "The Great Space Coaster" (1981)

The only three movies produced are:

• G.I. Joe: The Movie (1987) (Co-Production With Marvel Productions)
• Transformers: The Movie (1986) (Co-Production With Marvel Productions)
• My Little Pony: The Movie (1986) (Co-Production With Marvel Productions)

[edit] References

• The Ultimate G.I. Joe Cartoon Website
• The Internet Movie Database
• TheTransformers.net Europe's largest Transformers Fan Site