HIT Entertainment (stylised as HiT, now doing business as Mattel Television) is a British-American entertainment company owned by Mattel and originally established in 1982 as Henson International Television. It was founded as the international distribution arm of Jim Henson Productions.
They acquired Gullane Entertainment in July 2002 for approximately £144 million. In 2016, HIT was rebranded to Mattel Creations, then Mattel Television, as a result of Mattel unifying HIT, along with other content creation companies owned by Mattel into a single division, though the company is still legally known as HIT Entertainment Limited. It is now used as the IP holder for Thomas & Friends merchandise, like TrackMaster and Thomas & Friends MINIS.
Even though the company doesn't actively do business through the HIT Entertainment name anymore, they're still active as a legal entity owned by Mattel, and they still distribute DVDs in the UK to this day.
History
Henson International Television
HiT was originally formed as Henson International Television (hit!) in 1982 as a branch of the Jim Henson Company in order to coordinate the co-production of Fraggle Rock in London, England, United Kingdom. This subsidiary was later sold and retains none of the original Henson company architecture except for the name. It later rebranded itself as "HIT Entertainment".
HIT Entertainment
When Bob the Builder creator Keith Chapman was creating the series, he looked at other children's media such as Thomas the Tank Engine. However, he felt that it looked very old fashioned, as The Railway Series, the book series of which the Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends television series was based off, was written back in the 1940s. Despite this, it was still one of the most successful British preschool television series, and so Chapman thought that surely a construction concept could be as big as Thomas. HIT was not too sure if it would, but for a few years since its televised debut in 1999, Bob the Builder would actually become more popular than Thomas until the late 2000's where its popularity eclipsed as Thomas becoming HIT's #1 Brand, and continuing it's run as the #1 Preschool Brand at the time.[1]
They acquired Gullane Entertainment (formerly The Britt Allcroft Company) on 5 July 2002,[2] and went defunct later on in 2003. After HIT purchased Gullane, they produced their own series of Thomas episodes and merchandise. HIT acquired the television production rights for Thomas & Friends in 2002, during the airing of the sixth series and the filming of the seventh series. The company continued production on the show until Series 20.
On 1 February 2012, it was announced that Mattel purchased HIT Entertainment from Apax Partners, its previous owners, for $680 million (US). Other bidders included Viacom, Disney, Chorion, Hasbro, Saban Brands, and Tomy.
HIT announced a DVD distribution deal with Universal Pictures Home Entertainment on 2 May 2014. In early summer 2015, Edaville USA amusement park opened a licensed Thomas Land theme area based on Thomas & Friends.
On 31 March 2016, HIT Entertainment was rebranded as Mattel Creations for business and distribution reasons.
Mattel Playground Productions was closed later that year, but reformed as Mattel Films.
Staff
- Jocelyn Stevenson, Lenora Hume, Christopher Skala, Karen Barnes, Marion Edwards, Michael Carrington, Christopher Keenan, and Edward Catchpole acted as executive producers.
- Ian McCue produced the series for HIT from the sixteenth to twentieth series. He also worked as a line producer for the fifteenth series.
- Sharon Miller and Jo Jordan served as creative producers. Jordan also served as a post-production producer for Hero of the Rails, while Miller worked as script editor of the ninth, tenth and eleventh series.
- Denise Green served as line producer for Hero of the Rails, Misty Island Rescue, the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth series. Micaela Winter also served as line producer for The Great Race, Bubbling Boilers and the twentieth series.
- Claire Waxler and Sam Barlow served as supervising producers.
- Karen Davidsen served as head director of production for the nineteenth and twentieth series, Sodor's Legend of the Lost Treasure and The Great Race.
- Karen Davies is the director of content services.
Releases
UK VHS and DVD Releases
HiT Favourites DVD Releases
AUS VHS and DVD Releases
NZ VHS Release
US and Canadian VHS and DVD Releases
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References
External Links
- Official Website (archived)
- Thomas & Friends on the Official Website
- HIT Entertainment at Wikipedia