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Children’s series Monty & Co. ‘hits the ground running’ with trio of UK licensing deals

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The popular CBeebies and iPlayer children’s series, Monty & Co has hit the ground running with three major licensing partnerships spanning kids’ magazines, online retail, and audio stories with Tonies.

Immediate Media has added the pre-school IP to its successful CBeebies magazine, while Event Merchandising is in the midst of creating and managing an online store with the aim to be fully functional, with a range of merchandise, for this summer.

Finally, Tonies will be adding a Monty Tonie figure to its line-up of pre-school audio characters with a launch planned for summer 2022. The licensing deals arrive following the successful debut of the Monty & Co. series late last year. Since then, it has been hitting consistent audience numbers both in the linear space and on iPlayer, where it has hit one million plays already.

New episodes are now planned for production towards the end of 2021.

“Everyone involved is incredibly positive with the performance of the show to date. The characters are easy to engage with, the scripts for each episode are well written and play like mini dramas. Parents and children are loving the live action, the humour, the songs and the silliness included in each episode,” said Ian Wickham, director at Licensing Link Europe which is handling the global licensing programme for Monty & Co.

“Monty & Co is a refreshing change to the plethora of animated content pitched at the preschooler. Warm, traditional and endearing are definitely aspects of Monty’s success and I’m sure one of the reasons why parents are talking about the show in the playground – which is a very good thing.”

Liz Peters, portfolio manager at Tonies, added: “We are very excited to add Monty Tonie to our portfolio for 2022. He’s going to make a very popular figurine that little ones will love to pop on their Toniebox. We are looking forward to working closely with the show’s producers to create bespoke audio content for the Tonie, incorporating all that humour, fun and silliness, as well the action and songs that fans enjoy and expect from Monty & Co.”

With the new online store due to be up and running by the summer, Jeremy Goldsmith of Event Merchandise explained why the company was keen to be involved.

“The producers have created a wonderful show, and we are delighted to be designing and operating the online store for Monty & Co, along with a fun selection of products,” he commented. “The characters of this hit series join our selected line-up of licensed properties.”

Hollie Fisher, editor, CBeebies, concluded: “It’s a funny, loveable mini comedy drama which we think will resonate well with both our grown-up and younger, preschool audiences.”

Licensing Link Europe named worldwide licensing agent for Monty & Co

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Licensing Link Europe has been appointed to represent the worldwide rights to develop a licensing and merchandising programme around Monty & Co, a new pre-school puppet series from Pipkins Productions.

The series – which completed production of 34 x 11-minute episodes in February – has already been acquired by CBeebies and started airing on the channel from July, 25 this year and thereafter on the iPlayer. At this stage, 52 x 11-minute episodes are planned.

Each episode is written as a mini-drama in the life of wallaby Monty and an eclectic group of characters living above a ‘mend, reinvent and recycle’ shop. Episodes deal with everyday issues of sadness, anger and fear, however all stories and themes are delivered with comedy and song in a happy, safe and loving environment.

Monty & Co has been created by Pipkins Productions, a collective of artists who have previously worked on Pipkins with Hartley Hare (which ran for over ten years in the UK) and subsequently on the Muppet movies, Avenue Q, Spitting Image, the PG Tips Monkey, Mopatop Shop, Chucklevision, Coronation Street and The Famous Five among others.

Licensing Link Europe will initially be targeting categories including toys, publishing, arts and crafts, role-play, nightwear and daywear.

Ian Wickham, director at Licensing Link Europe, said: “The calibre and collective resumés of the team behind Monty & Co are like a list of ‘who’s who’ in both children’s and adult drama and entertainment. The storytelling, the songs, the production quality and puppetry have a wholesome charm that stands this show apart from anything else on television and FVOD in the UK.

“We believe parents will be very enthusiastic about the content and structure, as Monty & Co delights and enchants their pre-schoolers with its imagination, role-play, fun and a healthy dose of slapstick silliness. It’s gently educational too.”

Nigel Plaskitt, executive producer of Monty & Co, added: “High quality merchandising and publishing are really important to us.  We have always had an overall view of the whole project of reaching out to children and their families, taking the characters into their homes and everyday life.”.