| Industry | Television production and film studio |
|---|---|
| Fate | Foreclosure |
| Founded | 1980 |
| Defunct | 1998 |
| Headquarters | New York |
| Key people | Tom Griffin and Joe Bacal |
| Parent | Griffin-Bacal Advertising |
Sunbow Entertainment was an animation studio, founded in 1980 and owned up until 1998 by Griffin-Bacal Advertising in New York. The first animation efforts by Griffin-Bacal were producing the animated commercials for Hasbro's G.I. Joe toy line.
The success of the animated commercials led partners Tom Griffin and Joe Bacal to form Sunbow Productions.
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Sunbow is noted for many cartoons aired during the 1980s. Most of their work was co-produced with Marvel Productions. Although it is not limited to Hasbro's various toy line products its reputation is tied to the many cartoon series tied to them. Its animation was initially produced by the Japanese animation studio Toei Animation, supplemented by the South Korean animation studio AKOM later on. By 1987, most of Hasbro's toylines were losing money and various internal struggles forced the company to end popular series such as G.I. Joe and Transformers. Two of Sunbow's animated movies, (The Transformers: The Movie and My Little Pony: The Movie) flopped at the box office, forcing a third project, G.I. Joe: The Movie, to be released directly to video instead. Sunbow also worked with TMS Entertainment with Hasbro's Visionaries: Knights of the Magical Light, and one episode of season 3 of The Transformers, "The Call of The Primitives".
In a bid to produce original material, Sunbow produced several cartoons through the early 1990s such as The Nudnik Show, The Tick and Conan the Adventurer. Of these, only The Tick managed to gain popularity and critical acclaim.
On April 28, 1998 Sunbow Productions was bought by Sony Wonder, a division of Sony Music. Sunbow was sold for US$10 million dollars in 2000 to TV Loonland AG, which then bought Metrodome Distribution, who had the European rights to the Sunbow catalogue. After TV-Loonland acquired Sunbow Productions and Sony Wonder's television business, the company formed Sunbow Entertainment.
Previously, Rhino Entertainment owned the US home video distribution rights to the Sunbow catalogue. The rights then changed hands to Sony Wonder with its acquisition of the catalogue. However, Sony Wonder was shut down in March 2007.[1]
On June 21, 2007 it was announced that Sony Wonder had been moved into Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, which at the time owned the US rights to the Sunbow catalogue. In May 2008, Hasbro released news that it had obtained the rights to all the Sunbow and Marvel co-produced cartoons based on its properties. This includes Transformers, G.I. Joe, My Little Pony, Jem and the Holograms and many more.[2]
Among the various series produced by Sunbow are:
The only movies produced by Sunbow were:
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