HeyKids Studios

HeyKids Studios is an American production studio founded on January 17, 1968 by Ronald Smickon and Bobby Westmoreland and based in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. It produced television series and films, including Butterfly Valley, Jumbo's Circus and Candle Cove. However, the studio was short-lived, due to the loss of funds and controversial shows. Owing to these, the studio closed on January 15, 1973, a day before the final episode of Butterfly Valley premiered.
As of January 22, 2018, the rights to the HeyKids library were held by Canadian company Nelvana.
==Productions==
===Television series===
*Butterfly Valley (1969-1973) - Twin sisters Rose and Petunia (Kathy Hancock and Tracy Lyons) find themselves in a land called Butterfly Valley, where they must help the butterfly fairies defend themselves from the King Boogieman (Gareth Green), who wants to kidnap and marry Princess Butterfly (Phobie Lawrence). Later in the third season, they must defend the world from Frank (Jeremy Kirby), the evil warlock. The 106-episode series, which was animated and ran for five seasons, is the studio's flagship series and was broadcast on NBC from March 6, 1969 to January 16, 1973, a day after HeyKids Studios closed. It would later be rebooted in 1998.
*Fisherman Fred (seasons 3 and 4, 1969-1970) - Various adventures of a sailing fisherman named Fred, who must defend his catches from the dishonest Nathanial Nasty, who plans to steal the fishes Fred has caught and sell his stolen goods on the market. The series is a low-budget cartoon, thus it suffered from recycled plots, poor writing and rough animation, which led to its cancellation in 1970. The third season was broadcast on NBC from April 13 to November 3, 1969, followed by the fourth and final season from February 19 to October 26 the following year.
*Jumbo's Circus (1970-1972) - Circus performers and animals teach children in the audience (and the viewers) numbers, colours and shapes. The main character is a little boy named Christopher (Nolan Maystone), who wants to become a lion tamer, but he must work together with his pet lion Congo (Gareth Green) to impress Jumbo (Stephan Kensing), the ring leader of the circus who also happens to be an elephant. The performers in the series are played by live actors and actresses, with the animals being played by performers in costumes. The series was broadcast on CBS from March 14, 1970 to September 29, 1972.
*Candle Cove (1971-1972) - A little girl named Janice goes on adventures with pirates. This live-action series featured mostly marionettes, but a few live actors, such as the main character Janice and her neighbor Nathan. However, animation was occasionally used for special effects. The series was broadcast on a local independent station in Ironton, Ohio from September 13, 1971 to October 30, 1972, making it one of the only two shows from HeyKids Studios not to be broadcast on a major broadcaster.
*Sunshine City (1971) - Children in a city learn about friendship and treating each other with kindness. One of the most notable characters is an orange skinned puppet named Ron, puppeteered by Terrence Larkin. Much like Candle Cove, the show was shot live and featured many different plush puppets, akin to PBS' hit series Sesame Street. It was also broadcast on the same station in Ironton, but it ran from January 13 to October 30, 1971, making it the shortest series produced by HeyKids Studios, due to conroversies over one episode.
===Films===
*The Dragon's Breath (1971) - A young novelist named Della encounters an orphaned dragon under her bed while sleeping. She befriends the dragon, who has missed his parents, and they embark on an adventure to find them, but Della must hide him from the public, who think that the dragon is attacking the town. The film was released by Columbia Pictures on November 10, 1971.
*Percy's Big Holiday (1972) - Percy Peckins is excited for a family holiday, but he finds out that his family is going to a mysterious castle where the king has set up many booby traps in defense. Like The Dragon's Breath, this film was also released by Columbia Pictures on October 27, 1972.
==Scrapped productions==
*Thomson's Jungle (1970) - No information available, other than director Rudolph Pasky mentioning it during his interview in the documentary On The Path of Butterfly Valley.
*Peppermint Park (1973)- Conceptualized in 1972, this would have been one of the studio's final television series. Nothing is known about the plot, nor its production, although it is confirmed that Jeremy Kirby, who voiced Frank from Butterfly Valley and Horace Horrible from Candle Cove, did backstage work and the show has the same format like Jumbo's Circus (i.e. live actors interacting with performers in costumes).
**The title would eventually be sold to Mark V International, which used it for its direct-to-video puppet series in 1987.
==Controversies==
*Butterfly Valley - There was a brief amount of controversy when Princess Butterfly married King Boogieman to avoid marrying the evil warlock Frank, who planned on using her power to corrupt the world. Many parents saw that King Boogieman's successful marriage with the princess taught children that evil can triumph, a very undesirable children's lesson. However, Butterfly Valley continued even after King Boogieman married Princess Butterfly. Head writer Sean Hancock made the event work in the show by portraying Frank as the new main antagonist and making King Boogieman a redeemed villain who had changed into a kind (but still somewhat monstrous looking) ally, due to a change in his heart, reducing the amount of controversy. However, the fourth season was produced to be more surreal than the first three seasons, which led to the cancellation of the fifth season.
*Jumbo's Circus - There was a very brief dispute with a couple of animal rights activists who attempted to sue the studio, but lost due to the judge ruling that the animals in Jumbo's Circus were not treated with any cruelty, since the series had anthropomorphic animal and that the owner of the circus in the series was an animal himself, thus Jumbo's Circus is not an example of humans using animals for their own purposes. The judge was quoted saying, "If you're going to sue a show, watch the actual show first."
*Candle Cove - This show is highly controversial and is one of the main reasons the studio's funds went down. The main villain, The Skin-Taker, has a very frightening appearance, but was only part of what made Candle Cove so controversial.
*Sunshine City - Despite not being sinister like Candle Cove, Sunshine City is much more short-lived and controversial than that show due to one particular episode. One of the main characters, Ron, was regularly bullied for having orange skin. In the controversial episode, he is shown jumping in front of a train, willing to harm himself. There were only two more episodes made after that one, as parents became concerned that their own children may consider harming theirselves and demanded that the show should immediately end, thus no more episodes will be made ever again. In all, only eighteen episodes were made for the show. Sunshine City is also notorious for being similar to Sesame Street from PBS.
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