Michael Hirsh (born February 8, 1948) is a Canadian television producer and author. He co-founded Nelvana, a Toronto-based animation and entertainment studio, in 1971 with partners Patrick Loubert and Clive A. Smith; the company produced several animated shows including Beetlejuice, Franklin, Babar, The Magic School Bus, Rock & Rule, the Care Bears movies, and Donkey Kong Country, among others.
After Corus Entertainment's acquisition of Nelvana in 2000, Hirsh became the CEO of Cookie Jar Group, which produced numerous children's shows, among them being Arthur, Johnny Test, and Strawberry Shortcake. When Cookie Jar was acquired by DHX Media (now WildBrain), Hirsh became the Executive Chairman of the company, the largest supplier of kids' programming to online streaming services, as well as a leader in production and licensing and merchandising for children. Three years after the acquisition by DHX Media, Hirsh left the company to serve as CEO and chairman of WOW! Unlimited Media from 2015 to December 2023.
In 2024, Hirsh wrote his memoirs which were published by Sutherland House. Animation Nation is a frame by frame account of how creative talent and entrepreneurial zeal built a global cartoon empire.
Early life Hirsh was born in Brussels, Belgium. At the age of three his family emigrated to Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Both of his parents were Holocaust survivors, his mother hidden by nuns and his father was liberated on a Death March from a concentration camp.
At 13, Hirsh's family moved to New York where he attended the Bronx High School of Science. He started making experimental films after cutting high school classes to watch American underground cinema. Hirsh continued his studies at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio where he pursued filmmaking. Hirsh transferred to York University's Glendon College in the autumn of 1966 where he met his future business partners Jack Christie and Patrick Loubert.
Career
Early career Hirsh's first feature film co-directed and co-produced with Jack Christie, Voulez Vous Coucher Avec God? was inspired by political turmoil and took over six years to make. The satirical film shed light on topics such as fundamentalist religion, politics, racism, and sexism.
Hirsh, working with animator Marc Chinoy and college friends Patrick Loubert, Jack Christie, and Peter Dewdney made five alphabet inspired animated shorts for PBS's Sesame Street, learning the basics of animation as they went along. One episode of Drop-In was based on the history of the Canadian Whites, inspiring Hirsh to learn more about the comics published during the Second World War. Hirsh contacted John Ezrin, the most successful publisher of the Canadian Whites at the time. Tired of storing them, Ezrin sold the comics and rights to Hirsh and Loubert for $3,500.
In regard to the Canadian Whites, he co-authored a book and tv Documentary with Patrick Loubert called The Great Canadian Comics(book published by Peter Martin Associates 1971, documentary commissioned by CBC Telescope, 1971 and a National Gallery of Canada travelling exhibition.
Nelvana
In 1971, Hirsh, Loubert and Clive A. Smith founded Nelvana Limited, a new company with a focus on animation and a goal of creating a Canadian studio. The company got its name from Canadian/First Nations female comic book hero Nelvana of the Northern Lights, one of the comic books they acquired from John Ezrin known as the Canadian Whites.
In 1977, Nelvana released A Cosmic Christmas, an animated sci-fi Christmas television special distributed in the U.S. and Canada that caught the attention of George Lucas who watched the special and contacted Nelvana while they were working on a Halloween special, titled The Devil and Daniel Mouse.
Lucas hired Nelvana to help produce a cartoon for the Star Wars Holiday Special that was broadcast on CBS on 17 November 1978. The cartoon introduced Boba Fett, the iconic Star Wars character. Years later, the cartoon became available to watch again in 2021 on Disney+.
Later, Nelvana partnered with Lucasfilm and expanded the Star Wars franchise once again with Star Wars: Droids featuring the continuing adventures of R2-D2 and C-3PO and Ewoks, two Saturday morning series.
In 1983, Nelvana released its first animated film Rock & Rule featuring original music by Debbie Harry, Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, Cheap Trick and funk group Earth, Wind and Fire. The film was distributed by MGM/UA and Orion.
In 1983, Nelvana produced The Care Bears Movie, which was distributed by The Samuel Goldwyn Co, and broke the record for an animated movie not produced by the Disney Studio. The film won the Golden Reel Award that year in Canada.
In 1987, Hirsh acquired the rights for Babar from The Clifford Ross Company and produced 65 half-hours for HBO, CBC and broadcasters all over the world. The series was produced with Europe-based Ellipse and led to the joint venture studio Le Studio Ellipse. Together with Ross, Nelvana licensed merchandising for Babar and honoured the event with a party that featured an elephant on the mezzanine floor at FAO Schwartz in New York City.
In 1988, Nelvana and Scholastic Corporation produced a direct-to-video series of The Video Adventures of Clifford the Big Red Dog based on the 1962 book. The company's fourth live-action series, T. and T., premiered in 1988 on Canada's Global network. The show starred Mr. T of The A-Team fame, playing a former boxer named T.S. Turner. The station was syndicated in the US. Nelvana faced bankruptcy when the show's original U.S. distributor, Qintex Entertainment (formerly Hal Roach Studios) was going out of business. In six weeks, they were saved when they found a replacement for their US distribution. In 1989, Hirsh produced the animated Beetlejuice series based on the Tim Burton motion picture and won its first Emmy.
Hirsh specialized in working with publishers and authors to adapt their books including Maurice Sendak's Little Bear, Joanna Cole's The Magic School Bus, Franklin the Turtle, The Neverending Story, Pippi Longstocking, Cadillacs and Dinosaurs, Timothy Goes to School, Miss Spider's Tea Party, Max & Ruby, The Berenstain Bears, William Joyce's George Shrinks and the British comic strip Rupert Bear. Nelvana had self-made successes of its own during the 1990s, such as Stickin' Around, Dog City (with The Jim Henson Company) and Ned's Newt (with TMO-Loonland). Working with great comedians, Nelvana produced the animated versions of Roseanne Barr's Little Rosey and Jim Carrey's Ace Ventura Pet Detective.
In 1994, Nelvana went public on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) working with RBC's Bruce Rothney and George Dembroski. As a public company Nelvana was able to raise enough funding to dramatically increase the production levels Nelvana could take on. It also financed the acquisitions of Kids Can Press, Windlight Studio, and Klutz.
The company's first two computer-animated shows, Donkey Kong Country (Fox Kids) and Rolie Polie Olie premiered on the US Disney Channel in 1998. Rolie Polie Ollie went on to win many awards, including seven Emmy Awards.
In 1998, Nelvana entered into an agreement with U.S. network CBS to program a new Saturday morning animation block for the 1998-99 television season, which would be branded as CBS Kidshow. The block would feature six new series based on children's book properties, and all were to comply with the U.S. governments educational programming guidelines. In April 1998, Nelvana entered into an agreement with ITV franchise Scottish Television to co-produce these new series and hold distribution rights to them in the United Kingdom. In August 1998, Nelvana acquired Kids Can Press, publishers of the Franklin and Elliot Moose children's books upon which the Franklin and Elliot Moose were based. This turned them into an "integrated company" in which Kids Can's subsequent publications would begin with Nelvana's franchising of those works.Klein, Naomi (2002). No Logo: No Space, No Choice, No Jobs, p. 147. Picador. . Retrieved 22 June 2006.
In 1999, Nelvana agreed to produce the PBS stations' first Saturday morning block of animated programming which would launch in the autumn of 2000. The programs that formed the PBS Kids Bookworm Bunch were all based on children's books: Corduroy (by Don Freeman), Elliot Moose (by Andrea Beck), Timothy Goes to School (by Rosemary Wells), Seven Little Monsters (by Maurice Sendak), George Shrinks (by William Joyce), and Marvin the Tap-Dancing Horse (by Betty and Michael Paraskevas). In addition, Nelvana produced two weekday-morning series for the PBS network: William Joyce's George Shrinks and Jan and Stan's Berenstain Bears.
By the end of the 1990s, Nelvana was the leading independent animation company in North America with more shows on US TV than any other network. The company also dominated the global market through that same period.
Corus sale In September 2000, Corus Entertainment bought Nelvana for $544 million. The company saw the purchase as being a complement to its children's TV networks, including YTV and Treehouse. Corus already owned 6% of Nelvana, and took on the company's $75 million debt.
While at Corus, Hirsh worked on Beyblade, Nelvana's biggest hit during his time. Broadcast on YTV and Cartoon Network, the Japanese anime based on a line of spinning-top toys generated billions of dollars of toy sales from a toy deal with Hasbro that Nelvana negotiated.
Hirsh worked on Max & Ruby, based on books by Rosemary Wells, a preschool series about two anthro sibling rabbits Two years after the sale, Hirsh left Nelvana.
Cookie Jar Group
After winning an auction in 2004, Hirsh and former Nelvana president Toper Taylor working with Toronto's Dominion Private Equity Partners (now Birch Hill) and Omers acquired Quebec-based CINAR for more than $190 million. Two weeks after its purchase, on 29 March, CINAR was renamed to Cookie Jar based on a suggestion by author Huck Scarry.
Prior to the acquisition, CINAR was facing serious legal trouble. With new leadership, Hirsh and team were able to resolve many of the company's legal and public affairs.
The first series produced by Cookie Jar after Hirsh's acquisition was Busytown Mysteries based on the book series created by Richard Scarry and Doodlebops. Hirsh began developing Doodlebops with co-creator Carl Lennox after agreeing to do a music show with Head of CBC Kids Cheryl Hassan. US broadcaster Disney Channel bought the show after positive test screenings. With the support of Disney, Hirsh and Taylor were successful in bringing Feld Entertainment in to organize a musical tour of the show's characters across the U.S. and Canada. The Doodlebops went on to be a hit show, inspiring appearances at Walt Disney World and American nationwide tours for two years.
Caillou, an animated television show for preschoolers, was one of the properties inherited through CINAR. Hirsh facilitated settling a lawsuit between CINAR and Caillous author and illustrator, Christine L'Heureux and Helene Desputeaux. At the time, Caillou was successful on PBS in the US and a hit in merchandising and publishing in every country such as Turkey, Spain, and Brazil.
Other properties inherited included Arthur, a major hit on PBS, CBC, and the BBC. Cookie Jar continued to produce Arthur, resulting in six Emmy Awards. Cookie Jar faced a turning point when Warner Bros. auctioned off the rights to produce Johnny Test. The highly-rated comedy created by Scott Fellows (writer of Nickelodeon) and produced by Cookie Jar lasted six seasons and was a global hit for broadcasters around the world including Cartoon Network, Teletoon (since bought by Cartoon Network) and Netflix.