Fox Kids Europe Game "FoxRiders" Rebrand Package

In September 2014, ToonZone (now Anime Superhero) forum member - Flitskikker joined the website, he was on a quest to find out more information about Fox Kids Europe's branding package idents that were broadcast on every European version of Fox Kids between 1999 to 2002, known as the "Game" idents or officially known as "FoxRiders", he runs a YouTube channel called "Fox Kids Leaders" and was building a collection of the different idents.

The idents feature a fictional first-person adventure game where the character (never shown, although it could represent the viewer traveling through a video game themed ride) has to collect monocoloured Fox Kids logo tokens (either Red or Yellow) whilst exploring each themed level (City, Middle East, Halloween, Medieval, Christmas, Winter, Space, Western, Africa and Summer), these tokens form a trail leading the game character to the main full-coloured Fox Kids logo which the character needs to collect to end and complete each level. Each themed level is inhabited by cartoon animals that often help the player. The levels also have items the player must collect in order to progress and complete each level successfully.

The "FoxRiders" rebrand package consists of one hour of 3D animation and was produced over the course of 8 months, with each theme taking a month to produce. The package consists of a full 30-minute play-through and shorter versions of each level lasting 30, 20 and 10 seconds each. These idents were shown in between programmes, with an extended version usually shown before closedown on Fox Kids UK at 10pm.

The problem with finding a full high quality recording of this rebrand game package was that no-one on the forums were sure on who to contact, what was of Fox Kids Europe is now owned by Disney. Flitskikker contacted Disney Channel Netherlands was contacted but they could not help, claiming that "Fox Kids and Jetix have not been broadcast in the Netherlands for several years, we don't have these materials available anymore" also they could not help because they "cannot send leaders, bumpers, etc. to individuals, because they're part of our channel identity." In order to help with this quest, RC sent emails to Disney Channel EMEA and Saban Brands (the successor company to Saban Entertainment that co-owned Fox Kids before it was sold to Disney), but had no reply.

Flitskikker then emailed two people who worked at Fox Kids Netherlands, they provided some useful information which helped out with the investigation, according to the two ex-Fox Kids employees, the game leaders were called "the level idents" at their office in the Netherlands, according to them, the idents were produced in France but they weren't sure about the exact company that created them, but they claimed that the idents were owned by Saban International, which was sold to Disney in 2001 as part of the sale of Fox Kids Worldwide. Saban International was renamed by Disney as BVS (Buena Vista Studios) International N.V.

Now knowing that the FoxRiders idents were made in France, RC decided to do a search on LinkedIn by using the keywords "Fox Kids Jeux Idents" with *Jeux* meaning *games* in French, and found out that a game development company called "Doki Denki" made the game idents (the company was originally called Héliozo Production at the time the idents were made) as well as the LinkedIn accounts of the company's managing director - Philippe Renaudin and two of the 3D animators - François Chancrin and Damien Pougheon. From that point forward, RC did a search for both Fox Kids and Doki Denki and came across Yan Le Pon's blog, who was the storyboard artist and one of the designers for the FoxRiders idents. Yan Le Pon also worked with Fantastic Four: World's Greatest Heroes artist - David Fauré to design the idents. Doki Denki was known for making games based on popular licensed media properties such as *Disney's Pooh's Party Game: In Search of the Treasure* and *Peter Pan in Disney's Return to Neverland* for the Sony PlayStation. The "FoxRiders" idents won "Best TV design Item for the year 2000" for Europe award.

I went back onto ToonZone and revealed what I discovered, after I posted my info, Flitskikker and another ToonZone member - Francisque wrote an email together written in French that was sent to Yan Le Pon, David Fauré and Damien Pougheon. Eventually, it led to Nicolas Andry who had a copy of the Fox Kids FoxRiders idents on VHS tape and then made a DVD copy that was sent to Flitskikker by post. The FoxRiders presentation package was then uploaded onto YouTube for the whole world to enjoy.

## Links

The full 30-minute FoxRiders Playthrough: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-ZSJrWUotw

The Fox Kids Leaders YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuaVnilzT1am8feRdOYhmyw

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