Genius Brands International Inc (GNUS)

[derkampfer]

Nice article about LD Micro Conf by TheStreet.com

"Here are three more company write-ups culled from the plethora of one-on-ones I had at the LD Micro conference earlier this month.

...

The genius behind Genius Brands is Andy Heyward, who built much of Hanna-Barbera's classic cartoon library and other animated hits such as "Captain Planet" and "The Real Ghostbusters." The company' shows contain an educational bent and feature voice performers as diverse as Stan Lee and Warren Buffett.

I don't have kids so I am not that likely to see The Oracle preaching buy-and-hold on Saturday a.m., but what really intrigued me about Genius is the complete control of proprietary characters. Heyward rattled off a list of Genius content -- "SpacePOP," "Llama Llama," "Baby Genius," etc. -- and if any of these shows hit it big with the pre-teen set, he has the company completely prepared to capture licensing revenue from all manner of related consumer products.

That model seemed to work pretty well for George Lucas in the 70s, and while I am not predicting "Star Wars" from Genius Brands, I am very attracted to their educational-but-not-boring programming bent."

Nice to get a bit of recognition.

DK