Nelvana

History

Laff Arts

Michael Hirsh and Patrick Loubert first met as friends and partners at York University, Canada in 1967. They made films with other students. This was Loubert's first experience with filming; he recalled:

I had been hitchhiking in Europe during the previous summer, and I got a ride with an Italian film director visiting locations. I hadn't heard of him. When I got home I looked up his films – it was Gillo Pontecorvo, a brilliant political filmmaker who had directed The Battle of Algiers. That was the beginning for me.

The fledgling Canadian television and film industry was developing at the time. Loubert, Hirsh, and York University friends Jack Christie and Peter Dewdney founded a small company named Laff Arts that produced small experimental films. They were joined by Vitaphone animator-designer Clive A. Smith in Toronto, Ontario; Smith's interest was in rock n' roll music, and helped produce the Beatles' animated series and 1968 film Yellow Submarine before moving to Canada to work on short films and commercials.

Smith designed the company's business card; on the front was a suited businessman, and inside was the businessman with the pants down. The company was dissolved after an ad agency advised them that the company's name was unprofessional.

Nelvana

Nelvana was founded by Hirsh, Loubert, and Smith in 1971. Hirsh recalls:

At the time, there was no production industry per se in Canada, either in animation or in television production. There were stations making local shows, but you didn't have people making programs for sale around the world. So, blissfully unaware of all it would involve, we decided to start a company in Toronto.

They bought ownership rights to a collection of local comic books from the 1940s and then produced a half-hour television documentary focused on Canadian comics for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). Their two-year travelling tour of the art from the National Gallery of Canada, "Comic Art Traditions in Canada, 1941–45", gave locals a chance to revisit the country's past heritage in that field. Meanwhile, Hirsh and Loubert collaborated on a related primer from Peter Martin and Associates, The Great Canadian Comic Books. During this time the new company was named Nelvana after World War II-era Canadian comic book superheroine Nelvana of the Northern Lights.

A derelict apartment in downtown Toronto served as the company's first building, and a homemade wooden stand mounted over a toilet was among its first camera equipment. To create zooms, Hirsh recalled of his early experience with this machine, "we would pile up phone books under the art work." During their first year and a half, the trio lived off a superfluous Chargex credit card that Loubert received at university, spending up to C$7,500 on it before they reclaimed double that cost as their first ever transaction. Under those conditions, Nelvana was involved in the production of documentaries and live-action films during the early 1970s. In the area of part-time animation work, they made ten C$1,500 fillers for the CBC.

Among the studio's first productions was a low-budget CBC short subject series, Small Star Cinema, which combined live-action and animation to tell stories of ordinary life from a child's point of view. It was followed by Nelvana's first ever television special Christmas Two Step in 1975, a similarly styled special in which a girl tries to be a lead dancer at a Christmas pageant. In the same year, he produced Mr. Pencil Draws The Line. When Nelvana was founded in 1971, their original goal was to make live-action programs involving animation in them during their early days.

1980s

At the beginning of the 1980s, Nelvana chose to co-produce its first feature film, Rock & Rule, over working on Heavy Metal, internationally-produced animated science fiction anthology. Rock & Rule was inspired by The Devil and Daniel Mouse, took five years to produce and cost $8 million, using all of the studio's resources. The film was released by MGM/UA in 1983 with little promotion in the U.S. and was a financial failure. The company survived by working full-time on children's television series. These included its first three live-action franchises (The Edison Twins, 20 Minute Workout and Mr. Microchip), the first season of Inspector Gadget with DIC Entertainment, and the pilot episode of The Get Along Gang.

Early in the decade, the company worked on four television specials based on American Greetings properties. They were The Magic of Herself the Elf, based on Mattel's toy line; Strawberry Shortcake: Housewarming Surprise; Strawberry Shortcake and the Baby Without a Name; and Strawberry Shortcake Meets the Berrykins, the last three of which featured the eponymous doll. There were two shows made by Nelvana based on the AmToy properties, Madballs and My Pet Monster.

Despite the successes of their earlier works, perhaps its greatest success at the time came in the form of the Care Bears, thanks to its acquisition of the character rights from American Greetings, the franchise owners. In early 1985, the first film based on the toy line turned the company's assets around, grossing US$23 million in the U.S., and another $1.5 million in its native Canada. Its tremendous success gave way to two more feature films, A New Generation and Adventure in Wonderland, as well as a television series.

In the area of science fiction, Nelvana co-produced Droids and Ewoks, two Saturday-morning series based on Star Wars. At one point, there was talk of an animated CBS show from the studio, based on the BBC's Doctor Who; the plan never came to fruition, but concept art was created by Ted Bastien. The series would have been Nelvana's biggest to date. According to Bastien, "it was pulled out from under us" after a British animation studio told the BBC that it could do what Nelvana intended for a much lower price. The project did not proceed further, and no pilot was produced.

For Orion Pictures' 1986 live-action western comedy, Three Amigos, the company made use of lip-sync animation for a musical sequence in which the main characters sing a song at a campfire, with their horses singing along. In 1987, Michael Hirsh co-produced Nelvana's first self-made film of this calibre, the comedy feature Burglar, which was the first live-action feature film the company had ever co-produced.

1990s

Following Babar's success, the studio acquired the rights to animated series based on Hergé's The Adventures of Tintin, Maurice Sendak's Little Bear, Joanna Cole's The Magic School Bus and the British comic strip Rupert Bear. Nelvana had self-made successes of its own during the 1990s, such as Eek! The Cat, Dog City (with The Jim Henson Company) and Ned's Newt (with TMO Film GmbH). Less successful was its animated series for children, Roseanne Barr's Little Rosey, for the American Broadcasting Company, which was cancelled in 1991, after its first season.

In Autumn 1993, Nelvana signed a multi-year project to co-produce five feature films for Paramount Pictures, with Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall co-producing; the first two began co-production the following summer, at a cost of over US$20 million each. Three of the projects were based on books by E. B. White (The Trumpet of the Swan), Clive Barker (The Thief of Always) and Graeme Base (The Sign of the Seahorse); an original co-production called Mask Vision was also in the works.

However, none of those films ever made it past the finishing stage. During the 1990s, another set of features from Nelvana was distributed by various companies. A 1993 live-action psychological thriller called Malice came out under the Columbia Pictures banner; 1997 saw the studio's retelling of Pippi Longstocking from Warner Bros.; and Babar: King of the Elephants was released in Canada by Alliance Atlantis in 1999. Among them, only Malice would go on to achieve box-office success in North America. Its US$46 million gross was the highest ever attained by a Nelvana co-production, doubling what the first Care Bears Movie received during its original release.

In 1993, Nelvana along with Galaxy Films and De Souza Productions co-produced Cadillacs and Dinosaurs for the CBS network, based on the comic book of the same name (formally known as Xenozoic Tales) by Mark Schultz. It only lasted one season.

In September 1995, Nelvana co-produced Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys based on the popular well-known book series. Tracy Ryan portrayed Nancy Drew while Colin Gray and Paul Popowich portrayed Frank and Joe Hardy, respectively. In addition, Jehene Erwin and Joy Tanner portrayed Bess Marvin and George Fayne, respectively, on Nancy Drew, while Fiona Highet played new character Kate Craigen. The series were based on The Nancy Drew Files and The Hardy Boys Casefiles. However, the series was not distributed well, mostly due to it being in first-run syndication, and both series were cancelled in December.

2000s

In April 2000, Nelvana announced that it had filed for two category 2 television licences from the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission to launch digital cable channels. The first, titled "The Nelvana Channel", would have presented the company's library of material alongside related information in a picture-in-picture format. The second, "Booknet", was to be focused on adaptations of adult and children's literature, and would have been a 60/40 joint venture between Corus Entertainment and Nelvana. The channels were approved that following November. Both licences expired as neither launched by the required date of November 24, 2004.

On April 14, 2000, Nelvana announced its purchase of the Palo Alto-based children's book publisher Klutz in a US$74 million deal—at that time, its largest buyout ever—and integrated it into its Branded Consumer Products division. The company, founded in 1977, was best known for its children's series, Books Plus. Nelvana's separate subsidiary, Kids Can, began taking advantage of the acquisition by making its output available through Klutz merchandise.

In September 2000, Corus bought Nelvana for $540 million. The company saw the purchase as being a complement to its children's television networks, including YTV and Treehouse.

A year after Corus' purchase, co-founders and co-CEOs Loubert and Smith left the studio. Loubert voluntarily left in November after Corus eliminated 50 positions from the staff, saying "The time has come that Corus will stop acquiring for a while and start operating. John Cassaday has made that clear, but this makes my job less rather than more".

In 2001, Nelvana acquired the rights to the English-language version of yet another anime series, Medabots. The following January, Beyblade (in association with Hasbro and Mitsubishi) became its third such property.

On November 5, 2001, Nelvana purchased all propetiary rights to Babar, excluding the franchise's publishing rights from the de Brunhoff family.

In October 2002, Corus announced Hirsh's resignation; the following month, Paul Robertson, former president of Corus Television and head of YTV, became leader of the studio's senior management. With Hirsh's departure, Corus announced a C$200 million writedown for the company; by next August, it planned to reduce the staff down to 200. Hirsh has also taken an advisory role in the studio.

2010s

Following Bakugan, Nelvana entered into another anime co-production, this time reviving the Beyblade property with d-rights, Takara Tomy and Hasbro. Beyblade: Metal Fusion debuted globally in 2010, running for 167 episodes before inspiring a sub-franchise consisting of BeyWheelz, BeyWarriors: BeyRaiderz and BeyWarriors: Cyborg.

Their next program Mike the Knight debuted in 2011, a co-production between HIT Entertainment aired on Treehouse TV and CBeebies later in the year.

Detentionaire was produced between 2011 and 2015. Created for Teletoon, the show has also been aired internationally, including on ABC3, and has been released on a digital platform provided by Cartoon Network.

In 2012, Corus Entertainment acquired Canadian animation software developer Toon Boom. Nelvana had already used the company's software on projects like 6teen, Ruby Gloom as well as the aforementioned Detentionaire. Going forward, all of the studio's internally animated 2D productions would utilize their sister company's suite of products.

After Murphy had been appointed as CEO of Corus Entertainment, Scott Dyer was named president of Nelvana in 2015. The next year, Pam Westman became head of Nelvana.

On October 19, 2016, Nelvana redesigned their logo to mark the studio's 45th anniversary, as well as take part in Corus' brand refresh following latter's acquisition of Shaw Media. According to Dyer, this also symbolized a strategic shift from merchandise-based properties to more creator-driven projects, as well as a return to international co-productions. At that year's MIPCOM, the studio showcased new shows Esme & Roy (with Sesame Workshop), Hotel Transylvania: The Series and Mysticons. Nelvana also presented Bravest Warriors, a pre-existing series from Frederator Studios that they were now producing and Corn & Peg, a co-production with the US Nickelodeon.

The following October, Nelvana announced the launch of a new joint venture with Discovery Communications to create children's content for Canada, Latin America and the rest of the world. Later named "redknot", the division's first two projects include The Dog & Pony Show and Agent Binky: Pets of the Universe.

2020s

In October 2020, Nelvana agreed to co-produce Thomas & Friends: All Engines Go (with Mattel Television), a re-imagined revival of the original Thomas & Friends series, marking the franchise's first 2D-animated television series. That same month, the company entered an agreement with Duncan Studio to produce animated feature films. The first project announced from this collaboration was a feature film adaptation of the Ryan Andrews novel This Was Our Pact. Written by Will Collins and starring Peter Dinklage as "a mysterious and charismatic bear", the film will be co-produced by Dinklage through his production company, Estuary Films.

In July 2024, as a result of budget cuts and layoffs across Corus Entertainment, a number of positions at Nelvana were eliminated, including that of Vice President Athena Georgaklis, and all development of new projects was paused. Corus co-CEO John Gossling announced: "We're making tough decisions to shutter areas of the business we can no longer sustain and pause longer-term development activities while we implement efficiency initiatives". The year prior, Corus sold its software subsidiary Toon Boom Animation to Integrated Media Company, a portfolio company of TPG Inc. for $111 million to help the company pay down its debt.

A year later, on September 2, 2025, Corus announced that future production at Nelvana would be temporarily paused, and any current projects would also be paused until further notice, instead of being shut down, as this came after they announced plans to focus on maintaining better-performing properties. However, Corus would continue to operate the licensing, distribution, and library unit.

Franchises

Many of Nelvana's TV shows are based on properties from other companies, most of which started in other forms of media (excluding its namesake superhero, which never received an adaptation of any kind). A great deal of them are based on children's literature and comic books; examples include Blazing Dragons, Stickin' Around, Wayside, Cadillacs and Dinosaurs, The Adventures of Tintin, Anatole, Babar, The Berenstain Bears, Franklin, Jane and the Dragon, Little Bear, The Magic School Bus, Pippi Longstocking, Redwall, Rupert, My Dad the Rock Star, and Max & Ruby, as well as Tales from the Cryptkeeper, Beetlejuice, Jacob Two-Two, Sidekick and Teletoon/Nick Jr.'s Miss Spider's Sunny Patch Friends.

Nelvana has also had considerable success with animated fare based on toys; American Greetings' Care Bears has been the most familiar example of this. Also, there have been series and specials based on Strawberry Shortcake (also from American Greetings), Madballs and My Pet Monster (from AmToy) and Rescue Heroes (from Fisher-Price). Nelvana also produced Fresh Beat Band of Spies, an animated revival of The Fresh Beat Band that is produced by 6 Point Harness for Nickelodeon.

It has also adapted big-screen franchises to televised properties, such as Star Wars (Droids and Ewoks), Beetlejuice, An American Tail (Fievel's American Tails), Free Willy and The Neverending Story. It has even ventured into the video game world with a show based on Nintendo's Donkey Kong: Donkey Kong Country.

In the field of anime, the company holds the North American rights to Clamp/Kodansha's Cardcaptor Sakura series. Also, it holds international licensing rights to Beyblade and Medabots and the Bakugan franchise.

As with many other animation studios, Nelvana has a wide range of established original series and characters within its roster; 6teen, Fun Street, Clone High, Birdz, Corn & Peg, and Eek! The Cat are some of Nelvana's more notable animated series not adapted from older works.

As of 2008, the studio has made close to 25 feature films for theatre, home entertainment, and television distribution. Well-known releases include Rock & Rule, the first five Care Bears films, two Babar films, and the 1997 Pippi Longstocking.

Around the world

The Fairly OddParents, created by animator Butch Hartman, was distributed by Nelvana outside the U.S. from 2001 to 2005. This show has been in the top of the ratings for Nickelodeon, YTV and the BBC, and has also been successful among viewers in all European markets, Latin America, Australia, and Canada. Nickelodeon's Taina was also distributed by Nelvana in 2001 and 2002. The series was cancelled in 2002, but had mixed to positive reviews and ratings in late 2001. Nick Jr.'s The Backyardigans, in addition to being distributed by Nelvana outside the U.S., was also co-produced by Nelvana. Disney XD's Mr. Young, in addition to being distributed by Nelvana around the U.S., was produced by Thunderbird Films. On February 22, 2007, it was announced that Nelvana signed a deal to internationally distribute the first season of Horrid Henry outside of the United Kingdom and German-speaking territories. By February 2008, its international distribution deal was replaced by Little Bird Rights.

In the United States, Nelvana's series have been broadcast on terrestrial, cable and streaming networks, and internationally on over 360 television stations in more 180 countries, in approximately 50 languages.

Notable personnel

Apart from its three founders, there have been several key personnel from Nelvana's past and present, a great deal of whom have left the company. Some of the better-known people who have worked for the studio at one point or another include animators Wayne Gilbert, Peter Hudecki, Tom McGillis, Jennifer Pertsch, Vincenzo Natali, Arna Selznick, Natalie Turner, and John van Bruggen, and voice actors Tara Strong, Cree Summer, Maurice LaMarche, and Michael Cera. The British and Canadian duo of Alison Snowden and David Fine won an Academy Award for animation before starting to work for Nelvana.

Former Nelvana employees Roger Allers, Charles Bonifacio, Ralph Palmer, Kori Rae, Joe Ranft, David Soren, and Ralph Zondag went on to become staff members at Walt Disney Feature Animation and DreamWorks Animation starting in the 1980s. Allers went on to direct The Lion King, The Incredibles, Cars and Open Season. Lenora Hume, from the company's early years, was the senior vice-president of DisneyToon Studios and Pixar.

Influence in popular culture

The "Nelvana Independent Short Film Grand Prize", given out at the Ottawa International Animation Festival from 2004 to 2006, was sponsored by the company. The recipients of this prize were 2004's Ryan, the Chris Landreth biography about Canadian animator Ryan Larkin; 2005's Milch, from director Igor Kovalyov; and, in 2006, Joanna Quinn's Dreams and Desires: Family Ties.