The Harvey Entertainment Company (formerly known as Harvey Films and Harvey Entertainment, or simply Harvey) was the production arm of comic book publisherHarvey Comics. It was founded in 1957.[1][2]
A majority of the company's assets were purchased by Classic Media (currently owned by NBCUniversal) in 2001 under the in-name subsidiary Harvey Entertainment, Inc., while the remains of the business including the live-action film division were folded within Echo Bridge Entertainment.
History
Early History
In the early 1960s, they created Harvey Funnies, the original entertainment company to produce The New Casper Cartoon Show.[3]
Harvey Films v. Columbia Pictures
On October 28, 1986, Harvey Films filed a lawsuit against Columbia Pictures claiming that the logo for the film Ghostbusters was similar to the logo for The Ghostly Trio, specifically the ghost in the logo was similar to Fatso, and Columbia argued that Fatso was only a portion of their, at the time, renewed trademark, and there were three ghosts instead of just one. The court argued that the logos are largely dissimilar and that The Ghostly Trio had only the words of the trademark and the three ghosts while the logo for Ghostbusters has a sign for prohibition with only the torso and head of only one ghost. The expressions are different, with their ghosts having mischievous or evil facial expressions, while the other one is bewildered. The court said:
Accordingly, the Court concludes that the claimed likelihood of confusion has no material basis in fact. The sole evidence which Harvey has produced on this issue are excerpts from magazine articles which suggest a general association between the "Ghostbusters" logo and "Casper" comics. It is clear from reading these articles that there was no confusion whatsoever on the part of the authors. A finding of general association, that the "Ghostbusters" logo is reminiscent of "Casper" characters, does not mean that the prospective moviegoer in purchasing a ticket for "Ghostbusters" thinks that he is going to see a "Casper" cartoon. Neither does it mean that he will think that "Ghostbusters" is derived from "Casper" cartoons or that it is sponsored by the same source as "Casper".
The court dismissed the case for not violating their trademark.[2]
Later History
In 1989, Jeffrey A. Montgomery purchased Harvey, with Universal Pictures securing a 10% stake in exchange for producing films based on Casper and select other Harvey properties.[4]
In February 1997, Harvey re-acquired full merchandising and licensing rights to their properties including Casper and Richie Rich from Universal Pictures, although they would continue to work with the company on new animated projects.[6] The company reported a net loss of $386,000 in March, which Harvey blamed on the repurchase.[7][8] In September, the company expanded their deal with Saban Entertainment to include an additional Casper feature - Casper Meets Wendy for a fall 1998 release, with 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment remaining on board as distributor.[9]
In February 1998, Harvey pre-sold a package of HarveyToons cartoons, entitled The HarveyToons Show, to the then-upcoming Fox Family Channel.[10] Jeffrey A. Montgomery and Greg Yulish were ousted from the company in March.[11] On July 27, Harvey announced that through a business plan with the Global Media Management Group, the company would produce a slate of twelve direct-to-video feature films and three television shows.[12]
Restructuring
In April 1999, the company changed hands after a group of investors purchased it for $17.7 million.[13] The company secured continued losses, including a $250,000 loss for Baby Huey's Great Easter Adventure.[14] In September 1999, Harvey announced that they would purchase the film distributor PM Entertainment from its founders Joseph Merhi and Richard Pepin for $6.5 million and a further $1.45 million in stock.[15][16] In October, the company entered into a partnership with Spümcø to produce web-exclusive content featuring an assortment of Harvey characters.[17] in November, the company signed a theme park deal with Landmark Entertainment Group to construct and design a theme park featuring the Harvey characters.[18] The company attended its first MIPCOM in November 1999 after entering the self-distribution market, announcing the work of a new CGI-animated Casper Christmas movie with Mainframe Entertainment and a live-action Baby Huey series aimed towards a pre-school audience. Harvey Home Entertainment also released several HarveyToons VHS releases with Universal Studios Home Video.[19] The Casper project with Mainframe was officially announced in December.[20]
Harvey's purchase of PM Entertainment was closed in January 2000, with PM becoming a fully-owned subsidiary of Harvey.[21] In February, the company launched a new subsidiary, Harvey Fashion LLC, as a joint-venture with PG Capital. Harvey Fashion would manufacture, sell and market apparel collections based on the classic Harvey characters.[22] The company engaged in third-party distribution in April 2000 by becoming the international sales representative and distributor of animation studio Film Roman.[23] In May, the company acquired television rights to the website Walter Miller's Home Page, allowing Harvey to branch off to primetime television.[24] Universal acquired North American distribution rights to Casper's Haunted Christmas in June.[25] In the same month, Harvey entered into a worldwide licensing agreement with Hearst Entertainment, with the latter handling merchandising and licensing to bring the Harvey Classics over to a new generation.[26] At the beginning of August, the company secured a deal with website ThinkBox to add its characters to ThinkBox's kids portal, with Harvey also receiving an equity position in ThinkBox.[27] On August 17, the company purchased North American distribution rights to the movie A Monkey's Tale from Pearson Television International.[28]
Sale of assets to Classic Media
In August, it was announced that Lions Gate Entertainment was an interested partner in taking over Harvey Entertainment with eight other companies also interested.[29] At the end of the month, the newly-formed Classic Media announced that they would purchase a 60% stake in Harvey Entertainment for a cash-and-stock deal valued at $30 million. The deal fell through at the beginning of November.[30] At this point, Harvey Entertainment was on the verge of liquidation.[31] Harvey sold international sales rights to the PM Entertainment library to CineTel Films in February 2001.[32]
Following the failed purchase, on March 8, 2001, Harvey Entertainment announced that Classic Media would purchase all of its media library for $17 million. The deal would include Harvey's entire library of classic characters, film library, print materials, the "Harvey" brand and logo, among others. The Harvey Entertainment Company (including PM Entertainment) itself would not be included in the sale and would be renamed after the sale is closed.[33][34] The deal was verified by the two businesses in May[35] and the deal was closed in June of that year and Classic Media formed a subsidiary entitled Harvey Entertainment, Inc. to hold all copyrights to the Harvey catalog.
The remains of The Harvey Entertainment Company including PM Entertainment, were kept by CEO Roger Burlage. Two years later, he sold PM Entertainment and its library to a group of investors, who also purchased out the assets of CineTel Films. With this, Echo Bridge Entertainment was formed.[36]
