Viacom International Media Networks, a unit of Viacom Inc., today announced Street Surfing as the pan European sponsor of the Nickelodeon 2011 Kids’ Choice Awards. Street Surfing’s new Wave Scooter will be featured in all promotional activity in a build up to the April 2 show.

Street Surfing’s new Wave Scooter, called the Whiplash Scooter in the UK, will be featured on on-air billboards, all marketing and press materials, and presence on KCAs international online destinations.

The sponsorship also includes an online competition with the chance for the winner and their family to attend the show in Los Angeles. The Grand Prize winner will also be the first to road test Street Surfing’s new Wave Scooter through a test course in Los Angeles the day before the show. Additionally, 11 runner-up winners will get a scooter.

The sponsor markets include Austria, Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, UK, France, Ireland, Italy and Belgium.

Chorion has announced a range of activities for preschool character Spot as he celebrates his 30^th anniversary year.

In the U.S., BBC America released Where’s Spot? on DVD in April, and will release Spot Goes to School in August and Spot’s Magical Christmas in October. New licensing deals have been inked with Andover Fabric, Starry Story Art, Meri Meri, and the Zoobies. The Spot Zoobie will be featured on QVC for Christmas in July. Master toy licensee Kids Preferred is expanding its Spot product line to include puzzles, backpacks, bath toys, and wooden toys for next year.

In the UK, Abbey Home Media launched a special edition 30^th anniversary DVD in March. The Spot TV series began broadcasting on CITV in April, with further episodes scheduled to air this month. Storytelling and in-store events supported the Spot exhibition at Selfridges in London over the May bank holiday weekend. The touring Spot art exhibition will be featured at the Chelsea Library in London, Foyles book store, and regional museums throughout the rest of this year. An exclusive birthday party is planned for August 5^th in London for parents and children. Master toy licensee Rainbow Designs will introduce an expanded range of products including puzzles and wooden toys for next year.

Additional book titles for Spot from Warne include a 30th anniversary special edition of Where’s Spot?, plus Spot’s Birthday Balloon, and Spot’s Little Library. New publishing formats, touch and feel books, book and plush sets, and an 18-button sound book are planned for the holiday season.

In Australia, Spot appeared in several high-profile events in March and April including Gardening Australia Expo in Adelaide and Brisbane, with further appearances scheduled for the same Expo in Sydney from August 22-24 and Melbourne from October 1-3. The events will include costume appearances, craft activities, and retail opportunities.

Spot plush, through Australian Master toy licensee Jasnor Pty., launched in Japan this year, and new licensing partner Skillman will be creating personalized product. Spot public reading events and retail fairs were held from March through May at Kinokuniya bookstore outlets throughout Japan to celebrate Spot’s 30^th anniversary.  Further events are planned for the rest of this year.

Spot first appeared in Eric Hill’s original lift-the-flap book Where’s Spot? in 1980. To date, Spot has sold more than 50 million books and has a global licensing program that includes toys, apparel, gifts and DVD. The official Spot website features activities for parents and children, competitions, games, and information about the brand and author.

To celebrate the Peanuts’ 60th anniversary in 2010, German airline Condor is launching a large-scale fundraising campaign to support the international charity organization “Luftfahrt ohne Grenzen e. V. –  Wings of Help.” The deal was facilitated in cooperation with Copyright Promotions Licensing Group Germany (CPLG), the Peanuts licensing agency.

Through the end of 2010, Condor will support child relief projects of “Luftfahrt ohne Grenzen e. V. –  Wings of Help” by contributing a portion of their ticket and on-board shop proceeds as well as through numerous special events, including an auction of custom-painted model airplanes featuring Peanuts characters. All auction proceeds will be fully donated to the charity.

The flagship of each Condor fleet will feature eight Peanuts characters to promote the upcoming charity campaign and to put smiles on the faces of young and not-so-young air passengers. For all other airplanes, Snoopy and Woodstock will be incorporated into the official Condor logo. Additionally, Snoopy and the Peanuts will grace the Condor website and be featured on all cups, napkins, and more.

For more than seven years, “Wings of Help” has been giving medical and operational assistance for international relief operations by providing airplanes, staff, and expertise. The organization concentrates on helping children in need around the globe. Each cent donated arrives where help is needed, without any deductions.

It’ll be a blue Christmas this year as the Smurfs usher in the season at Macy’s. Ahead of the feature film next year, Macy’s Parade & Entertainment Group and Sony Pictures Entertainment have announced that the Smurfs will serve as Macy’s 2010 Holiday Ambassador as an exclusive plush available only at Macy’s.

As the featured character for Macy’s holiday initiatives, the collectible Smurfs plush will be available at more than 800 stores nationwide and online at macys.com. The plush will be touted by a robust marketing campaign that will showcase the Smurfs in a variety of outlets, from dedicated advertising and collateral to special events including the Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Marketing support for the plush includes up to half-a-million custom-designed Macy’s shopping bags that will be distributed throughout the holiday season at Macy’s flagship location at Herald Square in New York. In addition to the 47-foot tall giant helium Smurfs balloon and Smurfs float that will return to the line-up of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade this year, the Smurfs will also become a coldair inflatable that will adorn a marquee entrance at Macy’s Herald Square on 34^th Street. The promotion of the collectible plush extends to Macy’s Herald Square store windows, jumbotron, signage in all 800-plus Macy’s locations nationwide, in-store events at high-traffic stores in key major markets, dedicated ROP and Magazine advertising in local and national publications, and a feature television spot that will run on major network affiliates in select top 10 markets.

In celebration of the anticipated theatrical release of Toy Story 3, Toys “R” Us is debuting dedicated Toy Story 3 boutiques, in all of its nearly 1,300 toy stores in 34 countries around the world.

The boutiques, which are open across the U.S., are filled with an assortment of Toy Story-inspired toys, including action figures, construction sets, role play accessories, musical instruments, and electronic devices. Similar sections will open in Toys “R” Us stores around the world, coinciding with the movie’s release in each respective country.

Shout! Factory and Marvel Animation have expanded their partnership to bring the Marvel Knights Animation series to the U.S. home entertainment marketplace. The announcement was made today by Shout! Factory founding partners Richard Foos, Bob Emmer, and Garson Foos; and Marvel Animation President Eric Rollman.

Under the multi-year agreement, Shout! Factory will be the exclusive U.S. home entertainment distributor with licensing rights to Marvel Knights Animation properties, including Astonishing X-Men: Gifted, Black Panther, Iron Man: Extremis, Spider-Woman, and others to be announced soon.

Early this year, Shout! Factory announced an agreement with Marvel Animation to be the exclusive U.S. home entertainment distributor to Marvel’s animated series, The Super Hero Squad Show.

In other Marvel news, Marvel Entertainment and Paramount Pictures have teamed with Burger King for an Iron Man 2-themed Kids’ Meal promotion in advance of the movie’s May 7 release.

Each Kids’ Meal will come with one of eight Iron Man 2 toys.Kids can collect up to eight Iron Man 2 toys, including four targeted towards girls and four for boys. Additionally, kids can find an Iron Man 2 Zoom Space game online at www.ClubBK.com.

To hold you over until May 7, here’s the Iron Man 2 trailer:

Scholastic Media and volunteer organization HandsOn Network are working together in celebration of National Volunteer Week to inspire youth engagement in service through the BE BIG campaign. Children and families can visit the Scholastic or HandsOn websites to find opportunities to get involved with on the local level by volunteering at one of the many HandsOn Network projects across the country. In addition to the Greater DC Cares’ “Servathon” in Washington DC, large-scale service opportunities will take place in Minneapolis, Atlanta, St. Louis, and Toledo.

Kids, parents, teachers, and community leaders are also invited to take action during National Volunteer Week and enter their BIG ideas in the second annual Be Big In Your Community contest. It invites people to submit a BIG idea that demonstrates Clifford’s BIG Ideas (Share, Play Fair, Have Respect, Work Together, Be Responsible, Be A Good Friend, Help Others, Be Truthful, Be Kind, and Believe In Yourself) for a chance to win $75,000 in community grants.

Clifford’s Big Ideas came out of the curriculum developed for the animated television series, which celebrates its 10^th anniversary on PBS KIDS this year. Newly repackaged Clifford classic stories by Clifford creator Norman Bridwell will be released in May from Scholastic.

Scholastic, together with Reading is Fundamental (RIF) and the National Summer Learning Association, is challenging kids to Read for the World Record, to help keep kids reading and learning all summer long.

Launching on April 30, the Scholastic Summer Challenge is a global summer reading program with a robust online community for kids—plus expert advice, engaging activities on Facebook, and summer book lists for parents, and resources for librarians and educators—all for free. The Scholastic Summer Challenge kicks off with a live webcast with bestselling authors Christopher Paul Curtis, Gordon Korman, R.L. Stine, and Lisa Yee as they go head-to-head in a book trivia game show on April 30 at 1 p.m. EST. Kids everywhere will test their book knowledge against these bestselling authors.

In conjunction with the Summer Challenge, Governors’ Spouses from across the nation are signing up to serve as “Reading Ambassadors” to help spread the important message about reading books over the summer in their respective states. This is the second year the Spouses are supporting this cause. Scholastic will donate 500 books to a school selected by each First Spouse, to ensure that children have books to take home to read over the summer vacation.

Sesame Workshop and AmeriChoice, the UnitedHealth Group company that provides health benefits for state and public programs, are partnering to develop a bilingual education outreach program aimed at helping low-income families make food choices that are affordable, nutritional, and set the foundation for lifelong healthy habits. AmeriChoice will brand the partnership UnitedHealthcare.

The initiative will offer support and creative resources for families with children between the ages of 2 and 5 to cope with “food insecurity,” defined by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services as “households where there is a lack of access to enough food to fully meet basic needs at all times due to lack of financial resources.”  There is growing concern that food insecurity could contribute to childhood obesity rates, which over the past three decades have tripled to nearly one in three children in America being overweight or obese.

Program outreach will include bilingual (English and Spanish) Healthy Habits kits with an original DVD starring the Sesame Street Muppets and a documentary of families along with their children using a variety of strategies for maintaining Healthy Habits for Life, despite limited financial resources.

The kits will also include child-friendly recipes, activity cards, and a parent/caregiver guide with information about healthful eating and ways to make nutritional and economical food choices for the entire family. In addition, AmeriChoice will send Healthy Habits for Life messages and information to low-income and vulnerable populations in public sector health care programs via the web, physician mailings, and member mailings and newsletters that will go to 3 million members.

“With the Healthy Habits for Life partnership, AmeriChoice and Sesame Workshop have a tremendous opportunity to help parents and caregivers gain a greater understanding of the relationship between healthful food habits and children’s healthy growth,” said Rick Jelinek, chief executive officer of AmeriChoice. “We are committed to supporting low-income parents and their children with quality health care every day, and we are pleased to partner with Sesame Workshop to make a positive difference in children’s well-being and quality of life.”

Program development will begin this week with the first meeting of an advisory board consisting of leading nutrition and child-development experts who will inform and guide Sesame Workshop on all aspects of the program design.

Nickelodeon is marking the 10th anniversary of Dora the Explorer with a pro-social campaign titled Beyond the Backpack that champions overall school readiness for preschoolers. The campaign will serve as the key component of Nickelodeon’s overall plans for Dora the Explorer‘s anniversary, and will consist of a PSA campaign featuring Salma Hayek Pinault and Dora herself; a fundraising auction of limited-edition Dora backpacks, with designs by Hayek Pinault and other celebrities; financial grants; a dedicated website with downloadable toolkits for parents and educators; and local community activities across the country.

Beyond the Backpack is a multi-year, multi-platform program for preschoolers as they prepare for the important adventure of going to school. In partnership with The Children’s Defense Fund, National Parents Teachers Association (PTA), and other experts and leaders in school readiness who will form an advisory committee, Beyond the Backpack will help provide parents and educators with tools and resources that can help kids prepare for a well-rounded, positive school experience.
Beyond the Backpack is designed to call attention to the emotional, physical, experiential, and actual competencies that preschoolers need for those first steps into school, including: social skills and emotional intelligence; early literacy and math skills; in-school involvement and resources like school supplies; and health and wellness basics. The components of the campaign include dedicated PSAs; a website with information, links to partner organizations, and downloadable content for parents and educators; financial resources and grants; fundraising activities; and community events.
National PTA has signed on as Beyond the Backpack signature partner for the campaign. They will be providing long-term, multi-year grassroots support through the distribution of educational materials to their national constituency, and will co-author a parent’s toolkit for distribution.

To add further support to the Beyond the Backpack initiative, Hayek Pinault is featured in a forthcoming Beyond the Backpack PSA television campaign alongside Dora.  Hayek also is leading an effort with Nickelodeon to create a limited-edition series of celebrity-designed backpacks for auction this summer. Hayek Pinault, John Leguizamo, Slash, Shakira, and other celebrities will put their personal touches on special Dora-themed backpacks. A limited quantity of each backpack will be auctioned off globally, in countries including the U.S., France, the UK, Mexico, Canada, Spain, The Netherlands, Greece, Australia, New Zealand, and Israel.  One hundred percent of the U.S. proceeds will benefit the Children’s Defense Fund, while 100 percent of international proceeds will go toward childhood education in each respective country.