Links documenting this information are found at bottom of webpage.
Is the Cartoon Network Mean to Kids?
My 15 year old son has had a VERY BAD TIME dealing
with several executives at The Cartoon Network.
Following is his story.
First, my son is an inventor who has designed and patented a set of Engineering puzzles for kids. His first thought regarding these puzzles was that, if he could see them tied to a cartoon character such as Dexter (the boy scientist), they would have a much greater chance of serving as effective teaching tools. Here is a newspaper article about the puzzles which my son created.
Here is a description of the deceptive, sometimes mean, and frequent double- dealing which has come from the Cartoon Network's executive offices and directed toward my son. Basically this all began when he tried to enlist the assistence of Mr. Friend, (Executive Vice-President in charge of product merchandising at the Cartoon Network). Something which he did in a simple attempt to enhance some really wonderful science teaching tools for kids.
* * *
At first, all my son and I knew about John Friend (Cartoon Network's head of product merchandising) is that we sent
him some material on a new set of Science related educational toys (which my 15 year old son has obtained
provisional patenting of). We believe these Toys would provide a
wonderful tie-in with one of the Cartoon Network's characters (namely Dexter), and all we were looking for was confirmation in writing that the people at the Cartoon Network approved of our idea. [ Incidentally, Zorak is a comically evil Preying Mantis and "super-Villian" on the Spaceghost "Coast to Coast" cartoon show.]
Having been told by another Cartoon Network executive that John Friend was the person to contact about all matters relating to licensing, we wrote him one email, then another waiting for some kind of response. In these emails we had links to such things as Patent documentation, pictures of the prototypes, and background information on my son, who happens for years, to have demonstrated signs of being a bright kid, including recently posting an SAT of 1540 at age 15.
Now it so happens, that we have extensive internet tracking ability on all the attachments which we
included for Mr. Friend to review, and the tracking information we received
showed that Mr. Friend was spending time looking at the patent
material and invention drawings which were included, but he simply would not take the time to reply to our emails requesting a simple response. Since almost a month had passed since our first email, we began to get slightly paranoid, not only about the fact that precious time was elapsing (the provisional patent only affords 12 months of protection, and 2 months had already passed), but also that we were in a very vulnerable position having shared information with someone who appeared to be "Pretending" that no contact had been made.
On two occassions, another executive at the Cartoon Network told us that they would urge Mr. Friend to contact us. Which they did. But still no contact from Mr. Friend. (Curious!)
Please note that Friend's failure to respond would have been perfectly
understandable if he simply hadn't been spending so much time looking at
detailed information about the toys. But this WAS NOT THE CASE
here, as we could clearly see that he on several ocassions had been reviewing the toy set's details.
In our increasingly questioning minds, all this seemed to be adding up to a possibly very ugly conclusion. Namely, that Mr. Friend might be having ideas of
making personal or second party use of my son's invention without
any intention of crediting my son. (Is Zorak acutually lurking in the shadows?)
Of course, we tried to reason this out. Stealing ideas shared with him would only be
possible if Mr. Friend denied ever having looked at my son's
invention ideas, and this course of action would definately require his NOT
replying to our emails. To us, this all seemed strange and a little Zorak like.
As a result of the above considerations, my son
wrote Mr. John Friend a very courteous letter telling him, among other things, that "any future involvment with the Cartoon Network might better be handled by an Agent/Broker operating on our behalf". Something, which considering the shiny
reputation of the Cartoon Network, we hadn't previously considered to be necessary.
Next, my son almost instantaneously receives a railing letter from another executive at the Cartoon Network who had been carbon copied on my son's letter. The Executive's letter tells my son that he has really messed up, and that his chances of now doing any business with Mr. Friend or the Cartoon Network had gone up in flames!
Excuse me, but I was sure my son's letter had already said he wouldn't be
dealing with Mr. Friend any longer. Next this followup letter was
accusing my son of using a scorched earth policy. (His letter to Mr. Friend is printed below, you decide for yourself about it). I believe the executive's reply
was intended, more for "tieing my son to the whipping post", and in general, hurting his feelings--which it certainly did-- while making him regret being honest with Mr. Friend.
Watching as "my son's dream" of working with people at the
Cartoon Network ended in such abrupt disappointment. I became extremely angry and proceded to document this whole mess, post a copy of this web page on the internet where it could be easily accessed by those wishing to see "my report" of the treatment my son had received. and emailed the internet address to both executives.
Almost immediately, we received one email apologizing for the previous email which had flamed my son, and also received word that Mr. Friend's office would be working to help my son accomplish his goal of getting hooked up with the manufacturing companies, etcetera.
Their letter seemed so genuine an apology and an offer of "finally" receiving some real assistance from Friend's office, that I promptly removed the above information from the internet. (We thought, this is a wonderful turn of events. These people really are Okay!)
Over the next few days, I received a call from one of Mr. Friend's people, and an email from Mr. Friend himself. In both cases, the overriding theme seemed to be, selling me on the idea that Dexter toys are losers, and that they are not worth anybody taking the time to or energy or money to make them.
Then, in Mr. Friend's email, we are told that they (the cartoon Network) will be glad to help us arrange some NON-COMMERCIAL uses of the Dexter name with my son's toys. Non-commercial? How do you at "any point" in the proocess of making or distributing toys have a NON-commercial toy (unless, of course, it is one that exists only in the mind of my son, or that he pays for making, then gives away for free).
It was becoming evident that Mr. Friend had no intention, whatsoever, of actually helping my son. In fact, it appeared that he intended to be placing obstacles in my son's path and in the process, "punishing my son for standing up for himself". The very real impression given to us, was that, Mr. Friend wouldn't even consider selling "any" toy company a license on our use of the Dexter character just to spite us.
Here's the actual "Double-Speak" line from his email--"Now, we may be able to support you to the extent that you and your son wish to pursue non-commercial uses of his ideas (that is, your son's Dexter related ideas)." In real english this means -- There is no real world situation, relating to Dexter toys, which we would help you with, but if you can come up with some non-commercial applications, you come see me personally and I'll see that your picture is included in "Ripley's Believe it or Not". On top of this, the Atlanta Journal Constitution had planned an article about my son's puzzles to appear the "NEWS FOR KIDS" section of their paper. Then suddenly and mysteriously, following a call to me from Mr. Friend's associate, (a Julie Gibbons) who happens to find out about the "NEW FOR KIDS" article, I, within 24 hours, receive an email from the Atlanta Journal/Constitution stating that my son's article had been postponed indefinitely. Again curious?
This all added up to the fact that an attempt was being made, by some very "SMART" executives, to "pat us on the back while kicking us out the door".
Actually, after a month and a half of corporate feet shuffling by Mr. Friend and unkept promises to help us, we finally received a message stating, in effect, --we really aren't interested in helping you, but we wish you the best of luck!
It was time to re-install our informational webpage, as the previous promises, indicating that my son was actually going to be assisted by this Cartoon Network executive, were composed of empty "lip service". Lip service delivered in what seemed to be "Zorak fashion".
As I told one Cartoon Network executive, It's howlingly funny when the Cartoon Network's cartoon character "Zorak" steals candy from a baby on the "Spaceghost- Coast to Coast" cartoon, but when someone makes moves implying this course of action may be playing out in "real life", it is unforgivable.
* * * * *
Following is extensive documentation of the events being recalled in this accounting.
Below is my son's supposedly outrageous, scorched earth letter sent to Mr. Friend. The letter which prompted another Cartoon Network executive to hammer my son with comments like:
It's really not wise to leave a "scorched earth" behind you. In this one email you have alienated Mr. Friend and myself. It makes me sorry that I intervened at all" It appeared they intervened by telling John Friend something to the effect that his NOT responding to our emails, was UN-COOL--in my opinion, solid advice. Advice which for some reason, he continued to ignore.
Finally: the last comment from this letter--
I realize that you are just a kid, but if you want to be treated like an adult, you need to act like one - even if that isn't something you aspire to".
Now, just read the letter below from my son to Mr. Friend, and form your own opinion of it.
To: john.friend@turner.com
Sent: Tue Jun 29 07:35:18 2004
Subject: Message from Jim Yarbrough
Hello Mr. Friend,
My father has advised me that it is very possible that you are accustomed to dealing strictly with large corporations like Nintendo etc., and as a result have no interest in establishing business relationships with individuals (much less with a kid, such as myself).
Considering this, it is quite understandable that you have not responded to any email correspondences which have been sent to you regarding my set of kids toys, (even though you were contacted as a result of the recommendation of one of your company's top executives--this was surprising to me).
As a result of your apparent attitude toward little people such as myself, I will not bother you by again attempting to establish email contact. In the future, I shall be retaining a broker/agent to deal with business people such as yourself, when such contact is shown to be necessary.
Thanks for taking the time to thoroughly read the patent documentation materials which were shared with you (my visitor tracking software indicated this was the case), and please accept my apology for interrupting your schedule with these correspondences. I trust you will keep private, the information disclosed to you about my engineering/science puzzles.
Sincerely,
Jim Yarbrough
* * * * *
After apparently deciding that being openly abusive to a kid might be considered bad form for a Cartoon Network Executive, both the head of Public Relations and Mr. Friend sent emails stating that they would see that my son was helped in his goal of seeing his science teaching puzzles picked up by some company. We were afraid this was simply a stalling tactic, but we felt we owed the people at the Cartoon Network a chance to make up for their former unacceptable treatment of my son.
Actually after a month and a half of feet shuffling by Mr. Friend and unkept promises to help us, we received a message stating, in effect, --we really aren't interested in helping you, but we wish you the best of luck!
To us, dealing with the Cartoon Network has been like trying to work with a toy company that uses child labor to produce its products. Such companies demonstrate "really bad form" in that their public image as a company with "integrity" seems pretty shallow when contrasted with actual internal corporate attitudes.
Copyright 2004 Benjamine Yarbrough
All rights reserved
