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Nickelodeon and Partners Unveil New Products at Toy Fair

Nickelodeon unveiled products for both new and established properties at Toy Fair, including Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Winx Club, Team Umizoomi, Dora the Explorer, SpongeBob SquarePants, and Victorious.

Playmates Toys showed a new line of toys inspired by Nickelodeon’s new CG-animated Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Playmates Toys’ lineup includes basic, deluxe, and collectible action figures, as well as Ninja gear, play sets, and vehicles.

Jakks Pacific and its Creative Designs International (CDI) and Disguise Halloween divisions debuted products for Winx, including a new line of dolls, play sets, accessories, dress-up, role-play items, and Halloween costumes based on the series. Building on the Winx Club doll line from Jakks, Creative Designs International has created an assortment of role-play dresses and fairy wings for girls who want to transform themselves into their favorite Winx Club member. The Jakks Pacific, CDI, and Disguise product lines are scheduled to launch this fall to coincide with the premiere of the brand new CG episodes of Winx Club on Nickelodeon.

Nickelodeon and Fisher-Price introduced new toy lines for preschool series Team Umizoomi and Dora the Explorer. Team Umizoomi products from Fisher-Price include figures, basic and learning plush, bath toys, and vehicles. Building on the past success of Fisher-Price toys inspired by Dora, new products for 2012 will include a dollhouse, play sets, dolls, role-play toys, and more.

SpongeBob SquarePants is the inspiration for new toys from Fisher-Price’s Imaginext brand. The new line includes play sets, vehicles, and figures where SpongeBob is featured in the Imaginext look. SpongeBob is also the inspiration for two new building sets from The Lego Group, which debuted at Toy Fair.

Victorious master toy licensee Spin Master, Ltd. unveiled new products for the live-action comedy series. The new line will feature fashion dolls and role play, including a new Tori Singing Doll featuring the song, “Best Friend’s Brother.” Feature dolls for additional Victorious characters, including Trina (Daniella Monet), Cat (Ariana Grande), and Jade (Elizabeth Gillies), are also included.

Warner Bros, TT Games, and Lego Create Lego Batman 2 Game

Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, TT Games, and The Lego Group are teaming up again to release Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes this summer for the Xbox 360 video game and entertainment system from Microsoft, PlayStation 3 computer entertainment system, the Wii system, and Windows PC, as well as the Nintendo DS hand-held system, Nintendo 3DS hand-held system, and PlayStation Vita handheld entertainment system.

Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes is being developed by TT Games and will be published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes complements the recently released Lego Super Heroes: DC Universe toy collection. The line includes five construction sets, including The Batcave and three buildable, detailed action figures.

Comic-Con Kicks Off

Comic-Con kicks off today in San Diego. It’s kind of a big deal. We’ll have full coverage tomorrow, but until then here’s a New York Times article by Gregory Schmidt about how toymakers including Mattel and Hasbro are using the convention as a launching pad for new and limited-edition toys.

The big news from yesterday was Disney signing a deal with the National Hockey League for co-branded Phineas and Ferb merchandise for the 2011-12 season. We and others have talked about how Disney is actively using Phineas and Ferb to make inroads into the boys 6-11 market. We’ve also talked about how sports labor issues in the NFL (though that seems on its way to a resolution) and NBA might affect licensed product sales, but we haven’t talked about how it could affect deals and dealmaking. If there’s no NBA season next year, which seems like a real possibility, the value of Disney’s deal with the NHL would increase—perhaps not dramatically, but increased nonetheless. Sports-hungry eyeballs have to go somewhere when football isn’t on.

Warner Bros. announced that it has teamed with Lego to create Lego DC Universe Super Heroes. Lego has access to the entire library of DC Comics characters (including Batman, Robin, Catwoman, The Joker, The Riddler, and more) and stories. And not to step on our Comic-Con coverage, but 3,000 exclusive Batman and Green Lantern minifigures will be distributed to kick off a five-month promotion for the launch.

Finally, big news from WME Licensing, where The Little Prince has been sold as an animated series with 54 half-hour episodes in more than 72 countries, with a motion picture now in development. Licensing for the classic storytime book and the animation series is now underway, and interested parties should contact Rob Stone, president of WME Licensing, at rstone@wmeentertainment.com.

—Bryan Joiner

StickerYou Launches With Brand Partnerships

StickerYou has launched an online service for designing, customizing, and creating high-quality stickers. StickerYou’s platform lets users create their own 8.5” x 10.5” sheets of removable, vinyl stickers, combining uploaded personal images and art from StickerYou’s library of thousands of images.

StickerYou launches with several brand partnerships, including Peanuts, Mr. Men and Little Miss and Star Trek, with the Lego brand, Showtime’s Dexter and additional brands to follow.

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