I’m a planner by nature, so I’m perfectly happy to talk about next week or next month or even next year, most of the time. Planning ahead is good! Knowing what’s happening is important! Yes! But having it be front-page news when a movie not due out until 2009 changes its anticipated release date does confuse me a little. Then again, I’m not a large animation studio.

(I… think it would be uncomfortable if I was a large animation studio. And probably that I would need to cut back on snacks if that were the case.)

Regardless, this is big news, it seems:

DreamWorks Animation SKG, Inc. , together with Paramount Pictures Corporation, a unit of Viacom Inc. , announced today that Monsters vs. Aliens, DreamWorks Animation’s first-ever film produced in stereoscopic 3-D technology, will be released into theatres on March 27, 2009. The film had been previously slated for its domestic release on May 15, 2009.

The release date has been adjusted by less than two months, and I found this story headlining in three different news locations. (After three, I stopped looking. Third time’s the charm, and all that.)

“I believe that next generation 3-D will make our CG films even more special and unique,” said Jeffrey Katzenberg, Chief Executive Officer of DreamWorks Animation. “We are thrilled to have Monster vs. Aliens as the first opportunity for audiences to enjoy this exciting new movie experience. Moving to a March release date, which has proven to be a great slot for family films, allows us to roll out our first 3-D project on the maximum amount of screens as the year’s first big event film to hit the market in this new format.”

This is the sort of “money quote” that I hate. I mean—and no disrespect to Mr. Katzenberg is meant, here—what’s he going to say? “I believe that this movie will be formulaic and boring!” Of course he believes this will be even more special and unique. Why would they do it, otherwise? And suggesting that March is more family-friendly than May…? Because… why, exactly?

It turns out that the real reasoning behind the shift is pretty transparent:

DreamWorks Animation is moving the 2009 release date for its 3-D feature “Monsters vs. Aliens” to March 27 from May 15, in order to avoid a showdown with James Cameron’s “Avatar,” studio CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg said Wednesday.

The big-budget, effects-heavy opus “Avatar,” Cameron’s first feature since “Titanic,” is due to arrive on May 22 via 20th Century Fox.

Had “Monsters” stuck to its proposed May release, “I saw more and more problems splitting the market for 3-D right at the time when it will be becoming the most exciting thing in movie-going,” Katzenberg said at the Goldman Sachs media conference in New York.

Will we have an announcement from 20th Century Fox next week that Avatar has moved up its release date? Maybe for the next year and a half we can have dueling movie release dates! It’s like playing chicken, except with CGI films!

No? Oh, okay. (Besides, I’m still waiting to find out if the upcoming Avatar: The Last Airbender film has to change its name because of the Cameron film. Anyone?)

The connection between popular animated characters and the eager marketing of, well, everything is hardly new. An entire industry has been built upon bringing kids’ favorite shows to life in a myriad of ways: toys, books, music, stage shows, and even food.

If casting a glance around to your nearest fast food restaurant or supermarket isn’t enough to remind you of the character-food connection, let us recall the recent spate of big licensed brands realizing that the American public just may hold them accountable for recommending (or serving) unhealthy foods. Why, Disney made a pledge to go trans-fat free last year and this year Shrek was taken to task for hawking both M&Ms and fitness. The backlash against character branding on unhealthy foods is becoming more frequent.

(Who woulda thunk it? I mean, people getting upset about things like our kids’ favorite heroes telling them to eat junk? What are the odds?)

As usual—because I’m a fickle, fickle person—I’m of two minds about this. On the one hand, yes, please stop hawking empty calories to my children. On the other hand, fellow parents, I’m pretty sure those groceries don’t leap into your cart of their own volition; if you don’t want your kids eating it, here’s an idea: don’t buy it. But that’s a whole ‘nother conversation.

This past week saw big strides in terms of the industry putting its collective foot down. First Discovery Kids pledged to license only to healthy food options, then Nickelodeon followed suit, with Cartoon Network coming in to make it a trifecta.

Is this great news? Absolutely. Is it perfection? Well, have your shaker of salt at the ready, of course. Do read through the various stories for all the details—Discovery Kids will still allow licensing of their properties for “occasional sweets such as birthday cakes;” Nickelodeon’s new guidelines have been announced but won’t go into effect until 2009, and they, too, are calling for an exemption for special occasions (most notably, Halloween); Cartoon Network also leaves themselves the “special occasion sweets” loophole.

It’s progress, to be sure. Now, who do we go after about that whole meals-with-a-toy thing that has plagued my existence ever since becoming a parent…?

MTV announced this week that at the close of 2007, Noggin and The N will split, each becoming their own 24-hour channel. If you’ve ever had a toddler who demanded shows on Noggin, you know that horrible sinking feeling of 6:00 PM rolling around, patience wearing thin, and the favorite channel suddenly changing from friendly faces to bright lights and twanging guitars in preparation for a tween crowd rather than a field of preschoolers.

The truth is that it’s been a while since my children relied on Noggin for their television requirements. Nowadays, they’re all about Cartoon Network and ABC Family. And whatever billion episodes of their favorite shows they’ve recorded on the DVR. Given that I don’t let them watch TV nearly often enough (according to them, anyway), when they’re given the chance to veg out in front of the set they’re looking for something a little deeper than what Dora might have in her backpack today.

But there was a time—and it doesn’t seem all that long ago, frankly—when Noggin was the key to my sanity. Times were different, back then. For one thing, I was still idealistic and believed that commercials would harm my precious developing babies. (Now I know that commercials harm them, but, eh, they’re big enough already.) When I discovered Noggin in all of its commercial-free goodness I fell to my knees and thanked the heavens for a channel that provided hours of non-commercial kiddie goodness without ever lapsing into home improvement shows. (Sorry, PBS. It’s nothing personal.)

On those rare occasions when my kids were sick or I really could’ve used another round of kids’ shows past dinnertime, the transformation of the normally innocuous Noggin into the teenybopper “The N” always annoyed me beyond measure. Why couldn’t they just be Noggin? Why did they have to be both?

Well, now they don’t have to be both. Both channels get their own home, which is awesome. And although my kids are a bit too old for Noggin, now, they’re fast approaching the right demographic to love The N. So I should probably look at the programming line up.

[Now I’m feeling all nostalgic for Little Bear. Even though his parents were always fully dressed and he ran around naked. (C’mon, admit it, that’s weird.)]

(Pictured to the side, there: He-Man. If it goes live action, can you really picture him being played by anyone other than Arnold Schwarzenegger??)

It’s been said that there’s a finite number of plots, and all stories are merely different retellings of those basic premises. Wait a minute; I’m getting the feeling I’ve talked about this before. Oh, that’s right, I have! But we’re going to talk about it again, because shockingly, Hollywood continues to insist upon recycling material.

What? Erm, I mean, Hollywood continues to innovate the movie industry with its daring use of, um, storyline recycling. Yes, that’s it.

From IGN we have a decent rundown of upcoming cartoons-turned-live-action movie projects currently underway, and to say that even they have mixed feelings would be an understatement:

Hollywood has been busy mining TV animation for more potential live-action feature film adaptations. This trend of turning cartoons into live-action films is nothing new, of course, but it’s been a crapshoot so far. For every hit like Scooby-Doo or The Flintstones there’s been a Josie and the Pussycats, Fat Albert or Aeon Flux. Remember Dudley Do-Right, Mr. Magoo, George of the Jungle, Casper and Inspector Gadget? Did you want to?! No, you did not!

(Awwww, come on. I sort of enjoyed Matthew Broderick as Inspector Gadget.)

Their list starts out with Alvin and the Chipmunks and Avatar: The Last Airbender, both of which we’ve discussed before. (In fact, I was hoping for some new Avatar news, but no such luck.)

Then they veer off into (to me) unknown territory. A project based on G.I. Joe?

The largest roadblock (no pun intended) facing the project is the challenge of bringing the characters and premise to the screen without seeming ridiculous, as well as the fact that America’s wars overseas might make a movie about the U.S. military unappealing to international audiences.

Gee… ya think?

Other titles include He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, The Jetsons, Johnny Bravo (really?? isn’t the cartoon annoying enough?), Jonny Quest, Neon Genesis Evangelion (who?), Speed Racer, Star Blazers, Thundercats, Voltron, and—of course—Transformers 2.

That seems like plenty to keep Hollywood busy, no? They shouldn’t have to come up with an original storyline until well into 2017 or so, at this rate….

I’m not an industry pundit, by any stretch of the imagination. (I know, you’re shocked. With a name like The Toy Box Mommy you expected me to be a big player in the field, rather than a mom who has allowed her kids to watch too much television.) Anyway, sometimes I have opinions on things (again, I can see the shock) and sometimes I just have to sit back and watch people with more information and experience than me battle it out.

This is one of those times.

The argument is an interesting one; first Jim Hill made some sweeping generalizations about Pixar films while directing folks to this survey that Pixar is conducting. As for me, I was too busy trying to read Hill’s piece inbetween all of the oversized graphics to really grasp what he was getting at.

Next, The Animation Guild took Hill to task for his comments, deconstructing his points systematically. The dry zingers were the best:

One handy explanation is that Mulan and Brother Bear (not to mention Lilo and Stitch) were done in the Florida studio and the artists therein were further away from the horrid West Coast suits. Made all the difference.

Ah, message to Jim? Those suits? They flew into Orlando all the time. (There’s an airport.) And they had lots of interaction with Orlando via media conferencing (it’s now all the rage.)

The conclusion may not thrill those who want easy answers when it comes to forecasting movies’ success, but it sounds spot-on to this layman (laymom?):

Here’s the problem with easy, glib theorizing. It works until it doesn’t. And the evidentiary graphs only work if you start them at the right place. (Like, there’s no point in showing how The Rescuers and Fox and the Hound were big grossers for their time, way back in ‘77 and ‘81. It blows the neat down-up-down storyline because the two features that followed it (Black Cauldron, Great Mouse Detective) were relatively low grossers before the trend-line nosed up again.)

So here’s my theory (or as Uncle Karl Rove might put it: “The theory”).

Every feature film is filled with its unique strengths and weaknesses. Some audiences like some features better than others, so some features make more money than others.

And trend lines always revert to the mean. Until they don’t.

Well, that clears that up.

(At left: Fun with Photoshop! A bit of new headgear for my friends the brightly-colored penguins, in honor of this auspicious occasion.)

So, when I came across this article titled Disney reports higher income yesterday, I did what my kids would’ve called “a big duh.” I mean, Disney reports making money? Really? But, wait—they report higher income. Higher than what? Higher than mine? Higher than Donald Trump’s?

Okay, clearly this was a case of poor article titling. I would have to read more to find out what the point really was. (Come to think of it, maybe that’s brilliant copy editing, right there. “What does it mean?” wonder potential readers. “I guess I’ll have to read it.”)

Well, it turns out that Disney earned even more profit in the third quarter than expected. I’m not really sure what that affects in the grand scheme of things, as it’s unclear to me—lowly peon that I am—what the shift to $9.05 billion from last year’s $8.47 billion in the same quarter really means. Do people get raises? Do the stockholders smoke cigars? Does someone who really deserves something pretty get to buy new shoes? What’s half a billion dollars to a corporate giant in the practical sense? I have no idea.

Anyway, this is not what interested me, here. What interested me is this:

The Burbank-based media conglomerate also took a big step to bolster its Internet offerings for teens with the purchase of Club Penguin, an online entertainment site, the company said Wednesday.

[…]

The purchase of Club Penguin for $350 million in cash, with the possibility of another $350 million if certain profit targets are met, will help speed those efforts, the company said.

The site, launched only two years ago by Canada’s New Horizon Interactive Ltd., will begin delivering profit for Disney right away.

“Club Penguin has grown into a site that boasts more than 12 million activated users and 700,000 paying subscribers,” Disney Chief Executive Robert Iger said in a conference call with analysts Wednesday. “Imagine how Disney’s marketing skills and worldwide technological capabilities can contribute to Club Penguin’s growth and you can see why we are so enthusiastic about this acquisition.”

Since first discovering Club Penguin I’ve wondered how long it would be until the site was bought out by another, bigger fish. Now it’s happened. Will anything change? I hope not (unless they want to use my idea for mouse-ear hats for everyone), but I’m not sure a place like Disney can touch you and not leave a mark. The good news, I suppose, is that with that sort of funding and industry muscle behind them, those penguins should be set for life.

I’ve talked before about the love/hate relationship I have with children’s toys based off of popular movies and shows. Some of the toys are awesome; saying “toys with commercial tie-ins are bad” is far too broad of a brush. On the other hand, I’ve not been shy about sharing my opinion on the omnipresence of junky little toys *cough*cough*Happy Meals*cough*cough* along with each new feature film. And really, tying in favorite characters with the consumption of junk food is a whole ‘nother topic for another time.

Nevertheless, the reality is that the production of licensed merchandise isn’t just changing the world of children’s playthings, it’s changing media production companies, as well.

Want to learn more? Go read Toy Story 3: The Cash-In over at Times Online. Author Kevin Maher had me right from the intro:

I blame the Decepticons. Although they attempt to destroy humanity in Michael Bay’s Transformers, what they signify to the wider movie-going world is far more sinister. By their presence alone — as living toys in a toy-friendly movie adapted from a toy-tie-in cartoon based on a vaguely innovative 1980s toy — they represent the reductio ad absurdum of mainstream cinema’s increasingly obsessive relationship with, well, toys.

The article runs the gamut from current offerings to the pivotal moment that may have kicked off the current climate of toy tie-ins:

In 1977, when [George Lucas] chose to take Star Wars merchandising profits rather than box-office receipts, he set a modern movie precedent. The merchandising wave that followed peaked with the likes of ET, Batman and Jurassic Park (which famously included a shot of Jurassic Park toys in the Jurassic Park souvenir shop).

(I always knew that Lucas guy was smart.)

The entire article is well worth the read, but if you—like me—are often inclined to think ill of the “mainstream” media spewing its commercialism everywhere, pay attention in particular to this bit:

Becky Ebenkamp of the marketing trade magazine Brand-week, suggests that these same toys might just be the very reason why we get to see films such as Broke-back Mountain and Syriana. “Hollywood studios need to have a movie that’s toy-friendly out there,” she says. “These movies are the ones that carry the studios for the rest of the year. That means they carry the smaller films, and the so-called indie films too.”

In other words, the Transformers water blaster pays for the production of Flags of Our Fathers.

That may make it a little easier to swallow the next time your kid starts begging for some plastic monstrosity you’d rather pretend you didn’t see.

Those of you not interested in the business of television and online marketing may not find this one very interesting, but this is a pet topic of mine and I’m the mommy and I say we’re going to talk about it.

If you don’t like it, you can go to your room, mister.

Once upon a time—about 57 years ago—the Nielsen company started tracking television viewing in American homes. Since then, Nielsen Media has expanded and taken over the world. Erm, I mean, they’ve branched out into other areas beyond just their notoriety as the television rating people.

Here’s where it gets interesting: Nielsen has also branched out into tracking web surfing (naturally) and now the news is that they’re changing the way they rank website popularity:

Nielsen/NetRatings, the media research firm, will overhaul the way it measures the popularity of Web sites, moving to add two new yardsticks to its service, it said on Tuesday.

The move follows growing criticism of how Internet user behavior is measured and how the value of Web sites is determined, both of them key factors in convincing advertisers to shift more of their spending to the Web.

Currently, advertisers and online sites often use so-called page views, or the number of times a page was viewed by users, to judge the audience a site attracts.

Nielsen/NetRatings, however, is introducing measurements that will show the total number of minutes per user and the total session per user on Web sites.

The move is intended to give a better picture of audience activity online, given that users are increasingly spending more time with one site watching videos or messaging, for instance.

This is notable news for a couple of reasons. First, those of us in the business of marketing on the ‘net have been displeased with the “pageviews model” for some time, because in today’s world of web applications (Flash, instant messaging, RSS feeds) it has long been through to be an inaccurate assessment of usage. Similarly, judging blogs by the number of comments isn’t an accurate view of popularity, either. (People tend not to leave comments here, for example, but I see you out there. You’re just not a very chatty bunch.)

Second, in terms of television programming, this makes me wonder if similar reform is coming to the rankings of our favorite shows. The days of a family plunking themselves down to watch a show on a given night are drawing to a close. Families TiVo shows to watch later; people watch shows on the internet at their leisure.

The way we interact with media is changing, and it’s about time that Nielsen started catching up.