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Future of Toon Lagoon

The reason they can't do SpongeBob is that SpongeBob has his own theme park already, two in fact: Nickelodeon Universe at the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota, and Nickelodeon Universe at the American Dream in East Rutherford, New Jersey. They will have to get the rights to another property. Hmmm, how about Hanna-Barbera? They already had it in the parks until 2002.
 
The reason they can't do SpongeBob is that SpongeBob has his own theme park already, two in fact: Nickelodeon Universe at the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota, and Nickelodeon Universe at the American Dream in East Rutherford, New Jersey. They will have to get the rights to another property. Hmmm, how about Hanna-Barbera? They already had it in the parks until 2002.

Considering he's already in the parks in character, retail and parade form I'm gonna guess this isn't correct?

Edit: He was also in nicktoon blast was he not?
 
A bit of a revival of the old classic Toons. ME TV debuted a morning cartoon show this week. They have a host who introduces the toons, like in my young kid days. Today they had Popeye,
some Warner bros. cartoons, and the Jetsons. They're also doing a history of the comics segment....and on Saturday mornings they debuted Bugs Bunny and Friends cartoon show.
It will be interesting to see what other toons they bring back.....Nice nostalgia for me.
 
The reason they can't do SpongeBob is that SpongeBob has his own theme park already, two in fact: Nickelodeon Universe at the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota, and Nickelodeon Universe at the American Dream in East Rutherford, New Jersey. They will have to get the rights to another property. Hmmm, how about Hanna-Barbera? They already had it in the parks until 2002.
Those deals are non-exclusive. They could, but probably won’t because of a.) promoting competition too heavily (SpongeBob is owned by ViacomCBS, competitor to NBCUniversal), and b.) money (why pay so much for something you don’t own?).

Hanna-Barbera’s rights are also with Six Flags. Also, they were removed from Uni for being too irrelevant to start - why bring them back now?
 
I'm trying a little experiment (mostly in regards to the idea of using The Musical as a replacement for Blue Man Group). The girls are over tonight, ages 7 and 8, and they're 'huge' Sponge Bob fans. I'm seeing how long it holds their attention. After about 3 minutes they told me they didn't like it and wanted the channel changed.
 
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Six Flags terminated the HB license in 2018. That's why Camp Cartoon at SFGAm is all generic now. Scooby-Doo and the Flintstones are known by pretty much every child, so they could use them.
But then, we run back into the SpongeBob situation: why are you paying so much for non-Scooby HB characters when you don’t own them and they’re not a guaranteed revenue stream? Sure, kids, little kids, know who they are, but they also know who the PJ Masks and the Paw Patrol are, and they’d be way more excited to see them. (See also: Barney.)

When Uni - theme parks in general, really - search for third-party IP, they do so in search of something that’s really a guaranteed moneymaker: Simpsons, Potter, Transformers, they might not own them, but they’re all evergreen properties that everyone knows and that bring in jumps in ticket and merch sales. Meanwhile, Scoob!, the movie, kinda proved that you can’t just dump all these characters into a pot and expect everyone to jump on it. @Mad Dog made an interesting anecdote just now that even makes me question SpongeBob’s longevity for the near future.
 
But then, we run back into the SpongeBob situation: why are you paying so much for non-Scooby HB characters when you don’t own them and they’re not a guaranteed revenue stream? Sure, kids, little kids, know who they are, but they also know who the PJ Masks and the Paw Patrol are, and they’d be way more excited to see them. (See also: Barney.)

When Uni - theme parks in general, really - search for third-party IP, they do so in search of something that’s really a guaranteed moneymaker: Simpsons, Potter, Transformers, they might not own them, but they’re all evergreen properties that everyone knows and that bring in jumps in ticket and merch sales. Meanwhile, Scoob!, the movie, kinda proved that you can’t just dump all these characters into a pot and expect everyone to jump on it. @Mad Dog made an interesting anecdote just now that even makes me question SpongeBob’s longevity for the near future.
And they just absolutely love Sponge Bob, toons and toys. In fact they were watching the cartoon just prior to The Musical. They just didn't get it, it seems.. I asked them, they gave a confused sour look, and said they didn't like it. ....Just an anecdote, but it's telling. ....Myself, I have no opinion on this as a replacement, but I thought this would be a good test.
 
And they just absolutely love Sponge Bob, toons and toys. In fact they were watching the cartoon just prior to The Musical. They just didn't get it, it seems.. I asked them, they gave a confused sour look, and said they didn't like it. ....Just an anecdote, but it's telling. ....Myself, I have no opinion on this as a replacement, but I thought this would be a good test.
Still, very fascinating!
 
Comcast doesn't need Spongebob, they literally produced over good amount of shows in the past 3 years that they can use for Toon Lagoon.

That was the other point I wanted to make - they’re already itching to have a Trolls attraction of some type. Between the DWA characters and the Classics stuff, they’re hardly in short supply of “kids’ characters”.
 
Comcast doesn't need Spongebob, they literally produced over good amount of shows in the past 3 years that they can use for Toon Lagoon.

>Five major franchises.
>Only two of those have the longevity to logically support a significant investment.
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